Empire of the Ring - Chapter 688 - New Settlers (4)

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Lu Yao stumbled upon a pixel art game where players take on the role of a God in it, but it didn’t take him long to realize that this game connects players to the many worlds of different dimensions.The [Sacrifice] function in the game will actually allow offered sacrifices to enter his reality, while the [Blessing] function makes it possible for him to offer real life objects into the game.As a Novice God, besides from creating all kinds of natural disasters, he really couldn’t do much in the game.That was until he decided to ignore the cost and reincarnate a beautiful apostle, from then on, the whole gameplay started to change…

Fight. Heal. Survive.The Integration didn’t just change the Earthen Union—it tore it apart. Monsters, mayhem, and madness turned civilization into a battlefield.Yet, while the world crumbled under the weight of despair, David felt something unexpected: he felt at home.Even after being forced into the [Cleric] Class, David refused to yield. He adapted, turning his unwanted gifts into tools of both healing and destruction, forging himself into a battle-hardened healer unlike any before.

“You call yourself a hero? After your greed killed my sister?”What would you do if all of your friends, everyone you ever loved besides your sister, died in front of you?What would you do if, because you were weak, everyone hated you and considered you a Wasted, someone who hurt humanity's chance to survive extinction?Adam continued fighting despite this abuse, because he still had 1 simple goal: even if he was nothing more than cannon fodder or wasted potential, he would keep his sister safe.But then, it wasn't the Kaiju or apocalypse that killed her. It was the Exalted, the strong, the heroes of society.The people he was supposed to praise were the ones who took his last hope in life away before killing Adam as well.So, when he regressed with a villain system that rewarded him for killing Exalted...[First Exalted killed!][Artifact: The Mantle has upgraded to level 2!]