Pegasus, the peak of human engineering, is a flying city as big as a small island and a carrying capacity of 5 million humans with as many abroad on it already.
It has literally everything, with anti gravitational tecnology coupled with anti detection and invisible mode, making it almost impossible for any monster to detect this flying fortress.
And even if they do, the top class heavy machinery are no joke, not the mention all the awakerers on the ship which are not only responsible for its protection but also sustainance in the air.
After all, no matter how good a flying ship is, you can't create food out of thin air and even though there are artificial gardens, fish tanks and farms, there still are lot of resources that has to be brought back from earth to sustain life here.
That's work is done by scavenger, the lowest level of awakeners mostly filled with criminals and the likes which can be used as meat shields and such.
Anyways, Pegasus has first taken off 100 years ago, and since then it had touched Earth just twice, last time being 30 years ago showing how big of a marvel this city is.
It is Survival for humans, and many such other marvel exist in world beside Pegasus too... Including the 3 legendary hidden domains on Earth surface, managed by a great house each and even a Space City where is imperials live.
Humans are adaptable creature with a never extinguishing will to survive, they somehow find a way to survive...
Even in this dying world but as they say, war do give way to innovation and the biggest war which could have ended in race extinction only made way for even more innovations.
At the cost of billions of lives, uncountable amount of resources and nuclear bombing at uncomprehendable scale, humanity finally get a chance to escape somehow and make these and escape the earth which became hell.
They now exist in colonies which are still in contact with one another and work under a similar management but rarely do interact with each other due to variety of reasons.
The all are like different cities in a same country but with different governments of thier own but all those goverments are interconnected and is in the end just one body.
Anyways, it can be said even though they all human colonies, one of them doesn't affect other much, except for special cases like 30 years ago and 70 years ago.
The last it happened was around 10 years ago where a gathering of almost all 24 human colonies happened.
Anyways, coming back, the Pegasus is divided in three levels, Top, middle and lower levels... Lower level being mostly a slum area with a population around 3 million.
Meanwhile, Middle level is where most of the middle class of the ship lives, having a normal everyday life of 9 to 5 for most and a population of just less than 2 million.
The people here live modestly, they have enough to eat, drink and such but that it, they just have enough.
If they are given apple, they can't demand for oranges.
You have to pay for each meal of your and what the meal will be? It depends on what's available and what has been allowed to be purchased.
However, during special occasion such and marriage and funerals, people do get a chance to experience luxury as long as you can pay for it.
The reason being that places like graveyard was only for top level before middle level was allowed to use that around 50 years ago and they don't bother putting any restrictions.
Maybe because it will be just another way to earn money from middle level.
Lastly the top level, where all the elites lives, and since Aura has never been there, he don't know the details but he has heard that all the rich businessman and strong awakeners lives there.
However, it can be said that they must have no shortage of food there atleast.
All in all, Pegasus is just like any other human city from the past, but with unique circumstances, and is one of the last hope of humanity.
[The test will start in 5 minutes.]
The robotic voice said through the speaker in the hall room as I looked around myself, or at other in the hall giving the same test.
To go through Awakening, one first have to clear a written test, and only if you pass it, can u be allowed to be awakened.
The system has been put in place after a lot of people probably shouldn't have awakened or would have been allowed to awakened went through the ceremony, causing great loss to the human race as a whole.
Anyways, the awakening ceremony is held once every week and anyone, no matter if they are from Top level or even slums, everyone here is given equal chance as long as the matter concerns awakening.
With just one look, it was easy to distinguish who was from which level, or atleast for most as it was easy to know if someone is from slum or not.
'There are a lot of people from slum area tho,' I thought and signed, it's mainly because how the life is in slums, that everyone here is looking for just an opportunity to leave that hell hole.
And what better way it is to do that than awakening? Yes you can die but can also jump to the sky too in one go.
[The test begins now.]
Snapping out of my thoughts at the announcement, I looked at the the table, where a question paper appeared somehow... Its going to be 3 hours.
.
.
.
The questions were easy, it mostly had questions related to human history, working of Pegasus and other such great cities, the 9 Horrors ruling the Earth such.
Mostly, the aim of the exam was to use education in a way that people know who thier enemy is... The nine horrors.
It was also also to make sure thier loyalty lies to the human race.
"Easy was to fool the masses," said the voice as a figure identical to me appeared beside me... That's unusual, ego only appears when I'm nervous, scared, angry and all.
Well, he is but a fragment of my imagination after all and so, I ignored him.
[Pass]
It just took 10 minutes for the results to be announced after the 2 hour long exam due to highly automated Ai incharge and soon, I got a notification on my E-watch too.
'Time to awaken,' I thought taking a deep breath, my future, Rin and Lala future... It all depends on this moment.
.
.
.
"Im... Impossible..." Manager Grey said, looking at the scene in front of him.
"Divine rank... Identity..." He couldn't believe his eyes, for right in front of him, someone awakened with a divine rank identity.
A rank which humanity have never seen before... But he has to believe in it as the truth was right in front of his eyes.
The reading eye globe cannot be wrong, and the record in front of him clearly shows that the identity is of divine rank...
"Fated One - Hero," Grey said, reading the name of the identity... Well, how did it even happened? It started a few hours ago...
.
.
.
"We will now begin the awakening ceremony," Gray said, looking at the group of people in front of him, there were around 100... That's more than usual.
Usually, it's around 40-60 and somewhere in between but with a sign, he shook his head, after all more capable people means the ship could be better maintained.
Well, even in these 100, probably only 10-15 will awaken, around 5-10 may loose thier life and other will came back empty hand from the null world, with nothing but terrible memories and experience.
Well, it's not him who need to bother with that tho, they have already decided thier fate so who is he to stop them?
"Let's begin," he said as he begin explaining the rules to them, "I'm sure you all must know it but I'll still explain anyways, for your awakening ceremony, you will enter the null world, the mysterious world from where the null creature emerged from."
He said looking around and continued, "There, you be able to awaken your identity through a suitable trial the Null Tutorial System will provide you, and as for questions like will you awaken? Or will you not? It all depends on you... So all the best surviving!!"