“F%$# Yeah,” I tell myself.

After nearly 10 hours of self-meditation, I have finally learned the ancient form of the third-tier technique, Titan Punch.

I can now use it to its full potential.

This commonly used third-tier technique is about 25% stronger than a special force soldier-enhanced punch. However, it has been diluted so much over the last 1000 years after being passed down from family to family and institution to institution that it is not even a shadow of its former glory. Today, you can learn it even if you have as little as a 5% Transcended Gene Count.

Most people don’t understand the greatness of this technique as it was back in the olden days, when the first otherworldly humans appeared, or at least that is what is stated in the few historical records that we still have.

I really shouldn’t be able to learn it. It's not part of my TGene code, but that is my secret, which is why I’m being hunted down now.

I say hunted down, but I’m being melodramatic. It's more like being searched for, like a fat boy searching for the last piece of candy at the grocery store. I’m the candy, and the rest of the world are just a bunch of candy-loving fat kids. They all want to eat me up as if I were the last piece in this world.

I can't blame them; I am enticing candy for these half-starved families and institutions. What I offer has not been seen in over ages. How long ago, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, I screwed up and exposed myself to the outside world about three months ago.

That literally led to my death!

As part of a special forces strike team, I was involved in a military operation in Battle Zone 3 in the Malaysian province of Johor. Unfortunately, the people I considered my closest friends and even my strike team members betrayed me at the most crucial moment. They used me as cannon fodder for the attacking invaders to save themselves.

Wretched creatures we are! Envious too.

I want to say it was a surprise, but it was not. I had an inkling of who my friends were from years back, but I chose to be like an ostrich back then, hide my head in the proverbial sand, and pretend everything was fine.

It cost me dearly.

I died that day for about 10 min.

If it had not been for who I had become by then, I would probably not be here today. The few things I had discovered about myself and the things I had learned and picked up over the past three to four years helped me survive this betrayal.

After the fight was over, my body lay in the sand next to all the other dead soldiers, monsters, and beasts that had come on land that day. It was a gruesome sight to behold. The amount of blood tinted the sand red and the ocean pink. Hands, feet, heads, and many other body parts, as well as flesh, organs, and entrails, were scattered everywhere as these monsters, for lack of a better word, did a number on us. We killed many of them as well, but for every one of them we killed, we lost 4 or 5 people. Everybody left, and we were left to be scavenged by wild animals and beasts roaming the area at night.

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I don’t recall much after that. I was in a trance-like state. I remember being in an empty void where I would see flashes of light pass by far away from me. I would walk towards the flashes of light, but the more I walked, the farther they seemed to be. It seemed like I walked towards these lights for days, if not weeks, but I could never reach them. After some time, I felt heavy, so I sat down. Eventually, sleepiness overtook me. I was lying in bed in an empty hotel room when I woke up.

“How did I get here?” I told myself.

I woke up in a room in an abandoned hotel in Isabel City, Basilan Island, inside the Philippine Island Chain. On the desk next to me was an electronic display pad with several things saved in it.

The first item was the news article about that day's military operation. It was about 30 days old, so I knew I had been unconscious for about one month.

The second was the combination key for the room next to mine. According to the information on the pad, it contained food and clothing. It was stored there specifically for me.

Third and most shocking, four gene sequences were stored in this pad.

All humans with TGenes can learn techniques, as all that is needed to learn a technique is the gene sequence for that technique. It did not even have to be complete. It just had to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks—called "bases"—that make up the DNA molecule. With this, they could decipher the rest of the DNA code, complete the sequence, and learn the technique.

Today, most TGenes are so mutated from all the crossbreeding in humans that only 10 to 40 percent of the original ancient TG codes still exist. This makes it almost impossible to decipher the techniques to a very high degree as they cannot incorporate all the sequences.

Today, the most prominent families and groups only share their most outstanding techniques with their members, whose Tgenes are above the 20% threshold.

Any Unearther or Astral, as we are referred to today, that has less than 20% TGenes can only use third-tier techniques.

Between 20 and 30 percent can use second-tier techniques, and above 30% first-tier. However, the latter is hard to find as most first-tier techniques are kept private by the more influential families or institutions.

Can you increase your gene count?

Yes is the answer, but it takes many resources and a very, very long time.

As far as I know, only a handful of people are above the 50% threshold, and no one has ever come out in public that is above 60%.

Once in a while, you hear about a genius kid who awakened their gene count to over 20% at the age of 15. This attracts the admiration and envy of many local and international groups. It usually ends in an arranged marriage between families or corporate deals between institutions.

This is where I differ from anyone else.

Although I have not checked my gene count since I awoke three years ago, I was closer to the 85% threshold then, which makes me unique. I’m comparable to an ancient otherworld, as they were referred to back then.

This high gene count allows me to take any technique, whether first, second, or third tier and decipher the DNA code back to its origin. I can use the technique as close to 100% as possible.

In other words, my techniques are Godlike.

Why the high gene count, I don’t know.

I know that I have been different since I was small. After my parents passed away, I pretended I was not.

Head in the sand syndrome, I call it.

I knew I was different, but I wanted so much to hide away. I tried to blend in and not stick out like the sour thumb I knew I was. This was a quick way to make enemies, as when you display outstanding talent, even at age 8 or 10, it makes other people envious.

It's even worse when you do it in high school or after awakening.

When you show up, the local big shots, son or daughter, it is not a good thing. It's even worse when the big shot’s son believes you have taken his spotlight and dignity.

This was what caused my tragedy three months ago.

My problems started four years ago at the start of high school and culminated in my death a few months ago. Back then, it was my stupid belief in friendship and love that screwed me up. I thought no one knew about me, and also, falling for the wrong girl at the wrong time didn’t help.

Puppy love, they call it; I call it being a shithead.