The Ceremony (1)
Richardson High School, Thane City.
"Everyone should know that today is one of the most important days in your lives. This day will decide whether you can walk the path of Hunters or not", the headmaster spoke to the young students that filled the school ground.
As he said, today is truly the most important day in their life. If they could successfully awaken their abilities, they would take the path of hunters or else they can only live like commoners.
This was not the life one used to live on this planet more than a thousand years ago. Most people had a very common life. Though there were wars, it was confined to certain regions.
There were governments in the past that worked efficiently, though not at one hundred percent, and they could maintain law and order in their respective countries to an extent.
This changed when the Gods and Monsters descended.
Those that were considered myths became real.
The monsters entered the world through dimensional rifts and the first thing they did was indiscriminately kill people. For them, the people of this world are food.
In addition to this because of the instability the dimensional rifts brought to the world it was reshuffled.
Lands submerged, and new lands rose from the sea. Landmasses that were on opposite ends of the world stood side by side. Everything got mixed.
The old world disappeared and a new world emerged.
No one knows the exact structure of the world at present.
The sudden invasions and shifting of lands are disasters that caused the population to plummet a lot.
At this moment is when the gods descended.
Though they never showed themselves, they spoke through certain special people who were termed Emissaries.
The gods directed mankind through the process called Awakening.
When awakened everyone gets a class and a system.
The system is nothing but a status panel, which shows the user's attributes and details. It's personal and can't be seen by others unless the other person has such a gift or an artifact that can be used to see the details.
The class specifies which stream the awakener has the greatest affinity with.
For example, if a person awakened the mage profession, he can excel in the spells concerned with such rather than in using a sword or any other weapons. Even within a mage, the person could have an affinity to a certain element.
The awakening created a path to fight back against monsters. The ones on this path are called Hunters. All hunters are maintained by the Hunter organization. They have freedom as long as they flow within the limits.
This organization works under the Federal Alliance but is not directly controlled by it.
Federal Alliance was formed almost a thousand years ago by a coalition of City-States.
When the world fell into chaos and the governments failed, the countries of old got dissolved.
The awakening created powerhouses that took people under their protection. This created City-States.
The city is where most live with a few small villages scattered around, and the surrounding wild area would be controlled by the said city. This was working at first but without coordination, many such city-states fell.
From this Federal, Alliance was born.
The founders of those cities would give up the power of the city and instead become a member of the Federal Alliance Board. They establish laws and maintain them across the regions.
Now the cities have mayors and the states became provinces, which are governed by their respective governors.
When the alliance was formed it was only three provinces, now the number rose to twenty-six, each with a major city in the province. All of these are not who came under the alliance, some are formed later as the power of the alliance rose.
There are once twenty members on the board when the number of city-states joined the Federal Alliance and turned into provinces.
Though today, the structure was changed, and there are only ten members of the council. This number isn't stable.
The method of becoming a council member is changed and now anyone can become a council member and be recognized as Royalty as long as they qualify certain criteria.
Thane City is located in one such new province called Richmond.
Today the awakening ceremony is being conducted.
The Headmaster of the school continued, "Now students when your name is called, should come on to the podium for the awakening. Only five students can awaken at a time. So when the teacher announces their name, only they should come to the podium.
Once the awakening is completed, please go to your respective classes for further instructions. the ones who fail to awaken, you can leave for your home. You would have to pass the final exam to attend college if you want to get a job in the future."
"Now let the ceremony begin."
The headmaster left the podium to take a seat by the side.
A middle-aged teacher stood up and started to call the names of five students at a time.
There are five awakening crystal balls on the podium attended by five teachers, one for each crystal ball.
When the five students arrived, the ceremony started.
"Andrew Kern, Fire Mage, Potential - A."
"Anita Solas, Wind Mage, Potential - B."
"Jessica Hay, Holy Knight, Potential - B."
...
...
"Wow, Andrew is a Fire mage and moreover he has A potential. He would reach A-Rank before most of us reach C-Rank."
When a person is awakened, it's just not his class that can be seen but also his potential.
Potential defines the growth rate of that person. It is divided into four levels C, B, A, and S, where C is the lowest and S is the highest.
Every Hunter starts at F-Rank and the potential defines the highest rank that person can reach during the lifetime.
A hunter with S potential reaches the next rank faster than hunters with A, B, or C potential. Anyone with C would have the least growth rate and many die even before they reach C-Rank.
Hunters with S potential are rare, while most hunters have C or B potential.
So anyone with A potential would be treated as Kings.
The ceremony continued for a few hours in this way.
"Next are Jasmine Azura, Jake Kaizer,...."