1 The Start?

'More than 1000 years ago, scientists conducted experiments on manipulating genomes to forcefully "evolve" and "reconfigure" animals, re-creating extinct beings like mammoths and new breeds of animals such as double-uddered cows.'

*chop* *chop* *chop*

'200 years later, two scientists, "Professor Tajiri" and "Professor Sugimori", successfully created the first animal imbued with an element by infusing various ground and rock essences into a rhinoceros's embryo while reconfiguring the genome to accommodate the change.'

'This resulted in a new arms race in developing what people would call "monsters", rapidly advancing the technology while severely affecting the advancement of other technologies.'

*sizzle* *pop*

'The situation went out of control when PETA extremists simultaneously blew up over 100 laboratories around the world demanding a stop to arms race of the participating nations. Development was immediately brought to a halt but the effect of blowing the laboratories had a worse effect as the various chemicals left abandoned within the labs seeped into the atmosphere and clouds enveloping the whole world and brought change to all living creatures including humans.'

*kling* *plop* *thud*

'Animals gave birth to monsters in just one generation immediately replacing them, and some of these monster are infused with elements according to their traits and/or environment. Also, some humans mutated, enabling them to have the ability to gain control to some of these monsters.'

*nom nom nom* *gulp* *gulp*

'This event sparked a 3rd world war, lasting for more than a hundred year, and as the war was resolved, the majority of human technology was lost, including all the technology and knowledge used to develop monsters.'

*burp*

'30 years ago, humanity managed to climb back to a state, where the technology is similar to the ancient time of 2019.'

*sigh*

Ji Liu shakes his head as he turned off the T.V. after eating dinner. The show was a rerun of the program played earlier in the morning. It was a documentary special celebrating the 30th year anniversary of Meiji, the leading tech company responsible for researching monsters.

'It has already been 30 years and we've barely scratched the surface' he thought to himself.

Tomorrow would start Ji Liu's day as a researcher assistant in the Yun City's Meiji branch. Although it sounds good, the branch is as good as dead since Yun City is near Wanqiang Metropolis which is where one of the Meiji leading branch is located.

Nevertheless, a job is a job and he needs it to sustain his study since he'll be out of the welfare program next month after turning 16. Although orphans are allowed to work starting at 14, there are some who are like Ji Liu who would focus on studying and would only start to work when they near 16. Welfare is only up to 16 years old since people would awaken their ability to form contract with monsters at that age and getting a job as a tamer by then is easy.

And so, night falls and Ji Liu heads to his room in the school's dormitory exclusive for outstanding students. Although the bed is a bunk bed, there are few students who actually stays in the dorm so he doesn't have to share the room with anyone.

Ji Liu wakes up earlier than usual today so he could prepare for both school and work which would usually be impossible. Good thing there was a recently hired researcher that prefers starting to work late else he would not be able to get this job.

Preparing then eating breakfast, he greets the dorm guard Mr. Wei before leaving the dorm and walk towards the school. The school is separated to the dorm because there was no place for the school to fit the dorm so they just bought a separate small building for it.

Ji Liu bump into his usual mob classmates also heading towards school and without anything eventful, almost 4 weeks already passed and today would be his 16th birthday!

'Wow, weeks sure fly fast.' Ji Liu thought to himself.

Today is the day that he would awaken his ability. All he have to do is get an 'awakening potion' that he can afford from a government certified chemist, present his identification and drink it. Drinking it at another day aside from your 16th birthday would cause a rapid spreading cancer due to the forced gene mutation and only being at your 16th birthday would one not be affected due to the cellular state of the body complementing with the potion.

Abilities may differ greatly depending on what type of 'awakening potion' one drinks, one may be able to tame only fire type monster while another can only tame monsters with yellow color.

This is one of Meiji's discoveries that cemented their position as a global influence.

But since he is working on one of Meiji's branches, his 'awakening potion' was given to him for free by one of the researchers, the one who he is an assistant to, Doctor Fei Hua.

"Doctor, why is this unbranded?" asked Ji Liu as he look at the potion suspiciously.

"Wait let me put a sticker." Doctor Fei Hua took the potion and set it in the table, then, took a piece of paper, scribbled something on it and took some transparent sticky tape and then taped the paper to the potion.

When Ji Liu got the potion back, when he read aloud "rank 5 type-less" he wasn't even finished reading and he is already shocked.

"Doctor are you serious? Rank 5 type-less for free?" Ji Liu almost yelled asking. A rank 5 potion would allow him up to 5 tamed monsters, type-less is even more awesome as it would allow one to tame any type of monsters.

Although not rare, it is quite expensive. An aspiring normal tamer would only get around rank 3 or 4 type-less, although rich young masters would have rank 7-9, meaning he has advantage over normal tamers is enough of a boon for an orphan such as Ji Liu so he was grateful.

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