Opening my eyes I was greeted with bubbles and a black and red sight. My body felt heavy like gravity had increased 100x around me, and there was a mountain on my shoulders on top of that.
It didn't take me long to realize that I was underwater, what did surprise me though was that my lungs weren't burning as they should. I have no clue how long I was out but I know it was long enough for someone to drown, my mouth didn't open by instinct so unless my body entered a particular state that I've never heard of before I have no idea how I'm alive.
But now's not the time for that, I have to reach the surface. Now that I'm awake and no longer in the particular state I was in before I'm now vulnerable to drowning, I can already feel the carbon dioxide building in my body.
I clutched my right hand and smiled jubilantly when I realized that I still had the briefcase, if I had lost it during my swim then this whole thing would've been for nothing. Putting strength into my legs I began to swim up to the surface, it was a little tricky due to the briefcase being an obstruction but it wasn't to the point where I had to be scared of not making it in time.
As I reached the surface I took in a deep breath of fresh air and observed my surroundings. I had no idea where I was but I knew for sure that I wasn't anywhere near Zone 2.
For one the city, I was in looked way better than Zone 2. Zone 2 was the trenches, it wasn't the worst of the worst but it wasn't that far off while the city I was looking at was the polar opposite.
I never traveled outside of Zone 2 but I knew a lot about the geography of the United Zones of America. The entire country was divided into multiple zones, each zone was ruled by a high-grade super who answered to whatever megacorporation ruled over them.
The city I was looking at was a magnificent city with high-rises and flying vehicles. I knew that it wasn't the high-class or exclusive zones that the corpos and key figures resided in but this only made my mind run at how amazing those cities were.
I pulled myself out of my thoughts and began to swim to shore. I had to heal and find out what was in this briefcase. Lia never liked me but it was never to the point where she wanted to kill me. Was she afraid that I saw what was inside and wanted to tie up loose ends?
As I made it to shore and stood on my feet I was hit with an extreme sense of pain and weakness as I fell onto my back. Those shots to my back were all fatal, the fact that I didn't die in the water was a miracle but now that the adrenaline was dissipated it was time to face reality.
Summoning all the willpower I had I opened the silver briefcase, thankfully it didn't have an extra layer of protection such as a combination or a fingerprint reader or I think I would've died off pure despair.
But all those thoughts vanished when I saw the contents of the briefcase, ignoring my current state with the injuries I sat up in shock and excitement at what lay within the suitcase.
A vial filled with neon purple liquid that laid in the briefcase but this liquid was so priceless that even those top families and megacorporations would engage in a massive war to get it.
This was an S-Grade Super Awakening Potion.
Awakening Potions were rare, very rare. They were potions that had to be taken before one chose a profession and became a superhuman. The purpose of the awakening potion was to perfect the foundation of the human body and put it in its peak physical state so that when they eventually became superhumans they would become broken beyond measure.
These potions were priceless. Even an E-Grade potion was an irreplaceable treasure, at least in the eyes of impoverished mortals like me.
Not everyone had the potential to become a super but these awakening potions rectified that, making it another reason why they were so sought after. It could make an ordinary mortal into a feared superhuman with endless potential all within seconds.
These potions were divided into grades and they were distinguishable by their colors. E-Grade was Clear, D-Grade was Yellow, C-Grade was Green, B-Grade was Sapphire Blue, A-Grade was Neon Red and S-Grade was Neon Purple.
The higher the grade, the stronger the effects, and the difference between the grades couldn't even be compared these were just the base benefits, other special benefits differed based on which profession the person chose.
"But this doesn't make any sense." I groaned as I picked up the neon purple vail that pulsed with a such potent energy that the radiation alone was slowly healing my wounds, "Awakening Potions are safeguarded to the extreme and can only be bought from megacorps or one of the great families. Even then getting the potions would be nearly impossible since they are used on their most talented elites so the only way to get them from the outside is to join them, you can also steal them but no one has done it and lived to tell the tale."
My question now is who was this made for and why was it guarded so weakly? There's no way Lia knew an S-Grade Awakening Potion was inside, if she did she would've killed both me and Gerard as soon as her hands touched the briefcase. She knew there was an awakening potion but had no idea about the grade.
"If she knew that an S-Grade awakening potion slipped out of her hands like this she would for sure kill Gerard in a blind rage." I laughed as I opened the vial and poured the liquid into my mouth.
A searing yet comfortable heat flowed through my body but only lasted for a moment before my body began to be destroyed from the inside. I gritted my teeth as hard as I could in an attempt not to scream but a few harsh groans of pain leaked out.
My bones were being crushed then reconstructed and then crushed again, my organs were being strengthened to an immeasurable degree and black impurities we being expunged from my pores making me scrunch my nose at the horrid stench.
But another change had me surprised and that was my cell and genes. What separated superhumans from regular humans was the genetic code. Superhumans had super genes while humans had normal genes, making superhumans an entirely different species from normal humans.
The awakening potions would do one of two things depending on if you had super genes or not. If you had the genes it would strengthen and refine them to their perfect state along with the body. If you didn't have the genes the potion would create super genes from the energy contained in the potion and the quality of those genes was correspondent to the grade of the potion the person took. The genes would then devour the human genes, thus making the person a full-fledged superhuman.
In my case, the first scenario was happening meaning that I had the potential to be a superhuman but my genes just weren't awakened. This wasn't surprising to me unless you were from a high-class zone most civilians who had super genes never became supers.
It was more of a suppression thing rather than a lack of knowledge. In the beginning, the government tried to hide the existence of superhumans, and when they were finally revealed they began gatekeeping methods to becoming one. It didn't last long but it gave them enough time to establish a monopoly on the techniques and resources needed to advance in the superhuman journey so even if you became a super without government help you were still restricted, but after the wars and the fall of the government, megacorps and other groups began to take advantage so becoming a super was very easy, if you had enough money to pay.
You could also take a test to see if you have super genes and had the potential to become a super but you had to pay a high fee and these tests could only be found in the headquarters of the corporations or the top families, clans, and academies.
A pulsing feeling in my soul burst out and I was greeted by a screen that revealed this:
[Body Reconstruction after consuming S-Grade Super Awakening Potion complete]
"Is this the mythical system that all supers have?" I muttered in disbelief at what was in front of me.
It was said that supers would awaken some type of system in their soul after awakening to become a super but it wasn't those types of systems that you would see in novels.
For one this system was only used to monitor your progress, you couldn't appraise other people even if you were stronger than them unless that was your ability but investigative abilities like that were so rare that most people simply regarded it as a myth.
There were only two times that you would need the system when it first awakened since that was when you would choose your class and when you broke through to S-Grade but what happened when you reached that point was guarded as well.
The pain subsided as the reconstruction was complete but my body felt sticky due to the impurities that I would have to wash off later. I now paid attention to the system notifications I received, I skipped all the ones that just talked about how they scanned my genes, etc until my eyes stopped at the final notification at the bottom, the most essential part of every supers journey.
[Super Gene Awakening Complete. Please Chose a Profession. Once you select a Profession it is irreversible so chose wisely.]
[Pugilist]
[Esper]
[Psychic]
[Arcanist]
[Engineer]