Humanity is caught in a great upheaval after the Intergalactic Union of All Species coincidentally discovers their existence on what they had formerly considered to be the fringe of the universe. 

Without any say in the matter, they get indicted into the Union as a legal member. Unfortunately, this meant that they were now obligated to partake in the exploration of a new Chaotic Realm parallel to their universe containing rich energies, resources, and essence that the universe itself craved.

To that end, the universe has created its own will, which seeks to gather all races and strengthen warriors from them to explore the dangerous but lucrative Chaotic Realm, initiating the Augmented Reality simulation, Essence.

In Essence, one can experience a carefully crafted universe similar to an RPG game, either by going in through your soul or going in through VR. The former means that death is true, and the latter is similar to a normal FIVR experience.

Those who go in with their souls can freely receive feedback from their 'game characters' to obtain all stats, skills, and items they acquire in Essence, while those who go in with VR do not obtain that benefit.

However, those who pay for it in Essence can receive an awakening of genetic talent called abilities. These abilities are graded from F to EX, a total of 10 stages.

Not much is expected from the human race when the first 100 participants get chosen at random from the public - a standard protocol - only for each one of them to awaken at least an A-grade ability.

Then, there was Damon Arnan, a young Ghanaian politician, who ended up awakening, not one, not two, but three EX-Grade Talents. 

The human race, which had just entered the galactic playground, was about to experience a storm with Damon smackdab in the middle.

It was an established theory in the universe that the quality of abilities were deeply intertwined and connected with the soul of a species. The higher the soul quality of a species, the higher the level of their commonly awakened ability. 


The strengthen of a soul was not always related to the strength of a species, be it biological, mental or technological. Speaking roughly, the behemoths were stronger than Dragons pre-IUAS when the universe was in its chaotic, war crazy stage. 


It was only when the Universe Will awakened, stopped the fighting by force and recruited spelunkers that the awakening of abilities were discovered by fluke and popularized. Then seeing the gap in power brought by abilities after the Essence AR system was created to empower the spelunkers, abilities took the fore. 


There are races out there who would have dominated the dragons before the IUAS, but are nor ranked 50th and below, having to lower their heads to this new number 1. 


Chapter 179 - High Stakes Gambling 18