MTL - Old Chapters - v18 Chapter 35 final day (10)

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.

“I lost everything again...?”Kain had to work hard to feed himself, in a small village on the edge of the forbidden lands. Unlike the others, he hated Keepers, the only people capable of fighting the creatures from the Astral Dimension. Everyone saw them as heroes, but Kain blamed them for the greatest tragedy of his life - the death of his parents.Ironically, the sacrifice of one Keeper allowed Kain to obtain a Rune Brand - the key to begin a trial, the outcome was either power or death.Facing another world, Kain discovered that his blood was cursed, and misfortune would always haunt him.But death would avoid Kain, wanting to keep such a valuable sacrifice for a god. Only failure would await him, but if it was possible death would pass by.Now, Kain must break his curse and take fate into his own hands for the first time in his life or remain a nameless offering.

In her previous life, she had wronged and divorced the man who truly loved her, and by the time she realized her mistake, it was too late.Now, granted a second chance to make things right, she carries the knowledge of the future. Will she seize this opportunity to redeem herself?“Hubby!” she purred playfully, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.“Call me that again, and I might just devour you right there,” Rowen warned, his gaze locking onto hers with a smoldering intensity.Follow Vanessa as she sets out to seduce her ex-husband in this dramatic, heart-pounding tale.

Ancient existences wake up in the abyss, demons whisper in people’s ears, unknown horrors erode the spirit, and madness breeds in the darkness of people’s hearts.

But it is not only darkness that descends on this world.

There are heavily armed dark knights walking in the dark to judge crimes; tight-fitting supernatural beings wandering between buildings to act as friendly neighbors; The impossible god on earth, the “S” symbolizing hope shines like the sun on his chest…

No one could have imagined that behind all of them, there was just a player sitting in front of a computer screen holding a keyboard and punching hard.

- Description from novelbuddy