Rank System

The monastery where the Timeless Monk lives is considered one of the many forbidden zones in the world after WWIII, albeit one of the less dangerous ones. Many people travel across the world in hope that the Monk will teach them his ways or even use his abilities to let them live forever since it is assumed he controls a super power related to time. There are four different SS ranked heroes with each controlling an element and everything it relates to. They are called the 4 masters, with each being named after the element they specialize in. The first one being Water and located on an island near the Mariana Trench. The second master is named after and has the power of Fire and is located inside a dormant volcano in Iceland. The third has the power of Earth and wanders the world in exploration, never staying in one place for long. The fourth and final master has the power of Air and has built a home in which he lives on Mount Everest. They each have their own influence as many aspiring B, A and even S rank super humans go to them for training and guidance.

These are only some of the most commonly known super humans with the Timeless Monk considered to have the power equivalent to a god and said to have lived for hundreds of years even before WWIII and just humans never having the technology to realize his power. This just shows how versatile or specialized super powers can be. From overarching concepts such as time, gravity and space and even the ability to fly or bend light like in many old superhero movies from before the war. As you would expect from super powers that diverse, many people enjoy being part of the privileged and wealthy class with their B and higher ranked powers. This leads to a better job, housing, security with the government who has known about your powers all your life since you first took the test at 10 years old. With such massive fallout from WIII the majority of people live in mega cities because of how irradiated or destroyed the more rural part of countries are. While you can travel from city to city on vacation one thing is essential if you want to reenter any of humanities cities. Your rank card.

The special card you are issued when you are 10 years old acts much like a social security number and without it you lose most of your human rights because of the assumption that you are a criminal hiding from UNHA and can't show your card for fear of being caught. The UNHA has over 5000 heroes working for them at any given time with the HQ in Geneva, Switzerland having at least 50 S class supers on hand at any given time. What they do when they are required to stay at the UN in order to keep their jobs? Simple, they teach.

The UNHA is also the location of the Hero Academy, the premier place to train as both a hero and a support or auxiliary personnel for the heroes. It is every young person's dream to grow up to work there even if they do not have a B+ class rank or higher. The benefits from graduating from the Hero Academy are amazing. First is the instant job everyone is offered based on their specification from anything from a janitor to a accountant there or even becoming a reserve member of the UNHA if their power is strong or unique enough. Other benefits include a fixed salary, universal health insurance for all alumni, special credit unions for alumni and even limited diplomatic immunity from your home countries if the need should arise with pro bono lawyers generously helping alumni at behest of the UNHA.

This is, like many other people at his college, Mark Hamilton's dream. To be like many and join the UNHA and live a better life and have a better future with the road onward paved with golden bricks showing his status to all who have treated him as less just because of when they met him or he showed them his rank card. Your rank card is treated like it is a part of you by most governments. It holds your credits which you use to pay for things, it must be shown at every store you go to, and almost universally people carry it around their necks in order for them to have easy access to it or even show off their rank if they have a high enough one.

This just further displays how mistreated people like Mark are when people are constantly looking at him or his parents with scorn, or pity just because of their rank. Many high-end stores or places will even place a mandated rank requirement to even enter or buy things from their store. All of this leads to an endless circle where since the age of 10 Mark has been told that he is just not good enough. To buy fancy clothes, to get into a world-renowned college like Harvard, to be considered for certain jobs and all because of his rank F government issued card.

One of Mark's biggest aspirations is to just train harder to finally become a E rank and have people stop looking down on him or get the gold plated card that alumni from the Hero Academy receive when they graduate.

This of course is easier said than done considering how much effort it took him to even attend a University in the VR world as compared to many prestigious Universities that still have a campus and actual buildings and are still well known despite the aftermath of WWIII. Mark chance seems to finally arrive in a small, unadorned letter he receives one morning a week before he graduates from college.