The Newt and Demon - 7.20 - Seal of Judgement

Being sucked into a fantasy world that nobody leaves doesn't sound half bad to Cain. He was a high school dropout with a drinking problem, living off disability due to his poor health, so it's not like he had much to lose except a few faithful friends he didn't talk to enough.

After a long night of drinking, Cain wakes up looking at what he believes to be the character creation screen of one of his beloved virtual reality games, but with no recollection of having purchased it. His unwitting choice to use the Random Character Creation option, unaware that the choice would be irreversible, sends him into this new world as a Puppet Master, a Summoning based class nobody else in the starting zone has ever heard of.

But as he soon realizes, this is no game, him and hundreds of others have been brought to another world with no instructions, no clear goals and no way home. It's a second chance to live a good life, but what will Cain be able to make of it?

Ke Yin has a problem. Well, several problems.First, he's actually Kane from Earth.Second, he's stuck in a cultivation world where people don't just split mountains with a sword strike, they build entire universes inside their souls (and no, it's not a meditation metaphor).Third, he's got a system with a snarky spiritual assistant that lets him possess the recently deceased across dimensions.And finally, the elders at the Azure Peak Sect are asking why his soul realm contains both demonic cultivation and holy arts? Must be a natural talent.

Freshman orientation season.As a third-year senior, Xiao Fei regularly comes to the school gate to welcome new students.Unexpectedly, he accidentally runs into the new goddess teacher, Tang Yuxin, and discovers that she is actually the girl with whom he spent a night in a hotel a year ago.What surprises Xiao Fei even more is that Tang Yuxin is pregnant with his child.And not just one child—three!Thus, the two begin a shameless cohabitation life right under the eyes of the students…

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.