Worm (Parahumans #1) - Chapter 211: Scourge 19.6

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.

“This is the system? This is my trump card? Why did you only give it to me after I died?” Lu Qing crossed over to the cultivation world and spent 200 years to become a Golden Core cultivator. He married, had children, and created a clan.

He only activated the “Clan Development System” after he died from serious injuries. [Spiritual Root Enhancement], [Resource Scouting], [Pure-yang Body]… Which option do you want?

I’ll give it all to you! I truly am your ancestor. Listen to me and I’ll take you to the skies!

In the age of the Great Liang Dynasty, the lives of the people were made convenient with steam-powered machines that run on a fuel named Violetstream Gold. Chang Geng, who lived in a small countryside village, shared a distant relationship with his mother while his stepfather was away most of the year round, and the only people he was close to were two little kids, the village teacher, and his yi fu – adoptive father. But his life was flipped upside down one day following the barbaric Man tribes’ invasion, and it turned out that his entire identity had been an illusion – not only was Chang Geng himself not the country boy he thought he was, but also his mother, his teacher, and even his beloved yi fu…

Aliandra Amariel loved magic, dedicating her academic years to the study of runes and spells, pushing the boundaries of mana's infinite possibilities. Like most Fae, her destiny seemed clear until that fateful day of her Class Trial, when the Blind Lich unleashed an undead apocalypse on her home, the fabled underground city of Dal’mohra, and triggered The Breaking – a cataclysm that forever reshaped the world. Saved by her mother’s legendary time-stasis spell, Ali wakes thousands of years into a dark future. Everything she knew and loved is gone, buried under a mountain, transformed into a twisted dungeon by the malevolent will of the Lich. Now, Ali must confront her deepest fears, mastering the arts of battling monsters and braving a town riddled with corruption. As the Lich's grand design shadows her every move, she scrambles to forge new friendships and unearth ancient knowledge in her fight for survival. Why must she struggle? All she had ever wanted was to curl up in a comfy chair with a few thousand good books. But the immortal Lich is drawn to her unique magic, ever hungry for more power to fuel his cold-hearted ambitions. How will she survive the giant target painted on her back as her advancement slowly reveals the horrifying truth of the Class she chose to save herself? Will she falter, forced into the eternal servitude of undeath, or will she rise against all odds and cast him down, ridding the world of his evil?