He was always the strongest in his town. His family and the people in his town expected great things from him, and even though his strength exceeded the norm, he never let it get to his head, still being a kind, humble and helpful kid. Naturally, this made him loved and respected by all the villagers. He never had any grand ambitions, he always thought his life would continue being boring, but still homely and satisfying, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
But fate randomly has other plans sometimes, being the busybody it is, and so came the fateful day when the Seventh Holy Order arrived at Marcus Finch's village and changed his life forever.
Now, let me give you some context. In the world of Tolterra, there were 10 continents, however, even though geologically there were ten continents, there were only 4 superpowers, who each controlled 2 or more continents. The 4 superpowers in that world were - The Holy Kingdom of Marjura, The Farauan Corps, Amnity United Front and finally The Harmony Alliance.
The Holy Kingdom of Marjura had the weakest military might when compared to the other superpowers but it still continued to stand, unshaken. Why? Because, while it didn't have the greatest military might, it had a lot of other things going for it. One was the incredible loyalty that the people had toward the kingdom. They treated the citizens fairly, and in return had a huge population and a whole lotta people who would take up arms if the kingdom ever got into a jam rather than just run away.
The kingdom also had the greatest healers when compared to other continents. They had progressed much further in medical magic than the other continents, making them incredibly resilient, and increasing their value as well.
Farauan Corps and the Amnity United Front had similar levels of power, with the Farauan Corps boasting the best resources humanity had currently discovered. They were the suppliers of basically the entire world through their trades. The Farauan Corps, since they were so resource rich, also attracted a ton of people and species from all walks of life, dwaves, elves, beastfolk, you name it.
While different species inhabited the other places, the population of different species was nowhere close to the population of species in the Farauan Corps.
Amnity United Front consisted of people who mainly dove directly into technique development and skill strengthening. They were truly a military focused superpower. The only reason Farauan Corps caught up to them in terms of power was due to the many species living there who are widely regarded to be much more powerful than the humans.
The Harmony Alliance, as the name suggests, are a bunch of mysterious, morally questionable, self inclined twats who preach about peace while being so arrogant it oozes out of their pores...Can you tell that I don't particularly like them?
But no, I shouldn't be telling you what to think about them, I was a journalist, I'm supposed to be objective here. I should just stick to the facts and let you decide that they are arrogant pricks yourself. Or maybe you won't feel that way, who the hell knows?
Anywho, the Harmony Alliance is the most mysterious, because there is an entirely different species living there, along with a few people from every superpower. They mostly advocate peace and stay in the sidelines, but that doesn't mean they aren't powerful. Either way, you'll find out more about them later, so I'm not going into details now.
Marjura had 2 continents under it, Farauan and Amnity had 3 each and Harmony had 2. Also, keep in mind that everything I've said about these superpowers aren't an ironclad rule. Of course there are other things that happen inside them, but these are like their main focus. Got it? Awesome.
Marcus Finch, lived in the Hasira Village, located in the country of Aragog. It was under Marjura's rule. Marjura had two distinct leaders who managed their own territories and had their own goals and agendas. There were the King of Marjura and the Pope of the Holy Temple.
The King, of course, couldn't manage 2 continents by himself and neither could the Pope, so they together made and organization called the Order of Knights. Sounds familiar? Yeah, they are the ones I talked about at the beginning of the chapter.
The Order had about 50 massive squads, numbered from 1 - 50. These orders each control a part of huge kingdom. They carry out the kings or pope's commands, based on how loyal they are to one of them (A whole nother ballgame, I'll tell ya later) and are responsible for making sure the people they are looking after live properly. They have to solve problems, discuss improvements or changes to be carried out to make living better, settle disputes, arrange tournaments and most importantly, find talents who can elevate the kingdom's standing.
And so we arrive, back to the arrival of the Seventh Holy Order, who arrived at Hasira to hunt for children with talents that they could take with them and train so that they contribute to the kingdom.
Children, at the tender age of 15, usually awakened a talent. These talents had different grades based on how powerful they were. Thankfully, while grades of the talent mattered a lot, there were times when an F grade talent, if used correctly, could be more useful than an A grade talent. So no matter what grade talent you had, you would be able to live a good life, you weren't discriminated for it. Even normal people without a talent weren't treated too badly. They weren't given much support, sure, but they weren't abandoned. So even if you didn't awaken, it wasn't too much of a problem.
But...there were people who the entire world hated with a passion. The Crippled or the Damned. The reason they were hated? They caused more harm to the people they helped. Every time they tried to help, it would always backfire, hurting the people they sided with instead. It was because of this that the Damned were shunned and oppressed by the entire world.
Once you were pronounced a Damned...your life would always turn for the worse