In the center of a living room, a TV could be heard.

"-Good morning Sunrise City! This is New World News, and today we have another beautiful day in the city of never-ending progress!

-That's right Sarah, however, today is also a day of remembering. Today we commemorate those who died during the attack on the former fourth leading city: New Horizons City, by the terrorist group: Lux Aeterna.

-Indeed Leon, with a resulting death toll of around six hundred fifty thousand and the complete obliteration of a whole city, this is to date the largest-scale terrorist attack ever seen. From brave HSA operators who gave their lives in order to protect the city, to innocent civilians who died in the crossfire, the rate of death in this attack was 48% for civilians and 92% for HSA operators.

-Six years have passed since, but the consequences of what Lux Aeterna declared as their first victory against the HSA, remain. The lost of the world's fourth leading city and the death of the first ranked one awakening HSA esper, Michael Vronti also known as the Purple Raijin, as well as the former first-ranked, Mayla Fireborn also known as the Demon Phoenix, at hands of Lux Aeterna marked the humanity's darkest day since the Fourth World War.

-So that it would never happen again, the HSA had to make changes, being the creation of their elite esper group, the biggest one.

-The Black Guard, a group of the most powerful one awakening, transformation stage, and even unity stage espers from the HSA, specifically trained in combat to defeat Lux Aeterna operators and their own elite group: "The Envoys", as well as any threat to humanity's survival.

-Since the creation of this new group, Lux Aeterna seems to have withdrawn as their attacks haven't had the same scale as the New Horizons City's scale and have become rarer and rarer, with all their attacks being unsuccessful and all their operators being defeated by Black Guard operators.

-However, the HSA authorities are still putting all their efforts to find the "Envoys" as well as their leader, Adam Wagner, who hasn't shown himself since the attack on New Horizons City.

-You are right Leon, and now like every year since three years ago, the "Rising Espers Tournament" is just around the corner.

-That's right, in three weeks the "Rising Espers Tournament", the tournament where the HSA will be recruiting the most promising first-year and second-year high school espers to join the Black Guard, is gonna be held all around the world.

-We will be bringing you more information about the tournament in the next few days.

-In other news, yesterday..."

'F*ck, f*ck, f*ck, I'm gonna be late for school' Seth thought as he dashed through the living room heading towards the door.

"Aunt, uncle, I'm heading off!" He said as he got to the door.

"Have a good day!" Seth's aunt and uncle said from the kitchen just before they heard the door closing.

"I swear that kid would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his body," the uncle said chuckling while he washed the dishes.

"He's truly a special kid, even after all he's been through he hasn't lost that spark in him," said the aunt with a smile as she set the table.

"Yeah..." said the uncle while smiling

After losing his parents at the age of eight, Seth moved in with his mother's sister, his aunt, and her husband. They lived in the residential area just outside Sunrise City. This had been Seth's home for the past 6 years, almost half his life.

As Seth dashed through the streets he arrived at what looked like a big ring of about twenty meters in diameter that stood in the middle of a public square. Several people were already waiting in front of it, they were all dressed for work or school.

Suddenly, the ring lit up and its interior was filled with a purple light. Seth ran faster as he saw the teleportation turning on.

Shing!

As Seth entered the teleportation ring, the world became blurry and suddenly he was in the center of a square surrounded by skyscrapers. Seth didn't waste time and began running again.

It was another sunny day in Sunrise City. The sun shone through the countless skyscrapers of the city giving it a beautiful look. Advertisements for different products and services could be seen on the side of the buildings. In the sky could be seen tons of flying vehicles as well as hovering teleportation rings that sped up the movement across the city. On the ground, tons of people could be seen in the street, from workers to students. Everyone headed somewhere and everyone had something to do, some were rushed while some were more relaxed.

This was the sight that Seth loved to see every day, the sight of a living city, the sight of happy people, the sight of a beautiful world.

Seth smiled as he contemplated this sight while running. Then he looked forward again 'The next teleportation ring is two blocks away, that should take me a block from the academy and I still have 5 minutes left... I can make it' Seth thought as he began running faster.

As he arrived at the teleportation ring two boys the same age as him passed flying above him. They wore the same black uniform with red details as Seth.

"Come on hurry up! We are gonna be late!" said one of them.

"I'm going as fast as I can" answered the other one.

"Really? I'm not even going at half my maximum speed" said the first one while smirking.

"Oh shut up!"

Shing! Shing!

Then they both went through the teleportation ring.

'Integration stage espers' Seth thought in amazement as he saw this. At Seth's age, most of the espers were still at the manifestation stage. The integration stage espers represented a small part of the espers and hence were the most talented. In fact, getting to the integration stage was the first bottleneck for espers. Most of the espers would never be able to get past the step 5 manifestation stage.

Shing!

Then Seth also went through the teleportation ring.