The Power of Stem Cores

While the contest to be number #1 on the knowledge portion of the continued; on the other side of the school, law and order was finally restored. The teachers and enforcers struggled initially to break up the kids, but over time their strength began to overpower them. Eventually, everyone was restrained with void cuffs. Most cuffs nowadays are made with void material capable of subduing stem energy. This prevented most people from breaking out of them, and it became the norm for disciplinary groups to have at least a number of them in possession. The enforcers and teachers were still flabbergasted by the brawl that broke out.

"What the hell happened here?" Rang out an authoritative voice. Entering the scene was Jessica Starfield, a no-nonsense black long haired girl with piercing red eyes and a muscular frame. Her uniform was stripped with dark blue and dark gold linings with a black collar. The black arm patch on her left shoulder displayed her rank as the commander of the disciplinary squad. Her nickname was known as the "Devil of Enforcers." Her stern and low-pitched voice led many to mistakenly believe that she was a male upon appearance. However, her demeanor and frame commanded an aura of respect, and during any group events, many desired to follow her because of her extraordinary leadership.

"Ma'am, after speaking with the people involved, it seems that they were fighting over a virtual ring thrown into the crowd by the student Hearth, containing footage of his sister doing cosplay." A male enforcer spoke with a neutral tone.

Jessica sighed in return. Her relationship with Terra wasn't anything extraordinary, but they would still call themselves friends. She pitied Terra for having such a shameless brother, but it still amazed her how Terra didn't seem to mind. It's one of the many reasons Jessica found Terra a woman worthy of her respect. Despite how horrendous her brother seemed, she still helped him and displayed her honor for their family despite his flaws.

Her obscene affection towards her brother caused Jessica to occasionally speak about it to Terra. She gave too much leniency towards her brother, and this made Jessica even more concerned. She knew Terra, and there was no way she would do cosplay, but not only did she do it, but she also gave the video to her brother. It screamed crazy, and she hoped to talk about it with her as soon as possible after her exams.

Clearing her thoughts, she turned to her second officer in command. A bald-headed man was wearing a similar uniform with a blue arm patch instead of a black one. He had a lean figure and sharp green eyes. "Assign every student here cleaning duty and revoke their gaming privileges for a week," Jessica commanded.

"Yes, Ma'am." The man replied. He began to bark orders across the hall and the enforcers led the crowd of degenerates to the disciplinary committee to await their verdicts.

She wanted to punish Hearth as well, but the only wrong he had committed was defaming his sister, which she could already guess that Terra wouldn't care about it, unfortunately.

Knowing nothing else she could do, she shrugged her shoulders and left the scene. However, as she walked away, a sudden thought sprung in her mind, 'where is the virtual ring!' She quickly turned around, returned to the scene, and scanned the floor. Unfortunately, no matter how much time she spent looking, there was no ring in sight.

"I'm sorry, Terra; you can only hope the video doesn't get released." Jessica mentally apologized in her mind.

Meanwhile, in the exam room, many students were concentrating silently. Although the students knew they had 0 chance at competing with the two queens of the school, they still needed to do well because their positions were still on the line, and they could get replaced by another student. By being in higher-ranking classrooms, they had access to better teachers, environments, techniques, and resources to improve their stem cores. Terra scanned over the question about stem cores, and the question asked her to write a short essay about them. More specifically, they're purposes and history. Being as detailed as possible she wrote down her response. Stem cores are essentially star essence synthesized into a microscopic core. These cores are basically the power system of humanity. They represent wealth, status, and power and also increase life expectancy.

Under the decree of the famous stem core act issued by the senate, stem cores would be nationalized. They announced that everyone, regardless of status or race, would receive a stem core.

It was met with enormous skepticism and pushback at first among the wealthy. Since their discovery, stem for countless millenniums, had always been the biggest market of mankind. Universal business conglomerates that had lasted seemingly forever had most of their revenue from stem cores. The Federation of Man had no sympathy for these significant companies either. The Federation of Man completely nationalized their business and redistributed the money to the workers of these companies while they helped find them new jobs. These conglomerates that had lasted for millenniums collapsed within hours, making their reign of supremacy end just like that.

With their collapse also came the reclassification and organization of stem cores. They became known as 7 different types.

The Basic stem core is what everyone was provided with and allows them to perform basic abilities.

The Enhanced stem core is an upgraded version of the bare stem core. It's what most people in the Federation desire to obtain to grant themselves or

their children a better future.

The Advanced stem core is when the stem cores truly display their power and potential. However, it is also when the wealth gap starts to reveal its ugly head and is the limit the masses can ever hope to reach. Most data estimates agree that 95% of the human race has a stem core equal to or less than an advanced one, with an even smaller percentage having an advanced stem core.

Master Stem Cores are more or less what separates those of great wealth and people who aren't. They cost up to 50 million credits. To put that into perspective for a regular person to understand. The Federation dictates that the minimum wage across mankind is 15 credits an hour. In other words, someone working minimum wage would have to work around 3,300,000 hours to purchase one. Or about 380 years. To put that further into perspective, with the technology available now the average age for even the poorest of the poor is around 300 years. Including expenses and other unexpected fees makes it virtually impossible to obtain one, even for the most determined minimum wage worker.

Pinnacle stem cores are incredibly powerful and separate the giants of society from the rest. About 1% out of the entire population of humanity has a pinnacle core. For most powerful entities, these represent the strength of themselves or an organization. They are also the limit of what a citizen can possess, and the cores prices are beyond more than just credits. It's believed that someone needs connections to the Federation to obtain one.

Beyond the pinnacle, stem cores are fusion cores. Their power is incomprehensible and a closely guarded secret that regular people don't know much about. It's said that they can only be obtained through assuming a powerful military position or becoming a senator.

The final known class of stem core is a Singularity core. That's about everything that people know about it. People know that it exists and has a name, but any information about it is speculation. Though many people guess that the number of people with a singularity core can be counted on the fingers of a human.

However, having a powerful stem core is not the be all to end all. For example, a veteran from the battlefield could easily mop the floor with a spoiled brat with a pinnacle stem core if they didn't know how to use it well.

Feeling confident with her response, she moved on to the following questions. Although they were all well-prepared students for the exam, they still needed to know every answer resulting in them slowing down. Yet, Terra wasn't slowing down at all; it was as if she knew every single answer to the questions presented to her.

The exam continued for an hour until the time was finally called by the proctor. Scarlet submitted the exam and flashed a confident smile toward Terra before she left the classroom.

Not minding her rival's confidence, she submitted her exam and trailed the other students exiting the classroom.

"Terra!" A loud screeching noise burst into her ears, and she smiled weakly at the muscular girl jogging towards her.

"What's going on?" Terra asked. She had a faint idea of why Jessica was approaching her, and her suspicions were confirmed. Jessica began to ramble about the recent incident involving her brother's shenanigans and how he was shaming her and teaching him a lesson.

"I appreciate your concern for my reputation, but trust me, it's not a problem." Terra waved her hand as a sign of being unconcerned.

Jessica was floored at Terra's lack of concern, "what do you mean it's fine? Aren't you worried abo- about-" Jessica stuttered to complete her final words before whispering softly in Terra's ear, "your cosplay?"

Terra stared at Jessica in amusement, and her face slowly turned into a grin as she began to laugh softly.

"What's so funny? Do you not care about your image at all?" Jessica asked, unamused.

"I would never display videos like that in the virtual world except maybe for the right price, of course," Terra said confidently.

Slack-jawed, Jessica stared into Terra's eyes with bewilderment. Her friend initially made sense with the first part of her sentence, but she then revealed utter disregard for her image in pursuit of credits.

"Then what about the ring your brother threw into the crowd? What's with that?"

"Let's just say that whatever footage my brother made definitely doesn't have me in it," Terra spoke ominously.

Hearing Terra's evil tone, Jessica felt terrible for whoever claimed the ring.

"Anyways, thanks for letting me know about it, but I'll be heading home now," Terra said.

Jessica felt disappointed as she wanted to do something together, but she understood that Terra was probably tired from the exams and wanted to rest, so she let it go.

In a darkened room of the academy, a familiar purple-haired boy with a chubby stomach could be seen huddling in the corner in anticipation. Honestly, many people consider his weight something of astonishment in this era. With stem cores and many other advancements in genetics and cosmic augmentation, it was practically impossible to look ugly or be fat. But, for the young boy, it had the opposite effect where he saw his weight as something to be proud of because he stood out from the rest. He could never understand why girls didn't want to date him amazingly. He eagerly pulled out the ring and quickly connected to the virtual space in excitement.

"Hah-hah, I can't believe this is happening. This must be the best day of my life!" The young master exclaimed.

As he played the video, a shadowy figure could be seen slowly walking in the boy's direction. The chubby boy began to salivate in desire as excitement coursed through him. He could see that the figure was wearing a maid costume with an exposed skirt.

"Yes! Yes! Come closer!" The young master exclaimed anxiously. However, to his puzzlement, he noticed something was wrong. The closer the figure came, the more it started to resemble the shape of a man! To the young master's horror, the figure that stepped out of the fog was Hearth in a maid costume.

The purple-haired boy stumbled backward and fell on his butt in terror, "St-stay away from me, you freak!" He stuttered in horror. But, he could stare in dread as maid Hearth crept closer to him.

The young master desperately attempted to disconnect from the virtual space only to see a jaw-dropping response, "Unable to disconnect from virtual space until completion of the video."

The boy felt fear clutch his heart, "What is the meaning of this? What the hell is this?!" He questioned the message with fear overcoming his vocal tone. Alas, he could scream in horror as Hearth in maid cosplay was upon him.

Miserable screams rang out from the dark room, but nobody could hear his pitiful cry for help in this area of the academy.

As Jessica was about to go a separate way from Terra in the other section of the academy, she suddenly stopped, "Did you hear that?" She asked Terra.

Terra stopped briefly, and a creepy grin appeared on her face as she responded, "It was probably just the wind."