Gasps could be heard from a dojo high in the north of the city of Farside.
Inside that dojo was a boy named Marcus who came here after school at the academy every single day, to try to better himself in some way or another.
He was tenaciously wielding, thrusting, and slashing his sword like his life depended on it, practising the stances of a technique called, One with Thunder.
Sweat dripped from what seemed to be every pore of his body, from the looks of things- he's been going at it for hours.
And then subsequently... he dropped face-first into the ground, blue light surged around him briefly before going back into his body.
'Haha... finally... 3rd rank in the Rookie Stages... Just enough to enter... The academy...'
He then passed out face first from fatigue.
All he wants to do in life is fight, he wants to fight for his little sister named Astella whose parents were murdered in front of them, and most importantly, he wants to fight for himself, so he isn't fated to live some average life to which he is now fated.
Unfortunately, in this life. He has a bad deck of cards. Although he awakened the terrifying power of thunder. He simply lacks the affinity and talent for magic, he's below average in all aspects apart from the art of the sword, in which he is considered a rare genius chained by the low talent in magic.
In this world, no matter how talented you are in non-magical arts is outshined by your talent in magic.
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The magic system in this world:
Rookie Stage: 5 Ranks
Apprentice Stage: 10 Ranks
Intermediate: 15 Ranks
Adept: 15 Ranks
Master: 15 Ranks
Grandmaster: 10 Ranks
Legend: -- AN: Anything past Legend can't be ranked.... yet. Idk if I'll implement one later. Lmk in the comments of this paragraph.
At age 16, with Average talent you would be around a 3rd Rank Rookie, high talent would be 4th or 5th Rank Rookie, and a genius would be 1st or 2nd Rank Apprentice, anything higher than this would be considered a super genius.
To rank up with this system, you need to stimulate the elemental cells inside of you, some, like Mark, do this by training their body physically, however, this is only done by physical fighters and not ranged mages. Ranged mages tend to opt for the passive way of meditation, and in terms of speed, they are both equal but are heavily affected by the talent of the individual.
Someone's natural talent is decided from birth and can seldom change from then on, this is because someone's talent is determined from the number of elemental cells inside of their body. The more cells someone has inside their body, the more talented they are, a super talent would have 40-49% of their cells as elemental cells, the percentage cannot go over 49% since then the person would be more elemental than human.
The more elemental cells someone has in their body also changes their physical and mental structure, although it's not defined just by their elemental affinity, it can largely depend. For example, if someone had a high affinity with the fire element; they would most likely have a fiery personality and an extremely high body temperature.
In Mark's case, he is slightly spontaneous and impulsive like electricity, he is also rather conductive and if he had higher talent, he could zap someone just by patting them on the shoulder.
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30 minutes later...
"Ugh," Mark groaned.
"Fuck me, I'll kill myself at his rate." he sighed.
He slowly got up from the floor and did a few routine stretches to get the stiffness off of him.
"Ahhh... 3rd Rank feels so damn good! Reminds me of why I train." He jumped in joy.
Each time someone breaks through a rank, they get instant gratification from their hard work with a substantial boost in strength. If Mark's power was 200kg at 2nd rank then it would now be 250kg.
'Now that I'm 3rd Rank I can enlist to the academy.' he thought with a smile.
Behind that smile, was a sense of relief, 'Honestly, if I was two days later, I wouldn't be able to enlist and I'd have to wait a whole year before joining.'
"Anyway, let's get back home, it's not good to train more when I just increased my rank. Health is the most important thing... second only to strength." he tried to convince himself that his health was more important but failed like he usually does.
However this time he really couldn't train since his little sister was waiting for him at home.
"Alright let's go..." he said regretfully.
He packed his equipment and was about to head down from the hill where the dojo he visits resided.
However, when he got out of the dojo, he realised there was a complete downpour outside combined with heavy thunder.
"Uggh, way to ruin my happiness..." he said before starting to jog down the hill.
It seemed that as each second passed, the storm got worse... and worse... and worse until there was a sound of thunder all the time.
Mark stopped in his tracks and just stared up into the sky which was flashing constantly.
"Holy fucking shit! What is with this storm?!" He was completely shocked at the ferocity of this storm.
The wind started getting wilder and wilder until Mark had to grab onto a tree next to him so that he didn't get blown off his feet.
Static sparks were forming in the air around him, crackling and jumping between surfaces.
Luckily, Mark has the thunder element meaning he has a certain amount of resistance to thunder-based attacks.
'What the fuck is going on!?' he started to panic.
The sparks kept jumping on him as if they were zoning in on him, like something as aiming with a laser on their gun.
'Nah... fuck this shit I'm running for my life!' he said, steeling his resolve to let go of the tree.
Mark let go of the tree and started to run back to the dojo.
However, he kept tripping over because of the branches flying at him, propelled by the wind.
But all of a sudden, everything stops as if it never happened before a humongous rumble sent shivers throughout his whole body...
"Fuck." Mark said as he knew what was going to happen due to his intuition.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!
From afar, it looks like a massive pillar of blue light shot down from the heavens, like Zeus punishing humanity.
Mark, being in the centre of this heaven-defying thunderbolt, must have died peacefully, since there is no possible way a 16-year-old 3rd rank Rookie, could live to see another day after this.
'...'
However, despite what one would expect, Marcus was fine, if anything, he felt calm.
Around him was what seemed to be a world of white.
The reality of this was quite shocking, he was inside the bolt frozen in time.
An elemental appeared in front of him, a featureless humanoid body made entirely of lightning.
"Hello?" Mark said helplessly.
'If I'm gonna die, I've got to at least ask who the fuck is in front of me.'
"Greetings." The thing in front of him responded to him.
"Do you wish to live?" The thing asked.
"Yes," Mark said without hesitation.
"Even if the world crashed into chaos?" It asked.
"If it crashes then humanity will save it," Mark said.
"Even if your sister was killed?" It asked.
Mark's expression grew dark, pressuring the space around him with killing intent as the image of Astella being killed played in his head, "Whoever killed her, will not live for long!" he shouted.
"What if you couldn't avenge her?" It asked.
Mark was growing tired of the questioning "What's with these questions?" he said while glaring.
"Answer or die." It said simply.
Marcus sighed as he really didn't want to die, "I'd bide my time, training harder than I've ever trained before."
"What if no amount of training could make you strong enough to kill them?" It asked.
"Then I'd get someone else to," he said, the sad truth was that what it asked was most likely going to be the truth if his sister was killed.
"Successor Marcus Trent has passed the personality test and has been granted the right to inherit the Volt System, an unparalleled method of growth passed on from millions of descendants who all became some of the greatest legends in the universe. We have arrived on Earth to continue our legacy and continue to live." It said happy sounding.
"Do you accept the Volt System?" It asked.
"H-hold on what?" Marcus asked, in shock.
"Do you accept the Volt System?" It asked.
"Please explain!" Marcus pleaded.
"Do you accept the Volt System?" It asked.
"Fine! I accept it!" Marcus said, once again conceding against the weird entity.