I'm in Hollywood - Chapter 300: It's Too Late

There’s an ancient saying in Great Ruins, ‘Don’t go outside when it’s dark.’

The first time they met they had battled fiercely, just for a mere bunch of herbs. She needed it to save people, and he wanted to use it to save his own life.

“Let go of it, or you will die.” The man’s violet eyes were cold and sinister as he said in a low voice.

She held on tightly to the base of the herb and pulled its roots right out of the ground, before she turned her eyes back with a crafty smile. “It’s mine now. Snatch it from me if you can.”

When they met several years later they were no longer on opposing sides in hostility. In order to repay the debt for having stolen the herb back then, she went on to miraculously cure his body’s condition, relieving him of the inhumane torment that wrecked at his body day and night. He was amazed by the godly skills in Medicine she possessed and his heart went on to fall irrecoverably head over heels in love.

- Description from novelupdates

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.

Magic, eastern fantasy, cultivation, scientific technology…