《The Crisis on Planet 9》Prologue
Advertisement
All around me there were countless virtual and holographic advertisements popping up in a nauseating explosion of colors, lights, and sometimes sounds as well. On a good day, these Augmented Reality Advertisements or ARA for short were directed at your individual specific needs, and they could be useful, but most of the time, they were just a spam of blunt attempts at mental manipulation. Not everyone fell for them, but among the common folk population there were already a lot who did, which made it worse when they started to tell you about those ‘great’ products like some brainwashed zealots of a suspicious cult.
If you had enough money saved in your bank account, you could just install an adblock system and be rid of them, but even then, there were still a lot that slipped through the net. Big corporations paid a lot of money to make sure their ads reached their audience unhindered.
Personally, I forgot to pay my bill, so I was now seeing the full glory of this ARA explosion. Among all that spammed junk and blunt attempts of mental manipulation, I spotted a small flyer that advertised the brand-new City 203 on Planet 9.
Located somewhere on the edge of the colonized space, far away from any dangerous zones of conflict, it offered the promise of restarting your life no matter where you came from or how poor you were. For me, it sounded too good to be true, so much that up until now I had ignored all the adverts for the other hundreds of settlements on the planet. I always thought that there had to be more behind it. Money didn’t simple fall from the sky, and the megacorporations were far too greedy to simply just offer the unfortunate souls in this Universe an entire planet where they could change their lives. There had to be a catch, this was what I thought whenever I saw those flyers.
Advertisement
Right now, Planet 9 was called the Adamscyon Planet, taking the name of the oligarch family who owned it. This was the same for any other moon or planet outside of Sol. If you had enough money to buy it from the government or their previous owner, you were free to change its name as you pleased. This being said, the first oligarch to colonize Planet 9 was Baltoron, who owned massive tech corporations in almost every field, but then they sold it to Terravion, who lost it in a bet with Sakurakami, who had to cede it to Osterdam after a small civil war with them. Adamscyon then acquired it as payment for helping out the former in their war.
To us common folk, rather than trying to remember the planets by the names that changed every time their new owner felt like it, we remembered them by their Colonial Designation Number, which in this case, it was 9.
The same was with those various human settlements. City 203 was called the Cellurion City, but who knew how long that one was going to stick?
When I saw this flyer, I pushed away the other ads and picked it up. Up until now, I believed that such an offer was too good to be true, that there had to be more to it, however, no matter the risk, my current desire to change my life for the better was stronger.
This could be just one big fat lie, but I had enough of this rotten place… I don’t want to see my students go through something like that again… was what I told myself as I bookmarked the flyer.
Then, looking up at the sky, past the ARA, I saw the endless spires of the megalopolis that stretched all the way to the clouds and even past that. Flying cars and robots were all over the place like a swarm of bugs that tried to constantly annoy you. Everyone up there thought to themselves that they were greater than the poor folks living at the bottom, in the slums. The lottery of life was kind with them and rejected the rest. That was what they were telling everyone. That was what they were telling themselves as well whenever everything went to hell for either their friends or family.
Advertisement
“Sigh...” shaking my head, I closed the ad and then paid the subscription to the adblock system to get rid of all this other annoying junk.
Once the payment went through, my field of view was once again clear, and the ARA were turned off. I then looked at the street stretching out before me which showed the reality of an impoverished society in an age where technology and resource management should have made it impossible for someone to be poor. There was garbage pilling up in the alleys because the cleaning robots didn’t pass by here every day. The sick and homeless were struggling to survive with little to nothing to cover themselves with, begging for food and searching through the trash.
Honestly, sometimes I felt as though the geniuses of this world allowed for food to get piled up in the garbage so that those who were unfortunate enough to be at the bottom of society to have something to eat. It was a pity meal filled with the arrogance and sense of superiority of those born on the higher floors. Then again, wasn’t I one of them as well?
Right now, I was just happening to be walking around this place because I had nothing better to do and returning to school only brought heartache. As a teacher in the slums, I wasn’t rich, but I wasn’t poor either. My family was average at best, and my pay was decent, if you could call it that.
Unlike other unfortunate souls around me, I just happened to have the lottery of life smile upon me once and toss me a pity prize. Still, it wasn’t all through luck. I had to go, just like everyone else, through my fair share of struggles.
As a teacher, I could teach my students about History, Philosophy, Art, and Spirituality, but I wasn’t a genius who knew the perfect method to help the beggars on the streets, and I didn’t know how to give a shelter to the homeless. The cure to poverty? Well... if not even the geniuses of 2304 AD Earth could figure it out, then how could I be so arrogant as to claim that I might?
With poverty comes hopelessness, and with it, crime and desperation were added to the mix. Struck by the weight of their financial situation, even a model student could turn into a vicious gangster or just another soldier in their endless war. This was why, maybe, the idea of starting anew on another world seemed like a good idea to me.
“Maybe I’ll become like them...” I said as I looked at the beggars “O maybe... like them.” I looked up at the sky, where I knew the rich and powerful spent their days “Either way… I’ll be running away from this place…” I closed my eyes.
A new planet, a new city, a new life far away from the slums of the Black Sea Megalopolis.
Later that day, after I returned home, I applied for a job as a High School Teacher in City 203 on Planet 9. No more than two hours later, I received the approval for my application from the Recruiting AI.
I was going to start my new life soon as a teacher at the Resonance High School.
At that time, I was still naïve… and foolish. I had no idea what fate had in store for me.
Advertisement
Priestess Of The Land
Amalthea wakes up in the body of the Prime Minister's 2nd daughter, Tria Ashir. A motherless daughter who has been abandoned and left to die because of her poor mental health and absence of talent.Not even a day has passed since she traveled into this unknown world, and she is already being married off to a prince, with a similar reputation, a cripple.However, things are not always what they seem.Follow along, as Tria becomes a revered existence to the world, and a wife at home. [Disclaimer: This is a temporary cover, the artwork is not my own. It was done by BeaGifted.] I will now continue posting mainly on webnovel.com. Thanks for reading.
8 188Killstealer
Unfinished - Apologies to anyone who was reading but I have no current intentions to revisit this story Alex was stuck in a rut: He was nearing thirty, and his career seemed to be going no-where; He used to have plenty of friends at university, but had gradually lost touch with them. He had recently started using a dating site, but truthfully he never quite got over his ex. It could be worse; he didn't spend his nights wallowing in self pity. However, he had a sinking feeling that his life was going no-where fast. When Alex decided to take up an old hobby all he really was looking for was something fun to do on friday nights. Thrust into another world by a mad mage Alex must adapt quickly to survive. Unfortunately, Alex showed up late to game night and ends up stuck with a pretty mediocre character in this game like reality. Alex must learn to survive in this new world; just because it all seems like a giant game doesn't make death any less terrifying. This will be my first attempt at writing litrpg. I wanted to set myself the challenge of writing every week and I think knowing people might be reading it will motivate me. I've always worked much better with external deadlines. FAQ Why should I read this LitRPG? I am writing because I enjoy it and you should read it if you enjoy it. If I had to make an elevator pitch I would start off by saying my MC is a rogue type character, which seems a relatively uncommon character at least based on what I have read. I also strive to make the supporting cast three dimensional characters, and not just caricatures. Finally, I can't forget that this is a LitRPG so I have tried to make a RPG system with depth, and one that makes sense. How often will you release chapters? At least once a week is my goal. I am a nurse with a baby at home, so between my hospital and my baby I won't have time for more unless something dramatically changes. Will there be romance? I won't rule it out as I try to let my characters write their own stories. However, there will NEVER be a harem, it just isn't something I am interested in. Gore, Profanity, and Traumatising Content? I don't intend to have any of these present at obscene levels, but my tolerance might be different to yours. The tags are mostly there to cover me. Cover image taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dagger-AO_20875-P5280881-gradient.jpg under creative commons license.
8 178Shura Saga: Temple of Razors
Spawned within the bowels of the Temple of Razors, the Scarlet Thorn is an ancient martial Path of unfathomable power and limitless malice, and Ko'ais is its most promising prodigy in a thousand generations. Now, she seeks to flee the Temple and its murderous Razor Acolytes. Fortunately for her, she runs into Raksha, the sole apprentice of the legendary Shura the Destroyer, and entwines her destiny with his. But even together, they may still prove no match for Vo'rei, Blade Mistress of the Temple of Razors.
8 167Endless Essence
"Essence is a link, a chain, a river. It flows through the world and makes us part of it. Through it, we evolve. With it, we mix with those close to us… " Endless Essence tells the journey of a young man in search of his savior, a woman of unknown origins yet profound means. His fate will intertwine with others, forging bonds, revealing a world full of legends, goals, curses and people worth being loved. "Essence… is a kind of story. It collects our tales, puts them together, then passes them onto those who seek the truth." His world will also expand, beyond what is known, beyond what is hoped, and he'll soon learn wisdom is not made of a great amount of knowledge, but of courage and humility in front of being wrong. And so, he'll forge ahead, Without looking back, Relentlessly. Known by many names, He'll keep his own close to his heart, Yet the one ever present in the center of his being... Will be hers.
8 447Missing World
Niu is a normal villager girl, perhaps apart from the fact that she lacks what most people have and possesses powers that most people don’t. Her daily life consists of going to school at the nearest town, where she studies along with her similarly gifted friends and tries to make everyone get along. But that relative peace does not last forever. One day, everything changes with a world-shaking event threatening town - that ends with Niu and her friends transported to an entirely foreign world, one that is spoken of in legends and fairytales. So begins the story of a girl as she attempts to gain control of her own destiny.
8 126I Changed My Mind (1D)
Camila Cabello is a teenage girl, not the stereotypical type. She gets homeschooled and for that reason, she doesn't have many friends. Over the years, she becomes really close with her music tutor and he seems to be her only true friend since they are close in age. That tutors' name is Zayn, Zayn Malik. What if she wants to be closer than close friends? What if she falls in love along the way? The sad part is that the only thing she lets out those feelings into, is an old black journal that Zayn got for her years back. Will she change her mind about her feelings toward him? Will she go through a lot along the way that might make that happen? Teaser : I closed the book, I didn't know what to think, she has feelings for me....
8 98