It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed... The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System... or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion. Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.

In a former life, Jack was gifted, meaning he possessed peculiar abilities. If rich folks found themselves in a jam, Jack could use his talents to get them out of it. Where others were sure to fail, Jack's aristocratic clientele could always count on him to finish jobs cleanly, efficiently, and leave no trace, for which his services commanded a hefty fee. But one day, Jack picked a fight with the wrong man and his old life came to an end. But, as it turned out, his story was far from over.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

Fight, survive, adapt, and rely only on yourself. That is Derek’s creed and what's got him through the System Integration on Earth. Everything changed when the System came. Cute bunnies and beautiful butterflies became savage killing machines. Then the Invaders arrived with a single goal: to obtain ownership of this new habitable planet. War has raged ever since. None of this mattered much to Derek, aside from making living a little more perilous.

Matt plans to delve the rifts responsible for the monsters that destroyed his city and murdered his parents. But his dreams are crushed when his Tier 1 Talent is rated as detrimental and no guild or group will take him. Working at a nearby inn, he meets a mysterious and powerful couple. They give him a chance to join the Path of Ascension, an empire-wide race to ascend the Tiers and become living legends. With their recommendation and a stolen Skill, Matt begins his journey to the peak of power. Maybe then, he can get vengeance he seeks.

After fulfilling the duty all Arch Necromancers are tasked with, the last thing Sylver Sezari expected was to be reborn. He was usually the one reanimating dead things, after all. How ironic. But reborn he was. And after crawling his way back into the land of the living, he finds himself in a strange land, a strange time, and with a strange floating screen in front of his new face. Either through plan or chance, he’s alive again, and planning to enjoy himself to his heart's content.

Every year, the empire administers the rite of passage into adulthood. That rite serves to identify those blessed by Aether to become magi. The new magi are shipped to the academy to learn the arts of magic. The academy is a dangerous place; the tournaments held twice each year can cripple or kill the students, and the clans of the empire will go to great lengths to recruit the students they want. Gregory had one dream: to become a magi like the legends of old. Though he was ridiculed by the residents of the village and his unsupportive father, he never wavered from his dream.

Arthur lives with his father, a fallen but proud former noble, in Border Village #49, along with the other good folks condemned to toil in service to the Baron. But Arthur has an edge: a stolen heart card that secretly fell into his possession, thanks to a dragon. It’s a priceless source of power for the Baron and the tyrant will kill to get it back. Invaluable, too, to a young man of spellcasting ambitions.

Lu Jie woke up in a world filled with scheming sects, arrogant young masters, and the mad chase for the immortal heavens. He wanted none of it, and soon finds himself beaten bloody in a spar he didn't remember and treated as less than worthless. But his plan to escape the sect is interrupted by an old Alchemist's pills that heal him within moments—a magical cure. These medicines ignite the flame of curiosity to learn true magic in him. Lu Jie sets out to study the truths hidden within the world, and soon finds an all new path of cultivation that could take him to the very top.

After the collapse of the known world, Rowan Wilder opened his eyes and found himself on the first floor of the Tower. With a flawless memory and a mere eight cards to his name, he must venture out and prepare himself for the coming calamity.

Betrayed. Murdered. Reborn. One last chance, to make it right. Theo's adventure ended with his mentor's hands around his neck. The betrayal cost him his friends, allies, and everything he had built...but not his life. Though broken and powerless, Theo has one last chance to enter the Nine Worlds, wielding the knowledge and expertise of his first life. This time, he needs more than just power, he needs to unravel the deception that killed him once...and is coming for him again.

With a knife in his gut, Rowan figured he was destined to become just another corpse littering the slums of Taureen. So he was fairly surprised to wake up in the back of a moving wagon with a couple of adventurers. Turns out that Rowan had been given something most street rats can only dream of—a second chance.

Silas is inducted into the System, becoming the last in a long line of Earth's "forerunners." The rewards are great, but the danger is greater. We are not alone in the universe. The fate of five worlds hangs on how their forerunners perform. Will Silas have what it takes to win Earth a place in the multiverse? Or will Earth become another mining world stripped of all resources and left a barren husk floating in the cosmos?

Nathan's life was defined by labs and lectures until an Archmage yanked him into Davrar and made him a tantalizing offer: master magic in exchange for Earth's scientific secrets. Yet, Nathan can't shake off the feeling that darker truths lurk beneath such promises. The world of Davrar is a dangerous place teeming with dungeons and monsters–ruled by levels, Talents, and a near-infinite progression of power. Nathan will need to rely on himself to survive, forging alliances and taking every advantage he can get against those that seek to control him.

The ads enthused, "The virtual lands of Mirror World await you! Live out your most secret dreams in our world of Sword and Sorcery! Become a Great Wizard or a Famous Warrior! Build your own castle, tame a dragon, conquer a kingdom! All those desperate, lonely, and insecure - Mirror World offers you a chance!" But Oleg isn't meant to become a great wizard or a famous warrior. He'll never have a castle of his own. Nor will he ever tame a dragon. And he's definitely not the type to conquer a kingdom, however virtual it may be.

There are whole anthologies of stories out there about what humankind does when a game enters their world. But what about when they're living in one where a game arrived thousands of years before? What if they're the survivors of a bloody struggle, having fought for and earned their place on the planet? Tailyn Vlashich was a young nobody far away from all those grander issues. All he cared about was one thing: making his way through a harsh world where the emperor, evil foes, and an impartial god held sway.

Alex is one of us. An office rat during daytime, he spends sleepless nights playing his favorite MMO game: a familiar, predictable world which is about to collapse. A new virtual universe arrives to replace it, aggressively devouring all others: the Crystal Sphere. Alex gets involved in testing new technologies which promise to revolutionize gaming. Fitted out with a neuroimplant which provides a 100 percent authentic experience, he has to survive in the Crystal Sphere against all odds.

Arktania is a virtual game with a steampunk style. It's a place where magic spells, enchanted artifacts, steam-powered machines, firearms, and mechanical golems are a part of everyday life. Gamer Andrew Falk begins his journey in a small village on the border of Orcish territory. The locals are the keepers of many secrets, but their behavior is too realistic for characters in a game; so realistic, in fact, that Andrew starts to treat them as if they were real people.

You don't always get a second chance...unless you're a pawn for an eldritch horror that: A) can bend time, and B) is a sore loser. Justin Thyme is not a good man, nor one destined for glory. He was meant to die in obscurity, yet another level 82 Templar that was just about to get chewed up by a horde of skittering monstrosities clawing at humanity's last enclave. One short conversation with a time-splitting monstrosity later, and Justin finds himself flung five years into the past-right when the Earth was first chosen to host the 9,947th Gladiatorial Games.

Sam Sullivan has spent the last year of his life paralyzed. Unable to afford the state-of-the-art surgery needed to repair his spinal cord, Sam has lost all hope. But when the first fully immersive virtual-reality game goes live, Sam is given a second chance at life. If Sam can rise through the ranks and claim his kingdom, he just might be able to earn enough money to afford the surgery he so badly needs. Sam enters Rebirth Online excited to begin his adventure, but within 15 minutes of spawning in the game, he is robbed, beaten, and left for dead.

Efrem "Coleslaw" White is a video game tester and college student. He was on a tropical vacation with a diverse group of strangers, classmates, and friends when disaster struck. The next thing he knew, he was standing before a huge, floating man introducing himself as the god Dolos, and being given a second chance at life. There was a catch, though. There is always a catch.

Axel Nal is out of luck and out of time. He has failed every single induction ceremony and it is his last chance to Exceed to a higher class. At his wit's end, he desperately tries one last time at Exceeding, putting all his chips on the table...except something was different this time. Time freezing, a mysterious voice, and a new Exceed Mark? Had lady luck finally given him a boon? Had he received a class the world had never seen before? One thing is for sure, he's changed. And now he has something called...the Gambler's System.

Adrian was on his way to work when he was summoned to another world. A world of magic and monsters, where he finds himself more alive than he has ever been on Earth. But also, where death awaits him in any corner, and he must become stronger. But at first, before he can even fight, he has to run, because he is too weak to win a battle against even the weakest monster. And that is why he invests all of his Essence Points into his Agility. Which eventually gives him the potential to overcome almost all his enemies— with the small caveat that he does not get hit, of course. His immense speed...

A game is only a game if you can quit. This is something I learned the hard way. I just wanted to let off some steam in virtual reality and ended up getting murdered and imprisoned in the body of one of the undead - slow, clumsy, and cursed to die at the hand of other players over and over again. The only way out of this awful predicament was to find the legendary Scroll of Rebirth, but the helpless plague-ridden corpse would need to be turned into a real killing machine. If only people knew what it was like to level up a dead rogue....

Log-in or die. Those are the only choices left for Clay Hopewell. Infected with the ZERO virus, he has less than 24 hours before he bites the dust. With no cure available, there's only one option left: digitally reincarnate himself in the most advanced virtual reality game ever, the mysterious and newly released Arcane Kingdom Online. But cheating death and gaining immortality isn't that easy. If Clay survives the risky cognitive upload process, he'll still have to contend with a fantasy world teetering on the brink of crisis.

2044. The world of games changed long ago. "Ascension" has become one of the most popular VRMMO games. It is a huge world divided into a hundred Floors, with each Floor a boundless location with its own countries, tribes, and millions of players. The object of the game is to unlock all the gates and conquer the top. Having joined the game, Will Thomson doesn't realize that he is all by himself. Then he accepts the first quest...Cursed Rat: level 46....

Jon's days are numbered. The mine will consume his life any day. Will this offer to farm inside a game be any better? He wants nothing but to farm in the real world, and he's given that chance in a VRMMORPG. With a new lease on life, he accepts it. But when he's robbed of his only tool to farm sufficient quota, he has no other option but to enter the deadliest forest of the region and die at the hands of a druid to obtain a skill that will help him reach his goals. However, death awaits at every step in the forest, and he can't die more than thrice. What will Jon do?

Betrayed by those closest to him, Viktor's soul couldn't move on for decades. Pitied by one of the Gods, he was given the chance to participate in the next round of bets between the gods. It was an eternally violent game known as Towers and Rifts. The world he found himself in was nothing like the one he'd spent centuries cultivating and becoming stronger. He was right back at the bottom along with everyone else but for the knowledge he retained.

Decorated Marine commander, Damon Williams, never thought his latest mission would take place in a virtual world fighting monsters...but when a high-value VIP disappears after being stealthily transported to a banned VRMMORPG, Damon's the only hope. He must lead a group of rescuers into the Epiphany Realms, an unforgiving world infested with terrifying monsters and worse.