[Earth 2082]
*Breaking news: It's been a year since an unknown phenomenon started to occur on Earth. Simultaneous weather changes, mutations in animals, and scientists have found small cracks and a small fissure forming in the sky. That is also the reason we can see different colors of aurora even though we are not near the Arctic and Antarctic circles. Now the scientists are trying to find out the reason why this is forming…*
Crack!
"Honey, why did you drop that plate?" the man asked his wife.
"B-ba-b–" She stammered
"Why are you stammering… and why are your hands shaking so much? Are you okay? Is there any problem?" The husband asked, worried about her.
Without saying anything, she pointed her trembling finger. Following her hand, the husband turned around and looked where she pointed. And he too got scared by what he witnessed. His 11-year-old kid was covered in flames. But the kid was not screaming; it's quite the opposite. He is smiling as the bright red flames illuminate and dance around the kid as if they were enjoying his company.
Seeing that, the father rushed to his son. Connecting a pipe to a tap, he sprayed water at his kid, but the flames were not extinguishing. Seeing that, his face lost its color.
"D-dad, don't worry, it's not bur–"
Thump!
Before the kid could finish his sentence, he fell to the ground as he passed out. His father rushed to him, taking out all her courage; the mother also rushed to her son.
Upon seeing there was no burn mark on him except his burned clothes, and he was breathing, they felt relieved and surprised by the unnatural sight they witnessed.
"W-what just h-happened?" The father asked in confusion and disbelief. His wife just stared at her son, relieved.
"S-should we take him for a check up" the wife asked.
"Yes, but don't tell anyone what happened here," she nodded. They knew if they told anybody about what happened here, the government would take their son as an experiment subject and conduct different experiments.
But what they didn't know was that it's not only their child. Countless people are going through the same process. teenage, adult, middle-aged, and elderly—all of them are going through the same process.
All of them are Awakening.
***
***
***
A few years passed, and the people considered their awakening powers to be superpowers. As this continued, humans faced their first ever crisis.
All across the world, cracks started to appear with ear-splitting sounds. Monsters spawned out of the cracks and attacked humanity. The humans who only gained superpowers a few years ago and only fought other humans didn't have the necessary skills and experience to take down monsters, and some monsters were so strong that they could cause city-level destruction.
The battle started, and humanity fought with monsters and found out about the existence of skill orbs.
This took another turn. Because human greed was limitless and they were in a dire situation, they attacked each other to obtain skills.
When all of this was happening, another crack opened. A new race emerged within the cracks. Elfs, anotherworldly beautiful humans with pointy ears, emerged from the cracks.
As the elves entered their new world, they instantly got disgusted by humans greedy and ugly nature. And they don't want to live with or live under these disgusting humans; the war for conquest started. With their vast skills, experience, and knowledge, they suppressed humanity and a portion of the earth.
As the war with the elves came to an end and the humans were exhausted to their limits as they were also fighting with monsters, another massive crack opened, and a new race emerged from the crack: a short build with muscular body, Dwarf's. When they entered this world, they thought about not fighting and making an alliance with humans. But as humanity lost a good portion of their land and thought dwarfs would also fight and take their land, humanity fought with them, pushing their exhausted bodies, and the result was obvious. They lost to dwarves and lost to another portion of earth.
Time passed as humanity kept fighting with the emerging monsters. Elves and dwarves didn't help humanity and watched their struggles.
As this continued, a big crack opened in the sky, and the sky was painted with different colors of aurora.
And this crack changed humanity completely. A status screen appeared in front of them with new information. That was the deciding factor for humanity. Every human in their teenage years has at least once played a game. This allowed humans to grow far stronger than their current selves.
Only humans possessed this system, so they took every opportunity to grow stronger. They hunted monsters and obtained skills. They started learning how the skill worked with the description shown on the status screen. And they also come to know their innate skills.
Not everyone has innate skills; of the 100% who possess innate skills, humans have 80%, elves 50%, and dwarves 20%. This led to the rapid growth of humans, and they took revenge on the elves and dwarves, reclaiming their lost land.
The war ended as the three races compromised and came to an agreement to share their knowledge with each other and support each other. The Elfs and Dwarfs were fascinated by human technologies; although dwarfs are far above humans in making artifacts, that didn't mean humans are low with their artificial intelligence.
As time passed, this relationship continued. New fantasy races emerged from the cracks, such as mermaids, dragons, fairies, goblins, orks, vampires, giants, centuars, and lastly, demons.
There are some docile races in them, but most of them are vicious, and the most vicious of them all would be vampires and demons.
And the war started again with these vicious creatures.
***
***
***
"Ywan, should I take a leave today? I don't want to go to school again. sigh." Upon waking up in the morning, all I could think about was the beating I got from the bullies.
The reason for that is that my strength is cut off by half or less. Mana veins—it's almost like veins. The purpose of veins is to collect oxygen-poor blood throughout your body and carry it back to your heart. If veins are blocked, it will cause serious health problems.
In mana veins, it carries and absorbs mana and strengthens your core; if the core is strengthened, it will make your body strong by pumping back the absorbed mana. In my case, as my mana veins are damaged, the absorbation rate will cut down by half or even lower, so the less mana I carry to my core, the slower the strengthening process. This means my current rank is F+, but the strength I could display would be that of an average human or above.
That time, when I sparred and the bullies beat me down, I could clearly feel my strength being cut down. When he puched me, I could see his attack but couldn't move my body fast enough. And the punch was so powerful that I nearly lost my consciousness.
"Sigh. I can't miss the class. I will get some useful information from them." The class is all about combat training, mana training, skill making and how to counter them, alchemy, mana engineering, rune creation, language class, and general knowledge.
If we talk about clubs, there are 7 of them: martial arts club, archery club, mage club, alchemy club, mana engineering club, arts club, history club, food club, and adventure club. Finally, there is the love and like club, which is made up of fans who adore high-ranking students and attractive people.
'And I was one of them.' There are factions for whoever they like, and I'm in the faction of Alicia Asclepius. Not only that, I'm the leader of that faction; over 500 people are under me as fans of Alicia.
"Well, I should quit being a leader. They will be overjoyed if I quit." Jadel beat so many people who were crazy about her. He thought only he could look at her like that, so quitting means they can do whatever they want.
I entered the classroom. 'Fuck, I don't like their stares; can't they just look at me normally?' I walked to my seat and sat there. Whoever comes to class, they will shoot a glare at me.
'Oh, he came today.' I thought as this guy came into the class, 'Aaron Krieger, the No. 1 ranked student in the first-year class' He has blood-red eyes, a messy hairstyle, and a build that is not typically seen in a 16-year-old kid. Because of how pure his mana is, his hair changed into a snow white color.
Even with systems help, Mc couldn't defeat him. That's how strong he is, and he is the second irregular I talked about. He has two occupations and two innate skills, same like me. With his family's teachings, he became one of the strong individuals that rivaled Asher's talent.
No, it will be an understatement. If talent alone, he will far surpass Asher's talent. He doesn't talk much and has some temper issues, but you can't blame him for that; that's how vigorously they raised him.
"What? Do you need something?" sensing my gaze, he asked."
"No" He is neutral towards me, although he doesn't like what I did to Alicia, he also knows how much Jadel has liked her since childhood. Jadel and Aaron met, shared pleasantries, and fought one time. That's it; we are not friends and enemies.
'It's obvious Jadel liked her, and everyone knows it; even Jadel's and Alicia's families know that he likes her. I don't know if she avoided his feelings or is she dense'
Flinch!
"Hahaha, did you see him flinching? It's so hilarious!" Shreya laughed
'Ah shit, here we go again'
Laughing, she approached me.
Bang!
Banging on the bench, she closed in and looked into my eyes. Her face was only a half-centimeter away from mine.
"Let's see if what the teacher said is true. I was curious for a while." Saying that, she released her mana, inspecting me. A flicker of surprise flashed her face as she inspected me.
"Ha! Haha! This guy. This fucker's presence cut down by half." she announced.
"Not half, maybe even lower than that. A serious punch from Asher will send him to hell." she said.
I saw the students' surprised and evil faces as if they eagerly wanted to bully me. 'This bitch. She is intentionally saying that so I will become the target of bullies.'
"Go to your seats, students," Ms. Alia said as she entered the class.