1 Prologue: Nuclear War

o Diary Entry #1 (May 4th, 2020)

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Hello Diary,

My name is Thomas and today is my Birthday. Only me and my sister are celebrating this year, not that there's much to celebrate with the war still going on.

It's this stupid war that left me an orphan in the first place, luckily I still have my sister Mira to take care of me, I much prefer staying with her rather than the orphanage. It was too crowded with all the other orphans who were there for the same reason I was.

It was even rarer for someone like Mira to be there considering she was old enough to be drafted like most of the adults and teenagers in their later years. She is the only one I care about now, all the others are off fighting or already dead.

The war has taken everything from us, and at this point, even those who aren't fighting are feeling the dreadful effects of the war. Everything is rationed and any scrap no matter how small it was recycled in order to further the war effort.

With most of the food being sent towards those fighting not even things like sugar or salt were regularly available. No cake for me I guess, oh well.

Most of the farmable land has been destroyed and rendered useless due to the nuclear fallout from bombs, now everyone forages and grows their own food in an effort to make up for the lack of rations.

Luckily or unluckily there aren't that many mouths to feed anymore with most of them dead already from this war that has ravaged the entire world in only 3 years. Less than a billion people are still alive in the world and there are only about 100 million left in the entire continent of North America.

I guess they really got it right when they declared WW3 the war to end all wars. At first, it was only a few countries fighting each other over oil rights, then after a while, their allies got dragged in, and so on and so forth to the point that all of the countries were eventually dragged in and it became a fight between continents more so than countries.

o Diary Entry #15 (May 18th, 2020)

Well Diary, I suppose I spoke too soon. Sirens are going off warning us about our impending doom from nuclear bombs. There's nothing left to do except accept my fate and try to enjoy the last moments I have left.

I'm currently sitting on the concrete stairs outside of our small cracked stucco apartment watching the sunset with Mira beside me as we comfort each other in our final moments.

My only regret is not being able to have stopped the war that has finally taken everything from me, even my life.

If only there was a way to fix this mess. I give up that notion quickly knowing that if humanity were to change they would have done it long ago before most of the population was killed off. Any faith I had in humans has long been crushed under the harsh environment we now live in as a result of a ridiculous war continued only by grudges with the original reason for the war having been forsaken long ago.

o Diary Entry #16 (May 19th, 2020)

I'm still in disbelief that I'm even writing this rather than being nothing more than a pile of ash. As the nukes honed in and were preparing to go off, a booming and mysterious voice came from the sky and everything seemed to have paused except for us.

The voice pronounced how disappointed it was in humanity, but then stated with a sigh that it expected this would eventually happen with the inherently greedy and vengeful nature of humanity. The voice picked up again and said that it would be changing the world that we know now and that almost no electricity, machines, or modern weapons would be allowed to exist in the hope that we don't attempt to destroy ourselves again.

It stated that since it seemed humanity would only unite and peacefully exist between ourselves if we had a common enemy it would provide one for us. It said that the world would be changing drastically from what we know now and that this change would be a test for us to determine whether we deserved to continue existing or should be left to get wiped out.

The voice then proclaimed that the following changes would be made to the world and that if we wanted to adapt we should listen closely:

1st- Monsters from fantasy, mythology, and legends would exist in the new world, but would remain in their own separate plane which can be accessed through gates in each of the 7 continental cities. All Monster Gates connect to an alternate dimension full of monsters. All of the gates lead to the same summoning plane but are separate just like in the actual world.

There are 5 tiers of summons- Tier 1: common, Tier 2: advanced, Tier 3: Rare, Tier 4: Mythical, and Tier 5: Legendary/Named. Monsters are inclined to attack humans, but have a sense of self-preservation and won't mindlessly pursue and kill them. There are also near-infinite combinations of monsters, variants, and evolutions.

2nd– The remaining viable land on earth would be separated from the ruined lands and then combine into a mini Pangea, each continent would have its own giant continental city for the surviving citizens to remain in.

Each city will have a gate to access the monster plane, an auction house, a colosseum, a monster core exchange building next to the gate, and lots of enormous skyscraper style apartments within the city to house all of us. In addition, all humans will know a universal language in hopes that understanding each other will allow humans to work together.

3rd– Each person 16 and older would receive a beginning free random monster summon core which they can bond with through a drop of blood. Each summoner can have a maximum of 10 summoning monsters bonded to them, the bond is permanent and can't be replaced or gotten rid of.

Only monsters killed by the summoner can be bonded with and summoned, all other cores are used to upgrade or feed other cores. Cores from the same family or type can be used to evolve a monster summon, other cores can be fed to the summons and grant abilities or variations but won't evolve them.

Any summon that is killed will revert back to a core that will be returned to the summoner and can be reformed at the expense of any experience and cores fed to the summon since its' last evolution.

4th– Each summon or monster has the potential to evolve and the possibilities are nearly endless in regards to what they can evolve into, all of this relies on the cores they are fed and the experience they gain from fighting just like in video games. With each evolution a summon goes through, a portion of their physical statistics and/or abilities are transmitted to the summoner, but this only occurs as a bonded summon evolves.

5th- All humans will receive a watch that is connected to their credit account and a universal store. The watch also has the ability to store items and summoning crystals amongst other things, and each watch starts off with a 5 cubic meters large storage capacity. Larger storage capacity can be purchased for credits. It also has the ability to talk or text to people in their contacts as a way to make up for the removal of nearly all technology. Credits which can be obtained primarily through selling monster cores, bodies and goods, are the universal currency in this new era.

The economy of the world is now completely revolving around monster cores as currency, it has inherent value as a supplement for summons. Where strength is the most important factor to continue surviving more cores means more strength. There are established auctions within each city that occur every week and there is a worldwide auction every month, these are meant to facilitate the trade of goods and allow for all to have the chance to access otherwise foreign resources.

6th- All minors will receive an allowance in order for them to live until they turn of age and can support themselves. Their allowance credits are non-transferrable and no items bought can be given or traded in order to protect them.

They can be given credits by adults for services performed or any other reason. Any credits and items owned by their parents will be transferred to their other parent or to them should they both pass.

7th- Because this era is an experiment to see if humanity is worthy of continuing to exist, there is a merit system to weed out the corrupt and evil through bounties that are created when enough negative karmic actions have occurred, and the worse the person the greater the bounty. Any credits and items owned by the person with the bounty are given to the bounty hunter, along with the bounty reward. No minor should be harmed, and any who do so will be given a kill on sight bounty to those nearby.

8th – Every two months there will be a monster break where monsters from the alternate plane will be allowed to pass through to the human realm. The monsters will attempt to break through the gate and enter the cities in order to slaughter humanity. During the bimonthly monster breaks, many variant and mythical monsters will appear, with great danger comes great opportunity. Each monster break brings successively stronger monsters, which will come in greater numbers.

It is only through constant strengthening that humanity will survive. There is a way to end the monster breaks, but it is up to humanity to figure out how. The only hint he gave is to think about what brought about our situation and near annihilation in the first place.

o Diary Entry # 23 (May 26th, 2020)

Those 8 commandments as I like to refer to them, are the basis for the world we are in now and will hopefully guide us enough to survive in this strange new existence. On the upside, the watches given to us allow for the purchasing of many necessities that were scarce during the war.

No one starves anymore due to the existence of credits, with orphans getting an allowance of 20 credits a week.

For reference as to the value of a credit, a normal meal is set at 1 credit with a set of clothes going for around 5 credits, and the minimum rent for the common apartments is 25 credits a month. A tier 1 monster core is worth 1 credit at the core exchange, with each successive upgrade in tier the price rises exponentially, with tier 2 being worth 10 credits, tier 3 worth 25 credits, tier 4 at 100 credits, and tier 5 at 1000 credits, and the bodies of monsters are even more valuable.

While there may not be a war going on anymore, there is a general sense of chaos and confusion at the state of the reality we have been placed in. Luckily the government and soldiers have maintained order and are in the process of stabilizing society as well as preparing for the upcoming monster breaks.

Many adults have begun working as monster summoners that fight monsters for money, the others who chose not to follow that path have chosen to pick up trades like weapon and armor smithing, merchant, cook, jeweler, leatherworker, alchemist/potioneer, tailor, carpenter, builder, butcher, and entertainer amongst other things. The ones with trades were in the minority as many saw the need to be strong in this uncertain reality, and with many jobs in the previous world becoming unnecessary or irrelevant with the existence of the global store and the ban on electricity and modern weapons.

Mira has gotten a job as an alchemists assistant to a former chemist named Eric Carter, the job has become a valuable one as a result of experiments with monster parts creating potions with various effects. With as smart and hardworking as Mira is, I'm not surprised at her being chosen over others to assist Mr. Carter. As an added benefit it is a decent job that has allowed us to live without worry about affording necessities.

The only drawback to the trade is the expense of any failed potions, this tends to get rather high when experimenting with valuable ingredients. To counter this cost is the amount that can be earned from sharing the recipe and receiving a tithe from each vial sold of your discovered potion.

This is a recent development brought about by the creation of an Alchemist guild to unionize Alchemists and allow for the sharing of recipes and information with a certain percentage of credits being paid to those who utilize the discoveries of others in manufacturing potions to sell. While it is a very recent profession that has popped up, it has become very popular due to the advantage potions provide with many recipes already having been discovered as a result of the influx of monster parts and bodies brought in by the many summoners hunting them.