"What do you do when you're given advance notice that your planet is about to be inducted into a System in thirty days?
Strange arches show up all over the world, and no-one quite knows what's going on, although theories abound. Mike and his grandfather, Collin, try to investigate one of these arches.
With the announcement that the training offered will take place on a planet already inducted into the System, Mike loses hope. Collin comes through, surprising Mike with a gold Krugerrand that will allow him to pass through the portal to train.
The training is simple, but brutal, and one of the trainers, a rather unruly orc, seems to take an unhealthy interest in Mike. The conflict between the two has Mike fleeing into the forest outside of the Safe Zone used for training, a forest that is full of monsters, ruins, and more.
By the time Mike makes it home, he's gained a class, a group, and has grown in power more than most of the trainees taking the safer route with the trainers. Things on Earth are falling apart, with riots and burning cities from the panicking people who stayed home.
Mike and his group have trained for this, now it's time to put that training to work."
"As the mana fields continue to grow, the numbers of mutated, and mana created, aggressive creatures grow right along with them.
Even though Max is tired of teaching his skill, he accepts one more gig for it, training a double handful of people who have both mechanical and teaching skills.
While Alex and Mark's guild has put out a call for members, they have a single qualification. Prospective guild members must make it to the guild hall physically in order to join.
Max hasn't forgotten the dungeon, located where the research labs that started all this once were. It's been a tempting prospect to Max for a while.
Prometheus's efforts to hasten the spread of mana are bearing fruit. His recovery of radioactive material allows him to keep pushing the wormhole open farther and farther, while stabilizing it to the point that physical objects can pass freely back and forth.
As the mana fields cover the entire Earth, contact is made with the intelligence on the other side of the wormhole. Max discovers that while some of the people on the other side are peaceful, others are highly aggressive."
"Max has his home area protected now, with Maggie's help. He's trying to bring more people into the safe zone they created and while he does that, he's also fixing some electronics to work alongside the mana that's infusing everything.
Despite the quarantine and its promise of danger, a number of people are intentionally trying to enter it after hearing the tales of what goes on inside.
Meanwhile Prometheus has learned that radioactive materials can help open the wormhole further, allowing the mana to flow through and assimilate the Earth more quickly.
With the influx of additional mana from Prometheus's actions, the overly large, mutated animals are showing up more often now. Because of that, the safe zone walls have to be improved, and while they're at it, they decide to enlarge the area within the walls since they're getting more people than they'd anticipated.
With the number of people in the safe zone, and Max's depleting stock of beer, they decide that there needs to be at least one trip to a larger town, to scavenge things from the areas that were evacuated. Unfortunately, not everyone left when the evacuation was called, and now there are human dangers to face as well."
"When the government thinks they have a lead on an inexpensive energy source, they throw together a research project for it, disregarding some unfortunate occurrences with similar research previously. The theory is that they can create a wormhole that will constantly allow energy through, then they'll convert the energy into electricity and feed it into the grid. Maxwell Carter works a maintenance job at a government research facility.
The research lab he works at has an accident, more energy coming through the wormhole than anticipated, enough to completely rupture the shields that were supposed to contain it until they finished determining how to convert the energy into electricity. Previously harmless animals are changed to nightmare threats and people are dying, seemingly due to incidents related directly to their interests.
Max and his friend Ron make it out of the facility alive, although the rest of the people in the facility aren't so lucky. The strangeness that was surrounding the labs seems to be expanding, even reaching his home within a day or two. Now strange screens, reminiscent of some of the online games he's played, are appearing in his vision, and apparently Prometheus, the AI running on the supercomputer from the research lab, is the one in charge of it all and is dedicated to spreading this new energy worldwide."
"Marc is all too aware that the end of the acclimatization year the System has provided to Earth is quickly drawing to a close and that others will be allowed onto the planet to start claiming areas shortly. Zeus has promised that his series of quests will get Marc, at least, to the maximum level reachable in that first year, but Marc is nervous that it isn't going to happen.
With the transformation of his Safe Zone network into a Kingdom, Marc finds more responsibilities, Fortunately for him, even the help files on the Kingdom recommend delegating authority and, as a result, Sean finds himself with more work than ever. The transformation to a Kingdom also gives Marc some new options. Now he can convert dungeons he completes into Training Dungeons, designed to be more survivable, although giving fewer benefits in the process of completing them. He can also create Training Dungeons from dungeon cores that he has claimed, giving him lots of options to build a strong defensive force for the Kingdom.
With a little bit of abuse of the System's rules, Marc's Kingdom makes it into the Space Age, allowing them to accept Zeus' final quest. A visit to a secret base on the moon gives them the final thing needed for Zeus and Hera to launch their attack on the System in their endeavor to replace it with their own 'kinder, gentler' version."
"For Marc and his party, their current quest seems to drag on and on. Clearing the Labyrinth, defeating Circe, destroying Medusa, and more have become a grind. The main factor that keeps them going is that Zeus is keeping his promise by helping their levels shoot up.
Meanwhile, Marc's Safe Zone, Any Port, and the accompanying Safe Zone network continue expanding and growing. They keep him busy whenever he manages to get back home on breaks from the quest.
With the Egyptians finally removed from Olympus, Marc is overjoyed that Beggar, and now Matilda as well, will be joining them to finish their quest.
With the end of the acclimatization year rapidly approaching, Marc, his group, and his father are all worried about who might arrive at the end of the first year and are taking steps to ensure that it will be difficult to smother their growing Safe Zone network by surrounding it."
"Marc and his party are seeking the sarcophagus that they were sent on a quest to find, only to discover that it is now protected by far more than just the Guardian they'd been told would await them.
When they return to Any Port, Marc discovers that Bastet's obsession with Beggar has reached new heights, forcing Beggar and Marc into taking action to foil Bastet's plan to kidnap the raccoon.
Felicia has realized that they're approaching the holidays and she decides to set up a minor celebration for the kids of the Safe Zone. Her ideas spur Marc into doing the same for the later holidays. As a result of his actions the Menagerie also gains a new exhibit, a turkey nearly the size of Marc that shows signs of rudimentary intelligence.
To the relief of Marc and his group, they're finally able to transport Zeus and the other gods out of Any Port. When they arrive at their destination Zeus gives them a series of quests. Marc is going to be power leveled, even if it kills him.
The group discovers that many of the ancient Greek legendary creatures are once again alive, and it will be their job to remove them."
"With Earth's acclimatization year ticking away, Marc and his party share the desire to grow stronger. Based on their previous experiences, they theorize where they might find spawns that would be powerful enough to give them good experience, then head out to prove their theory. Along the way they discover another fairly large Safe Zone with a population of hundreds of people.
On their return to their home Safe Zone, Marc finds that he's received messages from powerful, potential allies from off world. Allies who are aware of the satellite and what it's been doing. These potential allies claim that they have a way to travel to Earth before the acclimatization period is over. All Marc has to do to allow this is get his Safe Zone to a certain threshold.
When Marc achieves the goal for Any Port and the allies arrive, they set to work on a plan that, for now at least, goes hand in hand with Marc's own desires. Once the Safe Zone Network manages to get into the Computer Age, that frees them up to use the spaceship they found with the satellite, at least for atmospheric flights. Marc and his group are then sent halfway around the world on a quest for his allies."
"Marc and his party have finished their zeppelin and taken it out to try to discover other Safe Zones. Their intent is to set up trade routes between all the different Safe Zones in order to give them a better chance to survive.
The second Safe Zone they discover with the zeppelin is nearly as large as Any Port. It even has its own ring of outlier Safe Zones, or a partial ring at least. It appears that several of the smaller Safe Zones have been taken and converted into dungeons. With the safety of the larger Safe Zone apparently at stake, they bring the zeppelin down to help the larger Safe Zone however they can.
On return to Any Port, Marc accelerates his own expansion, his father having finally seen the wisdom of all the additional Safe Zones Marc wants in order to capture more land.
With setting up more of their own outlier Safe Zones, meeting new and interesting creatures, some of whom would like to kill and eat the party, making contact with new Safe Zones, and working with the satellite they recovered, Marc keeps himself busy in the aftermath of the System's arrival."
"Marc's Safe Zone, and his network of interconnected Safe Zones, has been upgraded to an Industrial Technology level. With the new tech level comes a number of items that they've desperately wanted to build. Now railways, lighter than air travel, primitive firearms, and more are available, once the requirements for their tech chains are satisfied.
Marc has finally managed to get the day to day running of the Safe Zone out of his own hands and into hands he trusts. His mother is fully into the administrative end of things and his father, while head of the defenses, has now been granted build access on the pedestal so Marc is free to explore and grind for levels.
With the System trying to bypass its restrictions, the elves building a new settlement in Marc's Captured lands, and what seems like a major quest that needs doing, Marc's been slowed, if not totally stalled, on the expansion of both his Safe Zone and the network of Safe Zones that allow him to Capture land. Fortunately, the lighter than air tech chain offers a number of benefits, including the ability to search the surrounding areas and track down other survivors in their own Safe Zones."
"After the discovery that the encampment outside of his Safe Zone is full of friendlies, Marc and his group finally have a chance to try to grow stronger again. The addition of an administrator for the Safe Zone as well as someone to coordinate its defenses finally allows Marc to feel like he can go out and do other things.
With the number of survivors they're finding in the immediate area rapidly dwindling, they choose to go farther afield, working on gaining additional resources for the Safe Zone while searching out any remaining survivors they can find.
His father reported passing other Safe Zones on his way back to town so Marc decides some investigation is in order. What he intends is to salvage the ruins of a destroyed Safe Zone his father spotted and offer trade and cordial relations to the surviving one that's closer by. What occurs is not what he intended or expected.
With the possibility of a technology upgrade for his Safe Zone, what appears to be a community of some sort of elves a few miles south of the Safe Zone, and the sneaking suspicion that the System itself is merely a tool for someone, or something, else, Marc isn't quite as free to just do what he wants."
"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.
Deciding that even if he is insane, it's not going to hurt anything to try to prepare, he settles in to do so. Despite the atrocious lack of skill the System has with the English language, he manages to work his way through enough help files to get a clue of what's coming. After sharing his discovery with a few friends, they all start to prepare together.
Once the change begins, the small group races to create a Safe Zone, an area where monsters will not spawn and where they can gather other survivors in an attempt to rescue as much of the town as possible. Along the way they discover that the new System can award classes that resemble those of the games the group has played, as well as magic for those capable of grasping it.
With monsters spawning throughout the town, everyday animals being mutated into dangerous creatures, and a System that desperately needs English language lessons, they'll do their best to save as many of the local residents as they can."
