The night view from "God's Sanctuary"
Author: Twelve-Winged Dark Seraphim
Synopsis:In the magnificent interstellar era, mankind has finally developed teleport technology, but when trying to teleport, they are not sent to the future, the past, or any land known to men...
This mysterious space is called God’s Sanctuary, where lived numerous unknown creatures. Here, humans will make the greatest leap in their evolution to create the most glorious epoch in history.
"Sacred-blood creature black beetle killed. Beast soul of sacred-blood black beetle gained. Eat the meat of sacred-blood black beetle to gain 0 to 10 geno points randomly."
The story follows Han Sen, a teenage boy whose father died under mysterious circumstances, putting his family on hard times, with his three Evil Uncle making it worse. His only hope is striking it rich in the alternate dimension known as "God's Sanctuary" before he's drafted into the military.
This has not gone well either, as shortly after arriving, he mistakes a shape-shifted commander of one of the local gangs for a beast rampaging in the shelter and attacks her, making himself a pariah to everyone inside. Fortunately, as he's hunting beetles, the only thing he can catch, he stumbles upon a special gold beetle, and things start to turn around for him...
Assorted Tropes:
- Aliens Are Bastards: When we're first introduced to an alien race, the Shura, it's through a crash landing into a middle-school. When the alien emerges from its wrecked spacecraft, does it send an S.O.S. to its own kind? No. Does it seek assistance from the locals? No. Does it surrender and offer itself prisoner, due to being badly injured? No. What does it do? Attack the helpless children that were in the school it crashed into! Even swinging a katana at a little girl hanging from a girder, caused by its own crash. Fortunately, this just happened to be occurring right in front of our protagonist, who swooped in to rescue them.
- Alien Sky: Highlighted in the cover. That is what "God's Sanctuary" looks like when Han Sen is hunting beetles at the start of the story.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Starry Group is run by plutocrats whose word is law among the corporation. Offend any one of them, even if it's just for the "crime" of existing, and you don't have powerful protection, like the military watching out for you, and they can screw you and your family over ten ways from Sunday, and they'll happily do it too. Even Alien aristocrats are total scum. The Aliens Are Bastards entry? That was a Shura Aristocrat.
- Artistic License – Physics: In the form of Walking Techbane. The laws of physics in "God's Sanctuary" are bizarre, to say the least. Biological functions work just fine, for the most part, but any artificial device, no matter how it should function, simply stops working once brought in. Internal combustion engines don't work, but people can light fires with matches. Guns don't work for the same reason. Electricity doesn't work, but the central nervous system does, and on down the line...
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Strength is the most valuable determining factor for leadership, at least among the gangs of Steel Shelter. It's not quite at the level of Might Makes Right because the leaders still have to be trustworthy and genuinely look out for the best interests of their gang. Son of Heaven is so far the only exception.
- Atrocious Alias: Han Sen's is "Dollar." To his credit, he didn't choose that moniker. Some reporter chose it for him, and it stuck.
- Broken Aesop: In universe. Han Sen misquotes the old saying "success is 1% talent and 99% hard work" into "99% talent and 1% hard work." He happens to have it right where he's concerned.
- The Cassandra: Han Sen's story is so far outside the norm that people don't believe his accomplishments are genuine, until it smacks them in the face and they can't deny it any more.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Everybody who works for "Starry Group," and they're completely shameless about flaunting it. They have a stranglehold on just about every form of tech in the setting, and when they don't, they have no compunction against performing any kind of villainy, including, theft, slander, and even murder, to assert their monopoly.
- Genre Shift: The story bounces back and forth between a jaunt through a dangerous, alien dimension with Medieval Stasis because artificial devices don't work, for some bizarre reason, to a futuristic sci-fi setting where mankind has all but conquered the stars, and is at war with genocidal aliens, to a high-school romantic comedy, and it's all but seamless between shifts...
- Hate Sink: Many of the people who antagonize Han Sen are universally hated by the fanbase, but the crown has to go to his Arch-Enemy "Son of Heaven." The guy is the heir to Starry Group and is completely without redeeming features of any kind. Most can't wait to see him die, horribly, on either side of the fourth wall.
- Hearing Voices: The reasonon "God's Sanctuary" is named such is that whenever someone gets a kill on the native fauna, a disembodied voice spells out what species the beast is, the fact that it's been killed, the fact that a beast soul has been acquired, if such occurs, and what level of beast it is, Ordinary, Primitive, Mutant, and Sacred, with sacred being the highest... Until Han Sen encounters an even higher tier, the super beast, which can mow through sacred beasts like nothing.
- Humongous Mecha: Warframes, especially the Heavy Warframes, normally used in construction.
- Kill Steal: The best way to show someone disdain in this story is to go and land the final blow on whatever beast he or she is hunting. This not only renders their efforts, and expenses, null, but also strips away their chances of taking away a beast-soul. Unless someone is universally loathed, it is not wise to do this to them, as they will retaliate, often with lethal force...
- Magikarp Power: The way pets work. At the start, they're completely useless, aside from being entertaining, or emotional support. Feed them enough rare and expensive mutant or sacred creature meat, however, and they transform into mighty beasts of war.
- Mildly Military: God's Sanctuary is supposed to be a training ground where teens are sent, not just to grab geno-points to boost their abilities, but hopefully learn hyper-geno arts, weapons training, and acquire beast souls, so humanity has a better chance against the genocidal aliens with which humanity is at war. In reality, it's all but a total anarchy, with no adult supervision, whatsoever, and death is so common, a student going missing for over a year is simply shrugged off as a sick day, with the worst official punishment being the requisite taking of make-up classes and exams, and yes, people do tend to die en masse in God's Sanctuary, frequently.
- Million to One Chance: At the very start of the story, Han Sen had eaten so many beetles that he was no longer gaining any benefit from it and was at the end of his rope, with three Evil Uncle preparing to seize the family home, forcing his mother and very young sister out onto the street. At this point, his traps capture a gold "sacred soul" beetle, a creature so rare, none of the other residents of his shelter even know it exists. After killing it, gaining its beast soul, and cooking it to gain benefits, he finds in its gut a rock that forcefully evolves "primitive" creatures through the upper tiers to "Sacred." This allows him to not only boost his abilities immensely, but quickly get the cash he needs to buy out the claims of said "uncles" so they can never go after his mother and sister again, and this isn't the last time this kind of thing happens to him...
- Obvious Rule Patch: Whenever Han Sen winds up in a martial competition and does "too well," the sponsors hold emergency meetings and then change the rules in such a way as to all but guarantee marginalizing, if not outright eliminating, him, and promote their favorite team's supremacy. It shouldn't come as a surprise that this leads to the in-universe fanbase launching a bunch of protests, and causing the sponsors to have their ratings and credibility crash.
- Precursors: Crystalizers. They were a civilization so advanced, their ruins encompass entire planets, and would take over 5000 years to fully explore just one of them.
- Punchclock Hero: Han Sen is of firm moral fiber and does act heroically, but he expects to be paid for it, one way or another. In his defense, his family is on really hard times, and he can't afford to do heroic things for free.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: What's good for Han Sen is good and what isn't is bad or evil. Since he's a Knight in Sour Armor Punch-Clock Hero, he happens to be right far more often than not.
- Shout-Out: Han Sen names his first pet, "Meowth!"
- Summon Magic: The way "beast souls" work. They are stored inside the body in some kind of Hammerspace and can be called upon at will. There is currently no way to check if someone has a beast soul until they choose to reveal it.
- Supernatural Martial Arts: The aptly named hyper-geno arts. They are capable of allowing humans to perform super-human feats, whether it's changing the molecular structure of the body, enduring extremes in cold or heat, shrugging off drugs and poisons, or even granting temporary enhancement to speed, strength, endurance, or senses.
- Super Power Lottery: In every way imaginable. Killing any of the creatures in "God's Sanctuary" has a random chance to grant you a "beast soul." That "soul" can take the form of a weapon, armor, mount, Bottomless Magazines ammunition, allow for Voluntary Shapeshifting, or even a pet, and nobody ever knows what they're going to get. This also applies to martial arts contests. The prizes are never revealed to the winner until he goes and claims them, and they're always a beast-soul of some kind.
- Title Drop: We find out what "Super Gene" means to the story somewhere between chapter 270 and chapter 300.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: With a bit of luck, gaining a beast-soul allows you to shape-shift into the beast's form, with a humanoid frame.
- World of Jerkass: Everybody in this story only works in his or her own best interest, aside from small children. The protagonist is not exempt.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: The way beast souls are acquired. Only the one who lands the killing blow gets the soul. Everybody else in the party can only share in the beast's meat afterwards, though this does carry its own reward...
