Marc's home from college on break, spending his time laughing about some of the crazy news stories he's found online, and gaming. When a message appears in his line of sight, blocking out absolutely everything else, he nearly freaks out. The message warns that the world has been in a variant Natural Laws beta test for millennia and that it's about to revert to the norms.

An AI calling itself Schema has assimilated Earth into its System. As a consequence, everyone gained access to status screens, power-ups, and skills. This AI turned these concepts from fiction to fact. It's easy to become intoxicated with leveling up and becoming stronger. To some, it's too good to be true, like living out a dream. For Daniel, however, it's closer to a nightmare.

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.

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.

Zane was driving home from work when the world changed. Thousands of dungeons spawned at once, taking up every inch of Earth—including the road he’s driving on. He wakes up to a totaled car and a broken leg, facing down a goblin trying to spear him through the guts. And that's just the start of it. But to Zane’s surprise, he finds himself enjoying this brutal new world. While others cower and hide, he goes on the hunt. He unlocks a unique Berserker skill—the more damage he takes, the stronger he gets.

Basil Bohen was asleep when the System arrived and the world changed... Dungeons suddenly popped up across the planet, summoning invaders and monsters from alternate realities. Ancient gods slumbering beneath the Earth were woken. And all humans were empowered with Levels and Classes gained by, amongst other things, killing monsters and other humans.

Jack Rust was a disillusioned biologist with a PhD—almost. When an extraterrestrial AI calling itself the System invaded Earth and thrusts it into a world of aliens and violence, the least Jack hoped for was gaining access to magic.

Eddie Hunter is about at the end of his rope, so when he stumbles across an ad looking for people to farm in Long Term Immersion in the game Light Online, he can't believe his luck. Once hired he enters the game as soon as he can. Unbeknownst to him, though, the person that hired him is also doing illicit research on the pods that he and the other farmers are using.

Larek Holsten is different from most people living in the Kingdom of Androthe, where his seven-foot-tall frame is looked at with suspicion and anger from its shorter residents; but as long as it helps him become the best Logger he can be, he doesn’t let it bother him all that much. He and his best friend, an axe with a powerful Fusion that causes it to become sharper and stronger than a normal tool, are feared by the trees in the magical forest north of his home, as he can fell the quickly growing monoliths faster than anyone else in the community.

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.

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.

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 One Talent is rated as detrimental, and no guild or group will take him.

Tragedy had reduced James to a nobody. Washed up and homeless in NYC, he thought his life was over. Then a message appeared in his vision: [60,000-year countdown has ended] [Nemesis 1 released] [Please acknowledge]. As the world falls apart, as billions die, as society collapses, and all hope seems lost, James discovers a powerful truth: he was wrong to think himself a nobody.

Jeb Trapper tried to kill himself. The gun jammed. Two months later, the vet is now participating in underground trials of ecstasy to treat his PTSD. Everything seems to be going great until Jeb is teleported into a tutorial, along with everyone else on Earth. Now, he has to choose the level of difficulty. There's just one problem: He's high as a kite, and nothing seems impossible.

Eddie Hunter isn't stuck in the game Light Online, but if he wants to keep his job, he needs to stay there. It's not a hardship for him as he increasingly believes that his in-game life is far preferable to his out-of-game life. Working on a hidden development quest that he discovered by accident has him becoming more and more entrepreneurial even while running his own inn, but between him and his party, the Meadowlands is rapidly developing.