Damon sighed as he closed the terminal and slumped over his table. For the entirety of the past week, not counting the small breaks when they had received food, he had made use of the terminal and had been dutifully reading up on the charter of laws that governed the IUAS, as well as all treaties between the IUAS as a faction and the Universe Will.

Why had he done this? It wasn't just due to his background as a fledgling politician, but rather a key lesson his father had instilled in him during his childhood.

In the past, his family had decided to take their vacation in another country in celebration of Damon's father, a seasoned veteran, just having won a very public case involving two celebrities and their domestic dispute.

While the adults had settled into their hotel room, he had been left unsupervised, so the then 10-year-old Damon had committed the 'fatal' mistake of crossing the main street… right under the watchful eyes of a local policeman.

In Ghana, everyone crossed the street once they had made sure that there was no incoming traffic, their pedestrian crossings were basically optional. Unfortunately, this First World regarded jaywalking as an atual crime… and as luck would have it, the policeman who had stopped him had seemed very eager to enforce it.

Suddenly getting apprehended by a 20-something stranger in police uniform, young Damon had naturally panicked, not only because he had realized that he had done something to land himself in trouble, but more so the fact that this had happened in a foreign country.

It wasn't like at home, where he could simply mention his last name or ring his father, who would do something to make sure everything would be swept under the rug. Fortunately, they hadn't been far from the hotel, so the young policeman had accompanied the crying child back, and the receptionist had quickly called down Damon's father.

The situation had been quickly resolved once it was proven that they were tourists, especially since they had just arrived, so after being told to apologize, Damon got off with a warning.

Having noticed how thoroughly shaken his young son had become, Daru Arnon patted the boy on the head and spoke slowly, making sure Damon would not forget the lesson he was about to teach him.

"I don't blame you for what happened, son. You simply did not know that this country follows a different set of rules and regulations compared to our own."

Daru then gazed at his son directly. "Always remember this, my son, the man who knows the rules and regulations of the world, or at least of the place he is in, is the most powerful man in the area."

Damon had never forgotten these words and had lived by them his whole life. That was why the moment he had been beamed into the spaceship, placed in front of Ambrose, he had been extremely uncomfortable the entire time and stayed very cautious.

Just like during their vacation, he had no idea how the rules and regulations of their new surrounding differed from what he had been used to… but now he did.

As such, Damon felt more relaxed than ever, as if had gone from a man holding a toy gun during a zombie apocalypse to a man wielding a minigun.

You can just picture how both of these metaphorical men would move along a corridor in contrast to each other. Damon moved to lie on the bed and sorted out his thoughts as well as what he had learned.

First, humans had done really well in regard to science. Most of their theories seemed to have been correct, as far as Damon could tell - which was not saying much given his loose scientific knowledge and background - except for stuff about the universe.

Firstly, their universe's state was nowhere near approaching a heat death, nor was it at the tail end of its life. It was actually infantile, just born on the age scale of universes, assuming of course that others existed. It had not been supposed to form a will anytime soon.

According to the IUAS' research it should have taken the universe 200 cycles from its inception for it to birth a will. Each cycle, converted into human years as a unit of measurement, lasted 999 quadrillion years… suffice to say that it was an unimaginable amount of time for a human mind, however, the truly shocking thing was the universe hadn't even passed its 20th cycle yet…

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The universe was currently weak and had poor control over its own space. As such, it could not intervene and force living beings to do its bidding, hence why it had to seek their cooperation.

Of course, there would be a time when it could, but could it afford to wait 180 cycles looking at the amount of time that would take? Who knew what would happen in the ensuing time?

One should know that the universe had only discovered the Chaos Realm roughly 500,000 years ago. According to its own testimony the Universe's will had come into existence about 200,000 years ago, thought it had taken it 20,000 years from that point to make first contact with the other sentient species. After that, though, the IUAS had been formed and various rules and agreements had come into existence.

How did Damon know all this through reading law? Because the law contained everything!

Any legal practitioner could tell you that reading all statutes, case files, treaties and the like was enough to give you a full scope of a legal system's existence. Of course, that was what an indignant lawyer turned author would probably argue in order to remind himself that his former profession was elegant, important and necessary for the sake of mankind… and not just a boring process of who could better outlie the other.

The real reason was that most of the laws, when written and codified, would have introduction segments. They didn't just write the laws without any context beforehand. The introduction gave a brief recount of the issues that the laws were meant to solve, as well as those who contributed to it.

Leaving aside the legal mumbo jumbo, Damon was now equipped with much more. He partially understood what Ambrose was trying to do from a legal perspective, yet he could only guess about the social part. It had already been hard learning that much in such a short timeframe, so Damon could only sincerely hope that someone else had read up on the social maxims of this union.

Eventually, an announcement was made by the ship's AI for the humans to gather in the AR room. Confused, Damon exited his room and saw the other humans doing so as well. They all gazed at each other, most seemingly having come out for the first time in a week, as they were led through the ship once more by a group of grunts who had come to pick them up.

They were brought to a room similar to where they had awoken their abilities, only that there enough pods here to house them all at once this time. One of the grunts turned around and gazed at the humans here coldly.

"Lord Ambrose, in his infinite wisdom and kindness, has decided to allow you access to the world of Essence's staging area. There, you will undergo a short tutorial on Essence and how it works, while also getting to practice your abilities for a short while to become familiar with them."

The humans immediately became excited. Many had dreamed about trying out their new abilities, yet for fear of harming the ship, or themselves, they had refrained from doing so. Nobody had told them anything about it yet, so what if trying to use your ability drained some form of energy or lifeforce?

Not everyone was stupid enough to just activate a power they just got but didn't understand, especially when they would likely be given a chance to understand later on.

Damon and Felecia's eyes flashed. Both of them had researched different things over the past week, but in the end, their scope of knowledge was very similar. They were like two different people who lived in the same society and knew its norms, but one knew the norms of the light side while one knew the norms of a dark side.

Damon understood the legal implications of this and Felicia understood and the historical and social meaning of this. Both remained quiet and were shuffled into a pod quietly, both suppressing their own excitement to find out more about themselves.

Once within, they were flooded with nanites once more, a feeling not much different from being wrapped in a cushion. Soon, they lost consciousness and appeared in the same white space as before.

However, the central terminal was nowhere to be seen, only endless nothingness.

Damon was confused for a bit before he remembered to open the Character menu. He hadn't forgotten about it per se, but he had been so focused on swallowing the rules and regulations of the IUAS due to his childhood obsession, so he had put all aside.

[Name: Damon Arnan || Race: Homo Sapien (Pure) || Faction: None]

[POW: 1 || MOB: 1 || FOR: 1 || MEN: 1|| PRO: 1]

[Abilities: Probability Manipulation (EX), Avatar (EX), Devour (EX).]

Nothing about it had really changed, making Damon tilt his head as he wondered what to do, since there really was not interface or method to advance from here. Luckily, a separate screen opened to the side, asking him if he wanted to initiate the special tutorial.

He hesitated for a moment before he selected 'yes', hoping that there was no negative reason 'special' was added to it. When he clicked it, a virtual body appeared before him that was feminine in form, but blue colored and translucent.

"Greetings, Damon Arnan of the Human species. I'm the Special Entity tasked to Lecture you about the Integration into the world of Essence, but you may call me Selie for short. I manage everything that has to do with the Augmented Reality World of Essence and will answer all your questions related to Essence for the duration of this tutorial." Selie spoke in an androgynous tone.

Damon eyed the virtual body silently, making his own judgments in mind. At the end of the day, he was an African, and Africans were one of the most judgmental fellows in the world.

The young man frowned, but asked what was on his mind.

"What are those stats? What do the numbers mean, Selie?"