Awakening

In the present

A young man named Brandon sat in a dark room, wearing virtual reality glasses and sitting in a video game chair.

These glasses had been discarded long ago, as they allowed the wearer to experience superpowers, but only those who had never awakened used them.

Brandon was 19 years old, with short dark hair, slightly brown skin, brown eyes, and a height of 1.75. He was one of the few who had failed to awaken, and these people were called "Monkeys," as they did not follow evolution and remained stagnant.

Every person achieved their awakening by the age of 15, but if they failed to awaken at this age, they were cast aside, even by the government. Although some people awakened after this age, their powers were inferior compared to those who awakened earlier.

While immersed in the game universe of Warcraft, Brandon felt a great jolt that caused his glasses to fall to the ground, and he became dizzy, fainting from the sudden change of scenery. A couple of minutes later, he began to open his eyes, still feeling dizzy. He saw a light in the room and, looking around in confusion and with half-open eyes, realized that the facility where he lived had collapsed.

He did not know what had happened, but he had to make an effort to get up. At that moment, he realized that he had debris on him. After managing to remove the rubble and getting up, he looked outside his house to find that the surroundings were on fire. The buildings were destroyed, vehicles overturned, and there were dead and injured people everywhere.

He did not fully regain consciousness when he suddenly felt a pang in his gut and vaguely heard a voice that he had given up hope of ever hearing again. The voice said:

[Starting species evolution…]

[Analyzing the subject's ability…]

[Integrating and boosting the subject's potential.]

Following the headache, he felt a suffocating pain throughout his body, losing what little strength he had and collapsing to the ground. He held his head tightly as the voices continued to echo loudly in his head, saying:

[Increased Potential]

[Successful evolution]

[Showing statistics…]

The data panel appeared, showing the following information:

════════Data Panel════════

Name: Brandon Sanchez

Race: Human (Lower class)

Awakening: Digitized (0%)

══════════Attributes══════════

Health: 5 (250)

Strength: 5

Agility: 5

Stamina: 5

Energy: 5 (100)

Control: 5

Attitude: 30 (Note: Attitude is the sum of the points of all attributes. 30 is the initial score for superhumans, while 5 is the score for normal people.)

══════════Skills══════════

(Note: Each life point counts as 50. The reason for this will be explained later. Mind gives 10 control for each point.)

The throbbing pain slowly began to fade, allowing Brandon to regain his strength. He felt stronger and more energized than ever before.

Brandon had trained extensively in archery, research, scouting, hand-to-hand combat, and various weapon specialties such as spears, swords, and other weapons. However, his 15th birthday came and went without him awakening any special abilities. He had hoped he was just a late bloomer, but nothing happened.

Now, he had finally awakened, but his face fell as he carefully read his information. His awakening said "Digitization," and he had no idea what that skill did. He knew, however, that it was not a battle skill, and his dreams of becoming an adventurer remained out of reach.

His powers were divided into different categories, including Elemental and Variable. He touched the name of the skill, and another window with information appeared.

╔════════════════════════════════════════╕

What is reality?

A sequence alterable by a Perspective

╚══════════════════════════════════════════

"What the hell did that mean?" he thought in frustration. This window should describe what his ability could do, but it just said something incoherent.

Sigh. "Let's at least see what it does."

As if by instinct, he activated his ability. An energy began to surge through his body, but he just kept moving without doing anything. He tried running to see if it gave him any physical improvements, but his condition had only improved a little due to evolution.

He tried to control the energy with his mind, concentrating on his right hand. This time, however, something different happened. Instead of just stagnating, his hand began to unravel in the air while he could see the structure that made up his hand connected through energy one with others.

He could see streams of information forming his hand, each sequence with different information. It was as if his DNA and every part of his body had been changed by digital information.

He quickly deactivated the ability. Keeping it active consumed energy, and in just 1 minute, he had already consumed 10 energy points. That is, he could only keep his ability active for at least 5 minutes with the energy he had, but even so, he didn't know what he could do with it.

Looking at his left hand, he could see that it had the number 30 marked in green on it. This indicated the amount of potential he had. Many people disagreed with showing their information, so they hid it using gloves or any object that could cover it. There were also those who were powerful enough to change the structure of their body by fooling the system.

He snapped out of his daze and moved through the rubble to get out of his house and walk around. He found out that he had passed. Many corpses and injured people could be seen on the streets, and he wondered what could have caused such destruction.

His stomach churned as it was the first time he had seen something like this happen. Ordinary people, despite waking up, continue with their normal lives, so they are not used to seeing corpses and so much blood. As if it was instinct, his ability activated, focusing energy in his brain that allowed him to maintain his composure.

At that very moment.

[Cold Mind Skill Created]

In the middle of the street and with many people watching, Brandon was stunned. His ability allowed him to create a skill. Don't get it, create it.

In this world, obtaining a skill was difficult to obtain unless it was from skill books. In the case of creating them, only great characters who had thousands of skills would take the time to create their own techniques. Although there were always exceptions, like the one he got at the time.

He looked at his attribute panel.

════════Data Panel════════

Name: Brandon Sanchez

Race: Huma (Lower class)

Awakening: Digitized (0.5%)

══════════Attributes══════════

Health: 5 (250)

Strength: 5

Agility 5

Resistance 5

Energy: 5 (100)

Control: 6

Attitude: 30

══════════Skills══════════

Cold Mind Lv. 0 (1%)

Even his adaptation percentage to his ability had increased by 0.5%.

The level of synchronization of the skill is what allows the control of the skill to increase, many fail to reach 100% compatibility which limits their future development.

With the commotion caused, it was a matter of time before help would arrive. This place where he lived was a town belonging to the city of Santo Domingo. This was a city in the south of the Steam continent.

Without a fixed direction and even lost in the panel, he did not realize that he arrived at a place with an exuberant energy.

This was the place where the explosion had happened. Noticing his surroundings, he proceeded cautiously between houses and rubble.

"Curiosity killed the... What was the phrase? Well, I'll have to move carefully," he thought as he approached a large crater.

A giant body of what looked like an eagle and the body of a person were lying in the middle of the crater.

The bird looked lifeless and the body of the person lying there showed no signs indicating whether he was alive or not.

Analyzing the situation, he decided to get closer, "without risks, there are no benefits... See I remembered this phrase," Yes, I'm smart," he said to himself with an air of glorification.

As he moved, he was able to reach the spot and see the bird more closely. It was the size of at least a 5-story building, its body was still giving off energy which hinted that it was a high-class beast.

He decided not to approach the beast, so he first went to the body of the person who was lying, after all, his body was closer.

When he arrived at the body, it did not emit any vital signs. He could see that he was a middle-aged man. He had a suit that was all torn and it was not seen that he could be repaired.

"I'm not stealing, I'll just keep what I find so nobody can steal it, after all, I'm a good citizen," he thought as he searched the body for something of value. If the man were still alive, would kill him if he knew what he was thinking.

He just found a bag that he didn't know the value of so he put it aside.

He kept searching the corpse until he felt a pain in his hand and a notification in his head.

[High-Quality Core Detected]