Aiko began to tell the children about the history of their world that was written in the children's book. Aiko had a very sweet voice, as soon as she began to tell the story Hana's eyes began to get heavy. On the other hand, Renji was attentively listening to the story with his whole heart, although he had heard the story many times. He still liked hearing about it as many times as he could.
On the day of 18th October 2023, people faced a disaster like none before. On that dark day the earth as we knew it disappeared, it happened so fast that no one had a slight bit of chance to react. Everyone became helpless on that day.
On the day of the catastrophe, all of the electric devices that people used in their daily lives suddenly stopped working. Not a single thing remained that was useable using the electricity. Like a suspense movie slowly many other things started to happen one after another. After the sudden blackout people began to feel uneasy and started to scramble through the shops and started looting the entire place. People began to commit heinous crimes in a state of panic.
But no one had any idea about the situation they were in, the worst was still to come. Other Humans were the least of the worries for the humans, but they kept fighting each other. The next thing that came after the blackout was mass earthquakes, huge tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, etc. you name it, and all of the possible disasters known to mankind happened all at once all over the world.
For the next 2-3 hours hundreds of thousands of people died of the natural disaster, those who had passed were the lucky ones because the chain of events was still not over yet. If that wasn't bad enough what came next made the entire population of Earth come to its knees. After the disasters, people suddenly began to see cracks in the dimensions, people still don't have any explanation as to why it happened, but people began to call those cracks dungeons.
The dungeon is a very dangerous place, inside a dungeon lies a very different world from ours, some had castles built inside of it and some had the shape of a cave. There are a lot of different types of dungeons in the world now, but even if the dungeons were vastly different from one another there was always one thing in common for every dungeon, monsters. Dungeons were filled with monsters of many kinds and strengths.
The dungeons that appeared first only contained 1st shard or 2nd shard monsters, but for the people who had never experienced anything like that they had no chance of survival. The appearance of dungeons had no pattern at all, they could appear out of thin air without any warning or foresight.
When people saw something like a dungeon for the first time, most of them were afraid of the unknown as no one knew where one could take them. But some of the people were filled with excitement as they were hoping for a new adventure. People banded together and formed groups all over the world some went solo. They took all the weapons they could to investigate the new arrival. Alas, most of the people who went inside the dungeon didn't come back out of the dungeon.
Most of them were brutally killed, some of the people could imagine how they met their end because of the accounts of the survivors. The survivors of the expeditions were either traumatized or in some cases they had gone mad because of the horror they experienced. Seeing the results of the expedition that was conducted by some brave people, almost everyone from all parts of the world came to a single conclusion. They should halt the expedition mission of dungeons, as many lives were being lost at the hands of the monsters that were guarding it.
Little did the people know how grave of a mistake they were making by halting the expedition missions, in a few days the dungeons that were being avoided by people like plagues started pouring all of the monsters that they contained inside. So, another disaster began. People had finally realized that this was where the world was heading towards now, it was the time for fight or die. Those who took up whatever weapons had more survival chances than those who had no intention of fighting.
People started fighting against the monsters so much so that, there were almost no records of people killing each other. For the most part, humanity stood for each other in this fight for survival. Some used guns some used knives everyone used anything that they could use as a weapon against the monsters that were threatening to wipe out the entirety of humanity.
Slowly but surely people started to push back the monsters that were rampaging all over the world, getting to this point took some time but they were able to do so because of teamwork and comradery. The happiness of winning over the first wave of dungeons wasn't over, yet a new wave of dungeons appeared out of nowhere. People now were more confident against the monsters so no one hesitated this time around. They began preparing for what had to be done, like last time many people went in but just a few lucky ones returned alive.
This time unlike the last time the monsters were way stronger than the ones that they fought last time. That was not just the worst part about it, they reported that the guns they used last time against the monsters were doing no damage to the monsters at all. This was the first time people had come across 3rd shard shard-level monster.
After many deaths at the hands of 3rd shard monsters, some people came forward claiming that they could see their status window. Those were the first pioneers who led our war against the monsters that wanted to destroy our world. They are the heroes that we now call awakeners, they are given the power to see their status and level up by killing monsters. The awakeners get stronger as they keep killing monsters. Helping them increase their stats or overall power, they risk their lives every day on the frontlines fighting monsters for our sake.
Many things changed after such a catastrophe the size of the earth changed, earth was now 20 times bigger than it used to be. Many new land masses appeared, and many countries disappeared. Many countries still stand tall, even after facing so many ordeals.
The most surprising and beneficial change that the catastrophe brought was mana. Mana was present all over the world after that day, somewhere in small quantity and somewhere in huge. Nowadays people fight over the right to capture the place where there was more abundant mana in friendly battles. Mana has enabled people to do things that were thought impossible to achieve in the past. People can now use fire at their will to do anything they want, they can control wind water, etc. you just imagine it and you will be able to do it. Only one thing was between what class you acquire after you reach level 50.