Awakened

As Kevin and the doctor were focused on chatting about their work, they both lost track of time until three hours later when the protective pod suddenly beeped and the whole building's emergency alarm went off.

The chaotic scene shuffled between the pod voicing "System Warning! Energy Overload! System Warning! System forced shutdown in 1 minute" and the emergency alarm's message, "All personnel and visitors to evacuate the building immediately."

The doctor rushed over to the pod and saw a green glow had clouded the pod to the point of being unable to see the person originally laying there.

"Shit!" he ran out of the room and activated the exam room's level 3 protective barrier.

He grabbed Kevin's arm and pulled him to the emergency escape. Kevin pulled back and resisted, he shouted, "What about Ken?!"

The doctor quickly explained, "Don't worry about him, worry about yourself. His own energy wouldn't harm him."

Kevin lessened the resistance reluctantly and the doctor pulled him again to continue their escape. Kevin asked, "What's going on?"

He felt the doctor's grip trembled. When they reached the ground floor and exited the building, there was already a crowd outside all murmuring in wonder about this turn of events.

The doctor controlled the excitement in his voice and said to Kevin, "It's my mistake. The pod was only meant for awakenings of ranked A to F. I've never thought there would be an S rank awakening on our planet."

Kevin's eyes widened, "You don't mean..."

The doctor nodded, "It's an S awakening! Even in the imperial capital, there are less than two every year. Throughout the galaxies, an average of ten every year."

Kevin calmed down, "In a hundred years, there are 1000 S-ranks. If you think about it this way, it's not that rare."

The doctor whacked Kevin on the back of his head, "And you call yourself a researcher?! The population of our galaxy is almost 100 billion. Do you know what probability this is? Per year, ten S-ranks are split between our Tristar Force Union and others." He lifted a hand and rubbed his chin, "I haven't heard of another S-rank awakening this year yet."

Suddenly a strong gust of wind blew against their backs. Both turned and saw several helicopters above them. Compared to helicopters of the old times, the main rotor and blades were just for reminiscing decoration.

Kevin exclaimed, "Reporters!" The doctor patted him on the shoulder and said, "They have eyes everywhere."

"This is getting out of hand." Kevin wiped his face.

That was not the end. A small-sized black spaceship approached from a distance until stopping above them, casting a shadow on their faces.

The doctor tsk-ed, "Even the army is here." He turned on his ID watch and switched to a random news channel.

A small hologram screen with the face of a woman who was on the scene came into view.

"This is Anna on scene at the Awakening Research Center. As you can see below us, a crowd has evacuated from the building and is waiting for the birth of a new S-rank. Speaking of S-ranks, on our Planet 51, the last S-rank was from five hundred years ago."

She continued, "This a moment of excitement! As you know, our four common attributes seen in A-rank to F-rank awakenings are fire, wind, water, and earth. However, it is well-known S-ranks awaken uncommon abilities outside of these four categories. Last year, an alpha—Mr. Lewis—from imperial capital awakened wind and a strength-type ability."

"The year prior to that, another S-rank omega, Miss Wengle, awakened a healing-type ability. Perhaps, we will be able to witness the birth of another rare ability today."

As she said that, the black army spaceship finally made a move. Two alphas emerged from an opened compartment and jumped to the ground.

As soon as one of them formed a wind barrier, an explosion came from the Awakening Research Center. The wall of a room on the 14th floor was completely blown out. Debris made a quick dud on the wind barrier before sliding harmlessly to the ground.

The crowd looked up and saw a green light clouded over the room and blocked the view of the inside. Slowly, vines crept out and slowly crawled down the walls until it reached the ground.

The reporter Anna almost forgot about her job and just gaped at the crawling vines. She snapped back when she felt a vibration on her wristband— a notice from her boss to continue the broadcast.

Anna faced the camera with excitement, "Oh my goodness! If I saw right, those are vines! A wood ability! The last time a wood ability was recorded was a thousand years ago."

"Some of our young viewers might not know the value of this ability. After the Great Destruction, plants, animals, and humans had evolved. We can hunt beasts for meat and start our own agriculture farms for vegetation, however, many of the plants we use in drugs are only found in the wild and cannot be cultivated. Moreover, those plants come with natural toxicity which is hard to remove."

"For someone with a wood attribute, they could cultivate those plants and remove the toxicity in them. Yes, there are a lot of comments coming in, let's see-"

Suddenly, the screen blacked out and the camera was also experiencing signal issues.

Many in the crowd found there was no data service to their ID watch, which could access the internet.

Meanwhile, the vines had reached the wind barrier and started climbing. The other alpha who had also jumped down was of the destructive fire attribute, but now he realized the awakened had a valuable wood-type ability. He could just burn the vines but that might interrupt the awakening.

His colleague shrugged and said, "Ask for water, earth, or wind backup. Or evacuate the people behind us."

The fire alpha grumbled, "Easier said than done."

Before he was able to send a message for backup, the vines started to retreat and the whole area returned to silence.

The two alphas looked at each other. Originally, they were supposed to go recruit the awakened, and finding it was a wood-type was not the current issue that would prevent them from their duty.

The problem lies in that some gentler attributes never appear in an alpha's awakening, like water and healing abilities.

A wood-type... most likely it was an omega. Two alphas should most likely not approach an awakened omega who had no control of their abilities. If their scent influenced the omega to go into heat, that would be another total headache.