Chapter 1

Daniel was sitting down behind a desk day dreaming about a more perfect version of himself.

Tall , hovering above most ppl , muscular like those professional body builders, strong and flexible like martial artists in Wuxia novels.

Though he didn't like how they stopped growing bigger and liked looking lean and clean in future chapters.

And most of all a veritable genius , who could master any topic , subject or tech with little effort. Who could draw up his own theories and generate entire new fields of study(technology).

And the madnesses of determination to never ever loose focus on his goals.

Daniel felt that if he had the first four findings the maddening determination should come to him naturally. After all he had lived a life of 17 years as mediocre ( his version of slightly above average).

But that's it those were just his dreams . Not reality.

Boom! Boom! Boom!!!

The ground shook fiercely and he tumbled over with his desk and fell . His ears were playing static noice ,and his head went spinning .He could literally feel the world swirling.

'what happened?! A bomb?!'

He staggered up onto his feet and surveyed his environment. The class room building was half collapsed some iron rods poking out of odd places he didn't know they could be placed. Concrete shattered and dispersed on the ground all around hima sizable chunk in fact fell so close to his desk a few meters and he'd have been paste.

He saw others screaming on top of their lungs trying to get help for themselves or others .

Some of his classmates had been injured severely and one cheerleader Joan, classes busiest body ,squished into paste !it was terrible, enough to make you want to wrench out everything in your body

Their homeroom teacher was in shock and could hardly move from his spot. And others like him confused, but surveying the situation with varying degrees of Hysteria.

Daniel felt something watching him so he turned 160° from his postion and saw a four meter tall insectoid beast !!.

That wasn't Normal! At all!!

Daniel had read many web novels of apocalypse by gaint beasts , he'd tried writing one too , but nothing beat seeing the thing in reality.

It was utterly disgusting and grotesque.

How did the novel characters ever think to touch such abominable creatures?!.

But there was one thing Daniel was good at, imagining the impossible . Although his mind could never congure What he was witnessing , at least it preped him a bit for such an event!

He lept out of the way using one of his mates as a meat shield , and lo his meat shield Connor, a casual aquitqnce of his he'd spoken to since middle school was skewered through the lungs by a four foot long insectoid leg. Having little chance to understand his situation before being devoured alive .

At this time no one was not aware of what was going on they were shocked stiff with fear and incredulity , onlyto be taken out of their stupor when a mentally unstable lolli in their class shrieked so loud a visible sound wave emanated from within her acting as a projectile and hitting the insectoid.

It sent it hurling backwards ripping a part of Connors half eating corpse out of its mouth

Everyone around instinctively clutched their ears and laid on the ground trying to get over the multitudes of shocks that came one after the other.

It was too strange to process. the sequence of events were too bizarre! . It was like a fever dream , only more real and with factors like skin scrapped and injuries that told them it was all real!

The insectoid though didn't die like one would have hoped. It just got back up and centered it's attention on the lollie , Mavis .

At this time Daniel who had been with the class , had strategically place himself at the very far end .he saw Mavis had gotten abilities, and was shocked .

What was the criteria, was it possible for him to get one! Daniel was also aware that in some web novels the person obsessed with powers never actually got them leading to madness.

But he was lucky not long after Mavis had manifested he and a few others actually also manifested abilities!.

Although his was a silent kind!

Instantly Daniel was taken into his memories, reliving his entire life all over again from birth to date . He experienced it he remembered it all at once every detail of every moment. some stuff he had not even noticed before like his father cheating on his mom , his sister texting a hitman on an enemy when they were on vacation.

His memory heightened to an impossibility.

His ability to connect theories and concepts instantly became godlike.there were other minor changes that summed up to make him a higher level of genius .

But Wat was foreign to him was actually an intuitive sense on energy , understanding of energy .

He couldn't feel it with his body like most would think, but he could understand it better than any normal human should.

For instance he was part of the physics club , and usually they come together to cobble up a drone or two . He had watched many YouTube videos on various kinds of drones.

Military drones , cyberpunk aesthetic drones , high quality drones and experimental drones .

He believed if given the resources he could make a drone that surpassed the current climates version of a high tier drone. And moreover the wasted energy would be at least 70 percent fully utilized . This was because earth civilization still has yet to come up with the tech to prevent energy waste. Supper conductors were still a theory , proven to succeed, but had no practical applications.

But Daniel had to put all this stuff on the side while he focused more on the subsequent set of events .

Two others apart from himself and Mavis had manifested abilities.

His childhood friend Jay and an obscure loner in his class Eric.

While Jay didn't seem to know exactly what his power was , one could visibly see the translucent dome that encased him.

Daniel was now a above board genius what others glanced over he paid close attention to.

The dome encasing Jay was a barrier , arguably not strong enough but the way it blocked out most of the external activity like rubble and wind .

Daniel also noticed it was very unstable.

But not dangerous.

He felt like if he had Jay's ability with his improved consciousness, he might be able to do more within the first two seconds of manifestation.

But did he want to switch places?

Hardly , he felt like he was an animal without this improved mental state.it had barely been a minute and he already had big plans.that was if he could survive.

His power made him a genius, even his physical state improved, he knew exact which muscles to use to walk run and how to perform delicate tasks. He was aware that the more time passed , he would understand his body and it's functioning more and more until something would happen. He wasn't sure what it was , but something would

Usually in Apocalypse novels where humans gained powers there would be some resources trapped inside the monsters body that could be used to continue to improve the chosen ones, but this was reality, in reality things were fucked up , so would it still be the same as in webnovels

Suddenly he paid closer attention to Eric the loner kid . He seemed to have gotten his power under control very quickly . Because debris and iron rods lifted up into the sky and attacked the insectoid beast four feet meters high and buried it under tons of weight.

There was silence for a while ,before chaos came.

"How did you do that ?!"

"Mavis too , and Jay !"

People either surrounded them or backed away .

Mavis was so overwhelmed she almost let out a scream . As said before this girl was mentally unstable, Daniel was sure she didn't even know that she being so careless could end up seriously hurting someone close to her .

But Eric got her before anyone else could . He cupped his hands over her mouth to keep her silent. Mavis noticed this and was struggling with him trying to yell . Daniel felt that had she been able to understand her abilities Eric wouldn't be able to exploit this current weakness. With his genius he could infer many things including the force behind her direct sound attack, and he doubted a human punch would me that strong. Maybe that of a professional martial artist.

"Shut up , don't you know you will kill us all ?!"

She still was struggling, Daniel believed she didn't care about anyone else at this time, and only after hurting someone will she calm down.

Daniel scooted over trying to get to Jay when Emily came from the woodworks crying and yelling about Connors death .

"Connor!!! Ah Ahhh Ahh Connor!!!"

She was grabbing at the sands wailing, snot nosed and red eyed .

Daniel took the time to look at her , but offered no help , after all it could be said he was the reason Connor was dead. He had ruthlessly used another human as a meat shield to save his life ,was he sorry ? Of course he was .

Would he do anything differently? Nope.

Even with his awakened powers he knew he had done the only thing that would have saved his life. Hiding behind a wall or running wouldn't have helped .

Going toward the danger and defeating it was impossible at the moment. His muscles had never developed to take on such a task as killing an insectoid beast.

He wouldn't get past the carapace before he got munched on like a gummy bear.

It was either Connor or him , and that wasn't even a question.

Daniel had always been partially ruthless to others .he paid his respects to his Savior and scoot closer to Jay's side.

When he got closer he saw that Jay put out his ability, it was a shame because Daniel felt he might gleem something from being within the effects of the barrier.

"Jay you have superpowers?"

Daniel started . Jay looked at him and sent a weary smile .

"Mmm"

Was his response. Daniel took in all his minor gestures and understood. Jay and him had been close friends for very long , but there was a power dynamic between them .

He was superior to Jay in Academics , and Jay was superior to him in anything related to human relations.

But with Jay's public manifestation he had "another thing" he was superior to Daniel in , and he was flexing these new muscles on him.

Was Daniel upset ? Well yes , but he found it to be a human thing, and won't hold it onto Jay . Did he plan to reveal he manifested to get on the same level with Jay ? Nope.

Having read many novels, Daniel knew how dangerous being a genius in an apocalypse could be .your freedom became a was a waste of resources, also within this short amount of time Daniel had gotten the idea of genetic enhancement technology.

With silence he could mask what exactly his true ability was

So what did he do ?

Daniel immediately took out his mobile phone and checked if the Internet was operational. He called his parents mother first and father second .

None could answer. He called his older sister and she could pick up .

She said she was in her college dorms, and the hall had barred themselves from the monsters coming out of swirling blue portals . There wasn't one around his school which probably went the insectoid monster came from a portal not far from them , but not too close either

Apparently their parents were in a shelter under the city , which was probably why they couldn't answer the calls because the signal was problematic.

So what did Daniel do after this? Utilized his Access to the Internet and the schools WiFi to download many videos , texts and scientific material in relation to bioscience

*Genetics* Study of genes, heredity, and variation in organisms.

*Ecology* Study of the interactions between organisms and their environment.

*Evolutionary Biology*Study of the processes that produced the diversity of life on Earth.

*Anatomy*Study of the structure of organisms and their parts.

*Physiology* Study of the functions and mechanisms of living organisms.

*Cell Biology* Study of the structure and function of cells, the basic units of life.

*Microbiology* Study of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

*Botany*Study of plants, including their structure, growth, and reproduction.

*Zoology* Study of animals, including their behavior, physiology, and classification.

*Biochemistry*Study of the chemical processes and substances that occur within living organisms.

*Biotechnology* Application of biological techniques and processes to develop products and technologies.

*Neuroscience*Study of the nervous system and its impact on behavior and cognition.

Daniel had always found biosciences to be the most beautiful of all sciences. But never studied it because he didn't have the ability. But if now he had it he was going to exploit it .

So while Eric and Jay were becoming the "leaders" of their class group and their homeroom teacher got tied up to a chair and everyone was getting aquatinted to the change in the world climate.

He was taking all he could from the Internet, mans most prized innovation.

He was sucking any and all he could from it .

He knew many knowledge was hidden from the network, but he must get his foot in the door, and from there with his genius he can forge a new path ahead , one made for him.

Daniel had a lot of plans , it seemed to be a new feature of who he was post manifestation.

He connected issues , where there were no links and frankly found his limits appeared to be how much he knew , and time.

Many classmates decided to go home , and so they gathered together into groups and tried to get Eric to follow them for protection, in case they run into monsters.

Some got Mavis, while Daniel just stood behind Jay going at it with his phone . Out of all those present he seemed to be the least worried.whispers went round about how it should have been him who died to the insectoid beast and not Connor, but he'd used Connor as a meat shield .

Daniel was aware of all that was going on but he ignored it. Did it affect him? Yes , yes it did,not only had he first encountered death on this day , but he had by intention indirectly lead to one. He'd rather die than let anyone know that it affected him thou .