Chapter 3 Cultivation Ranks and Ability Levels

One hundred and fifty years ago, when star energy just entered the earth, many people awakened supernatural abilities. With that star energy, people began to cultivate to break through their mortal body limit.

Cultivation Ranks are divided into 9 levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Black Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster, and Legend. Each rank has 9 minor ranks, from 1 star to 9 stars.

Regarding supernatural abilities, one person can have only one ability in their whole life. There are two ways for people to obtain abilities: awakening them normally, which is quite rare, and using ability books.

The ability books are made by people who awaken their abilities normally. They write down how they obtained this power and put the information in things called ability books.

These ability books also have 9 levels, with level 1 being the weakest and level 9 being the strongest.

These books are sold to the public, while the military keeps some of the stronger ones for themselves. Generally, ability books from levels 1 to 5 are sold to the public.

Giant corporations and the military keep the higher-level ones to themselves, and only members of the military and those giant corporations can obtain higher levels of ability books.

Some abilities can only be passed down by bloodline. For example, if someone has awakened an ability, then only their son/daughter, grandson/granddaughter, and so on can use it.

These abilities are called original abilities, and every family with an original ability calls themselves an Original family.

Original abilities are not only rarer but also stronger than the abilities found on the market. And up until now, only 8 such original families are known to the world. Each original family is as strong as the military, so their status is unshakable.

Jin Wei, as a Vampire, is different. Although he can also learn only one ability like any other human, he has many racial abilities that normal humans can't have. And as he evolves, he will gain more.

Cooper is currently standing in front of all the students, calling names in groups of ten. These students will then be sent to the gym room to take the test.

Jin Wei, waiting for his number, suddenly smelled something, and a smirk appeared on his face.

"It seems the protagonist is in the same sector as me!" Jin Wei muttered and headed toward the scent of another vampire.

A vampire can tell just by one's smell if they are a vampire or not. But for a halfling like Liam, it's currently not possible, so he can't tell if there is another Vampire like him here.

...

Inside the crowd of new students, a young man can be seen standing with an extremely tired look.

He has an average-looking face with symmetrical features, highlighting his purple hair as a distinctive trait that adds uniqueness. The blood-red eyes can be portrayed as captivating, giving an intense and mysterious allure to his appearance.

He is around 180 cm tall, has a muscular physique, and is wearing a white T-shirt and black pants.

He is none other than the protagonist, Liam. Unlike Jin Wei, who has the ring to resist sunlight, Liam has no such thing, so currently, he is in a weakened state.

"F*ck this body! I can't even use the strength that I used hard work to build up until now!"

Liam cursed out loud. He was dissatisfied that he became this blood-sucking mosquito out of nowhere last night. He hated this.

His previous world was a world of magic and swords where people used mana to strengthen their bodies and fight against demons.

Unlike his previous world, this world is entirely different. Mana is not present in this world. Here, people use star energy instead of mana and cultivate to break through the limit of the mortal hood. But the problem is that he can only cultivate after the age of 18.

Since he couldn't cultivate, he focused on training his physical body. So his physical strength was already on par with some average 1-star Bronze rank cultivator.

But yesterday night something unexpected happened; it was his 18th birthday and the day he should awaken the star energy in his body.

Like he expected, he did awaken the star energy in his body. But for some reason, he also awakened the hidden Vampire bloodline he had in his body, causing him to turn into a half-vampire and half-human, a Halfling.

As for how he realized so soon, it was because the moment he turned into one, his strength increased and was already on par with some peak 1-star Bronze rank cultivators.

But that's not all; his body was craving blood. And no matter how much he tried, he couldn't control his urge to drink blood. But as a hero of humanity, how can he drink the blood of some innocent humans?

So he controlled it as much as he could until he found a mutated rat, as big as a football. He instantly killed it and drank its blood until it was completely dried.

After drinking its blood, he finally felt relieved, but then realized he turned into some blood-eating monster.

Even in his previous world, he didn't encounter such an evil being who lives on drinking the blood of other living beings.

The first thought he had was to kill himself since he didn't want to harm some innocent humans because of his evil instinct. But later, he stopped because he knew the world was in danger and needed his help, so he couldn't kill himself yet.

The next morning, the military came and took him to the military academy. However, upon leaving his room, he realized that exposure to sunlight had significantly weakened his strength.

During the night, his strength was on par with some peak 1-star Bronze rank cultivators, but after coming in contact with sunlight, he became weaker than even some old man in his 60s with no cultivation.

His body felt extremely hot right now, and he was sweating buckets of water. Fortunately, he had drunk a load of water beforehand; otherwise, he would have been extremely dehydrated right now.

"Hey, are you okay?" A stranger standing next to Liam asked.

The stranger's name was Jimmy; he had slick blue hair, ocean-blue eyes, a chiseled face, and a sharp jawline. He stood at 189 cm tall.

"If you want, I can call someone for help?" Jimmy said, looking a bit concerned.

"It's okay; I'm just a little bit nervous about the test," Liam replied as he tried to ignore his tired body and stand up straight.

Jimmy looked Liam up and down. Liam was quite muscular for his age, but he also looked quite weak right now.

"Dude!!! Are you on Steroids??? You know that's harmful to your cultivation career, right?" Jimmy asked curiously.

For Jimmy, Liam was a muscular guy whose strength should be stronger than normal students. But still, he looked this weak. So there are two answers: either he was ill or he was on steroids and suffering the side effects.

But the second option seems to be most likely the case because after awakening, a person's physique gets stronger than before, and they rarely get ill even if they haven't started their cultivation. So the only possibility is that Liam was on steroids and was facing the side effects right now.

"Sigh... I am not on Steroids, and stop bothering me!" Liam replied with an irritated look and completely ignored him.

"Oh, is that so? Then my bad. Anyway, I'm quite strong, you know. If anyone messes with you, you can come and ask me for help." Jimmy said with a proud smile.

Liam didn't usually get on with the overly energetic and positive type of person, but he found it hard to dislike Jimmy.

In his previous life, he had a friend like Jimmy at his party. They went to defeat the demon king but, in the end, died together.

So if possible, he won't mind being friends with a guy like him.

"The name's Jimmy," Jimmy introduced himself with a smile and extended his hand towards Liam.

Liam looked at Jimmy for some time; he then also smiled and shook Jimmy's hand as he introduced himself, "I am Liam."

...

While Liam and Jimmy were chatting, Jin Wei looked at everything with a dissatisfied look.

Jin Wei knew that this guy named Jimmy had a mysterious background, and in the story, he became Liam's biggest supporter, who even put his life on the line to save Liam many times.

So he naturally wanted to stop Jimmy from approaching Liam. But unfortunately, it was not possible now that they had already met.

As Jin Wei was thinking all this, he suddenly heard Sergeant Cooper's announcement.

"Liam Sin, Jimmy Tempest, Joey Chuck, Sakura Gleam, Victoria Scarlet, Ben Dover, Sue Mee, Barb Dwyer, Les Ismore, and Anita Bath, all ten of you come to the front to take your test."