Chapter 2 - The World After

After the pods fell, it was quickly found that people that drank the liquid, dubbed 'The liquid of power', gained supernatural abilities. Some received more physical strength than was ever thought to be possible for humans. Capable of flipping cars with ease and being more durable than steel. Some gained magical abilities, capable of wielding the elements as if they were an extra limb. One thing was for sure, all of humanity had changed. A study had found that every major city in every country received pods. It's been confirmed that over 500 million people have opened a pod so far. However, the platinum and Ornaum pods have yet to be discovered. So far there has been 350 million people confirmed to be bronze hunters, ~150 million have been confirmed as silver rank, and a mere 23758 were confirmed as gold rank. So far, hunters have been used as disaster relief, soldiers, doctors, producers, and police. Edwards now wife included. With her healing powers, she was hired by the nearby hospital as a bronze doctor. Anyone who loses limbs or gets sick can be healed up within a day with her power. The gold rank hunters are treated as celebrities, as they're strong enough together to contend with all the other hunters combined. They are treated as a countries most important person along with the likes of their own leaders. The world revolved around these super-humans.

It had already been two months since the saviors visit, and people started to notice weird things happening around them. Some people felt nauseous to the point of vomiting, while some even passed out. It was thought that the world was going through a pandemic that we had yet to identify. Others were saying that this was because of the calamity that was said to be happening soon. Some religious groups were saying it was signs of the end. One thing was for sure though. Something wasn't right.

While all this is happening, Edward, his wife, and Penelope, were on a trip in the mountains near his house in Colorado. "So, Ruby, how do you use your powers," Edward asks, "who knows maybe I'll find some of that power juice someday." "Honestly, I don't know. It's just something that comes to you naturally, like breathing almost. It's something I do almost subconsciously," she says with a slightly quizzical look on her face. Edward stops them at a clearing on the path near a sheer cliff so they can eat. "So, what kind of ability do you think I'd have? Maybe a super macho ability that makes me able to punch through solid metal sheets," Edward says while posing like a body-builder, which looks quite comical with his chubby frame, "or maybe I'd have magic that could destroy mountains with a flick of my wrist!" "You know that production abilities are by far the most common right? While it does make people much stronger than those without the power, nobody can destroy mountains. Not even a gold rank magician could do that," she says sternly, but after looking at his pouting face she continued, "but who knows, maybe you'll be able to do both of those things. While gold rank magicians may not be able to destroy mountains, they can destroy a building with ease." She was referring to an incident that had occurred four weeks ago where two gold-rank hunters accidentally destroyed a small apartment building while having a dispute. Edward laughs at himself with Ruby joining him, and Penelope just sat eating her PB&J sandwich with so much jelly it fell out everywhere.

Edward stops laughing after a few seconds and stands up near the edge of the cliff and says, "when I think about how awesome it must be to be an ability holder, I can't help but wonder. If gold rank abilities are already able to do that, imagine what the platinum and ornaum abilities would do. They probably could destroy mountains effortlessly. Who knows maybe one day humanity will be able to make the power drink synthetically? Just imagine a world where everyone has at least a weak set of abilities. Maybe that what the Renori are like." "They probably do live like that, especially since they were able to send so many pods to Earth. It also makes you wonder how terrible this calamity is going to be, especially if gold abilities are in the middle as far as strength. The stronger we are the stronger it could possib-" she stops her sentence in the middle while jumping back slightly. A blue slate appeared in front of her with the words 'Prepare to fight for the survival of your species' as the ground around them started to quake. Penelope started crying and screaming, and Edward was starting to lose his footing, falling towards the cliff. Ruby attempts to reach out and grab him but is just barely unable to grab his leg as he tumbles over down the cliff.

As Edward falls over the edge, he shields his head with his hands instinctively. He falls down the cliff for what seems like ages, cutting his back up on the bushes and small rocks, before eventually come to a stop in what looks like a fairy ring from celtic mythology. He slowly recovered enough to stand up and saw a foggy ring of trees around him with a less foggy path leading into the forest. 'Uh-uh. I don't trust that,' he thinks to himself. He turns around and walks in the complete opposite direction and gets lost in the fog for what seems like hours. He grits his teeth angrily and starts running. After another minute or so he is out of breath, in pain, and exhausted. Then he decides that he should try walking back, because the one thing that path had going for it is that the fog didn't look nearly as thick down it. He turns around and walks for about thirty seconds before coming back to the clearing. 'Well, this destroys my perception of reality.' He starts slowly walking trough the path, and is surprised to feel that when he walks down the path, he starts to recover both his wounds and his exhaustion. He walks down this path for an hour straight, and it leads him to a cave. Surprisingly, this cave is lit up on the inside.

Edward walks up to the cave and feels what seems like gusts of wind without any actual wind. When he takes a step into it, he starts to sense something further in that makes him want to run away but gives him a stronger feeling of wanting to go deeper. As if the thing inside would bring him immense pain, and immense pleasure. As he gets deeper in, he starts to feel his body getting stronger and stronger along with the feeling. As he gets to the end, his body is shaking in anticipation and fear. He sees sitting in the middle of the cave a pod with a dark red color with golden patterns all around it. He walks up to it and touches it. He feels a sting in his finger as the pod starts to open. It reveals a giant barrel made of the same material with a tube attached to his finger. He immediately freaks out, trying to pull the needle out of his finger, but before he is even able to touch the tube, he starts to lose consciousness.

It's been about five hours since Edward fell, and in that time, Ruby has gotten the park rangers to start searching for him. Penelope ended up falling asleep after crying for a long time, and Ruby herself was close to doing so too. They found a spot where it seems he started walking down a path, but his footsteps disappeared about halfway through. She has checked her social medias and heard that there were caves appearing in the middle of cities and that some were found close to well-traveled paths. She heard creatures that are nearly impervious to bullets had started to come out of them. The only method found to be useful in fighting them was for hunters to fight them. She felt more anxious than she had her entire life. They had just gotten married a few weeks ago and were finalizing their adoption papers for Peppy. He couldn't die here, not after everything that has happened.

Edward wakes up, and is shocked to see a bright blue tablet floating in front of him with the world 'Congratulations' on it like a cheap card you'd buy for a distant relative. He's even more shocked to find that his body which was usually on the chubbier side had been slimmed down and his muscles had become more defined. His body looked above average, but his muscles had become much stronger than they looked. He looked back up at the tablet and it said 'Welcome to the hunt, Ornam Hunter. You will be teleported immediately to the Tutorial zone.' Before he could protest, Edward found himself in the middle of a field. The blue tablet displayed his status:

Name: Edward Knight

Race: Lesser Human

Title: Ornaum Hunter

LVL: 1 [ 0 / 90 ]

HP: 200 / 200

MP: 1000/1000

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 10

Vitality: 20

Perception: 10

Wisdom: 10

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Active Abilities: NAN

Passive Abilities: Ornaum Privilege [200% XP BONUS, 10% XP REQUIREMENT REDUCTION]

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Items: Ornaum shortsword, Ornaum kite-shield, 50 Ornaum ingots

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Edward looks at his stat board with a shocked expression. It had just clicked in his mind that he had become a hunter. Not just any hunter, the ornaum ranked hunter.