Earth’s history took a sharp turn south during the 21st century and was still taught in almost every ancient history throughout the galaxy. A plague had killed at least two billion humans, slaughtering a fourth of the global population, worse than Bubonic Plague. In the first stage of the plague, it led to a global economic recession due to shutting down of global markets, but the situation quickly deteriorated. The mortality rate climbed and rose every month, people took to the streets in panic and pandemonium due to the lack of action on the greedy government’s parts, with relief primarily arriving to corporations.

After the plague had harvested a fourth of the global population, after tears had run dry, after the bodies turned cold, all that was left in the public was a vengeful spirit, with massacres and riots taking place. Many ambitious individuals started popping up all over the world and quickly gained steam, using the historic incident as a stepping stone to power. These people felt no remorse but still took advantage of those who had suffered and lost, they were easily manipulated as promises of revenge blinded them. Starting in the underground, new organizations and movements surfaced. When mankind is pushed into a corner they resort to extremism, they were willing to use any means necessary to reach their end goals. This marked the end of the global republican experiment.

With governments quickly overthrown, and new minor governments popping up, a new age of imperialism took place, single state minor nations rose and fell for about two hundred years. But this didn’t mean that technology took a step back, if anything, due to the competition, it advanced by leaps and bounds, where owning laser handguns and supercomputers was the norm.

After a few generations of war, there was a new energy discovered in space, Natural Energy. Natural Energy was found to encompass the general rules of the universe, in essence, the building blocks of the universe. It was found that the more natural activity an area has, the more Natural Energy there was in that area. For example, if a supernova were to occur, there would be an enormous amount of Natural Energy emanating from it, it was theorized that this was the result of what was called Natural Laws. Natural Laws were just physics but it made more sense to refer to them as laws as everything had to abide by them. Nothing could break the Natural Laws, it was literally impossible, because if it did, then it didn’t exist within the universe.

Though Natural Energy was able to be measured within an area, there was nothing anyone could do with it yet. Sure it existed, but you couldn’t harness it for anything useful, not yet at least. War after war, there were finally major nations that consolidated themselves. Afraid of attacking each other and receiving pyrrhic victories, these major nations decided to show their dominance by reaching the heavens before anyone else. A newfound emphasis was put on math and science not only for international competition, but due to the discovery of Natural Energy. If there was a way to harness and weaponize this incredible energy, then there could be a global hegemony over the human race.

A thousand years after the incident from the 21st century, mankind encountered a new race towards the center of the galaxy. This race lacked intelligence but had incredible strength, be it physical or telepathically. Humanity was shaken at this discovery, as an intelligent and greedy race, could they use it for themselves? They answer was yes, you see, the planet that this race lived on had barely survived the remnants of a supernova a couple million years ago, add that with the amount of natural activity in the center of the galaxy, the planet was brimming with Natural Energy, the Earth was like a puddle compared to this vast ocean. Coincidentally, life grew and started on this planet, creating a race that was able to manipulate this Natural Energy.

This race was able to use Natural Energy by converting into one of two kinds of energy, Soul Energy and Body Energy. These creatures allowed the discovery of the existence of the soul, it wasn’t physical but it wasn’t an energy, it was simply the lifespan of a person, everything had a soul, but most things didn’t have an active one. The soul didn’t translate into intelligence either, a rock had a soul but it didn’t have an active one, meaning it had no lifespan. A human on the other hand had an active soul and a lifespan of about 100 years after that, the body would deteriorate alongside it.

It was also found that this foreign race developed “veins” for the energy to travel, referred to as Energy Routes, and a storage for the energy regarded as the Energy Aperture, where all the energy flowed into. There were two sets of Energy Routes, one for the body and one for the soul, the former would move Natural Energy around the major organs of the body, including the skin, while the latter would move Natural Energy to the center of gravity of a person, where a person’s soul existed in an incorporeal state. The Natural Energy would then have to be manipulated to the frequency of either the body or the soul turning into Body Energy or Soul Energy.

To the public, it was unknown how humanity had forced itself into gaining the Energy Routes and Aperture, usually it was vague or skimmed over with excuses of “people simply gained it”, but it was safe to presume that the sharp spike downwards in the human population at the time had something to do with it, and that the foreign race magically disappeared, never to be seen again.

Most of the time, a person would be born with one set of Energy Routes, be it body or soul, but once in a while, with a quadrillionth chance, a person with both sets would be born, with two sets of Energy Routes connecting to one Energy Aperture. You see, the Energy Aperture held and refined Natural Energy, so if you had both Energy Routes, you would have to have Body and Soul Energy, which are naturally incompatible with each other in the same confined space, it was like putting two starving lions in a cage and you were holding meat.

It just so happened, the heavens loathed Kezner to his very being that they granted him with this rare disability. There were about three other people recorded to have this very condition, but even with the most modern medicine, it would only extend their lifespan to about 20 years old. Keep in mind, the last incident was reported over 400 years ago, so the medicine wasn’t as good as it currently was, so their lives ended before the age of ten.

Kezner was honestly the child of a set of numerous and debilitating coincidences that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, possibly the one of the only things to exist where too much of a bad thing made something good.

On top of his Conjoined Energy Routes Disorder, CERD, and his unstable Rank-Z ability, he had a third condition that was lethal under certain conditions but was common otherwise, which was the addition of Energy Routes, sometimes this condition benefited the person but most of the time it made them weaker than an average person. Kezner was an extreme case where he had additional Energy Routes around his spinal cord and brain, which could have been lethal.

It may seem like, I, the narrator am making up stuff to make an overpowered character and say it was some magical being pulling the strings at the end of the day, but in reality this was a set of unfortunate coincidences that turned into something good, but it was the Rank-Z ability that held everything together, without it, Kezner would be a dead man. If this set of coincidences never existed, would we be here questioning it?

Kezner had a secret, a secret that was able to revolutionize the conversion of Natural Energy for humanity, yet he didn’t even know it. Not only was he able to almost directly communicate with his Rank-Z ability, he found a new form of energy conversion, Spirit Energy, where he learned from his ability. Spirit Energy utilized the brain, where Natural Energy would connect to the brain’s frequency using the Energy Routes moving around his brain and spinal cord.

If you imagined Body Energy as red and Soul Energy as blue, then Spirit Energy would be clear, it was malleable and able to change its appearance and identity as long as Kezner focused on it. This allowed Kezner to refine Body Energy and Soul Energy as long as he used Spirit Energy as a buffer.

This sounded amazing and anyone would envy it at face value, allowing you to utilize three kinds of energy, one of which is newly discovered? Those greedy rich bastards had been drooling over this kind of power for about a thousand years ever since the discovery of Energy Routes. However, the downsides were horrific. To upgrade in even a minor stage, Kezner had to progress in all three aspects, or else the delicate balance would be broken, leading to a backlash that could kill Kezner in a heartbeat.

The second issue was his Energy Aperture, as to upgrade in a major stage you had to expand your Energy Aperture to hold more energy, that sounded easy for Kezner, right? He had three different energies, it wouldn’t be a problem to expand it, but it would be a damn problem to stop the expansion, the three energies would almost instantly accelerate at full speed at any given chance, so if he didn’t evenly distribute the force and limit the expansion for that stage then consider him dead. You had to progressively expand your Energy Aperture with each major stage to have your body adapt to it, or else it would suddenly start pushing and squishing your internal organs in your torso, causing them to fail. You couldn’t reach the heavens in one step.

The third and final issue that Kezner knew of was that he had to make sure that his Spirit Energy created a buffer zone between his different sets of Energy Routes. He wouldn’t want an excess amount of one energy touching the other or all hell would break loose in his body. He most likely wouldn’t die, but he had to keep his attention on his insides throughout the day to make sure he didn’t loosen his defenses, one slip up could cost him his life. If a stray amount of Body Energy touched his Soul Energy or vice versa, then his body would attack itself believing that the other energy was a foreign invader.

Back to the actual story at hand, Kezner couldn’t cultivate most Foundational Techniques or Martial Arts pertaining to one energy over the other, or else his three sets of energies would interact. If the Spirit Energy interacted with the other two, it would be no problem, but if the other two would be involved with each other, they would fight like a housewife and a homebreaker. This left Kezner depressed, but the introduction of Weapons Arts made his face light up.

If Kezner could trade all of his advantages and disadvantages for just regular power, he would do so in a heartbeat. He barely felt like he was in control with not only the government on top of him but his own power as well.

Though Weapons Arts usually picked an energy, a large portion of them focused more on stances and control over what energy you used, more than Martial Arts at least. Skimming through the Weapon Art, he quickly noticed that after the first chapter the words became incomprehensible and hurt a little to look at, so he didn’t dare to continue on with it. Books like these were drawn and written with Natural Energy, where if you hadn’t attained that level of comprehension, you wouldn’t be able to look at the contents.

Backtracking and looking at the first chapter once more, he noticed that this Weapon Art focused on multiple weapons, meaning you had to master all the weapons in the chapter before moving on to the next. Staring at the pictures of the stances with the weapon and the interpretations and explanations of the stance. The pictures slowly started to move on their own as if they had come to life, moving as if there was a target in front of them. This… this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Most Foundational Techniques and Martials Arts were recorded electronically, it was simply a lot simpler and convenient. Even if they were recorded on books, the pictures weren’t supposed to move, even with Natural Energy this was supernatural.

As Kezner was enamored with the moving images, time slowly passed where later, Kezner shrieked in pain as his entire body was coated in a bone chilling glaze of sweat. Heavily breathing, he slowly got up as he realized what happened, he screwed up. He didn’t need to completely focus on his three energies yet he had to check up once in a while, if he didn’t, he had a chance of slipping up like now. Luckily, he reacted and snapped out of his daze as fast as he did or else he could’ve been really hurt.

With a sigh of relief, Kezner looked at the time on his holo-watch but was left in a state of disbelief and surrealty, it was 10pm, about an hour and a half had passed with him staring at a few pictures without even noticing. A wave of fatigue hit him as he remembered what happened in the last 24 hours. He didn’t even have a chance to grab a bite to eat, life definitely wasn’t fair to Kezner.

Thinking over the letter his master had given him, he paused on his way to bed, and ran back to the table to the latter and books were situated on. Wide eyed, he thoroughly read through the first part of the letter as he had only read a few words before the paragraph after it grabbed his eyes beforehand. His heart dropped after reading it… “D-drafted?! I’m not a damn soldier, put those nationalists on the frontlines, this isn’t my problem! I don’t give a shit about some war with another race, I’m a pacifist!”

The only reason he believed his master’s claim about an oncoming war was because of what Luna said to him earlier, something worse than the Ocano family was going to him on this planet. Sadly, he didn’t have the funds to leave the planet or grease a few palms to get out of this situation… or did he?

Remembering the millions he got off those poor bastards from yesterday, he searched up the lowest priced ticket out of this godforsaken planet, coincidentally, all of the commercial space planes were “out for repairs” after an “accident” occurred a few weeks back. “Who the fuck are they trying to fool?!”

Kezner had two options, stick around for the draft, or grease a few low-level government officials’ palms. The former would mean risking his life, the latter required connections, he was stuck in thought with the inevitability of death building up in him. With no options left he decided to sleep on it, he could tell he wasn’t going to sleep well.

---Scout Cruiser - Luna’s Cabin---

“Hmph if this bastard won’t answer, I’ll take things into my own hands!” Luna had enough of Justone and finally decided to act on her own. Using the identity of Governor Vanya, she had the central intelligence network of the star cluster look for Rankev based on so little information, you could already imagine her political enemies pouncing on this chance to question her usage of such a vital piece of the government to look for a person. Usually the central intelligence network was used to track down terrorists and top-tier criminals so using to track a single random person was suspicious and could be seen as abusing her power.

Luna didn’t care for such things as she was using this as her own chance to weasel Justone out of his hiding and force him to help her. Honestly, Justone was one of the best up-and-coming officials but was stuck with a person like Luna, he was also around her age but was starting to grow white hairs from the stress she gave him.

Luna’s state of the art holo-watch vibrated on her wrist as Justone sent a single message, “I’m done, I’m not fixing your fuck ups anymore”.

“WHAT?!” Luna texted back in less than a second, she was beyond shocked. Why did he suddenly quit on her, what happened?! “What’s wrong with you today?!”

Justone was now beyond furious, his anger reached a point where he couldn’t even physically express it, his organs simply contorted as his breath deepened, “You stupid arrogant bitch, you can’t possibly so fucking dense, can you?! You not only brushed away a Rank-Z ability, you abused your powers in full view, even I can’t fix this! You literally logged how you abused it straight to the courts, they have a record of what you’ve done! How are you gonna hide this?! You didn’t even give them a reason why, I see the fucking records in front of me!” Thank the heavens for auto-correct, or else that message wouldn’t have been legible.

“You dare to fucking curse a princess, you’re gonna be executed you son of a bitch! And this is about that Rank-Z ability, huh?! How useful can a single strong pawn be? There's a bunch of ability users on this planet alone that would grovel to my feet if I offered the same conditions, why would I want some stubborn donkey?!” Luna was now mad because not only was she “unrightfully” accused, she, the princess, was being cursed at by her underling, if anyone else knew, it would kick up a storm online.

“You’re still this stupid, after all this time you don’t understand a single fucking thing, do you?! The point is not to have an extra pawn, it’s to stop your enemies from gaining more pawns! If you just hand out anyone that could be useful to your competitors, you’re gonna lose! If any of your brothers catch that kid, then guess what, they have an extra ally while you lost one! You are in one of the most talentless sectors in the galaxy, let alone the star cluster, that was the best talent you can find! On top of that, his ability was unprecedented among Rank-Z users, you not only pushed away a useful pawn, you pushed away an unpolished rook! You could have trained him to guard you for at least a century!”

After Justone sent this message, albeit it took some time, Luna finally started seeing the bigger picture. Kezner probably wasn’t too useful to her right now, but later he could be, the conditions she offered amounted to nothing compared to his potential. Even if he wasn’t useful to her in general, he was useful to her enemies, she simply gave him up on a silver platter. If anyone else gave Kezner conditions that outdid her, he would join in a heartbeat.

Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of shooting her foot twice in a day, possibly not being able to recover. Reality hit her that if she didn’t clean up her mess, she would be out of the runnings for the throne.

“Justone, please help me! I’ll forgive you for everything!” Luna wasn’t in the position to act arrogantly anymore.