Three Eight - Chapter 29

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.

Lan Hengsheng was once the pride of the Lan Clan, a child prodigy with limitless potential—until his fifth birthday changed everything.Declared spirit coreless, he was abandoned by those who once praised him, dismissed as a mortal in a world ruled by cultivators. His so-called friends turned their backs on him, and the clan that once held him in high regard saw him as nothing more than a disappointment.But Hengsheng holds a secret—one that defies the natural laws of this world.Ding![Make a wish] He wished for everything! With the ability to create a system, he doesn’t need talent. He doesn’t need fate’s blessing. He can program his own path to immortality.Why struggle for enlightenment when he can create a Cultivation Optimization System?Why waste decades training when he can install a Time Acceleration System?Why risk his life searching for treasures when he can develop an Auto-Farming System?While other cultivators beg the heavens for guidance, Hengsheng writes his own cultivation manual.Armed with his cheat-like power, he will challenge geniuses, reshape sects, and rewrite the very foundation of cultivation itself.The strongest cultivator is a system maker!