It had been a month since Sonus had started training his power.

  In that time, Sonus had realized something he hadn't noticed at the start of his training. While the beings he created looked and felt real, they were actually closer to illusions. They could only cause effects to people if they were sucked into the music, actually believing the effects to be real.

  Currently, Sonus could be seen standing in the rather large backyard of the house he had been given as compensation for his parents death. As the now visibly shirtless Sonus stretched, a body filled with rigid muscles was revealed.

  A seeming side-affect Sonus had noticed from his power was that his body seemed to rapidly advance in terms of strength, going from the neglected body it had once been to a body that appeared to have been trained for years in a matter of weeks.

  On top of the seeming increase in progress Sonus passively gained from the awakening of his power, Sonus also discovered another thing his power could do. This was that, if he were to play motivational music, he always seemed to gain more from his workouts than he would without it.

  Another usage of his power that Sonus discovered was that it was capable of playing music using just his willpower and an instrument, not needing him to physically play it. This was another way Sonus had found to train his power whilst also training his body.

  Every morning, Sonus would start out his day by training his body while simultaneously using his power to play his harp, playing music that allowed his body to recover far faster than humanly possible.

  With this, Sonus' strength rose sharply, this was the reason he had gone from someone nearing anorexia to having lean, compact muscles within such a short timespan.

  After training his body, Sonus would then move on to training his will and gaining a deeper control over his power. He would do this by playing the song Hope and trying to summon a small amount of soldiers, using this time to temper his will by resisting the pressure of the army for as long as he could.

  After finishing this, Sonus would then spend around an hour learning new songs and playing them to learn their affects, gaining a vaster repertoire of music to pull from in combat.

  Sonus would then move on to his final bout of morning training - that being brainstorming ideas for his power.

  Having taken the words of the system to heart, Sonus realized that if his power truly was his own and not reliant on the system, then it would only make sense if he were to try to come up with as many usages of it as possible.

  Using this framework, Sonus had already managed to develop one new ability - that being to play the instrument with just his power, not relying on his physical body at all.

  After developing this ability and using it during his morning training for the past few days, Sonus was quick to notice that using his magic rather than actually physically playing the instrument, seemed to have far worse results.

  Yet, as he practiced this power more and more, Sonus realized that it seemed to get stronger. It appeared that it wasn't that this ability was just naturally weak, but rather that it was something that needed to be trained to become stronger.

  This knowledge motivated Sonus to continue coming up with new ways to use his ability.

  This all led to the situation that Sonus was in now, wherein after finishing his morning training, Sonus decided to try a new ability he had come up with. This ability was to try and use his power to play music using just the air rather than an instrument.

  After all, playing an instrument was just using sound to make specific vibrations in the air to produce different sounds, so why couldn't Sonus just skip the middle man and instead use his power to vibrate the air itself, creating sound waves.

  However, after a frustrating few hours of trying to use his music to pluck at the air, Sonus had made no progress.

  Just as he was about to give up, Sonus came up with one final idea. What if playing the air was just like using his magic to play an instrument, it was far harder and started out far worse than using his body.

  So, with a feeling that what he was doing was quite silly, Sonus reached out and placed his fingers in the position to play an instrument, closing his eyes as he infused energy into his fingertips.

  Focusing intently on the note he wished to produce, Sonus gently plucked at the air with his eyes still closed.

  Yet, the second he finished, Sonus' eyes flew open in surprised joy.

  After all, while very faint, Sonus could swear that he had heard the sound of a note ringing out.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Closing his eyes once more, Sonus suppressed the feelings of excitement that began bubbling up within him, his fingers once more put into position to strum at the air.

  This time, Sonus imagined a completely different note, his finger plucking out at the air once more, energy suffusing it.

  As soon as his finger plucked at the air, Sonus heard a note ring out. This time, he was sure he hadn't imagined it, not only had he heard the note but Sonus had also felt it as his finger seemed to physically pluck the air. Sonus no longer suppressed his excitement, nearly jumping up and down in joy, fist pumping in the air.

  It was at this point that a message appeared in front of him, The System seeming to come to life again after such a long period of silence.

  'Congratulations! As the user Sonus has accomplished a major feat of playing the air, his power has increased in rank from 'F-' to 'E-'.'

  As Sonus read over these words, he couldn't help but feel a strum of excitement well up within him. While being able to feel himself improving was one thing, having the system confirm that he was truly on the right track caused an unimaginable amount of joy to grow within Sonus.

  With newfound excitement, Sonus set to work practicing this new ability. Upon practicing it however, Sonus noticed just how weak this ability truly was in comparison to actually playing an instrument.

  Yet, this didn't discourage Sonus from continuing his practice, not stopping in his plucking of the air for the rest of the night.

  By the end of the night, Sonus had discovered an unintended side affect of plucking at the air. His fingers were now swollen, a numbing pain seeming to pulsate through them. This did not leave Sonus perturbed however, only causing him to view it as another thing to train.

  With sweet dreams taking hold of him, Sonus rested for the rest of the night, a smile of satisfaction covering his exhausted face.

  --

  Sonus awoke the next day with a feeling of dread welling up in the pit of his stomach.

  Deviating from the norm of his everyday schedule, Sonus instead chose to turn on the tv, flipping to the news channel.

  As he sat there listening to the news reporter, Sonus got confirmation that his gut instinct was right. He could feel as the snarl of rage and a trace amount of fear appeared on his face, listening on as the news reporter stated that the now ranked SSS-class threat of Shuten-doji had destroyed the entirety of City B the night prior.

  Listening to this news led Sonus to reel in shock, a feeling of dread and anger overtaking him.

  Fists clenching, Sonus realized that he had been celebrating a rather minor growth in his power while the threat of Shuten-doji was still out there. For the first time since gaining his power, Sonus felt as the feeling of helplessness he once wallowed in returned once more. Along with this feeling however, came the all new almost all-consuming need to improve.

  Realizing that his strength was truly growing far too slowly, Sonus finally decided to do what he had been dreading since gaining his power - entering a portal.

  --

  After The System had sent out its first message, the world had changed even more. Within each city a new semi-government came into place. This new governments job was to control those that had chosen to awaken an ability.

  The reason behind this new government was the widespread carnage that began to occur upon people awakening their abilities.

  Those who awoke strong abilities began to view themselves as above those with weaker abilities or those who had chosen not to awaken at all. This led to those with strength choosing to do whatever they pleased, no longer abiding to the laws set by the government.

  This state of anarchy only lasted for a short period of time before a new group appeared, however.

  This new group went by Team Zero, a team of governmental agents that had all awakened relatively strong abilities - these people would then force those who didn't abide by laws into order.

  However, what was truly frightening about this group wasn't their abilities, but rather than seemingly perfect teamwork.

  After a number of videos of them surfaced, the public had come up with a number of theories behind the seemingly unstoppable teamwork of this group - the leading one being that their leader, titled as Number 1 - had some type of telepathic ability that allowed the group to seamlessly work in perfect tandem.

  Along with this group came the creation of the new governmental branch, titled the Ability Control Center or the ACC for short; this organization was in charge of holding superpowered individuals as well as marking and tracking the creation of new portals.

  After this group came to be however, rose what were now titled as guilds. These were groups of powered individuals that didn't wish to be controlled by the government, instead wishing to create their own societies of ability users that would come together to wipe out portals and kill weaker monsters that were already out on Earth.

  What was surprising however, was that rather than discourage or even attack these guilds, the ACC seemed to actually encourage their creation.

  Afterwards, the ACC came up with new laws surrounding these groups. They set themselves as the official controllers of portals and would then allocate these portals to guilds based on the strengths of their members.

  What was even more surprising was the seemingly readily agreement of the stronger of these guilds and their working to corral the more rambunctious guilds into order as well.

  With all of this coming to pass, guilds began to explore and destroy new portals within no time.

  This led to the discovery of rewards being granted by the system upon the closing of a portal. These rewards were seemingly calculated by the individuals contributions within the dungeon as well as the strength of the dungeon itself.

  This allowed for the rapid development of equipment from the ACC which could do a number of things relating to abilities. For one, they managed to create classifications of abilities based upon the energy released by the user, these being Mage, Fighter, Assassin, Tank, and Long-Range.

  They also developed ways to suppress the release of energy for each of these classes, allowing for safer detainment of criminals with abilities.

  With the discovery of rewards, a new group of people came to be. These people were called Solo's, people who chose to work alone rather than with a group hoping to obtain better rewards from The System. This group of people tended to have stronger abilities than guild members, not needing to rely on guild members to have their backs within the dungeon.

  --

  Thinking about all this, Sonus let out a long sigh. The time had finally come for him to register himself to the ACC, becoming a Solo.

  With steady steps, Sonus headed out into City J for the first time since gaining his powers, his destination? The ACC headquarters.