I guess trying to catch the bus with your laces undone isn’t such a smart decision after all… One fatal collision later, and I’m facing my judgment. As it turns out, I’ve been a lazy sob, and my short, uneventful life of playing games and getting up late wasn’t worth much. And so I don’t qualify to move on to the afterlife. I try to argue to the goddess in front of me that I do have skills, that it was hard work playing those simulation and management games. But she will not concede. In the end, I manage to get the benefit of the doubt, and a wager is made.

Blade & Sheath is a fully immersive VRMMORPG game where some folks complete quests, while others develop their magic and battle monsters. Then there are players like Josh. He needs to earn some cash, so when he gets a job as a town builder for Blade & Sheath, he can't believe his luck. However, it won't be easy. The land he needs to build on is as untamed as the critters that prowl it. That's not all—he also starts with no skills and no resources.

Through no fault of his own, Joe’s life was starting on a downward spiral. Bad things can happen to good people, but this is not much comfort for those who are treading water, trying not to be drowned by misfortune. Luckily, sometimes people can catch a break, a chance to start over. When he's transported to an alternate Earth full of magic, wonder, and light RPG elements, Joe just wants to build a comfortable life. He begins to put down roots and make friends in the port city of Lockwood.

A mysterious force transports Noah to a fantasy realm of magic and levels. Unable to return home, he leans into his Blacksmith Apprentice class. By killing creatures in battle, mining ore, and even picking plants, Noah will obtain the ingredients he needs to create items to help him survive. His old life drags on him at first, a fact he doesn't let hold him down, because on Prixa, there's a brutal war between feline warriors and werewolves.

Erron plans to retire from adventuring to a little farm and live out his days raising crops in peace. Little did he know that fate had other plans for him. When he purchases cropland of his own, he finds that the things he places in the soil don't become plants. They become monsters.

Hiral is the Everfail, the weakest person on the flying island of Fallen Reach. He trains harder than any warrior. Studies longer than any scholar. But all his people are born with magic powered by the sun, flowing through tattoos on their bodies. Despite having enormous energy within, Hiral is the only one who can’t channel it; his hard work is worth nothing. Until it isn’t. In a moment of danger, Hiral unlocks an achievement with a special instruction: Access a Dungeon to receive a Class-Specific Reward.

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.

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.

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.

At seventeen years of age, Renan Saneris was still waiting for a talent to come up. While everyone around him got a Class and could move on with their life, he was still waiting for Fate to finally tell him what would become of him. He tried his hand at Smithing, Sword Fighting, and even at being an Artisan, but he never got many results for his efforts. One day, however, when he’s messing around in his father’s forge, etching small symbols into a blade as a gift for his best friends Yana, the glyphs start glowing and awaken something in him.

A monster dungeon is all Thomas has ever known. After all, he was born there. Now, at age 14, he’s been solo-clearing all 100 floors of the dungeon for years. The last of his family and friends are about to die off as an eternal void beast tirelessly pursues them. Will they ever escape?

Isekaied into a level 86 Necromancer-King's body, I leave his life of war behind in favor of peace in the idyllic Borderlands. Upon meeting the elven maiden Narya Summerdew and a razor-toothed half-elven child, the three of us form an unlikely improvised family in the hopes of remaining anonymous. As we embrace the eccentric community of Gelderham, we find happiness in simplicity…But my past casts shadows on our growing bonds. How will Narya react when she learns her new husband was once the evil king set on destroying her people?

Beneath the light of three moons, the world of Aster Fall lies shattered. Classes are broken, Outsiders are invading, and the future is unknown. The ancient guardians have left and no one knows where they have gone. The fate of the world lies with one young man. Sam Hastern. His family has been cursed by a broken class for the last fifty years. No one has ever managed to level it, condemning them to the lowest paying jobs and life in a barren village.

When Kers is reborn as a dungeon core, he finds himself stuck in the most improbable of places: a cloud. High in the sky and far away from the usual solid resources, Kers must face the obvious question: How is a dungeon to build itself without wood or stone? Luckily, Kers has the sarcastic (and sometimes helpful) fairy Selena to help him get his bearings. Together, the pair delight in exploring Kers’ weird existence, creating novel mobs, and enticing adventures to plumb the lofty heights of his floors.

As humanity is taking its final breath, facing extinction from a myriad of monsters, the last three people on earth are creating a final chance for the hero to go back in time and stop the apocalypse. However, before the hero can enter the chronomancer portal to the past, she and the portal's creator are both killed, leaving only the weak assistant to carry on their dream of saving the world. Will Nick be able to right the wrongs done to him, and prepare the hero for the world to come?

Blade & Sheath is a fully immersive VRMMORPG game where some folks complete quests, while others develop their magic and battle monsters. Then there are players like Josh. He needs to earn some cash, so when he gets a job as a town builder for Blade & Sheath, he can't believe his luck. However, it won't be easy. The land he needs to build on is as untamed as the critters that prowl it. That's not all—he also starts with no skills and no resources.

The first metal dragon in an age has come. One hero must harness its power to defeat the darkness. Garrick Vilfort is a recruit for a mercenary company. During his final examination, he bonds with a dragon thought extinct: an iron dragon. With this startling discovery comes a terrible promise. The age of the metal dragons has returned, along with the coming doom of the entire world. To hold the forces of darkness at bay, Garrick and his fellow summoners must unlock the true powers of their dragons, beyond anything that has been seen since the dawn of magic.

Benjamin's life was perfect. He'd just graduated from college and landed his dream job; he was finally ready to make his own way in life. However, before he could do that, he and his buddies decided to go on one last camping trip that changed everything. Suddenly, the five of them were ripped from their campsite on Earth by powerful magics, brought face-to-face with the might of the rune mages, and forced to become pawns in larger schemes.

Somewhere faraway, the universe is in peril. But on Earth, Alan is minding his own business after a boring double-shift at the pawn shop… until he’s assaulted by a screaming archer who turns out to be a good shot. Alan awakes in Strangey Town, a zany nightmarish jungle of ideas run by a horrid deity. Things get even stranger when a clairvoyant frog confirms Alan has an affinity for magic, and that his powers are far from ordinary. He can convene with gods, bargain for souls, and tap into every known magic the universe has to offer. It's unheard of!

Andross Silver had a nice life... Until he was pushed off a building and found himself in a new world. Reborn into a family that wants to kill him, gifted with a System, and armed with determination, Andross must rise to the challenges of a strange new world he suddenly finds himself in. His only blessing is the Mark of the Crijik, a magical gift from a divine being that bestows great powers onto those that possess it.

When the System Administrators arrived on Earth, they forced those of the younger generation into other worlds to fight for multiversal entertainment. Bored of life on Earth, Noah has trained to become one of the chosen. He even had his class all planned out–a Mounted Monster Tamer. But he was never picked. So he put matters into his own hands and volunteered. Arriving in a world thick with jungle and hotter than the most boiling desert, Noah finds himself face-to-face with a kobold, which he proceeds to beat into submission and turn into a minion.

I guess trying to catch the bus with your laces undone isn’t such a smart decision after all… One fatal collision later, and I’m facing my judgment. As it turns out, I’ve been a lazy sob, and my short, uneventful life of playing games and getting up late wasn’t worth much. And so I don’t qualify to move on to the afterlife. I try to argue to the goddess in front of me that I do have skills, that it was hard work playing those simulation and management games. But she will not concede. In the end, I manage to get the benefit of the doubt, and a wager is made.

This collection contains the first three books in the Underworld series: Level Up or Die, Through the Belly of the Beast, and Sanctuary. Elorion has just finished a VR gaming session to find a monster waiting for him. With nineteen other students who have also been kidnapped, he is now subject to the whims of a thousand-year-old succubus and must survive deep under the earth in the lost realm of the Underworld. Gifted with the ability to use magic and advance in power, he is given an ultimatum: Level up or die.

At seventeen years of age, Renan Saneris was still waiting for a talent to come up. While everyone around him got a Class and could move on with their life, he was still waiting for Fate to finally tell him what would become of him. He tried his hand at Smithing, Sword Fighting, and even at being an Artisan, but he never got many results for his efforts. One day, however, when he’s messing around in his father’s forge, etching small symbols into a blade as a gift for his best friends Yana, the glyphs start glowing and awaken something in him.

Bernt might have graduated from the Mage Academy, but not everyone has the money or connections to launch a prestigious career as a mage. Bernt finds himself working in the city sewers as an Underkeeper among the other rejects of Halfbridge's magery. He may spend more time unclogging pipes than fighting monsters, but hey, it's a stable job, and that's what counts. With the help of his unregistered soul-devouring demonic familiar, he'll save enough to launch his career as an adventurer—just as soon as he can afford some proper gear.

Verdan Blacke is an Imperial Wizard, a researcher by preference but soldier by necessity. Surviving an intense battle, Verdan is cursed by a hex witch in her final moments. Without any good options, Verdan escapes the ever-increasing pain the curse inflicts by performing a self-made stasis ritual.

The System is here! Most of the population of the planet were suddenly turned into zombies, while the rest acquired new abilities. Abilities that let them run from the zombies, save themselves, hide, and try to survive. But it only takes one bite that almost always means death. Our hero was standing in line when the apocalypse came. He was lucky at first to be caught in a crowd when the zombies tried to bite him on the leg. Really lucky, because those trials unlocked new abilities for him.

The last time Matteo tried out for the Rangers, he lost an arm. In a world plagued by monstrous threats, Matteo is granted a second chance to join the elite Rangers—the monster hunters protecting the city atop a giant turtle. With the promise of wielding a powerful magical artifact, he vows to excel in boot camp and make this opportunity count. Yet, as he endures the grueling trials of the Ranger training, a dark revelation surfaces: their ranks are thinning at an alarming rate.

Four hundred years ago, in the time before the Godfall, the demon hordes were unleashed upon the world of Elaria. Now, the world has shrunk to one small valley, the Valley of Auld, humanity’s last bastion. All those within its walls are protected. Elian is markless—someone who cannot activate skills—and he is one of the poorest markless there is. A miner, forced to leave the city and toil in the nearby salt mines. On their way to and from the mines, the miners are kept secure in a locked wagon. The wagon is not locked to keep them from escaping.

The Wish Curse Palace, the largest criminal organization in the multiverse, seeks its new successor. On Shane's eighteenth birthday, his dormant Wishmaster bloodline awakens, making him a potential heir to the organization's legacy. In Unity territory, power and public perception go hand-in-hand, empowering an elite class of superheroes and supervillains. Shane must progress through the ranks of heroes to harness his wish-granting abilities. With the help of newfound allies, Shane must showcase acts of heroism to climb the hierarchy, all while concealing the true source of his powers.