1965.
The world still remembers that year as the end of certainty—and the beginning of fear.
It was the day the sky tore open for the very first time.
In great capitals and remote villages alike, black fissures appeared, suspended in the air, pulsing like open wounds in reality itself. Before long, they were given a name: Dimensional Portals.
From these abysses emerged creatures unknown to mankind—colossal beings wreathed in misty mana. Bullets bounced harmlessly off their scales. Bombs left nothing but smoking ashes, never the corpses of their targets. Within months, nearly half of humanity was consumed by the slaughter. Cities burned. Nations crumbled. Prayers were drowned in chaos. The world believed the end had come.
But from that desolation arose a phenomenon that would forever change history.
The air itself grew heavy with a new energy—mana. Invisible yet omnipresent, it seeped into every breath, every drop of water, every beating heart.
And then came a miracle… or perhaps a curse.
Some humans began to change. Muscles hardened. Wounds healed in moments. Flames answered a mere gesture. Stones trembled at a touch. Winds bent to a whisper. Humanity had discovered the Awakened.
The first of them—hailed as the Heroes of the First Generation—shone like sparks in the night. With powers still raw and unrefined, they fought back against the monsters. At the cost of countless lives, they managed to drive the creatures beyond the portals. The world was not saved, but it was pulled back from extinction.
From the corpses of these beasts, another secret was uncovered: within their bodies pulsed mana cores—luminous crystals brimming with unimaginable energy. They became the most coveted resource on Earth. Not only were they an inexhaustible source of power, they were also the key to strengthening the Awakened.
And so, the first great clans were born—families built on bloodlines of warriors and mages, passing down affinities to their descendants. Love no longer dictated marriages; magical compatibility did. Society itself was reshaped, stratified by power.
From 1970 to 2000 came what historians call the Era of Reconstruction. Nations rose again—not through politics or economics, but through the sheer might of the Awakened. Mana Academies were established to train the next generations. Children now learned not only to read and write, but to master their affinities. Some remained ordinary, powerless. Others surpassed the heroes of the past before even reaching adulthood.
Then dawned what is now called the Era of Mana. Science fused with magic. Mana cores powered entire cities. Instant communication networks spanned the globe. Technology advanced beyond even the wildest dreams of the previous century.
Yet beneath this renaissance, one truth remained unshaken: the world was no longer equal.
The strong ruled. Clans governed. And those without power were nothing but shadows in the hierarchy of mana.
It is in this fractured world—where portals still open, where monsters still lurk in the dark, and where every man may rise as a god or fall as a slave—that a young man named Nathan Iserath is about to carve his own legend.