Sapphire High, Sapphire City :
In the sapphire city, which is treated as a trade hub in the Silver Province, today in the Sapphire Public High School, the awakening ceremony is being held. Every child who possessed mana will undergo this awakening, they will become hunters and lead their lives differently from other people.
This is due to the events from 25 years ago. The Tower of Trials appeared on Earth, along with came countless dungeons which poured monsters out. Players are the only contingency against these monsters, hot weapons, missiles, modern technology has little effect on this.
If they eliminate these monsters, Nuclear strike is the only option yet they can't keep using nuclear weapons, and it'll also cause colleteral damage, not to mention even if they blew up the area they can't take out the portal from which these monsters will pour out, the only option became players. They need to clear the dungeon regularly in intervals to extend the cooldown of this portal so the monster wave won't appear.
A monster wave appears when the portal or dungeon gate is allowed to accumulate too much mana that creates more monsters inside it ultimately leading to monsters waves, in some cases the dungeon may even upgrade and throw even stronger monster waves outside.
To prevent this s disaster the Government hired players and built an association to oversee these dungeons. But not all players agreed to this, some created their own guild and tried to forcibly taken gates under their rule, this caused some conflicts and launched more and more monsters waves as neither the Enforcement Association of Player nor the guilds backed down.
In the end, the Government compromised giving those private guilds some gates but didn't allow them to challenge high level dungeons under the association. The guilds as a retaliation tried to attack players that belongs to the Association. Although there were more conflicts, an agreement is reached 10 years ago, the Government will occasionally auction some dungeon gates under it to these guilds, an oath is written to not to target each other, thought it left many loop holes like the newly recruited players or using external means to target each other.
Overall, it's pretty chaotic and human greed is not something that can satisfied. Currently both the Government and these guilds are working to clear the tower and dungeons as their conflict caused the biggest monster wave in human history. Sapphire City is 75% destroyed in this incident.
Realising their mistake, both sides quietly took on their duties while EAP also reached a decision to call Guilds if they can't clear the dungeons alone. Overall, Silver Province returned to peace because of that incident. Now the time for awakening. Once a child reached 16, he will be allowed to undergo awakening which grants him a skill from the tower.
The age 16 is a requirement placed by the tower itself. Those attuned to mana will be undergo awakening to get an innate skill. This skill can help them grow stronger at their initial levels. And will also determine their future path in some cases. At this moment, in the sapphire high, such an awakening is also taking place.
" I heard one of our alumni became a third class expert ".
" What? Is that true? Who is it? ".
" It's John Hughes, he got the blood berserker class. There is an update about that yesterday in the EAP website ".
" Wow, so cool. That means he must be around level 200 or something right ".
" Yes, Third Class Awakening will only be allowed after level 180 and for a confirm awakening, you need to be at least level 200 ".
" Woah, he climbed to level 200 in just two years ".
" Heh, so what? Our players are stuck at 75th floor unable to advance from it. If it isn't for the rule that players will never die in the tower, our forces must have been wiped out long ago ".
" That's also true. The Red Dragon boss with Level 400 there is almost unbeatable. It has the bonus of damage reduction for both physical and magical attacks by 80%. Not to mention immunity to some elemental spells ".
" Don't forget it's breath attack and Dragon Might that makes opponents it's opponents fell terror and lose 60% of their stats ".
" I wish we could do some help after the awakening".
" Look at this bastard talking ".
" Heh, it's not a bad dream to achieve. My father told me to join the association after awakening. I'll look forward to it ".
The crowd became noisy, everyone talking to each other. Damian stood there in front of the awakening platform.
" Grow up well Damian. We will watch over you from above ".
His parents last words sounded in his mind. They're both players who have undergone 3rd class awakening. His father is a Warlock of Death and his mother is an Enigmatic Alchemist. Both perished during an attack from the dark guild on this city. Among the players, the one who succumbed to the abyss and colluded with other races like demons are labelled as Dark Players, they will be penalised by the tower for abandoning their faction, but they will be blessed by forces of other world and undergo a mutation which turns them into henchmen of abyss.
Collectively they named themselves as the Dark Guild. They even has the nerve to say they will lead humanity towards evolution urging everyone to surrender to the abyss. His parents fought against them during that attack, they came back severely injured. Even Damain himself is very severely injured as a group of dark guild members managed to breach into their house. They dragged their severely injured bodies to kill them and tried to heal him. Before he lost consciousness he heard these words and saw a purple red light as they spoke these words to him.
He woke up in a hospital few days later and the association gave him the news about their demise. He survived until now thanks to their foresight of saving some money for him, their home, their artifacts and everything else was destroyed that day. Damian from that moment onwards swore he will definitely make the Dark Guild and the Abyss behind them pay a huge price for what happened.