My Abilities Come with Special Effects - Chapter 1: Dingan

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Meng Qianqian, at the age of 15, married into the Lu Family to bring joy to the elderly matriarch.On the wedding night, urgent news arrived from the border that her husband had been commanded to go to war. Six months later, he tragically died at the hands of Beiliang soldiers.Five years later, the husband who had been presumed dead returned, and by his side was an ethereal mute woman named Wan'er.Lu Lingxiao said that Wan'er was the descendant of a loyal and righteous family, entirely different from her—a merchant girl reeking of copper coins. He claimed Wan'er was a true paragon of noble character.Lu Lingxiao also said that Wan'er was an eagle soaring in the heavens, while someone like her was nothing more than a fragile flower, unworthy of comparison.It was not until the land was broken, the city walls fell, and she wielded a Red Tassel Spear to crush countless soldiers that Lu Lingxiao realized he had misjudged her.She was not a delicate flower confined within the depths of the mansion; she was the fiercest west wind of Yumen Pass.

“I will look up into the sky on this wasteland and fight for our civilization!”Xu Mo was accidentally transmigrated to an apocalyptic world. He quickly learned that his parents had just passed away and he was being hunted.Not only that, but his only uncle was trying to take away the money his parents had left for him.In order to protect himself and his younger sister, he steeled his heart and decided to walk down the dangerous Path of Evolution.“Energy, magnetic field, dark matter, radiation… All of these are now known as Source Power!”By absorbing the Source Power, one could evolve their body, activate uncharted brainpower, awaken abilities, and even create weapons.One could even travel through the vast universe if they got powerful enough.For Xu Mo, who had just started to absorb Source Power, he started to realize that he could see things that others could not.

Tang Long was brought to the Immortal Cultivation World by an immortal who noticed his affinity to wood and cultivation.
Relying on his amazing talent, became one of the five emperors of that world.
He failed his Heavenly Tribulation and had his soul scattered into pieces but one part found its way to Qin Haodong on Earth.
With his excellent medical skills, he became a divine doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and encountered the baby girl he made before going into the Cultivation World, whose mother was as pretty as a fairy. The little girl even asked him to find more lovers. What a cute girl…