Power Curriculum Program

The Academy City's Power Curriculum Program is a large-scale program designed to advance a person's psychic or supernatural powers. The program is a series of tests, studies, lectures, medicines, body simulations and hypnosis used to unlock a person's powers. Most students are categorized as Level 0, normal people with either no powers but may have the potential to develop powers and are encouraged to participate in the program to help them train or acquire their powers artificially. However, not all Level 0's have no powers at all; there are special cases that a level 0 has an ability but can't be directly measured (like Kamijou Touma and Motoharu Tsuchimikado). While most students will fail the program as they never had powers to begin with or fail to increase their power, some are able to advance theirs powers from Level 0 to Level 1 and possibly further. One of the program's success stories is Misaka Mikoto, as she started from Level 1 and worked her way up to Level 5; she is proof that with enough hard work and determination, anyone can become a powerful psychic. It is assumed it is possible to tell the potential of a person from a young age, such as 'doctors' asking Misaka for her DNA when she was still little. In volume 22, Mugino points out that Misaka should not have even been close to being a level 5 at the time. There were also hints that the System Scan used to determine the potential of power users could also determine the absolute abilities of the power users at their maximum capabilities, such as with Takitsubo.

However, unknown to the public there is a dark side to this program. Some of the scientists who research psychic powers try to increase a person's powers, especially those with unique powers, using other unethical methods, including dangerous drugs and experiments. Some of these methods achieve their desired results while others fail with trauma or injury to the participant or, in worse cases, death. In fact, some of the most powerful psychics in Academy City are the result of these dark programs. It is implied that the board of directors of the city are aware of these experiments, but choose to turn a blind eye to them as they allow those scientists to do what they what to do as long as the public does not know and it has achieved its desired result.