Upon reaching his apartment near the hospital, Mark gradually walked up the stairs and entered his room. He took out his communicator and held it thoughtfully for a moment. His thought revolved around whether he should tell his parents or any of his few friends about his situation and the debt that he has now shouldered. With a brief smile and a shake of his head he finally decides it would only give his parents some much unneeded stress with their already busy workload and that none of his friends could help him in the face of such a monstrous sum of money. Mark sat down on his bed and slowly calmed down and decompressed himself. His next action was instinctual and a well-formed habit by now, practicing his powers. After a standard hour and a half of tunnel vision and stress to his brain he finally finished his workout.
Right before going to bed, Mark took out his rank card from under his shirt. Like many people, he kept his rank card around his neck as a sort of necklace because of its importance. He wanted to look at it one more time to ground himself in reality, after such a stressful day. As his sleepy eyes scanned the information listed on the card he is forced to reread it a second and a third time in confusion. On the third reading of the card Mark bolt upright from his bed in shock and excitement. A mocking smile with happy undertones appears on his face. "Finally," he thinks "Something is going right today!" The card had some shocking changes from the last periodic scan it did on Mark.
Name: Marcus Radiation Hamilton
Power: Radiation
Rank: F+ (D)
Description: Minor use of all known types of radiation including infrared, gamma and ultraviolet radiations.
Presented ability usage consists of: Lack of damage from Sun's rays and all radiation types, Ability to see beyond the visible light spectrum and human abilities, and the ability to weaponized radiation types based on familiarity and training.
The most obvious change in the rank card from the last time Mark checked it was Mark's overall super power's rank. While he was at the F rank, he is now at the F+ rank. To many people this minor of a rank change could almost be considered irrelevant. To Mark however this is a landmine of information and poses some tough questions. According to Mark's understanding with how a person of his background and status ranked up, a considerable amount of time is needed. For a normal person, they need two different things to get to the next letter rank.
'The first thing they need is a potential score of at least up to the rank they want to reach. If someone wants to get to the D rank but their potential is only at the E+ rank like Mark was and his grandfather is, it is almost an impossible feat. The only solution to this is a freak accident or change like consuming a rare or precious item or getting struck by lightning. There have been document cases of people getting struck by lightning or having their powers potential increase from a life and death situation.
It has been theorized by many that every healthy human can reach at least the B rank but various genetic factors influence this. A more refined genetic code allows for higher advancement which is a large part of the pride and ego of rich families. This allows children born to this families a higher starting point and more potential when tested at the age of 10. The restrictions for normal people however, beyond being healthy, lie in their brains. The human race, as a whole, is said to not fully use the potential of their brains and its capacity. This is also where it is believed super power's potential is stored.
Why are no experiments and scientists researching this important aspect of society many would ask? Human experiments having been extremely discontinued and regulated since Igor Karma's disaster and the resulting fallout, which has led to much less knowledge being readily available to anyone but the most privileged class which Mark is not a part of. Even the younger students who came from rich backgrounds at his college were not privy to this information because it is mostly seen as an inheritance and reserved for the older generation and heads of major families.
The second change to Mark's rank description is much more concerning and serious. If the brain is where potential is stored and a person's super power information is located, why has Mark's changed? Before Mark only had access to "common forms" of radiation and now the rank card says he has the ability to use any "known" form of radiation. This astounds Mark and he wonders if now he can use other types of radiation beyond the few types he understands from his research and training.
Another change is how he can now truly weaponize his radiation if the card is to be believed which is a far cry from his tests on using his radiation abilities on animals. The only effects before regarding this was a release of radiation in the general vicinity of the animal for a few minutes when the animal couldn't move (normally in a cage) and the result was the eventual death of the animal. The animal was found horribly mutilated in these deaths and it sickened Mark to even think about the few times he had tried it. The cruelness of the animal's final moments and the pain and agony it suffered would be horrifying to anyone seeing it. These experiments led to the mindset he has now of how he was better off trying to heal people than hurt them or others with his powers.