Ability Control Bureau

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

The Bureau’s predecessor, the Special Events Office, was established before Disaster Day in response to the appearance of the Living Dead. Its formation was publicly announced at a press conference, although it was severely understaffed. After the Disaster Day war, it was renamed the Ability Control Bureau. Much of its earlier history was lost when the catastrophe destroyed its records 167 197 209.

For the next three hundred years, the Bureau protected human settlements against the Polluted. Its authority rested partly on a long record of service: civilians continued to trust its personnel during disappearances, evacuations, and confinement inside dangerous anomaly zones 92 174.

The Bureau once cooperated with modified humans. That relationship ended after two experimental subjects massacred the residents of the border city they had been sent to reinforce, killed their accompanying Bureau personnel, and then slaughtered another city. Public fear and rejection of modified humans forced the Bureau to cease cooperation 117.

Organization and Personnel

Command Structure

• Qin Daichuan — City A captain involved in incident response, investigations, and access to the Monster Archives 10 24 146 148.
• Zhao Yi — Operative involved in arrests, searches, and liaison work with Ye Jiang 24 101 190.
• Chen Zhuozhuo — Operations-team member and investigator whose disappearance is initially described as a secret mission; later identified as the Blood Knight 58 59.
• Ming Xia — A-rank gravity user recruited after the trial grounds; serves as a reservist and undertakes independent missions unusually early 119 127.

Recruitment and Training

• Trial-ground recruitment: Participation is associated with a requirement to join the Bureau afterward. Chen Zhuozhuo’s career follows the route from school selection to awakening, Bureau training, and full membership 13 58.
• Reservist system: Veterans guide newcomers through point-earning missions. Reservists need 100 points to become full members 119.
• Typical training pace: Accumulating the required points normally takes three years; independent missions generally begin after two years. Ming Xia reaches solo assignments within months 119.
• Voluntary recruitment: The Bureau invites Ye Jiang to join but accepts her refusal without pressure 72.
• Service after rescue: In City S, Xiao Pei offers rescue to remnants of shattered ability-user organizations on the condition that they work for the Bureau after leaving the anomaly zone 55.

Duties and Principles

Civilian Protection

• Patrols settlements and deploys field personnel against Polluted outbreaks, including the lower-ranked creatures drawn into a frenzy by A-rank incidents 5 8.
• Escorts evacuation convoys, guards exit routes, distributes supplies, and clears surviving threats before residents return home 32 34 39.
• Establishes protection bases inside dangerous areas and recruits available ability users to defend civilians 55.
• Investigates disappearances, ability malfunctions, and attacks on ability users 90 98 101.
• Conducts two annual visits to Shuiling Town, described by the Bureau as concern for its residents and by the Guard as surveillance 118.

Restraint and Equal Treatment

• No abuse of abilities against fellow humans: Bureau members are held to strict standards and forbidden from using their powers to harm other humans. This principle also guides the regulation of outside ability users 59.
• Capture rather than indiscriminate killing: When apparently monstrous figures may actually be transformed civilians, the Bureau detains them instead of disposing of them 43 66.
• Equal protection: Its stated responsibility includes citizens’ lives and freedom of thought, rather than judging people solely by their usefulness 74.
• Protection despite overwhelming danger: The Bureau offers to help Ye Jiang separate from Dong Zhen even though its strongest fighter cannot confidently injure him 105.

Public Trust

• The Bureau’s reputation is strong enough that Xiao Pei can calm an angry crowd by asking whether they trust the organization 92.
• Inside the mall, Yu Hai’s work ID immediately reassures trapped civilians. He commits himself to finding a way to bring everyone home 174.
• Leadership includes a considerable number of ordinary people, not only ability users 243.

Resources and Equipment

Funding and Outside Assistance

• Government funding and donations: Operating costs exceed government support. The City A branch has shabby premises and depends heavily on public donations; the Zhou family is its largest financial backer early in the story 3.
• Donor interference: The Zhou family attempts to treat Bureau operatives as private guards and prevents them from leaving for patrol duty 5.
• Part-Time Cat partnership: The Bureau posts bounty tasks through the civilian ability-user organization when short-staffed. Its jobs have a reputation for high risk and low pay 14.

Equipment and Facilities

• Detection beads: Rare tools that identify a Polluted’s rank and provide a single-use storage and message function. Their manufacturing difficulty prevents widespread sale 167.
• Work IDs: Carry unique personnel numbers. Predecessor-office IDs begin with TB; postwar Bureau IDs begin with YK 167.
• Underground isolation chambers: Used to confine dangerous detainees, including the injured Yun Hua 98 100.
• Branch cemeteries: Cities with Bureau branches maintain burial grounds for deceased personnel. Funerals emphasize remembrance among comrades rather than publicizing achievements 194.
• Ability System communications: After signal towers are destroyed, low-level ability-user messengers give ordinary leaders access to the system’s communication functions 243.

Monster Archives

The Monster Archives record anomalies whose strength exceeds that of ordinary ability users and Polluted. Initially, access is limited to a small number of executives and operations-team leaders, with even most Bureau members unaware that monsters exist 10.

• Numbering: Assigned according to the order in which the Bureau observes the monsters’ appearances, rather than their strength 189.
• Codenames: Usually taken from the identities of their human hosts, avoiding premature judgments about allegiance. Wanderer is an exception because the Bureau cannot identify his host 189.
• Restricted disclosure: The Bureau initially conceals monsters to prevent panic, but grants Ye Jiang access as their cooperation deepens 10 105 145 146.
• Limits of intelligence: The Bureau first attributes Wanderer’s manifestations to painting; Xiao Pei later recognizes that his power involves illusions 92.
• Public release: During the World Destroyer crisis, the Bureau publishes the archives and identifies him as the cause of the approaching apocalypse 237.

Monster No. 0 Contingency

• Top-secret records preserve a three-hundred-year-old instruction: if humanity has nowhere left to turn, seek the being at Mount Songjing and ask him to leave the mountain 31.
• The Bureau treats Monster No. 0, Rong Yin, as a last-resort safeguard because he helped humanity on Disaster Day 166.
• Officials remain wary of him despite three centuries of peaceful coexistence. They do not know who imposed the guarantee recorded on the archives’ title page 166.

Major Operations

City A: Zhou Estate and Mushroom Man

The Zhou estate incident forces the Bureau to respond to an A-rank outbreak and the accompanying frenzy of lower-ranked Polluted. Afterward, Qin Daichuan investigates the estate and consults the Monster Archives about the mysterious nurse encountered there 8 10.

During the later Mushroom Man crisis, the Bureau organizes civilian evacuation and supply distribution. Ye Jiang escorts more than a hundred vehicles to an evacuation intersection and agrees to help rescue Old Hu. After Nurse kills Mushroom Man, evacuation is suspended and operations teams clear the remaining threats 34 39.

City S Investigation

Headquarters sends a ten-person team led by the reinstated Xiao Pei to investigate anomalies traced to City S, despite the deaths of all previous Bureau investigators sent there. Inside the city, the team establishes a civilian protection base 50 55.

After Writer’s death restores communications, headquarters dispatches the City A branch to assist survivors. The Bureau evacuates them but retains City S’s restricted status because another powerful being may remain there 72.

Shuiling Town Inquiry

Ming Xia visits Shuiling Town on a Bureau observation mission and discovers that the Guard creates contamination and mutants to stage hunts of human beings. After the town’s crisis ends, she prepares to escort the surviving Guards back to the Bureau and report the truth 119 133 138.

The Door and Magical Mall

Logistics personnel swallowed by a mysterious door return as newly awakened ability users despite their age and poor aptitude. The Bureau investigates the door as a possible third miracle, alongside the Blood Moon and Moon Tree, and sends an exploration team with Ye Jiang 146 147 149.

The expedition exposes a monster impersonating the Bureau member Cheng Xin. Ye Jiang later supplies flesh samples for investigation, warns of his manipulation of other monsters, and offers access to the mall for training. The Bureau designates him Monster No. 10, World Destroyer 179 180 189.

• Selection: Two thousand candidates are chosen from headquarters and forty branches based on both ability and character; Ye Jiang receives final veto authority 190.
• Training area: Floors 2–49, with self-repairing rooms capable of accommodating unrestricted A-rank attacks 191.
• Result: A further human S-rank breakthrough follows, giving leadership concrete evidence that the training can strengthen humanity 196 197.

War Against the World Destroyer

While Xiao Pei and her companions are trapped in the Watch Mountain Range, three years pass outside. The World Destroyer gathers and creates special Polluted, gains the Gambler’s allegiance, and eventually launches several thousand S-rank Polluted against human cities 237.

By the group’s return, more than half of humanity’s cities have fallen. The Bureau and allied monsters maintain four major bases, while ability users evacuate civilians from occupied cities. Later, Xiao Pei reports preparations to counterattack Huanxia City with four S-ranks against four S-rank Polluted 237 243.

Relationships

• Ye Jiang / the Healer — Independent collaborator rather than a member. Provides treatment, assists investigations, returns Song Cen’s detection bead, and opens the mall for Bureau training 72 189 190.
• Part-Time Cat — Long-standing civilian partner whose platform supplies outside assistance when Bureau manpower is insufficient 14.
• Zhou family — Major City A donor whose financial leverage creates conflict with the Bureau’s patrol responsibilities 3 5.
• Rong Yin / Monster No. 0 — Dangerous, long-standing last-resort protector; cooperation does not erase the Bureau’s caution toward him 31 166.
• Dong Zhen / Wanderer — Classified as relatively friendly based on recorded encounters, but still considered dangerous enough to warrant a direct warning to Ye Jiang 92 105.
• World Destroyer — Infiltrator and principal wartime enemy whose monster identity and campaign are eventually disclosed to the public 179 189 237.

Notable Quotes

“Humanity has never been defeated!”
— Xiao Pei, reassuring the City S protection base 61

“I’ll find a way to bring everyone home.”
— Yu Hai, identifying himself to civilians trapped in the mall 174