1 Late Again

"We welcome humanity to the beginning of a new year and a new century. May we continue to flourish and make many more advancements in the coming years! Here's to making more cherished memories in 2600!" 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 6" and dark hair with a strong tint of green running through them. He had some casual jeans and his favorite hoodie, which made him blend into the darkness.

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-story 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," 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 comes to such promises. Mako was quite scared of him as he never wanted to be on his bad side.

However, Mako didn't know 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 final civil war that happened after the Yalhvi shared their secret to power with the humans.

The Yalhvi refugees presented themselves as having converted into a peaceful race who refused to use violence after the events that led to the destruction of their entire world.

The Yalhvi envisioned that they could help humanity prosper and grow into the perfect race using everything they had learned and to warn them of the mistakes they had made so that Earth would become a safe haven devoid of any threats, an ideal place for their future generations to live and right the wrongdoings of their predecessors.

They wanted humans to use the power and knowledge they gained from them to help raise their society as a whole and not focus on using their powers to harm and suppress others.

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 had 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 made the human energy economy boost a millionfold and even made galactic 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 an asteroid 10 km in diameter.

The Yalhvi had the purest intentions as they wished to turn humanity into the great race they were destined to be but had failed due to greed and corruption. 

At first, it looked like the humans were indeed going to turn far greater and successful than the Yalhvi were able to be; however, after getting all the use out of the Yalhvi, humans being the greedy monsters they were didn't heed any of their advice or warnings and instead felt discriminated as they felt they were being ordered around by the refugees that they had given shelter to in the first place.

The Yalhvi couldn't do much against the will of the humans as they had little position of authority which ultimately led to humans forming a brand new hierarchy with the strong oppressing the weak.

The Yalhvi continued to try and direct the humans to the correct path using their voices and holding protests and rallies. They slowly started to form a following with many who followed in their ideals and wanted an out from the corrupt world the human leaders had created with the strong and privileged reaping all the benefits.

Seeing the Yalhvi as a potential thorn in their path to global dominance, the greedy and corrupt powerful humans labeled them as enemies of the human race and ordered for them to be killed on sight with anyone found following their ideals being labeled as a traitor to the human race with them also meeting the same fate as the Yalhvi.

In the years that followed, the population of the Yalhvi continued to reduce and reduce until ten years later it was reported that the last Yalhvi was murdered.

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.

This was the last civil war that happened before order and peace was restored on Earth, but the damage was done with the Yalhvi's extinction and unimaginable amount of losses to so many families. 

It was during this war that Mako's father and mother were both killed while he was still an infant and left to his grandmother's care.

Quickly following the ending of the last civil war, Humanity quickly began to rebuild and heal from the wounds that were inflicted in the past century.

All the corrupt and greedy humans that had caused all of this damage quickly fled to other worlds deep in space to escape the wrath of the ten mighty warriors, swearing revenge on the Earth itself.

After the ten mighty warriors had resolved the civil war between the humans, the humans started to explore the unknown space with much fervor with the ten mighty warriors also leaving to pursue and find the culprits behind the Yalhvi's extinction.

Since then Humanity has progressed way further becoming a galactic race that has traveled to many parts of 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 resources as well as their knowledge and research about the universe.

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 quickly healed from its battle Injuries, and life moved on. New cities were constructed on the remaining available land. 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 FALCON to ALPHA 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 while maintaining their search for the culprits, which once again led to the Earth being unsupervised.

It wasn't to the point of a new civil war, but a Hierarchy-type system was established once again 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 greedy people of today had learned from the past and developed ways to make sure that there wouldn't be another outbreak with the legendary warriors having to be called back to Earth once again.

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 using many other tactics on society as a whole.

This led to the state of the current earth, where over 15% 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 various jobs, 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 a 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 kneaded 15 kilograms of dough.

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Author's Note: Hey guys! Universal Power System is one of my favorite projects and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it. This is my very first work so expect some amateur writing and a few slips, but I always try to learn and correct myself so I can create a more co-hearentt narrative. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Come say hi to me: https://discord.gg/TvjkrdnbE2