It happened about 25 million years ago, the moment the world ended as we knew it. Without warning, the world became a savage world. A rift opened up upon this world, created by these so called Super Geniuses. Trying to create infinite energy, they said. With our knowledge it should be a very short time until the world is improved once again. WRONG!!! Ever so wrong they were. This rift opened onto or into something that we had never contemplated before. Massive amounts of cosmic radiation entered our world through this rift. But this wasn't the normal cosmic radiation that we all knew about. This was, more primal, more savage, than anything we had encountered.
During the next 10 years they tried every method that could be thought of to contain or close the rift. But nothing worked as they thought. Every time they tried, they either increased the size of the rift or increased the radiation coming from the rift. It was only by accident that the rift was closed. Some lab grunt, tripped and fell into the rift, closing it forever. But the damage had been done and would soon change the world, for better or for worse.
First was the earthquakes, stronger and longer lasting than previously recorded. Then came the volcanos, sending gases and debris into the atmosphere. Then the storms, rain falling for months where deserts once were, snow falling on the equator until it was 10 or more feet thick. The sun, when is did burst though the clouds, would actually make plants grow as you watched. Animals became very, very savage and different. But this wasn't the end just yet.
It took almost 100,000 years before things calmed down. And then, and only then did we find out what kind of changes had occurred. Our world had nearly grown by 1500 times it's size!, but the gravity only increased by 1. If someone weighed 150kg before, they would now weigh 300kg, but would remain the same sizes before. Animals and plants grew more intelligent, well some did.
Before the rift, we could only live for about 120 years. Now, regular people would live for almost 500. But most people weren't your regular average everyday person. These are Spirit Masters. Able to do tremendous things, both good and bad. Once a person reached the age of 3, they would undergo a refinement and gain intelligence on par with a pre-teen from before. This is when school would first begin. After 2 years of school, these now 5 year old would undergo another refinement that would either make them a regular person or a Spirit Master. During this refinement, a Spirit Master of atleast rank 2 would watch over the children. All of the 5 year olds from the village, town, city, or capital would gather is great halls to await this awakening. Upon the moment of being on this world for exactly 5 years, the child would either become 'coated' in a white film, stating they were regular, or be bathed in a dirty white light, meaning they were Spirit Masters.
Regular people became the working class, while 99% of Spirit Masters became the protectors of those with out spirit. The last 1% of Spirit Masters were split into 2 working classes, Blacksmiths and Healers. To become either you not only needed to be a Spirit Master of rank 3 or higher, but also have a Soul Spirit that could preform said duties. This 1% never paid for anything, food and shelter were provided for them. The rest of the Spirit Masters were in a fight or die world.
The ranks of Spirit Masters were counted by how many Spirit Rings they had. Rank 1 had 1 ring, Rank 2 had 2 rings, Rank 3 had 3 rings, and so on it went until Rank 10. So far only about a triple hand count had been able to surpass this rank. All of them had made names for themselves defending and protecting, and when they weren't doing that, they were teaching the younger generation.
This telling is about a group of friends that weren't even from this world, they died in another and were reincarnated here. All of them were from the same world, just different times. Until the last 3 died, all the souls were in a black void. Just waiting for something to happen but not even knowing they were there. once all 7 souls were together, they were then reincarnated. This telling starts almost 4,000 years ago.