Cinnamon Bun - Chapter Twenty-Three - Friendmaking

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.

The Fears of a Billionaire: SynopsisDominic Hayes, a self made billionaire and CEO of one of the world’s most powerful tech conglomerates, lives a life most could only dream of. From his towering penthouse in New York City, he commands vast empires of wealth and influence, controlling everything from global markets to cutting edge technologies. To the outside world, he is the embodiment of success a man who has it all.But beneath the surface, Dominic's carefully constructed world is starting to crack. When he receives a cryptic message .“I know what you did”—he is thrust into a psychological game that threatens to unravel everything he has built. The message brings back memories of Andrew Cole, a former rival whose tech startup Dominic crushed in his ruthless climb to the top. Andrew disappeared after his company was destroyed, but now, it seems, he has returned.As Dominic digs deeper into his past, he begins to uncover the possibility that Andrew Cole isn’t the only one who has a score to settle. Mysterious forces seem to be working against him, targeting not just his empire but his sanity. His corporate deals start to collapse, his closest confidants turn against him, and strange occurrences lead him to question who he can trust even his wife, Alyssa, and his most loyal employees.The deeper Dominic falls into this web of paranoia and fear, the more he realizes that the threats against him are not just external. The guilt from his past actions begins to eat away at his mind, slowly eroding the steely confidence that once defined him. The higher he climbed, the further he has to fall, and now, as his enemies close in.

The strongest King of Soldiers returns to the city of flowers, becoming his fiancée's cohabiting bodyguard!

The strong are lonesome. Overcoming the loneliness pushes you to stand invincible at the top.

Pro-disciple of the Shaolin Temple on earth, Huang Xiaolong was reborn into a Martial Spirit world, carrying Hua Xia’s secret knowledge, the Body Metamorphose Scripture. In a Martial Spirit world, only those with Martial Spirit are able to train in battle qi and become a warrior. Huang Xiaolong born with a heaven-defying rare Martial Spirit was mistakenly taken for common variant Martial Spirit during the awakening ceremony conducted by the tribe and thus sidelined. However, Huang Xiaolong with his common “variant” Martial Spirit again, and again displayed unnatural talent, defeating geniuses, shocking the clan and the entire Martial Spirit World