I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand, feeling the heat despite taking refuge underneath the shade of a tree.
Why does the weather today have to be so hot?
What did they say it was? Thirty two degrees celsius today? And they just had to set the meeting point outdoors instead of indoors…
Classic Singapore moments…
I let out a sigh before I uncapped my bottle and took a swig from it, careful not to drink too much as I would still need it for later.
Capping the bottle back, I took a look around me and, despite already seeing sights similar to this dozens of times, I still could not get used to what I was seeing.
In the middle of this urban jungle where cars whizzed by on the road and buildings towered all around us, I see a group of people dressed up in fantasy-like armour wielding fantasy-like weapons.
Further adding to that incongruous sight, there were also people wearing modern body armour with guns amongst them.
And there's the third group which was a mix of both.
Not that I was in any position to say anything about them since I was in the same position as well, my eyes going to the metal breastplate and sword that laid beside my feet.
I then reached into my pocket and pulled out the identity card to make sure that it was still there, the card that marked me as a Vanguard. Or, as some others would call it… People who are dumb or desperate enough to do this line of work.
I placed the card back and dug out my smartphone from my other pocket, my face being reflected on it for a moment.
A pair of dark brown eyes stared back at me, framed with a head of messy and short black hair.
I wouldn't say I'm handsome but at least I'm not ugly.
Unlocking my phone with my fingerprint, I brought up the messaging app and tapped on the first contact on my list.
'You still coming? They're going to enter the rift soon.' I typed.
My message was sent and it didn't even take a few seconds for the message to have a blue tick next to it.
I didn't have to wait long before a reply was received.
'Right behind you.'
I swivelled around to see a man wearing a full set of plate armour with a tower shield strapped behind his back walking towards me with a stupid grin on his face.
"Yo! Qing! You're early today!" He greeted me.
"Dan," I greeted him with a nod. "Odd that you are the one that's late for this."
He scratched his head and grinned, "Haha, well you know, I have to send my kids off to school first and traffic is shit at this hour."
I nodded in understanding.
This is Daniel, or Dan as I like to call him. We were classmates in primary school and though we went our own separate ways after that, we still kept in contact.
Now we're well into our late twenties and this guy is already married with two children while I'm still single.
At first glance, people might even wonder how we even became friends.
Dan was a good six foot tall as compared to my measly five foot six. Or in a metric that is more widely used in the world, he's about a hundred and eighty two centimetres tall while I'm a hundred and seventy two.
If I were to describe him with one word, he would be an ikemen.
He is living proof that life is unfair.
And yet, he is someone who I can call my best friend.
He clapped me on the shoulder, "So how's things going with you, Qing?"
I rolled my eyes, "Same thing as always. My mom wants me to quit and find a 'proper' job, dad doesn't care as long as I'm not slacking off at home and my sister is starting uni next year."
"Oh, that's nice. Which uni is she planning to go?"
"NUS probably. I dunno."
"Well, if she needs any tips from me, just let me know. Since I'm an alumni, you know?"
"Yes, yes, I know. Anyway… What's the job today?"
He raised an eyebrow at me, "You signed up for it and you don't even know?"
"I'm only here because you told me to come, alright?"
He waved his hand dismissively, "Should have known you would say that… Then again, it's not like there's anything different from what we usually do. It's another Anomaly portal that we're going in to harvest the Mana Crystals inside them. We're just there as extra hands and security."
"Right… And I don't suppose we have a Mortal God with us on this job?"
"Pfft, like as if any of them would come and deal with something as trivial as this. Nah, the people from across the causeway generously sent one of the Guardians of their precious Mortal God here to help us in our time of great need!" He told me sarcastically.
I sighed, "Better than nothing I suppose… As long as they can stop us from transforming into those Anomalies is good enough for me."
Dan shifted his gaze behind me, "Speaking of which… I think that's her."
I turned to look behind me and sure enough, there was a dark skinned woman wearing long flowy robes stepping out of a limousine that was parked at the side.
"Who's that supposed to be? I've never seen her before," I asked.
"I believe that's Liyana. She used to be a scientist for agriculture or something before she awakened and got chosen as a Guardian for their Mortal God. If I'm not wrong, her powers are something related to healing and buffing or something."
"They really sent a support type Guardian for this? I was expecting at least a combat type or something."
"Well, beggars can't be choosers you know? Because our country doesn't have our own Mortal God, we keep getting bullied like this."
I grimaced, "Nothing new then… Funny how the dynamics between our countries have changed in just six years…"
"Well, it's all after the appearance of these rifts all those years ago. Anyway, should we go? Looks like we're going straight in."
I nodded and hefted my bag and strapped my sword to my waist, moving forward to join the small crowd already gathered there.
Right in front of them was a swirly multicoloured portal that glowed ominously.
Rifts or portals, as they are called, started appearing around the world six years ago and creatures known as Anomalies came from within.
But with the appearance of these portals, people around the world have also awakened powers straight out of a fantasy setting.
It sounds nicer than it actually is because the powers that you can awaken are completely random and some powers are just straight up useless.
Some people might awaken the ability to shoot fireballs from their hands while others might awaken the ability to make their skin shinier. Yeah… The contrast is pretty big.
For Dan, his ability is as you see here. He became this tall, buff tank guy who has incredibly high resilience and the ability to nullify any damage done to him by a certain percentage.
As for me… I basically got enhanced strength. That's it.
It's not even really big of an enhancement too… Like I think I have the strength of three or four men and that's about it. Maybe if I push myself really hard, I could go further but that is a pain so I don't usually do that.
On the plus side, I am forever fit so even if I don't work out and just eat a lot, my body shape and strength doesn't change. I'm not sure if it will increase if I actually work out but I never really bothered to try. Especially when there's easier ways of growing stronger…
As we joined the crowd, a guy wearing a suit and tie stood in front of us, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead since it really was stupid to be wearing this in such hot weather to begin with.
The suit guy must be related to the Ministry of Anomaly Management which was a new government entity that was set up to manage such affairs.
He cleared his throat, "Thank you all for responding to this call. We've already done our survey of the rift and it's classified as Danger Class Two as we have already specified in the briefing. Accompanying us is Miss Liyana, Guardian of the respected Mortal Goddess Siti of Malaysia. She will be gracing you with her protection as you hunt the Anomaly Gatekeeper responsible for keeping this portal open. Do note that the plan is to subdue it and bring it to the portal and only kill it after the mining of the Mana Crystals are completed. Any questions?"
Mana Crystals… Crystals that seem to grow within these portals that have become a renewable source of energy in our modern world. Any place that is worth their salt is now using Mana Crystal as a power source which is why there's such a big demand for it.
Someone's hand raised up, "Will we get to keep some of the Mana Crystals we mine?"
The suit guy nodded, "Do not worry, we intend to distribute a cut of the Mana Crystals mined to all participants alongside your pay."
The gathered Vanguards all let out happy noises.
Not only are Mana Crystals sources of energy, for awakened people like us, they can also serve as currency and also to improve our abilities.
Yeah… The demand for these things are really really high… And that's what I'm using to try and at least improve my strength.
The only downside is that I've already used quite a number and my supposed powers aren't really increasing by much so I'm wondering if I hit a hard cap on my abilities already.
The suit guy then raised his hand, "If there are no further questions, please form your groups! We will start the operation immediately!"
Here we go…