Family Heirloom

It had been nearly 30 years since the appearance of the 'Portals', these Portals literally teleport you to another planet, or dimension completely, with alien beasts, unknown to man, occupying the wasted and treacherous lands: with a ton of materials and new lifeforms to be collected and harvested. There are 4 types of portals distinguished by the artificial colour that humans add to them:

'Blue' for safe, habitable with weak F rank beasts and fully explored planet. These are mostly outposts for liberation of other planets, exploration and planet or asteroid cracking missions.

'Yellow' for habitable, fully explored, and portals having beasts at E and D rank, sometimes higher for either elite or boss monsters.

'Orange' for unhabitable, and portals with either the exploration is still in progress or unforeseen calamities could occur at any time. There are mostly military or the association's camps on these planets, which are there for the magic crystals, which are utilised for—not only research purposes—but also for creating technology and equipment far better than the ones that the post-Transhumans used. The beasts on these planets can be of a varying difficulty.

'Red' for unhabitable. These planets have beasts mostly of a rank higher than B rank, but the resources are also abundant and rewarding; even the rarest of all: Magisteel. Certain people are sent to red planets to look for more resources like Magisteel and Mythril, or for beast crystals, by the association.

———

As Quinn opened the box expecting it to be the Ability dew from the military, there was one more square shaped box inside, he was confused, but then he saw a note. It soured his mood immediately when he saw what was written. "Your parents' will, their message and inheritance lies in this box. Good luck to your future endeavours

-Major Ebon," the note said. "Jeez..." Quinn said, "Way too direct."

"Well, of course it wouldn't be an ability dew..." he sighed. Quinn was always picked on by his peers for not having an ability. Even if he wanted to do something, he couldn't, fearing they would just use their abilities and beat him up. There were the rich kids that abused their power and social standing to buy the highest quality Ability Dew that had guaranteed effects regarding physical enhancements and abilities.

He then went ahead and opened the box, there was a ring and some thick yellow paper, but this one was from his parents themselves.

He picked up the ring and inspected it: it looked really plain and it had a silver colour plated on the outside and purple colour on the inside, but there was another thing: the ring had cracks but they looked as if they weren't natural and as if the ring can be activated like magical gear.

Quinn then picked up the yellow piece of paper; he knew what it was: It was a holographic video. He turned the device on and the video began to play. There were two people in the hologram... Quinn's Mother and Father.

"Hey there, kiddo!" said his father In a cheerful and playful tone, "by the time you see this you'll probably be 16, and we probably won't be there to celebrate your birthday... " said his mother tearing up. They seemed to have cut some part of the video as the screen went black but after a second the screen lit up again, but this time there was only his father.

"Hey there again... " Quinn's father said as he appeared on the screen again, "your mother is finally sleeping, we wanted to tell you something about the ring we sent you. You see, the ring is like a family heirloom, of sorts... ."

"Your mother only found it a few years ago on a beast planet. To us, it seemed like magical gear so we tried to activate it, but it just wouldn't activate so we took it to a magical equipment expert to see if its even magic gear. When the results came out it said that the ring wasn't magic gear."

"After learning that it wasn't magical gear created by humans, I had given up hope but you mother still wanted to try every thing. She said she had this feeling... that she would regret not trying and activating it" he continued "trying to break the ring, burn it, throw it in acid. Everything she could think of, we did. But, it was all in vain, so she made me agree on giving this ring to you so you could figure it out. Let's hope that your mother was right about that hunch. I hope you succeed. But most importantly, we both hope that you lead a peaceful and happy life... unlike us."

"So, goodbye young man, we both love you" he said with a warm smile. Then instantly the screen beeped off.