"So this is how it ends?" the young boy thought as he strolled through the park.
His name was Ethan. He was seventeen years old, miserably fat, and had just failed his talent awakening evaluation. In a world where twenty percent of the population were said to awaken magical abilities, he had found himself among the insignificant eighty percent.
The park was quiet that afternoon. Kids were playing near the fountain, their laughter echoing through the thin air. Old couples were lazily sitting on park benches, reminiscing about things that didn't matter to Ethan. The sky above was its usual self, clear and calm.
But this world isn't truly this calm. Because fifty years ago, everything changed. It started with weird events occurring frequently, as scientists picked up strange things in the atmosphere. The air felt heavier, but no one had any reasons. Compasses went haywire. Electronic devices acted up randomly. Animals got uneasy. Birds changed their usual flying routes. Creatures from the deep sea floated up dead for no reason.
Then came the reason.
Mana Saturation!
That's what the governments called it. A new form of energy was leaking into the world. It wasn't from the sun or outer space; it just showed up, like there was a crack in the universe.
People didn't take it seriously at first. They moved on with their daily life. There were still jobs, bills to pay, school exams, and also wars and political arguments.
Then, the first Gate opened.
It appeared right in the middle of the highway. A swirling, glowing oval of blue light that seemed to tear right through the fabric of space. No one knew what it was, and as speculation ran wild, panic took hold, cars crashed and swerved to avoid the anomaly. Within minutes, the army arrived, joining the news helicopters already buzzing through the sky.
But nothing happened for six hours.
Then something came out. The thing that will change the course of civilization forever.
The footage, everyone saw the footage. It was a monster – nothing like anything seen before. Four limbs, black scales, glowing eyes. It tore through soldiers like they were made of paper. Bullets slowed it, but did not stop it. Explosions barely made a scratch on it.
By the time they killed it, three hundred people were dead.
And that was just the beginning.
More Gates popped up everywhere.
Few small ones appeared in small towns, and some big ones were closer to the coast. Some were floating high up in the sky, and others appeared underground. Each one gave access to another world. People started calling them Dungeons - worlds inside worlds. Places where the normal rules of physics didn't apply, and mana hung thick in the air.
But as time went on, people discovered that those dungeons were more like gateways to a pocket world—a zone within a larger world that scientists called "False Heaven." They went with that name because when one enters a dungeon, for a fleeting second, they feel an euphoric state that makes them feel as though all their worries are gone and they are in heaven.
But with the Gates came more monsters.
And the government tried to contain the monsters, but they kept failing. Missiles destroyed whole city blocks but didn't close the Gates. The military could handle the weaker monsters, but the stronger ones needed a big sacrifice to be taken down.
And then, something strange started to happen.
People started changing.
The mana in the air started to change people's bodies. Most people just felt tired or had headaches, but some people experienced something else.
They Awakened their Talents.
It usually happens when people were stressed, scared, or close to death. They would feel heat in their chest and light behind their eyes. Then, they would feel power.
Some got stronger. Others could control fire, ice, wind, or gravity. Some could heal. A few could even bend space.
The first Awakened person stopped a monster with their bare hands. The footage went viral. This person was glowing blue and crushed the monster's head, a monster that had killed an entire military squad.
Groups started up quickly. Strike groups. Awakened guilds. Training schools. Governments changed their defense strategies. The military started using magic users and strike squads instead of tanks and planes.
Power levels started to exist, from E rank to SSS rank. Later, they added special ranks for Talents that were rare.
With the dawn of the Age of Awakeners, life changed drastically. Cities were rebuilt as reinforced hubs around the Gates, and insurance companies began covering dungeon raids. Some schools shifted their focus to combat training. Children no longer grew up dreaming of becoming athletes, doctors, lawyers, engineers, they wanted to become Awakeners.
About twenty percent of the world's population usually awaken abilities. But even among them, most weren't so strong. They were E rank or D rank. The real money and fame was only for the higher-ranked ones.
The other eighty percent were ordinary. They had normal office jobs. Drove trucks. Taught classes. Cleaned the streets. They depended on the Awakened to protect them from monsters.
Ethan grew up in this world.
He remembered watching Awakeners on TV. He remembered how the camera crews struggled to keep up with them during raids, with their movements too fast to capture. He remembered thinking that one day he would stand there as well, reporters yelling his name.
At fifteen, he started basic training. He did exercises to sensitize himself to mana. He meditated to feel the energy.
He tried hard.
But during the official evaluation, the crystal in his hands stayed dull. There wasn't any reaction.
The examiner smiled politely, but she didn't mean it. She marked his file and told him he could try again in a year, but she didn't think he would awaken.
Most awakenings happened before eighteen.
Seventeen was already late!
Ethan sat on an old bench by the lake, staring at how the water mirrored the city's skyline. Above the tall buildings, one of the Gates shimmered like a rift in the sky. It was always there, a strange part of modern life, used by the rich. All day, groups of Awakeners—in strong gear and acting like they owned the place—went in and out of the Gate, bringing back stuff from the other world.
As he watched them, Ethan gripped his knees tightly. He wasn't really mad at the world. Mana had changed everything before he was even born, and nature didn't care about feelings. Mana didn't care who deserved what, and the Gates sure didn't care about being fair. But as he saw another group of Awakeners come down from the sky, he felt stuck and useless. It wasn't hate, but a quiet understanding that the world was unfair, but that didn't make it any easier to accept his fate:
To live in a world of heroes and be born ordinary.