Universal Power System
Chapter 1 Late Again

"We welcome this brand new year with the hope to bring a great change, and to continue progressing forward! Happy New Year 3100, Everyone!" The holographic image of a female spokesperson sounded from every tall skyscraper in Emerald City.

As the artificial fireworks sounded, a boy walking down an alley grunted. He had a thin frame with a height of 5ft 11" and dark hair with a tint of green running through them. He had some casual jeans and his favorite hoodie that made him blend into the darkness a bit.

This is Mako Grey.

"Humph! A happy new year for the people who have power and money, but it's the same situation for us." Mako voiced his internal dissatisfaction while continuing to head to his destination.

Mako took a left, arriving on a busy street with various types of decorations on the sides of the buildings, in celebration of the brand new year. He kept walking down the street until he arrived in front of a two-storey building that looked like a bakery.

"Hey! you nitwit! you're late by about an hour, How am I supposed to run this business if all my workers keep slogging their butts to work?!" A man yelled at mako from across the store as soon as he walked in.

This person was the owner of the bakery, a chubby tan-skinned man with no facial hair except a goatee that was as thick as a dense forest.

"Right away Sir Derek! I promise I won't be late again, and this won't happen again." Mako apologized hurriedly while putting on his apron from the locker room.

"You better be... or it will come out of your salary!" Sir Derek threatened the young boy as he made his way into the kitchen.

Mako gulped down hard at the thought of getting his pay cut in any way. Knowing Sir Derek, who doesn't play around when it came to such promises. Mako was quite scared of him as he never wanted to be on his bad side.

However, what Mako didn't know was that there was a sweet spot in Sir Derek's heart that made him always care about Mako, and those threats were his way of teaching Mako discipline.

Mako had no choice but to suck it up and start working since he couldn't afford to lose this job as this was the only source of income that he had to provide for himself.

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Mako's parents were killed during the last war that happened after the Yalhvi shared their secret to power with the humans. Humans being greedy monsters started to fight each other to assert dominance over weaker beings.

The Yalhvi were a peaceful race who used their power to help raise their society as a whole, they never focused on using their powers in the form of combat, and because of this, the Yalhvi were soon eliminated from the surface of the Earth.

This was a huge blow to many humans who respected the Yalhvi for all that they had done for them, which sparked rage in many people's hearts from the heavy loss.

During the peak of chaos, out came ten mighty warriors who fought side by side to end the final war and establish order in the world.

During the time that the Yalhvi were still alive, they not only shared the secrets of how they obtained abilities but also shared all of their technological advancements with the humans.

They shared a blueprint of a device that would later be recognized by everyone as a Dyson Sphere, a mega structure that would envelop the entire sun to extract all the energy. This revolutionary idea was what made the human energy economy boost a millionfold over, and made intergalactic travel between solar systems possible.

It was because of this discovery that humanity was able to encounter a few different alien races even before the civil wars between humans took place.

Other than that, humanity also made major advancements in many different fields of expertise, for example; artificial Nanites were created to eradicate cancer and other previously incurable diseases, and geological devices advanced so much that natural disasters could be predicted months in advance, and non-nuclear weapons having so much destructive force that they would easily destroy a whole planet the size of Mars.

After the ten mighty warriors had resolved the civil war between the humans, the humans started to explore the unknown space with much fervor.

Since then Humanity has progressed way further becoming an intergalactic race that has traveled all around the Milky Way, encountering many more aliens; some good and some bad.

Many "No Warfare" Treaties were signed between the aliens with the condition of mutual benefit of each other. The humans would provide protection, troops, weapons, etc... or whatever else that they asked which they could easily dispose of or mass produce, and in return, the aliens would have to give something back that would be of equal value; that being new unresearched materials and more knowledge.

It was through this exploration and treaties that humans discovered even more revolutionary materials, such as; the Amgdilla species of plants that were found on the planet Sirius that are used to create medical healing pills or the Hillorium metal ore found on almost every planet within the Flying Disc solar system located 22 light years from our solar system.

The Earth slowly healed from its battle Injuries, and life moved on. New cities were constructed, and on the remaining available land. Since during the wars, people used various abilities quite excessively; it caused the geological picture of the Earth itself to change with ocean levels rising and consuming more of the land.

The land that was left was joined together through powerful ability users and the entire Earth became a single continent, home to people of all cultures and traditions.

A power measuring system was established for ranking a person's power level, for example; a brand new person who has awakened in power is said to be generally at ROOKIE Rank, while the ten warriors who ended the wars are said to be at a power level so high that it broke the scales of the system's measurement so the scientists created a rank just for them, which was called the MYTHICAL Rank.

There are ten ranks in total that a human being has managed to achieve except those ten warriors that are in a league of their own. The ranks are listed from the weakest to the strongest, starting from ROOKIE to NOVICE to ALPHA to FALCON to ACE to ELITE to GUARDIAN to MASTER to GRANDMASTER and finally to LEGENDARY Rank.

The actual power level of those warriors has never been tested again, so even with more improvements made to the system; their actual power couldn't be confirmed.

The ten warriors moved from earth to different regions of the galaxy to handle affairs there, which lead to the Earth being unsupervised.

It wasn't to the point of a new war, but a Hierarchy type system was established where a common man wouldn't even have the means of getting power as it was made crazy expensive by the now common trillionaires of the world.

The road to gaining power had been turned into a game of monopoly. People can't use abilities if they can't afford one, and the only way to gain power is to be filthy rich or have a strong backing.

Many people lost everything during the civil wars, some their families while others their businesses. Only a small group of people were able to maintain their wealth or take the opportunity to hoard any new discovery that was made to turn it into a business, and make an unbelievable amount of profits from increasing prices, imposing unnecessary taxes, and many other tactics on society as a whole.

This led to the state of the current earth, where over 40% of the population would never have the chance to awaken and use abilities. The only way for a person to still gain power was to join the military, which provided everything for them with the condition of first taking compulsory two years of training, and doing 3 years of compulsory duty.

For people like Mako, it was the only option as the only way for a person to survive in the world with a decent level of lifestyle was to have a certain amount of power.

There were still many organizations that provided their employees with abilities in order to do their job, but people like them had no control over it as there were many restrictions placed as to when a person was allowed to use the ability. This same concept held true for many more professions as there were only a handful of people who could afford an ability by themselves and had complete control over its uses.

The military school recruits young people straight out of specific high schools to ensure that they can assess the youth's power. During the two-year session of training, the military puts the students through many rigorous tasks in order for them to prove their worth to them.

Some are so strong that they get offers for high-ranking posts inside the military, while some have a rich background and are only doing this training as a form of teaching them self-defense. These types of students are those who drop out of military school after two years and live the life of luxury.

People like Mako need to serve in the military for three years after high school, and will most likely continue to serve there which would be a great escape for him because he would rather become strong and reach a decent position where he could sustain himself without being dependent on anyone

"Just two more months..." Mako said internally as he knead 15 kilograms of dough.