Seven hundred years

Seven hundred years ago, the madness descended upon the planet.

In a little more than half a month, seventy percent of all the animals on the planet turned into different monsters and fifteen percent died off, leaving only fifteen percent of the animals left.

Of the human race's population of 7 billion, 50% of the humans joined the animals in succumbing to the madness while 40% died off, leaving the human race with only 10% who had awakened superpowers and had access to a peculiar energy that could only interact with a human body through the abilities they gained or if it was used to strengthen their body directly.

Like the world was saying the destruction wasn't bad enough, all the continents crashed into each other, carrying out a mass terraforming of the planet, flattening out mountain ranges, Filling up canyons, closing up the rivers and seas and creating new ones, replacing the ones that where destroyed and killing another 2% of the humans to leave 8% of the population alive. Just when they thought it couldn't get any worse every person on the planet heard a voice in their heads.

This emotionless and cold voice told the people, "You have sixteen months to make it to the pillar of light at the center of this continent. Whoever doesn't get there before the deadline will die." and then dropped a plethora of cold weapons to the entire continent after which a light pillar shone from the sky, directing them towards the center.

The weapons didn't have any special ability except for the fact that they where exceptionally hard and light or heavy as the weapon type differed and the bladed ones where incredibly pointy and sharp.

And so began the first mass migration of people. Of course, some humans did not heed this warning and instead started to rebuild their lives. Using the cold weapons some humans even sought to start ruling over others like kings.

But the vast majority moved to the center of the continent as the voice instructed, using the cold weapons to quickly fight their way towards the center, not wanting to risk the chance of anything happening to them.

With this, only 6% of the little 8% of humanity left proceeded to gather together at the center of the continent and the rest remained scattered about.

The center of the giant continent had the high mountains with rivers of fresh water running from the north and crossing the center to reach the other end of the continent. The new energy made the current plants undergo mutations which created new varieties with mystical effects.

When the period ended, as the man had warned, the remaining of the population that refused to gather together mysteriously all died. The humans that gathered at the center would not come to know this for a long while.

Meanwhile six people came together to rule over the remaining humanity. There were originally 22 groups of people that originally came together with 12 women and 10 men as their leaders but to form an easier to manage society, they formed a council of six to manage the affairs of the people and it was headed by the strongest three of both genders.

They split the power three ways to represent three major departments; Offence and defense, Research and development, and Economics. Each ruling class consisted of one man and one woman and they governed over all the activities that pertained to their division with either two, three or four subordinates from the remaining 16 directly under them. Those 16 people would take the rein of command when any of the heads they where under were unavailable.

They split the remaining 420 million people into 19 million each and built 22 cities in close proximity to each other over the course of 20 years, fighting of the infected during this process. Although they had lost most of their technology during the apocalypse but the powers that people gained after more than made up for it.

The large variety of abilities made the building of strong reinforced walls and crude earthen and wooden houses far easier and faster than it would have been with technology. It should have taken as little as 17 years to finish it all but the constant attacks of the infected cut short their progress and extended the time taken to twenty years. Eventually they succeeded which gave all the people crude places to live.

All the leaders then started to train personnel in their field of expertise and distributing them across the cities to encourage equal development.

The first 10 years after that where difficult as the people were finding it difficult to adapt to their new broken society. There was also lots of infighting and riots with the people and some people saw this as a chance to gain more political power, aggravating the conflicts more. All this lead to 17 of the 22 cities being destroyed when the first madness wave occurred.

A madness wave was when a group of humans and animals taken over by the madness gathered together under one smarter infected and attacked non-infected creatures. All infected had an innate sense which told them when the madness hadn't infected a person and had the ability to infect others with this same madness as long as they where from the same initial species, effectively growing their numbers.

This first wave led to 17 of the cities destroyed and about 90% of the remaining population with them either killed or infected, leaving the population as just a little over 41 million and the remaining cities in serious need of repairs.

Of the original 22 leaders, only 5 remained as the wave either killed the rest or infected them. After this unforeseen massacre the people finally realized that in order to survive in this new apocalyptic society there would be a need to work together and stop all their infighting.

Which was why the remaining five leaders elected the strongest one among them as their head or king while the remaining four would become dukes, building armies to both keep this king in check so that he didn't make their past mistakes again and to also fend of any invaders.

The king also had his own army and it was bigger than the ones of the dukes to prevent them from banding together and overthrowing him. All five of them had the obligation to spearhead every important battle and to make sure that his people didn't suffer to quell any rebellion.

The title was not hereditary, instead it was given to a person who was elected by the people, whether they where ordinary or influential as long as they where good at heart, could fill in that position with efficiency and the people chose them, they would be the next head.

The same was true for all positions of power as corruption had told them that they couldn't make it hereditary. This way, the people in that position would have earned their position instead of thinking they where entitled to it.

That being said, it didn't mean that the lineage of the leaders wouldn't have privileges from being in that position but it instead ensured that the next person had to work to earn their position. 

The leaders repaired the five least destroyed cities and split the people into five again to spread out the population. Learning from their past mistakes they also made sure that any cause for rebellion was snuffed out at the beginning, making sure they shared their resources and personnel so that all the cities could develop faster.

Six years after the first wave a second more powerful one came but this time they where prepared. They annihilated the army and managed to kill all the sentient infected, thereby ending the threat to their lives, albeit until a new one came about.

They then started to spread out in all directions, destroying the infected that they came across and exploring the immediate surroundings of their cities. 

They found ores and different plants which had mystical properties and effects which they started to gather and collect data on. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, three books fell from the sky and landed two miles away from the capital, creating a small crater. 

When the people retrieved the books and saw their contents they were shocked. In one of the books they noticed writings in a language that they hadn't seen before but could somehow understand, giving them instructions on how to mix metals to create new ones and to draw words that gave inanimate objects power to accomplish things that they couldn't do on their own.

They found methods to create potions and pills with varying effects if they mixed herbs with certain properties and a method to use the energy in the surroundings to create powerful phenomenon in the remaining two books.

This day marked the introduction of crafters of all different types and gave humans a new avenue to explore. It also gave the people access to power words or runes and brought people who didn't have any work new things that could both improve society and their lives.

The humans finally had a chance to explore the lands entirely but they couldn't for now because of their low population, but they still where able to travel to the edges of the continent. But when they arrived there they where shocked by what they saw. 

Seventy percent of the land had started to separate from the main land mass and was moving away at very rapid speeds. Since their population was too little and means too limited they couldn't do anything about it so they could only watch helplessly as the land continued to drift farther away.

Although it was a shame that all the untapped resources would be out of their reach they took solace in the fact that they could reach it once their population and technology reached a bigger threshold.

It was also at this time that they noticed that the newly born children had also awakened super powers of their own, giving birth to a new generation to help the first. Some carried new powers of their own while others carried the same or similar variations of their parents' abilities.

They continued to develop their surroundings and expand the amount of resources they could use, building better homes and expanding the population rapidly. It wasn't until 20 years later that another event almost toppled their society. The planet started expanding rapidly, almost destroying the cities they had developed and quadrupling the land mass. 

After the phenomenon ended they made a lot of interesting discoveries. The first and most noticeable being the evolution of all their abilities. Most people noticed that at some point their abilities stopped improving at all, but the planet's expansion took away that cap and made the abilities grow once more. It was almost like the planet had evolved along with its expansion.

Along with that evolution people gained demerits or flaws in their abilities. It could range from small ones like a fire user having difficulty in suppressing his emotions to another having a part of his body burned when he uses his ability too much. Second was the increase in the base lifespan of the ordinary people from 100 to 270 years.

Third was the increase in the amount of children being born, leading to an explosive increase in the population, almost doubling it in the next two years. then there was the evolution of all unrefined materials that all over the planet and the discovery of newer and stronger ores and plants. 

 But the most impactful and scary was the increase of power and numbers of the infected as they tripled in number and doubled in strength. 

The last one was so sudden and disastrous that if not for the period they had to rebuild humanity would have been completely wiped out.

This brought the attention of the people to a pressing matter that they had neglected. They needed to teach their descendants about the dangers of this planet and train them to be able to fight of the madness.

And so, 60 years after the madness descent, plans for the first academy to train the people came into being. It was named the Prianton Academy and had branches in all the cities that where built. It was headed by all the five leaders and would be built in all future cities to ensure that the next generation could be trained to help humanity.

Six hundred and fifty years later and the humans could be said to be doing well. The number of cities have gone up to 17 with the population at half a billion. Most of the previous amenities had been redeveloped and made better than they were before. The branches of science had taken massive leaps ahead than before the descent. 

Average standards of living had noticeably shot up and the development and lifespan of humans had gone up too. The planet had expanded again to be more that 7 times its original size, giving birth to more ores and plants, which in turn furthered the metal works and alchemy divisions.

In this society we find our story starting of at the academy training hunters just 20 minutes before a disastrous event takes place.

--Current location: Prianton Academy, Graduation ceremony, year 715 A.M.D--

In a large hall with a semi circular dome replicating a clear blue sky, the hall is filled with a celebratory air. Seats are orderly arranged in front of a stage at the end of the hall, where an elderly white haired man in a deep blue suit stood and addressed the thousands of people of all ages who sat and listened with rapt attention. 

[Name: Orion Gilgamesh]

[Ability: All rounded Augmentation]

[Ability flaw: Insatiable]

He had white wrinkled skin with a few age spots and his long white hair was cut short and neatly styled. His back was straight and his posture was perfectly refined, giving him a scholarly and dignified air. This man was one of the five founding members of the new society and the previous lord of the city to the west.

His ability allows him to augment all areas of his body and mind's functions, even extending to objects or people that he touched. As one of the founding members of the new society, his proficiency with his ability even allows him to augment himself or others up to 200 times their normal level, giving a normal person the strength to obliterate a mountain in one blow.

His flaw was just as glaring as his ability. It gave him insatiable hunger. Every time he used his ability he would always feel hungry. No matter how much he ate, he would never feel full.

All flaws, no matter how glaring, had a cure. Some could be found easily while others were more difficult. Still some couldn't find the cure for theirs on this continent so it was assumed that it was either on another continent or not on this planet.

Orion's ability was in the last category as no matter how much he searched he couldn't find a hint on how to find his flaw's cure, but once he found it he would be a force to be reckoned with.

Even though Orion was the only one speaking, the hall seemed abuzz with all the excitement that seemed to be swimming all over the place, especially from the far left hand side of the hall. And they had every right to be excited when it was today that they would graduate and finally enter the world as verified hunters.