fractured earth

The cold breeze startled Kobe awake. The first thing he saw was blood. Then the sting of sweat and blood mixture in his eyes made him gasp, inhaling the most vile smoke he'd ever tasted. He coughed as the splitting headache from a wound on his head, and the sensory overload from the flames and smoke assaulted his senses all at once.

"Aaah FUCK!"

Kobe covered his face with hands as he calmed his mind. Take a few shallow slow breaths, he wiped his face and looked around, trying to asses his situation.

"Those fuckers really left me here! All for some shitty stones… they weren't even High grade."

He looked at the house in front of him that was burning slowly. He still didn't know who built it here or why. Or how it was even still standing so far outside the city walls. After the fracture, almost all man made structures fell in the earthquakes. Those that survived, were eventually razed in beast hordes.

At least that was the history Kobe learned in VR school.

The year was 3224. 2200 years ago a solar flare unexpectedly exploded from the Sun, and the force fractured the Earths core. The resulting earthquakes basically rearranged the land masses on the planet, exposing the core, and with it, the energy that had been stored and building up inside since the earths conception. This energy was the basis of all life on earth, and when combined with solar energy, all life forms evolved. Quickly. Like overdrive quickly. The records of that time are sparse, but what is known is that Humanity went from 8.9 Billion, to less than 2 billion in less than 50 years. The earthquakes took out almost half the population. Every city was demolished, and the fallout created chaos among mankind that went as expected. Every species began to evolve, and soon the guns and techniques humans used to reign over the food chain became obsolete. The solar flare fried all the satellites, so the internet went down. The Age of Technology seemed to have ended in flames. Literally.

But humanity is a part of life on earth as well. And so those who survived the initial disasters began evolving along side nature. Mentally, physically everything got stronger. People became able to absorb the elements based on affinities, and this allowed them strength to fight back against other species that threatened them. More about that later.

Somehow this castle- like building was still standing. When the explorer squad that Kobe joined yesterday stumbled upon this place, they thought they struck it rich. Relics from before the fracture could be sold for huge amounts to research guilds and the city gov. All ancient human tech was metal based, so there would always be an abundance of copper, aluminum, and other processed metals that could be extracted and reworked into useful items for exploration, hunting, even some cheaper vr pods that might used an upgraded version of that outdated tech.

Instead, after exploring all 5 floors of this castle, with 15 or so empty rooms, all they found was a few cases of common mid grade water elemental stones. And a heavy stone door that looked like it might lead to a cellar, but they couldn't open it. Of course, due to the squad leader Grey, and 2nd in command, who also happens to be his wife, Leti are both water users, realizing that this amount of mid grade stones could allow both of them to breakthrough, which could upgrade their strength and lifestyle immensely. They were both Tier 3 Internal realm, and had been at a bottleneck for over a year. They had been teaming up with other lower levelled Internal realm explorers looking for anything that could allow them to break through, and this felt like a god send. If it had been any other element of stone, they would've split it up accordingly. However, they needed water stones, and they couldn't afford to buy the rest of the team off. So, rest of the squad had to die here. It was unfortunate, but they had just met these guys yesterday, so no love lost. Leti quietly dropped a water bubble over the head of their Tier1 scout, drowning him, while Gray waited for Kobe to come through the bathroom door. Kobe came out of the bathroom and was met with an icicle to the head. The last thing he could remember was ducking and slipping down the stairs, toward that door that they couldn't open before. Then total blackout.