Fortunately, or rather unfortunately for those thriving during that time, the age of crimes didn't last long; it all changed when a special group of people stepped into the spotlight, revealing what the new world was going to look like.
Soon, this special group of people would wrestle control away from the world's governments with their newfound abilities and power and establish organizations that would replace them, bringing order to the chaos.
In April of 2029, the first batch of Alpha Rankers stepped up and revealed themselves. It was through them that we learned about the leveling system we all lived by, along with how to Evolve or Rank up.
As it turns out, the No-Grade Rank had multiple levels one needed to achieve, 0-5, and only after reaching level 5 and meeting the numerical metric of 10 for Alpha Particles in your status could you Rank up to Alpha Grade.
And let me tell you, none of us were ready. Because the physical changes your body undergoes when Ranking up are so groundbreaking and drastic, it leaves you feeling on top of the world.
You go from essentially being an ordinary person to being superhuman…like in stories or comics.
That's not all; upon reaching Alpha Rank, Arkadia did something it hadn't told any of us, and that was unlocking our Talent. That's right, the reason nobody had any ideas about how to use our newly acquired talents was because it was technically locked, and Arkadia was blocking us from using it.
It was also during this time that Brenden, Emilia, and I Ranked up as well. Since we were able to bring firearms into the Instances and had plenty of Arkadia coins to buy Tokens, we would make frequent trips to level up.
But it was a long grind, mainly because I refused to let our group enter anything other than the regular Low-Alpha instance until we were at the maximum level.
Speaking of maximum level, I don't mean of the No-Rank levels; I mean of the Instance itself; for you see, upon entering the strange dimensions, everyone would receive a notification from Arkadia giving details about the Instance's contents along with the recommended level.
For the regular Low-Alpha, it was level 0-2, the Low-Alpha-P instance was 2-4, and the Low-Alpha-P2 carried you to the end of the rank; every creature inside the dimension was either level 4 or 5.
Unfortunately, because my Father had yet to wake up, he was left out of our leveling. Still, I vowed to power-level him when the time came, something that was readily agreed upon.
Another issue brought about by my Father's comatose state was someone had to be left home to stand guard because of the chaos happening at all hours of the day, and only two of us could enter an Instance at a time.
When we finally were successful in ranking up, we quickly realized how strong Brenden's Talent could be, as it gave him a 1.5 times boost to both his Physical Stats, completing his "Cptn America build," as I called it.
Apart from Emilia's Talent, Particle Field, which allowed her to manipulate her Particles into a shell around her body, mine was by far the weakest in its present state.
I spent hours testing and using my Talent and came up with a single-use, giving 'Suggestions' that someone would be inclined to follow about 15% of the time.
Weak…that was the only word that could be used to describe my Talent, absolutely weak, hell if this were a web novel, everyone would be calling me trash constantly, that is, until I kicked the ever-living s*** out of their head.
Brenden was quick to try and cheer me up; he knew damn well that what I lacked in the Talent department, I more than made up for in the combat one.
My family's situation aside, with their new superpowers active, the Top Alpha Rankers of every country began their hostile takeover, and by the end of May, the word Government was replaced by several new organizations.
In the United States…as cheesy as this sounds, it was the Heros Association. In Japan, multiple large families called themselves Clans, and these Clans created alliances and ruled the country together.
The Alpha Rankers in China formed schools of thought that followed specific rules and teachings called Sects. It was the strongest Sect that ultimately took over and ruled the entire country by forming similar alliances to China.
Europe as a whole was broken up into different organizations called Factions, the strongest of which, Syndicate, took over.
Australia followed the example of America and created The Heroes Alliance, basically taking the same mold but with a little down under spin on the idea.
Russia did Russia things, and somehow, their crazy dictator ended up Staying in power…which, to be honest, wasn't THAT shocking after all; the dude was basically a walking weapon before Arkadia, let alone after. So overall, the country pretty much stayed the same as it was before.
And then there was South Korea. Listen, ima be honest: this was the one that surprised me the most because it was a specific novel writer who had a top-rated franchise that became an Anime in 2024, who created his country's most powerful organization…the Hunters Association.
That was pretty much all we had when it came to large organizations, and before you ask about particular places, I need to inform you about the 'Dark Zones.'
While other countries were publicizing their achievements and forming new governments, multiple countries and even two entire continents, South America and Africa, went dark after the completion of the saturation phase.
As it turns out, for some time post-saturation Completion, there was no information about these 'Dark Zones' as they were labeled, but thanks to some of the greatest scientific minds of our generation, we learned a few things during those first few weeks.
As it turns out, when the Particle Saturation reached its peak and finished, Earth's core apparently emitted an invisible yet powerful pulse of condensed Alpha Particles. This pulse of condensed Energy Particles, although entirely harmless for everything WITHIN Earth's atmosphere, was anything but for any objects in orbit.