Nic has been Selected. Chosen to leave his own body behind and become a monster. Chosen to live or die on his own wits. His own strengths. He'll adventure out into a new realm as a foot soldier for the System's relentless integration of new worlds. Fighting to break the natives into submission. But Nic has never loved the System, or cared for his home planet, a depleted husk of a world that the System forgot long ago. With blue skies overhead and green forest to the horizons, he might just fall in love with this strange planet named Earth.

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.

Kobolds cower at the bottom of the food chain, forced to eke out a meager existence in the most wretched of caves. Most have made peace with their lot in life; one of eating scraps and carrion. They hide and run from predators, delaying the inevitable day when they aren't fast or sneaky enough to make their escape. But not Samazzar. Sam is different from other Kobold pups.

After a player-led event turns his once peaceful town into a band of ravenous monsters, Hirrus obtains a sentience usually unobtainable by non-player characters. It might be a gift of the gods, or a mistake, but Hirrus doesn’t care. It means he can track down and find the players responsible and stop them from doing it again.

Don't miss the start of this LitRPG adventure about a reincarnated necromancer growing in power and finding his way in a new world where the rules have changed vastly since he last "lived".

Qube was designed to die.... As the cheerful childhood NPC companion who helps the [Player] learn the world during the start of the game, it was only natural that the big bad would kill her at the end of the tutorial, kick-starting the [Player] on a quest for vengeance. The only thing is, no one told her that.... And this particular [Player] doesn’t like to play by the rules. Being a chaos-loving gremlin, he glitches her out of her programming loop and drags her on various adventures. They'll grapple with friendly sharktopuses, evil emperors, and what it means to be a person.

My master created me for his entertainment, leading adventurers to ruin. Betraying them at the last moment, just when their glorious victory was on hand. I have been found again by the newest member of a quartet of dungeon crawlers. Poor fool. This time will be no different. Or does it have to be? Maybe I don't need to spend eternity left in a deep, dark dungeon waiting to devour would-be heroes. Maybe, just maybe, I can take him over and use this new identity to leave and masquerade as an adventurer myself.

That was who I was. That was what I was, a tiny snake with great potential. The sole creation of the Great Core. It was just us—the great core and I—tucked away in our little corner of the world dungeon. Together, we hid from the bad things and the Coreless of the world outside, safe from the horrors that would consume us. Until one day, the Coreless found us. Until they tried to steal away my creator. Until with no other option, I swallowed the Great Core that had made me. Only after that, did I become what I was always meant to be.

With one touch of the stone, Tyron receives his Class and his life changes forever. In an instant his bright and promising future as the scion of two powerful Slayers is torn apart and he must make a decision.

Damien nearly ended the world. Now, his mistake might be the only thing that can save it. Good things come to those who wait. Damien Vale didn’t, and he ended up bound to an Eldritch creature from beyond the reaches of space. It has lived since the dawn of time, seen the world born and destroyed countless times, and wants to be called Henry. Unusual companion or not, Damien was still determined to go to a mage college and study magic.

Pete is a simple man who enjoys a good drink amongst good friends. Not too much to ask, right? Now, he's trapped in a fantasy world far from home, stuck underground and inside the body of a smelly dwarf with fantastic facial hair. The worst part? The swill that the dwarves are falling all over themselves to drink. It's flat, it's watery, and it has the alcohol content of a rancid coconut. Can Pete save the dwarves from their own sour fate, or will he be forever doomed to plink his pickaxe away in hopes that he hits the motherlode?

Finding herself in a strange new realm in a sleek new body that is not her own, Nikole must learn to survive fast. She quickly befriends an elite healer and his masterfully skilled crew, hoping to find safety in numbers. But bigger problems lurk on the horizon than just monsters of the wild. This new world is on the brink of war.

Noah Brown has a gift for fighting. Unfortunately, punching things doesn't pay the bills, at least until he died and an Eldritch god found his soul. The encounter brings him to a new world, summoned by bloody cultists. He's got nothing but the shirt on his back and a strange item in his system menu.

It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil. He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

Dive into worlds of wonder, action, adventure, and so much more. This collaboration includes short LitRPG stories of all types brought to you by authors with thousands of five-star reviews. The fantastic tales within this tome are a rare opportunity to sample so many wonderful authors in one offering. Grab your copy today. Twenty-eight stories, 28 authors, 28 narrators.

In the real world, twenty-one-year-old library sciences student Tina Anderson is invisible and under-appreciated, but in the VR-game Forever Fantasy Online she's Roxxy—the respected leader and main tank of a top-tier raiding guild. Her brother, James Anderson, has a similar problem. IRL he’s a college drop-out struggling under debt, but in FFO he's famous—an explorer known all over the world for doing every quest and collecting the rarest items.

Diving into a revolutionary new video game, Marcus and his friends escape a stagnant society, entering into a world that defies their wildest imaginations. But from the moment that he logs in, Marcus finds himself separated from his friends and thrown into a remote village under attack by a horde of goblins. Forced into battle, Marcus rallies the beleaguered villagers and, with their help, manages to drive off the invading creatures. With the village in ruins and their supplies spoiled, the villagers turn to Marcus for help in rebuilding the village.

Tad Lonnerman is having a crappy day stuck in crappy traffic late to a crappy meeting. On the bright side, his game development career is the only non-crappy thing he has going for him, so life isn't all bad. At least until he dies. Now Tad finds himself uploaded to a beta test of Haven, an unannounced hyper-immersive MMO where the dead have a second chance at life. It's not virtual reality, it's digital reality. A true afterlife online. Except Haven isn't exactly blissful paradise.

Relic Online is the hottest new game out there, and it's Devon Walker's best hope for escaping her hard-knock life. Thanks to her rocking achievements in other games, she's been hired as a salaried player. Even better, her new position comes with cutting-edge implants that turn RO's virtual reality into a full-sensory explosion. Her only task? Drive the game's creator AI to the outermost limits of its creativity. Sounds easy, right? But when Devon logs in, her expectations shatter like an ice golem hit with a sonic blast.

When Gunnar Long is transported into the first fully-immersive virtual MMORPG, he finds himself in a new world filled with magic, mystery, and adventure. No more 9-to-5 job. No more studio apartment. No more reality TV. Finally, he's in a place where he can call home, a place with people he can call friends. But as more people want to trade their real world lives to get inside Eden's Gate, the government of the outside world wants the "game" shut down at all costs.

Two years after his parents' sudden disappearance, Ben Greenwood stumbles upon a cryptic letter that could shed some light on their whereabouts. But before he can track them down, he'll need to find the mysterious organization that sent the letter: The Royal Institute of Magic. To succeed, Ben will have to navigate a land filled with fantastic creatures and spellshooters, where magic can be bought and sold, to unravel an ancient family secret that could hold the key to defeating an evil the institute has been fighting for the last 500 years.

Skree loved playing Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games. When he becomes the first player to reach level 100 in his favorite game, he is offered the chance to test a brand new game. Never one to read the fine print, he jumped at the chance to be the very first player to see the brand new game. But some opportunities are just too good to be true. Awaking to find himself trapped in a brand new world and struggling to survive, James must find a way to master the game and escape the world of Raiya.

Meet Threadbare. He is 12 inches tall, full of fluff, and really, really bad at being a hero. Magically animated and discarded by his maker as a failed experiment, he is saved by a little girl. But she's got problems of her own, and he might not be able to help her. Fortunately for the little golem, he's quick to find allies, learn skills, gain levels, and survive horrible predicaments. Which is good, because his creator has a whole lot of enemies …

A new update arrives to the ultra-popular online game, Realm of Arkon. With Patch 17, the level of immersion experienced by players in their gaming capsules has made virtual reality indistinguishable from the real world. But every gamer's dream becomes a nightmare for Roman Kozhevnikov after he gets confined to Arkon against his will. And not just to Arkon, but to its deadliest zone - Demon Grounds. Playing - or rather living - as his character Krian, it's not just about survival for Roman.

Sam Ryder's life already sucks, and it's about to get worse when he's fired from his dead-end job as a programmer. He's about to head home to escape into his favorite RPG, Alien Civilization, when he's offered a thrill ride on a death machine by a gorgeous woman straight out of one of his games. Before Sam can say "WTF?", he's been whisked away to a dark world of monsters and goddesses, his body transformed from Outcast to Warrior, the second level on a ladder that may eventually carry him all the way to Demigod.

My name is Nate Temple, and I’m secretly a wizard. I ride a foul-mouthed unicorn, I drink with Achilles, and I’m pals with the Four Horsemen. I’ve even cow-tipped the Minotaur. I understand the theory of following the rules...I’m just not very good at the application. Because rules were meant to be broken, and St. Louis has a bit of a supernatural infestation these days. Someone should probably be keeping an eye on these things -and probably an eye on me, too. Before I blow up another building...or three.

The job was simple: decapitate the zombie, get paid, get out. Warlock Marcus Shifter followed the plan perfectly. The corpse, however, did not. Now there's a body on the loose, accusations of illegal necromancy are flying, and the answers are waiting in the perilous alleys between the mortal and paranormal worlds. They're no place for someone who mostly gave up magic after a childhood accident. And given his tendency to shoot off his mouth and his Glock, Marcus is having a hell of a time digging up more than just bodies. When an apocalypse-minded megalomaniac threatens Marcus's family, things get personal.

Be a hero in the ultimate game. Are you a top-rated gamer? Then you might have the skills to play the Game...where players are sponsored by actual demon lords, gods and goddesses, or Lovecraftian nightmares. Enter Thera, a real kingdom at the crossroads of many other worlds, but with all the augmented-reality interfaces, character progression, and game mechanics that players know and love.

Half devil and miles from anything resembling heroic, perpetual underdog Frank "Triggaltheron" Trigg is the last man standing against Armageddon. As the favorite nephew of the devil, Frank has led a troubled life, but he'd always had his uncle's influence to fall back on. Now, with God and Lucifer coming to terms and leaving existence to fend for itself, his once exalted status of Antichrist-to-be does little to endear him to the hordes of angels and demons running amok in the godless world.

Wren, a seasoned healer, is dismayed when Somnia Online automatically assigns her character, Murmur, to the Enchanter class. Determined to overcome the unexpected setback, she assembles her guild, intent on the coveted number-one spot. Twelve keys stand between her and victory, but finding them is only part of the puzzle. Old rivals have followed her to Somnia Online, desperate for revenge. Intricate quest lines become more dangerous as NPCs absorb powerful artifacts, and Murmur begins to wonder just what sort of AI controls the world.

Tom wished for a meaningful job with the chance to make things. Someone listened. Judged by a masked demigod, Tom gets sent to another world with magic, game-like rules, and massive opportunity for a clever inventor. He's been handed a new identity and adopted by a loving family. As a young man with otherworldly knowledge, he tries to recreate technology from humble beginnings. There are spells to learn, too, and he wants to treat his sister and parents right. His river homeland seems idyllic, but there are problems brewing.

Kobolds cower at the bottom of the food chain, forced to eke out a meager existence in the most wretched of caves. Most have made peace with their lot in life; one of eating scraps and carrion. They hide and run from predators, delaying the inevitable day when they aren't fast or sneaky enough to make their escape. But not Samazzar. Sam is different from other Kobold pups.

Somewhere in the toxic Bone Pits, where mechanical nightmares roam, an emaciated and wounded young wolf clings to life. Wracked with pain, driven by instinct, it crawls across the subterranean landscape, avoiding the unnatural horrors that dwell there and seeking sustenance while fending off rats, insects, and other vermin stalking it as prey.

Lewis was always the lazy kid in school.After a harrowing hospital visit, he wakes up as a dragon. It's awesome, but he doesn't know the first thing about using his new body! Why is everything so fragile? And since when have people been so tasty? When he reveals himself to his friends, they don't know what to think. He's still Lewis, but he's also something a lot more dangerous. When he eats something he shouldn't have, the wrong people find out. Now, it's up to his friends to keep him out of trouble or risk losing him in the process.

Vainqueur Knightsbane is your average dragon: A giant, fire-breathing lizard who loves to take naps on his golden hoard, kidnap princesses for fun, and make the life of adventurers miserable. Vainqueur's only pleasure in life is to watch his treasure get bigger, one coin at a time. So when a would-be thief turned unwilling minion tells him about "classes", "levels", and "quests", Vainqueur wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider a career change. After all, why bother hunting monsters for free when you can get paid for it?

Carl was a regular construction foreman. Not the worst, not the best, and definitely not the thinnest. Even so, he didn't deserve that heart attack! He really didn't deserve being reborn into a magic-filled, dog-eat-dog world as a dragon. To be fair, it’s nice to be at the top of the food chain. Now Carl just needs to learn how magic works, which monsters are safe to eat, and why his hoard is so important to him. Dealing with everything changing is hard enough, but he has enemy dragons incoming, hostile environments, and foes constantly trying to get bragging rights by taking down a dragon.

Lago was only a child when the shapeshifter entrusted the wolf-like mask to his care—an artifact so powerful that it could come to shape the entire world of Noss. Now that he is coming of age, Lago is becoming ever more fearful of the ominous relics influence, of the empire who has scented its trail and is coming after it. Coming after him.

Centuries ago, we lost our world. Planetary Acquisitions keeps us alive solely to maintain their vast fleet of gate ships in an endless quest to find them new worlds to settle - or to conquer. Years flutter by like a tree shedding its spring petals, and so we desperately cling to this chunk of dirt-and-machine we call home.

A well-placed kick into Kanti’s stomach dropped him back to the deck, grasping his gut and gasping for breath.

In 2036, college-bound Paul gets pushed into playing a video game called Thousand Tales. Its playful AI gamemaster, Ludo, wants a few favors from him and from his ambitious friend Linda. The reward? Immortality. Ludo starts selling "uploading", a process that puts a human mind permanently into the game world. In there you can shape-shift, fight monsters, cast spells, even fall in love.