The year is 3500 post stellar age. Humanity has long since run into the future. A single planet had long since been unable to hold in this species and humans had long since advanced towards occupying significant portions of the Milky Way galaxy.
Due to fate, humanity's planet of origin, known as the Earth of legend, was in the outermost corners of the galaxy, which left them with enough time to grow and become a galactic force unhindered. However, alien life was soon discovered as we spread towards the center and other areas of the galaxy, several civilizations of power comparable to that of humans existed with their own quirks. This was the beginning of the post stellar age, when the different species entered a protracted civilizational war for the control of the galaxy.
It had been 3500 years of such continuous war, obviously the tools of war were varied. Humans rediscovered physical combat and with the help of genetic perfection and modification, discovered a powerful method to fight against their enemies. At the same time, technology also evolved in the form of plasma emitting rifles, weapons made of new kinds of meta-materials, galactic fleets and the likes.
Humanity was in control of thousands upon thousands of planets, adapting to various hostile environments and plundering the resources to fuel both it's own advance and the never ending war. Humans aren't a monolithic species and it was understandable that they were fragmented into different confederacies, syndicates, federations, monarchies and nation states.
On one such planet - Puratynt B, the second planet in a two planet system which orbited around a binary star system lived citizens who were part of the Dwight Monarchy. The planet's population was concentrated in twelve large megacities, while much of the remaining cities were either wild, farming domes or simply mining areas dealt with by robots, like a lot of planets were.
In the capital city of Puratynt B - Almos, was the largest university on the planet. The Imperial University - B. Our protagonist Red studies in the department of science and technology in this university. Red had shown superior intellect since he was a child and had been through an advanced special program for gifted children as he could study things well above his age group usually did and attended advanced courses as a kid.
At the age of 14 he was accepted into the Imperial University, at a very young age. He was tapped to become one of the rising stars on the planet fairly soon. Unfortunately, this was also predicated on the fact that he had at least adequate physical talent. In this new civilizational era, intellectual ability was also predicated on physical talent. After all, the cognitive capacity of an individual was limited by the physical limits of the brain. While introductory studies were possible by "ordinary" individuals, anything advanced required simulation abilities that only people with a martial talent could stimulate to grow their physical cognitive capacity.
At the age of 16, when citizens were to undergo a talent test and begin their practice of martial art if found suitable, Red was tested to have a terrible physique. His body could not support martial arts, his talent in the area was negligible. Meanwhile, he also had a genetic illness that made it impossible to receive genetic treatment that could be used to improve his abilities. He was immediately labelled as trash and ignored. While the government wouldn't be as harsh as to revoke his university credentials, he was practically given up on in terms of future considerations.
Red was celebrated as a rising star in material and physical sciences. He had made a small but noticeable contribution in the simulation of a new kind of super-alloy which had gained some fame. However, after the shock of the results of his physical testing, Red changed his field of study to that of the study of human body. In the process he ended up studying esoteric subjects like ancient history and myths, much to the chagrin of his guide. Exasperated with the stubborn nature of his student as well as the lack of any future, the guide abandoned him.
Red was now 18. It had been four years since he had joined the university. In the first two, he was considered a crazy genius and few interacted with him. In the next two, he had become a trash who had gone crazy and was further ostracized. As such Red never developed any friends. Without any true progress in the research, Red simply completed his degree in material sciences on paper and was asked to leave the University.
However, Red was an orphan who had been groomed b the government since childhood. Now abandoned by the same government because of the lack in potential, he was left without a home, a family or a means to support himself. He ended up taking multiple jobs to support himself, working as a fabricator in a factory - a job that required a lot of technical skill but not martial level and a couple of side jobs in the university library and material sciences laboratory.
Work was hard, but Red used the time at the library and the lab to continue to study on his own. His studied different esoteric myths on how the human body could be transformed. He believed in the plausibility of this avenue of research because martial arts too were from this kind of myth. Ancient history had lead to a meteoric rise in human combat abilities in this post stellar age.
The tests had already discounted Red as incompetent in martial arts, however, Red did not give up. Every night he would practice the most common martial art available publicly for free in the entire kingdom, Pure Mind Threading. Essentially it was a method of meditating and concentrating on a singular thought without diverging for as log as possible. It was a method to increase the cognitive capacity of an individual. An ordinary talent in martial arts would've been able to reach the first realm in a few days, but in two years Red had just reached the threshold of the first stage and couldn't cross the boundary to reach the first realm.
However, things would soon change drastically with consequences that would spread through the entire galaxy!