1 The Day before Awakening
History is boring... or at least when it's told too many times, thought Damien as he supported his chin with his fist, trying to keep up with the narration of his teacher's patriotic lecture about how earth got colonized; a story he had heard millions of times.
In the year 2037, three years after the end of World War Three, aliens came knocking on the doors of humanity.
Bearing sophisticated weapons and wielding unimaginable power far above the understanding of humans, the Voronoi easily conquered the earth.
It was as easy as taking candy from the hands of a baby.
Earth was no longer free but now a slave to alien forces.
That was when humanity realized that the wild theories about there being life outside earth, civilizations far advanced than ours and the possibility of there being extraordinary powers were all true.
Why?
The reason was simple.
A week after the takedown of the earth, the Voronoi introduced humanity to the Alliance. It was a ginormous online system which connected numerous planets and races that had been discovered till then.
Run by a sentient yet incorruptible artificial intelligence being known as the Divine Advanced Universal Network or DAUN for short, every known race was registered and made to join the Alliance.
It has its own mega ultra-realistic holographic virtual reality platform which allows beings of all races to trade and interact with each other and also have fun. Anything could be found or sold on DAUN.
It is through this that humanity and earthlings were finally introduced to the awakening of the three components of everything; the spirit, the soul and the body. With this, superpowers were now made privy to us.
Humanity managed to overcome the stagnation of the previous era and was now ushered into a new era, the era of impossibilities now made possible, the awakening of the mind, of the soul and the body. Having a body capable of flight, a mind sharper than a supercomputer and ability to control the elements were no more alien concepts to man.
Thus, the path of enlightenment and evolution is in three parts, that of the spirit or mind, the soul and the body.
And now it is your turn, young ones, to embrace that power and to know which path you will walk. All of you in this room are going to take that crucial step and awaken your true self, wielding power beyond your imagination. Remember this though; when the power is finally in your hands, make humanity proud.
Any questions?
The teacher ended his passionate speech, looking around.
"No Mr. Davis!" came the chorus reply of students.
"Very good. Your results are finally out," said Mr. Davis, throwing the class into a frenzy.
The previously dull and bored looks now switched into that of anticipation, hope, excitement and fear.
Now that is something interesting, Damien thought as he perked up in his seat, eagerly anticipating Mr. Davis' next words.
"Before I give them out, remember this; these results are just a conjecture. Whether it is good or bad does not mean you will have the same results during your awakening so don't give up hope. Everything will work out," Mr. Davis said with a smile.
His words fell on deaf ears though.
It was well known that before awakening, tests were conducted to ascertain the path a person might take on the journey to become strong.
This allowed the government to know which grade of Enlightenment fluid to give to students even before they awakened.
The Enlightenment fluid was what engineered a successful awakening and it had grades. The lowest grade was grade F and the highest was grade S. The higher the grade, the better the quality.
Of course, the government has always been very stingy especially in the distribution of resources so this test was a means for them to find out those whom were going to be a waste of Enlightenment fluid so that they received lower grades of it.
Thus, the better your test results, the higher the grade of Enlightenment fluid received.
The hope of all the students about to awaken was to have good test results so they would receive the higher quality fluid. Though the awakening was dependent on the person, the Enlightenment fluid hastened its chances of success.
One would then wonder how accurate this supposed test would be.
The tests taken before Awakening brought results which could predict the outcome of a person's Awakening almost accurately, at an insane percentage of 98%!
This meant that whatever results came out after the test had a 98% chance of happening so whom was Mr. Davis trying to deceive? If the test came with negative results the person might as well give up on awakening in the first place!
If the results went downhill, there was only a 2% chance of it being inaccurate and even if a person had heaven defying luck which caused the results to be false, he would have already taken a low grade Enlightenment fluid which would be detrimental to the person's growth and that would affect them in the near future.
Either way, the best bet was to have good test results to prevent taking low grade E and F Enlightenment fluids.
Too bad this test wasn't 'cheatable'.
"So I will send you comprehensive details of the test individually and also send a general evaluation publicly. As we all know, the marks are from numbers 1 to 20; 1 being the lowest and the further it goes, the better the result," said Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis fiddled with his comm and the desks' of the students projected the results holographically, allowing the students to peruse through.
It didn't take long for whoops of excitement, mild cursing, wails and noise to fill up the class.
"I got a 11!" one boy boasted, puffing his chest with pride.
"Shut up, Freddo. Who cares?" grumbled another guy who stared at the solid 4 by his name in dissatisfaction.
"This test is crap! F*ck it all!" cursed a guy with dyed mint hair as he smashed his fists on the desk.
All around, students were mostly in agitation and worry. Most of the class had numbers below 10 and only six people had results between 11 to 20!
The silver lining of the test though, was that no one failed. No one had a big fat zero on the sheet. As meagre a satisfaction it gave to those with lower marks, they were still relieved. After all, having a zero meant that you had no future!
Numbers like 2, 3 and on up to 10 meant they could awaken successfully but their path would be full of thorns.
Well, the journey of an awakened was filled with thorns but still, those with lower talent would have to put in twice the effort to even catch up to the geniuses.
However, the possibility of them becoming very strong in future was in doubt. Now, all they had to hope for was that they awakened a strong or useful power tomorrow.
That way, they would at least receive a lot of resources.
There was one problem though which was of concern to everyone, including those with a mark above 10.
Having a better pre-awakening test result didn't guarantee that you would awaken a strong or useful power. The awakening of those powers were random and hugely relied on luck!
Rich kids or rich young masters from prestigious families were able to somehow influence the kind of Path they awakened in. Even then, the power they awoke in that path could be utterly useless!
That was how random it was!
Thus, a person could have a very solid mark of 15 and awaken a superpower like stomach enhancement!
With such a superpower, safe to say the person was done for!
No one would want to employ or be associated with a walking glutton whose hunger cravings got worse as they ascended in power! Such people could bankrupt the biggest of restaurants!
Perhaps the only people who might find a use for him would be the military, that is if his power allowed him to narrow down his stomach or go for a month without food!
If so then they would just need to find a suitable weapon for him.
Nonetheless, no one wanted a useless ability like stomach enhancement or rapid speech! Everyone wanted the big guns!
Elemental manipulation!
Berserk transformation!
Extreme strength!
Healing power!
Beast summoning!
Those were the kind of powers that made people regard you twice!
Those were the powers which would determine your standing in a society where power is key!
With such powers plus a very good mark, a person was set for life. The government would pull all stops and get the person in the best academy, shower them with resources and give them training!
That was what everyone wanted.
Unfortunately, it was easier said than done.
Besides, it was all up to luck.
Who dared boast that he had extreme luck? No one!
The only thing to be done was to leave everything to fate while keeping fingers crossed.
Who knows?
Perhaps the god of luck would smile on them!
On the other hand, if your luck screwed you over? Then buddy, better forget about receiving a lot of resources from a stingy body like the government.
When it came to such matters, their fists were tighter than durasteel!
Already, by not having a high mark, people's resources were already in doubt. Fortunately, it wasn't set in stone... anything could happen.
For now, those with the bragging rights were those with higher marks in their test results, the "big 6".
Everyone frantically looked through the list to locate those with marks 11 and above. After all, Freddo was the only who noticeably stood up and broadcasted his excellent results. All that mattered were the other five people.
Damien kept looking at his holographic screen in shock.
"There's no way this can be possible," he whispered to himself, hardly believing what was before him. Unlike most of the people checking the nominal results with the numbers, he had gone further ahead to open up the private one sent by Mr. Davis.
"Hey check this out! Someone got a 19!"
"No way!"
"Who is that? How did he hack the system?"
"The government test results can't be meddled with, stupid,"
"Is that even possible? The highest last year was a 16!"
Everyone was in shock, staring at the name beside the 19.
Brightly displayed was the name Damien Walker.
Almost immediately, everyone turned to look at Damien.
"Bro wtf?" one guy blurted out in shock and awe.
