These Familiars Are Strange - Chapter 56: Become an Explorer

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.

Rowan kuranes awoke in a new world inside the body of a dying prince. His new body contain terrifying secrets that he has to protect, for inside him lies the key to Eternity.

Rowan must learn to harness his new abilities and fight against his enemies who would stop at nothing to deprive him of his powers.

Yet he must strive to keep a portion of his humanity alive, as he continously evolve beyond godhood.

A/N: There are horror element, including Eldritch Horror from Lovecraft. Fan of blood borne, and abominable horrors that goes bump in the night would love it.

Epic action set pieces, and galaxy wide battles, with an extremely overpowered MC who is a one man army.

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Karl, a young man stuck in a rough patch after losing his job and burning through almost all his savings, wandered through the cold, dark streets of Eldoria. On the damp, silent sidewalks, he stumbled upon something bizarre: an old gacha machine mysteriously appearing at every corner he turned, almost as if it was following him. Driven by a mix of curiosity and the overwhelming weirdness of the situation, Karl finally gave in and used his last bit of money on the machine. From the gacha ball, he pulled out a card with a barcode.Back in his cramped apartment, curiosity finally won over caution, and Karl scanned the barcode. To his shock, an app called “Common Sense Manipulation App” installed itself on his phone, claiming it could alter people's “common sense.”------Support Me By Gifts or Power Stones-----

[WARNING: 18+ — NO RAPE]“I scratch and bite,” Vivian warned, holding the Lycan Alpha's gaze confidently.Ronan smirked, his hand gripping her chin possessively as he forced her to look up at him.“You'll crawl and beg too,” he promised.************Being the Clan Leader of the last remaining cursed Lycans, Ronan had long abandoned his task of finding his fated mate after years of useless searching. However, his life is disrupted when he encounters a mysterious and barely clinging-to-life alive Omega wolf, Vivian, trespassing on his land. Covered in strange Wickan magic symbols, Vivian is not just any wolf—she is his destined mate.Vivian has lived a life of rejection and suffering. Abandoned by her first mate for being unable to conceive, scorned by her family, and mistreated by her pack, Moonborn, she has endured endless humiliation. Forced by her father to mate with other Alphas in a desperate attempt to prove her worth, Vivian’s fate takes an even darker turn when she is cursed by a local coven and framed for a crime she didn’t commit. On the brink of death, she escapes into forbidden territory—Ronan’s land.A stretch of land her pack never dared to tread upon.Ronan’s mistrust only grows when he learns Vivian is from Moonborn, the pack that slaughtered his clan and remains his sworn enemy. Yet, irrespective of their dark feuding histories, he takes her in, determined to care for her and break the deadly curse inflicted upon her by Wickans and the ancient curse slowly leading him to an inevitable death. As they grow closer, secrets from both their pasts threaten to break them apart.And when Vivian’s niece arrives with a hidden agenda, matters become far more complicated.