Seeing this news headline, Andrew was reinvigorated with spirit after his nightmare, and there was a particular reason for this.
Tomorrow he himself turned 18, and it marked the beginning of a new year of opportunity for him, in which him and the other students who were also freshly turning 18 and eligible would undergo a tapent awakening ceremony.
This world was similar in physics to his own, but with different layered constraints due to the martial awakening about a century prior.
Here existed evolved beasts that were massively different from the ones in his prior world, having undergone evolution that was seemingly impossible at scale and speed.
The reason for this was only found out 10 years after the origin of the awakening, being a new type of energy had started to be traceable and released from deep within the universe, or rather throughout the entire universe, for reasons still unknown to everyone on earth.
It was shown that beings with higher natural affinity towards nature and the earth had an advantage of incredibly quick adaptation to this new energy, which is also why technology had been kind of thrown out the window by humanity, as it moved them further away from this strange energy and made it much harder to adapt physically to it.
This energy was named "Qi", adopting the name of chinese mythology as it most accurately described the functions of it.
Most creatures outside of humans could naturally obtain this in much higher speeds and quantities at once than humans, but they had very low speeds of increasing what they already had naturally adapted too.
Humanity almost came to the brink of extinction itself because of this, however there were a few yogis in the himelayan mountains who has properly detached themselves from the technologically advancing industrial landscape, and by utilizing specific methods of breathing and their natural affinitys for the natural energy, were able to actively absorb this energy, becoming capable of doing things only described in mythology.
They effectively became gods among men, and didnt hesitate to share their teachings to select individuals with talent who sought to make it mainstream for the survival of the human race.
According to records, it started off with absorbing the energy into the cells, and the genome of each individual would determine what kind of natural affinitys/abilities they would obtain, later being named as "talents".
At first there was no way to properly test this, however as time went by and research regarding this blossomed, it bore fruit to talent testing crystals, usable for the vast majority only after they reached a specific maturation of bodily function, typically at 18 years od age.
Of course, some got blessed sooner, some got blessed later, and very few didnt get blessed at all, in which society pretty much deemed them worthless to helping humanity as a collective.
This forced the "talentless" to pick up odd jobs, success was still possible financially, but was impossible in terms of gaining real power to change the world.
From what Andrew knew, talents were rated across 9 levels, split into 3 major categories. The first 3 levels were low class talents, providing a difference in capability compared to an ordinary person by a substantial margin, however they were still only considered barely effective compared to the beasts, whose natural talents were unknown.
These people would reach small success, and if desired real ability, would have to pour most of their time into mastering techniques to close the gap between levels.
Very few people with low grade talent could actually do this though, except for those with extremely high comprehension and insight abilities.
Mid grade talents were from levels 4-6, these produced a much more marginal effect even just after level 3, with a sharp qualitative difference in capability, these people were where they actually started to get useful for the sake of longevity of the species.
And then, levels 7-9 where high tier talents, anybody with these would be highly valued by the human race, they would become top priority candidates for development, with a catch though…
Even undergoing the threat from the same enemies, there was only a short period of time where similar global interest over ruled petty interhuman conflict. As soon as things stabilized and everyone knew it would stay stable, countries immediately began their petty agendas once more.
If a prodigy showed up in one country, they would almost certainly face dangers even if theyre at the highest order of protection, as nations worried about others "gaining unfair advantages" that would place them at risk for being overshadowed and potentially taken over.
Many people suspect that there was a level beyond the level 9 talent, however nobody knew what it was, only speculation existed.
Andrew suspected this was only due to their status of normies, but couldnt actually understand how if this existed, how these individuals wouldnt have been noticed by the general populace.
"Well, not my problem, i still havent even awoken yet myself. Meaning information above what I currently am allowed access too is irrelevant to my current unknown long term goals…" he thought to himself, watching the news carefully.
"Arthur Smith, awakening a level 7 talent has become a leading figure in protection of humanity! Hailing from a wealthy family, from a young age his physical state has been optimized to ensure talent acquisition of one of the highest levels…" the news broadcast sounded from the television.
Andrew sighed to himself, "they even name dropping him as well, i wish this kid luck in whatever challenges he faces…"
Andrew turned off the tv, even in this world, the news still made him sick to his stomache.
Everyone knew what happens to the people put on blast like this, however news outlets never cared anout decency or protection.
They were the exact same as his own world, chasing benefits while actively disregarding the own persons agency and freedom.
"In a way i almost hope i dont get a good talent tomorrow, i have no actual backing to begin with, best case scenario a master will come to my door and allow me to be his disciple, only mitigating partial detriment…"
"Worst case scenario, ill get killed by internation covert spies before that can even happen…" he sighed , shaking his head.
This world was better than his last one in some regards, but it still was far from perfect.
"As long as theres conflicting interest, there will always be conflict as a whole." He thought to himself, before standing up from where he was sitting and walking over to the lonely shabby dresser sitting next to his bed.
Taking off his clothes revealed Andrews unnaturally sculpted physique, even by his old world standards. A very lean physique, stringy in a way but looking at him one could feel a slightly intense prescence just from his posture and packed muscle like apperance.
"In this year, i have not been spacking off even with a lack of resources…" he thought to himself, walking over to the mirror and striking some ridiculous poses that further outlined his pronounced physique.
After about of minute of some self glazing, he quickly got dressed, slightly starting to feel a bit embarrassed.
Base physique before awakening did matter to a degree, although you couldnt change the genome in this world, you could maximize capabilities which may or may not enhance the overall awakening of the talent.
Or atleast, it would give a decent edge compared to people who didnt decide to train themselves, as any talent that did awaken would boost the "stats" by a greater margin as theres a higher baseline for it to multiply.
In a world where cultivation was becoming the norm, and where strength reined as absolute, every advantage mattered as much as possible.
Although Andrew couldnt utilize every piece of information he knew in his past life due to super tight informational pattern compression, and not having the supporting system of an intelligent ai nanobot copilot configuration, he could still piece together things that would help him in this world, like cheap optimal baseline training protocols.
This was all to help epigentic expression and increase his baseline capactity, but of course only to a specific degree that his genetic capacity already allowed…
_____________