Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

One week later... Somewhere in Zone 0. Inside a makeshift bunker carved out by earth-affinity ascenders...

John Allen sat quietly near the back of the room, his back straight and his arms crossed over his chest. His shirt was dusty and washed out from their trek across the different sectors to reach here, but his eyes remained sharp.

Next to him, Michael Bush was nervously tapping his fingers against his knee, his eyes darting from one face to another.

Looking around the room, John could recognize a few faces he used to see on television broadcasts before the integration occurred.

There was a former United States Secretary of Defense, a man whose hair had gone entirely white but whose gaze was very vigorous and sharp.

Across from him sat a prominent Chinese diplomat, flanked by a high-ranking Japanese politician and a former military general from France.

High-ranking government officials from all over the world... they were all here, crammed into a cave in the middle of nowhere.

The old borders didn’t exist anymore. The satellite networks were gone, the currencies had been rendered useless, they had all realized, after a week of this new reality that the old hierarchy of government would not stand if they remained disunited.

The global quest pitting humanity against the prehistoric variants had settled any remaining doubts. They were fighting for the literal survival of the species, and right now, they were losing the race for power.

The room was a cacophony of noise. Everyone wore small, button-like language translators that had been purchased from the multiversal store, their voices overlapping as they argued over resource allocation, sector boundaries, and defensive perimeters.

”We cannot simply abandon the eastern sectors!” a French general slammed his fist onto the table, his voice translating with a slight delay.

”There are thousands of common grades there, with no choice but to wander into the forest without direction because of that Storm Tyrant! If we do not establish a presence, they will all be slaughtered by both beasts before the month ends!”

”And with what forces do you intend to guard them?” the former Secretary of Defense countered, leaning forward.

”Our attempts to try and rebuild modern firearms are becoming more and more useless by the day. Ascenders are the new firepower... High-level ascenders. Before we can begin to protect anyone at all, we need these individuals among our ranks.”

The heated discussion threatened to turn into a full-on shouting match until a man standing at the head of the table cleared his throat lightly.

The sound wasn’t loud, but the room went quiet in an instant.

Antoine Blanc stepped into the center of the light. He was a former French special forces operative before the integration, a career soldier who understood the absolute necessity of structured authority.

But more importantly, he was currently the spearhead of this newly reforming world government.

He was a Rare-grade talent, and he was currently sitting at Level 10.

In the last week, the global landscape had shifted dramatically. Multiple individuals across the planet had finally broken past the threshold, reaching Level 10 and gaining access to the System’s advanced features — the global ranking panels, the wealth ranking, and the Multiversal Streaming Channel.

In total, there were exactly fourteen people on the global panel right now.

Antoine was a patriot through and through. He knew that for the old world government to retain any semblance of order and prevent humanity from devolving into lawless savagery, they needed power.

Not the old-world political power of titles and treaties, but the hard, unyielding power of the new reality.

Because of his devotion, Antoine had revealed everything he discovered with his new Level 10 rank to the council.

He had used his new access to establish a permanent, system-acknowledged territory in Zone 1, a frontier base they were calling ”United New Eden.”

It was supposed to be the beacon of human civilization, the staging ground to prove to the masses that the government was still capable of protecting them.

John Allen watched as Antoine reached into his inventory, pulling out a small, sleek silver disk. It was a piece of high-grade holographic technology purchased from the multiversal store — a marvel designed by some advanced extraterrestrial civilization somewhere in the multiverse.

Antoine tapped the surface, and a vast, translucent blue screen projected into the air above the table, casting a cold glow over the faces of the assembly.

”Gentlemen,” Antoine began, his voice calm and perfectly steady. ”Our intelligence networks are slowly being rebuilt by utilizing ascenders with classes geared towards speed of covering ground to map out the continent. Thanks to the ranking panels, we finally have a clear view of the apex forces we are dealing with. Look closely...”

The display flickered, rendering two massive global lists that made the breath catch in the throats of several politicians.

[World Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Red

Level: 22

Territory Owned: 1 (???)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Zara

Level: 20

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: King Alexei

Level: 15

Territory Owned: 1 (Tsar’s Dominion)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 4

Name: Perfection

Level: 13

Territory Owned: (Land of the Flawless)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 5

Name: Black Sun

Level: 11

Territory Owned: 2 (The Black Isles)

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 6

Name: Daofarer

Level: 11

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 7

Name: Jolene Okafor

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 2 (???)

Dungeons Owned: 3

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 8

Name: Iron Tyrant

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 1 (The Iron Sovereignty)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 9

Name: Antoine Blanc

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 1 (United New Eden)

Dungeons Owned: 0

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 10

Name: White Raven

Level: 10

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 11

Name: Stormcaller

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 1

Dungeons Owned: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 12

Name: Hassan Al-Malik

Level: 10

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 13

Name: Quiet Daoist

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 1

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 14

Name: Aiko Mizuku

Level: 10

Territory Owned: 1 (Shikoku Sovereignty)

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

*

*

*

[Global Wealth Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Red

Level: 22

Total Wealth Value: 26,233 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Jolene Okafor

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 14,849 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: King Alexei

Level: 15

Total Wealth Value: 4,450 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 4

Name: Black Sun

Level: 11

Total Wealth Value: 3,137 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 5

Name: Antoine Blanc

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 1,063 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 6

Name: Stormcaller

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 894 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 7

Name: Iron Tyrant

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 831 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 8

Name: Perfection

Level: 13

Total Wealth Value: 696 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 9

Name: White Raven

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 487 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 10

Name: Aiko Mizuku

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 441 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 11

Name: Zara

Level: 20

Total Wealth Value: 388 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 12

Name: Hassan Al-Malik

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 302 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 13

Name: Quiet Daoist

Level: 10

Total Wealth Value: 247 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 14

Name: Daofarer

Level: 11

Total Wealth Value: 191 Multiversal Tokens

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The silence in the room was heavy as everyone stared at the lists before them. John kept his face completely expressionless, but his gaze drifted directly to the top of the board.

Level 22... he thought, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. This was the very first time he was seeing the world ranking panel.

He’s already at Level 22.... And that wealth number... Just what kind of monster is he?