Chapter 45: An Awakened

Chapter 45: An Awakened Stepping out of the room, Kieran stared at the door opposite his, where Ruby used to occupy before she moved after becoming a level 5 first-year recruit.

He could also choose to move to a better dorm considering one of his benefits of being a level 7 first year recruit, but he wasn’t one to bother about things like the room he stayed in. To him, the dorm didn’t nothing than serve as a place for him to sleep in and the one he was currently in met his requirements just fine.

Checking his watch that read 11:40, Kieran turned and made his way to the location Ruby had sent to him the day before. He was finally going to have a word with the two of them, especially Jake, who had run away the moment they stepped foot outside if the infirmary room.

After a short walk, Kieran arrived there at the exact time given to him, 12:00.

He stared at Ruby who sat beside the lone tree in the clearing where they usually trained with her head down. She seemed to be in deep thought about something to mot have noticed his arrival.

Looking around, he asked making her conscious of his presence.

"Where’s Jake?"

"You’re here" She said looking up at him.

Kieran didn’t respond, waiting for her to answer his question.

"Ah! Jake is–" a voice interrupted before she could complete her statement.

"I’m here" Jake said, jumping down from a short tree at the side.

"Good!" Kieran said and with that, they all had an awkward moment of silence with Ruby and Jake not wanting to go first, waiting for Kieran to ask the first question.

The science only made Kieran frustrated and pushed him to the edge.

"What are you waiting for? Why don’t you start talking?" He said with a slight raise is voice.

It was evident that the topic of the matter was quite sensitive to all parties. Kieran, because this was the first clue he had gotten since his arrival on the planet, the first clue that could possibly help him understand what was going on with him.

Meanwhile Ruby and Jake acted like there was an unknown reason why they couldn’t tell Kieran, and like telling him would be bad for them.

Seeing their unwilling expression, Kieran’s face turned icy and he turned around, ready to leave. If they weren’t going to talk, the whole purpose of ’having a discussion’ was gone.

"Wait!" Ruby shouted when she saw he was about to take his leave but he ignored her and continued moving

"I’ll talk!"

Hearing this, Kieran finally paused his steps and turned around, waiting for her to actually speak.

"There are some restrictions placed on us both, so what we can tell you is limited" Ruby started and Kieran nodded in understanding.

Heaving a sigh of relief on seeing him agree, she continued,

"How do you think one man was able to bring the major world powers to their knees during the war back then? Without any military force at that?" Ruby threw a question at him and Kieran couldn’t find an answer go give.

’Strange! How come I never thought of that?’ Kieran thought to himself.

"You can’t answer, can you? It’s strange right?" Ruby said.

Even the explanation given by the military made no mention of the actual details.

’That’s true!!’ Kieran thought.

All the details apart from the general story was said to have been lost in war. Looking back on it, it was a pretty convenient excuse to hide something.

"You’re right, the truth was buried or rather shared among a select few" Ruby said, as if reading his mind.

"This was done because if that kind of information was made public, humanity at that time would have gone into chaos" Jake added from the side.

"Then what exactly is it? How did one man, then later a group of nine go against nations and put an end to the war?" Kieran asked

"Well, it’s because they weren’t normal humans!" Ruby said with a shrug.

Kieran frowned hearing her statement.

"Not normal humans? Explain!" he questioned.

"The thing is no one really knows how it happened, but after the emergence of the nine pillar families, there have been several occurrences of humans gaining what could only be tagged as supernatural powers" She said.

"A mutation?" Kieran asked.

"Like she said, no one really knows the cause of it, but it is clear that the founders of the nine pillar families had something to do with it, considering that it only appeared after they did." Jake said, answering his question.

"The first sightings caused quite a ruckus back then, so they decided to keep it secret until humans were ’ready’. At least that’s what the records say" Ruby continued.

"But that never happened, did it? How did they even mange to keep something like that a secret if it just spawned randomly in humans?" Kieran muttered lightly.

"That’s the thing! It didn’t just random occur in humans all over the place... Well, it did, but there was a higher concentration of humans who developed abilities in some families including the nine pillar families who again had the highest amount of ’gifted’." Ruby clarified.

"The concentration of ’gifted’ humans with abilities was what made up the structure of noble families that we have today. With the families having the highest numbers of these gifted working together, this information was easily concealed" She said.

"After the technological breakthrough of humans, and after the exposure gained due to the subsequent events, the concept of gifted although not really popular, isn’t really a secret. Apart from those who come from families with already established lineages like ours, the others only know the bare minimum or less about what it means to have an ability or to be ’gifted’." She said

This caused a spark in Kieran’s mind as he remembered some weird things that happened in the slums.

’That explains things now! How did I not suspect?’ He thought to himself after seeing everything fit in place.

Somethings were still not right though, if it was a thing that was low-key known among people, then why did was it still treated as a secret, why didn’t the government announce just announce it?

Ruby and Jake could pretty much tell what was going on in his mind and Jake gave a reply before he could even ask.

"We don’t know why they chose not to make it public, but as for I, Ruby and the others from noble lineages, we can’t go around speaking about our abilities or using them because of the restriction placed on us by our families. It’s a rule all of them agreed to."

Jake said referring to the noble families and Kieran remembered that both Jake and Ruby were of noble lineages, he just didn’t recognize their surnames.

After all, it was impossible for him to know of all the countless noble families on different planets controlled by humans.

Kieran didn’t even bother to ask about the obvious problem of the other humans outside of the noble families that had also gained abilities.

The solution was just as obvious as the problem. They were probably caught and taken in by those families once they found them. With the immense reach of those noble families, it wasn’t beyond them to do something like that.

How they did that? He couldn’t tell.

"Then what about me?" Kieran asked the most important question.

"Well, from how you took it, your abilities seem like they just started to show themselves recently which is already odd as they tend to develop during childhood" Jake said trying to explain to Kiernan.

"That must be the reason why you’re still here. If it had happened while you were a kid, you would have been captured by the family whose domain you were under. It’s also the reason why you have problems controlling it, you aren’t used to it yet" Jake explained to Kieran.

’That’s one good thing so far’ Kieran thought.

He was under the domain of the Scarlet family, Richard’s family and the thought of being taken away by them only made his blood boil.

"Then what about my ability, what is it?" Kieran asked them.

Despite the explanations they gave to him, there were still a lot of unanswered questions. What kind of abilities were there? Do external conditions play a role in the type of ability one gets? Can it be inherited or passed down? The list went on and on, and Kieran had every intention of getting everything he could get from them, there was no way he was going to pass on this opportunity.

"Sigh.... The thing is, I already noticed something strange about you after getting close. As for what your ability is, it hasn’t revealed itself enough for me to take a guess. But for now, it seems to be an overall enhancement of all your physical properties and senses" Jake said, but what he didn’t add, was that he was sure that wasn’t his ability.

Why? Because he had that same ability and had seen others who shared the same ability.

What he saw in Kieran was definitely not the same, although similar.

"I see" Kieran muttered a little bit unconvinced, he felt like there was something more to what he experienced.

"Alright, I’ve still got a few more questions to ask!" Kieran said, starting an interrogation session.