Precinct Five - the place where the action never stops, and drama is always in the air.
It's like living in a never-ending episode of a dystopian TV show.
The only problem is that it's not TV - it's real life, and you can't hit the pause button or change the channel.
The thing that sets Precinct Five apart from other regions is the constant threat of cavern openings.
You'd think that with all the technological advancements we've made as a society, we'd have figured out how to predict and prevent these things from happening and causing mass destruction.
But nope, not in Precinct Five.
Here, you're more likely to win the lottery than to accurately predict when the next cavern will open.
Even after the authorities and rankers came up with the wave detector - a device that uses radar and other fancy technologies to predict when a cavern is about to open up.
It still couldn't predict a cavern opening. The wave detector seems to have a mind of its own in Precinct Five. It either gives false readings, or it predicts collapses that never happen.
It's like having a weatherman who's always wrong - except instead of getting wet, you might get crushed by a giant orc or have your butt shot at by a mischievous goblin.
Despite the danger, people still flock to Precinct Five - mostly because it almost cost nothing living there.
And free food is sometimes exported from the authorities and the five great families down to us.
Well, those were the little good perks of living here if you are someone who actually prefers a mouthful and getting eaten by a monster or starving in a roofless corner of any other Precinct.
But let me tell you, living in Precinct Five is not all doom and gloom.
There's a certain charm to the place - like how you never know when your house is going to collapse, or when a monster is going to pop out of nowhere and chase you down the street.
It keeps life exciting; you know?
And let's talk about the mortality rate. Thirty percent of the global total? That's not a statistic you want to be proud of.
But hey, at least we're number one in something, right?
~ Beep…Beep..Beep
As I lay in bed, trying to ignore the fact that any moment could be my last, I was rudely awakened by a loud beeping sound.
"What now?"
I groaned, hoping it wasn't another false alarm.
I reached out to turn off the alarm, but instead, my hand landed on a strange platform.
"What the heck is this?" I muttered, trying to figure out what I was touching.
Suddenly, something buzzed through my skin, and the platform went silent.
"Um, okay then," I said, feeling slightly creeped out.
I realized there were strings attached to my hand, and I quickly removed them all. As I stumbled out of bed, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.
"Why do I feel like I ran a marathon in my sleep?" I grumbled.
"I wasn't fully myself and had forgotten most of what had happened previously.
I decided to strip off the long and weird, but surprisingly comfortable, garment I was wearing, hoping to take a short bath to clear my senses and restore my vision.
Despite being half-blind, I knew exactly where my bathroom was.
You see, I had prepared for situations like this by familiarizing myself with the location of every object in my room in case I ever went blind.
After taking a few steps from my bed and making a sharp right turn, I expected to find myself in my bathroom.
However, to my surprise, I collided with a giant wall right in front of me. I was confused. How could I have hit a wall when I knew exactly where my bathroom was?
But then, I realized that this little unlucky event had turned out to be a stroke of good luck in disguise.
The collision knocked my vision right back into focus, and I could finally see my surroundings.
That's when I noticed that I wasn't in my room anymore. Instead, I was in a hospital room surrounded by sterile white walls and a narrow bed with crisp bed sheets.
The pale blue hospital gown I had taken off was lying on the ground, and I couldn't help but wonder how I had ended up here.
And then it all hit me.
I was one unlucky guy who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
My poor old house had been blasted by a wave of mana, which I assumed came from a ranker.
Suddenly, a voice resonated through the room,
"It seems you are finally awake. I couldn't help but enjoy the little show you put up here today."
I was shaken, wondering who had spoken. I looked back and forth, left and right, but nothing was there.
Was I hallucinating or was it a ghost that spoke to me?
Then, the voice spoke again, "I'm down here, you idiot."
I looked down and saw a very short, stout old man wearing an oversized lab coat. He had a large white mustache, and his belly looked like he had swallowed a tank full of water.
I tried to speak, but my throat was dry, and my words came out in a hoarse whisper.
"How did I get here sir?"
The doctor let out a booming laugh, causing his belly to jiggle like a bowl of jelly.
"The ranker that did this to you dropped you here."
Wait a ranker went out of his way to bring me into the hospital.
This is the first time am hearing of something like this.
This where the kind of things I wouldn't still have believed if I saw it with my own eyes.
After clearing my dry throat, I asked the person next to me,
"Did the ranker who brought me here lose a bet or something?"
"I understand your surprise," the person replied,
"But not all rankers are the same. The ranker who brought you here is named Eleanor Eisenhower. You must have heard of her."
Did this person just say that Eleanor carried me here?
She was the young prodigy ranked number 1 in the Eisenhower family, one of the Great Five families that can control ice through Cryomancy.
She was also considered one of the most beautiful young rankers in the world, if not the most beautiful.
I felt both lucky and unlucky at the same time.
It was the first time someone other than my sister and late mom held me, but I had to be knocked out for it to happen. "Jeez," I muttered.
Despite Eleanor's saintly reputation, I couldn't help but imagine her carrying me like the reverse case of a bride and groom, with my body pressing against her enormous front side.
The doctor must have noticed my thoughts because he hummed at me and spoke.
"I'm not really sure what you're thinking, but your heart is beating irregularly. If you're imagining that Eleanor carried you, then you must be dreaming.
"She dragged your ass down here."
I knelt down in front of him, held his jiggling belly, and looked straight into his eyes.
"Are you saying we had no contact with each other whatsoever? She didn't even touch my hands."
He grinned at my disappointment. "That's right, her skin didn't even touch yours."
I don't know why, but the way he said it and the look on his face made me tear up a little. I thought I finally had something to brag about to my colleagues.
Nonetheless, I couldn't help but ask him how he read my pulse without touching me.
"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, how did you read my pulse without touching me? Are you perhaps a…"
Before I could finish my sentence, he nodded his head and finished the word for me. "Ranker, yeah, I am a ranker."
Wait, if he was an awakened doctor, how come he was working in this crappy precinct?
Awakened doctors were highly valued in the higher precinct, especially those with abilities like X-ray vision and body re-modification.
"By the flow of your pulses, I presume you're quite surprised," he said.
"You may be wondering why I'm working in a place like this instead of a better environment. Let me ask you, if every skilled person left here, who would heal the diseases of the citizens?"
Despite his small and annoying appearance, his heart was quite big.
As I stood there, I couldn't help but feel amazed by everything that was happening.
In the midst of my awe, I had forgotten why I was actually there.
"If I survived being blasted by a wave of cold mana, how is that possible?
"The human body cannot handle that amount of energy and live to tell the tale.
"Aside from the stiffness I feel in my body, which I suppose was caused by Eleanor's cryomancy, I feel perfectly fine."
I thought he didn't hear me since he was rummaging through a large drawer for some time.
However, he replied in a tone barely audible over the shuffling of papers.
"Pardon me," I said, hoping to get him to repeat what he said.
He dropped whatever he was doing and turned to face me. "I said you have awakened, you idiot.
Who did you think did that?"
He pointed to the broken object that was smoking beside the bed.
"Wait, what did you say? I have awakened. But that's impossible. Only those from families with abilities can awaken."
Despite my doubts, I couldn't help but believe him when I saw the smoking object. I remembered hearing something ringing and stretched out my hand to turn it off.
However, I didn't realize that I had actually damaged it.
Seeing my confusion, he decided to explain further.
"An awakened is someone who can sense, feel, and channel mana from within a core of the body called the mana core, which creates a vein-like tissue that attaches to your muscles.
"Typically, one awakens through inheritance or from the Great Five.
"However, sometimes the human body can survive an encounter with a large influx of mana and adapt to it, resulting in a forceful creation of a mana core.
"How did you think there were so many people who awakened during the Great Calamity?"
All of what he said made total sense.
However, I felt nothing different in my body.
I looked around the room and saw a small square mirror on the left side of the wall.
I approached it to see if there was anything different about my appearance, assuming that I had gained a transformation ability.
However, I saw no noticeable difference in my facial features, and my handsome chiseled face was perfectly intact, and my amber eyes gleamed with life.
As I dropped my head down, ready to leave the mirror area, I realized that my hair had drastically changed color.
When did it become this pale? I was quite confident that it was black.
Not that the white color was bad, in fact, it looked better than my previous hair color.
I turned to the doctor, who had gone back to his drawer.
"Does awakening change your hair color?"
He paused when he heard my question and hopped down from the little chair he was standing on.
"Do you mean this is not your natural hair color?"
I nodded in agreement and added, "It's normally black."
He stroked his chin as he walked haphazardly back and forth.
He froze at some point and approached me once again, this time with a light grin on his face. "Close your eyes and dive into your system.
You will feel a tingling sensation down the center of your body. Circulate that feeling through every part of your body."
I followed his instructions and felt something circulating my body.
Suddenly, something formed in front of me like a bluish translucent screen.
[--Loading user info…]
I panicked and stepped back, but it followed me as I backed away. It was like it was embedded in the pupils of my eyes.
I put my fear aside and scrutinized the information before me.
The words on the screen flickered as if coming to life, and a surge of electricity crackled in the air around me.
My eyes widened in awe as I watched the data materialize before me, glowing with an otherworldly blue light.
[--Loading user info...COMPLETE]
I felt a rush of power surge through me as the screen disappeared, replaced with a holographic display that floated in mid-air.
The information was displayed in a sleek, futuristic font, accompanied by pulsing lines of energy that seemed to dance and writhe.
[--Initializing user profile--]
<< Profile >>
Name: King Kortez
Sex: Male
Level: 1
Experience: 0/100
Ability: Electrokinetic
Description: The user has the ability to generate and manipulate electrical energy.
Passive Ability: Electric Resistance - The user's body is naturally resistant to some amount of electric shock.
Active Ability: Shock - The user can channel current and direct it towards a target.
Volts: 60
Skills: None
Special: Peek -Allows user to see ability of other people who isn't beyond his power level scope
Rank: Tier 5 > Bronze
Mana: 187/200
Strength: 20
Speed: 28
Defense: 24
Accuracy: 39
Intelligence: 70
Charm 76
Equipment: None
Side effects: Electric Induced Psychosis- Cannot affect the user at this level. Ability power too weak.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and the translucent screen disappeared with the third flicker.
"So, this is what it means to be awakened? How come I never knew every ranker had something as dope as this?" I asked, still in disbelief.
A small smile played on the doctor's lips, and I couldn't help but feel like he was more excited about my ability than I was.
"Not every ranker has this screen. It seems you're quite special, boy," he said.
"I am Dr. Smallberries, and I must say, you have a rare talent.
"How would you like to enroll in Awakened Academy? I think you'd thrive there. First I would like you to put on some shorts."