Prologue

The beginning of the end of the world as everyone knew it wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t an explosion, the outbreak of a great war, or a plague, it was with what you could essentially call a memo, a divine memo, but a memo. It played in everyone's heads in whatever your native langue or whatever you could understand, no one is sure how the animals were informed, not even the animals, they just knew.

“Hi, Hermes here, also known as Mercury, divine messenger of the Greek and Roman gods. I’m coming to you here live from your heads to inform you that in exactly 1 month all advanced technology will be shutting down. That will be on March 25th, if you have any questions pray to your local deity. Christianity you’re out of luck unfortunately, your God is not involved in the coming changes so we recommend that you pray to Zeus, or one of the other bigger gods in the world. Budha says hi, he is instant that I say that. . That’s all for now, have a wonderful day.”

For a moment there was utter silence around the world as everyone tried to process what they’d just heard then Hermes spoke again.

“Sorry, Sorry I left like 5 sheets of information back on the Arc and totally forgot about them until Athena reminded me. Anyways It wouldn’t be very helpful to tell you that the world is changing and everything if we didn’t explain how it was changing. So to start with these levels I mentioned before; there you will be able to reach a max of level 150. You will be leveled up to a max of level 25 depending on your life experience previous to the implementation of this system, so congrats to all the muscle bros and athletes, turns out that there was an actual real-life application for your hobby despite what your teachers told you.”

Hermes paused to clear his throat and there was the sound of him sipping water then he continued.

“ Once a person reaches level 25 they will receive a quest for advancing to the next tier, the enhanced tier, each tier gives benefits and powers to an individual depending on their own who they’ve devoted themselves. By devoting to someone, I don’t mean like a lover or a child or something. I mean to a god or in some cases gods. You’ll need a benefactor to allow you to go between tiers, it does not have to be the same god that sponsored you through the last tier so don’t worry. We gods can be a fickle bunch after all.”

Hermes started muttering to himself seemingly running down a list he had in front of him.

“Ah here we go, to reach the demigod tier, the 3rd tier, you have to be level 75, 4th tier the minor-god tier level 125. But do know that if you leave for lands where your sponsor or sponsors has influence or one of your sponsors is slain for some reason your level will be decreased by all the tiers they sponsored you for.”

Hermes sighed and the sound of him cracking his back was broadcast to everyone.

“ Now for the fun things. We gods have not been idle in our absence, in fact, we left this world for some time to conquer other worlds and bring them to the faith. While we left most of our new followers on their planet of birth we have brought many with us and they will join humanity on earth. There are too many races to go over and too many new gods to go over. However it will not only be them who join you on earth, but the minor gods of the faiths will walk among you trying to gain followers. Personally, I would recommend staying on their good sides if possible.”

“Finally explaining the shutdown of technology, flying aircraft, Cars, and anything bigger than a motorcycle will be first shut down then “exchanged,” we gods are not unreasonable and we recognize that these things have value to you people, so they will be exchanged for magical items and weapons etcetera and they will be scattered across the world. Of course, they will scatter around the areas where they were originally more heavily but there will be some or a lot of randomization. Guns and the like will stay useable, but the production of new parts, ammunition, and so on will be disallowed for the next 5 years, in addition, the number of guns will be reduced over the next 3 days to be about 5 million. Can’t have you, humans, getting free experience so early on,” Hermes chuckled to himself.

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“We gods hope you strive to improve and bring about a new age of heroes and conquest. Think of this as our gift to you, a return to a world where only the strong survive.”

Nothing else was said and silence came over the world.

In a home in Cleveland, Ohio a family sat in their home continuing to go about their day as if nothing had happened. The eldest brother who lay on the living room’s floor on his phone was the first to speak.

“Well, I want a refund of all my donations to the church,” was all he said as he kept typing away on his phone. His tone was almost bored despite the life-changing events of the last few minutes.

The only sister of the family looked down at her older and shortest brother from the comfort of the couch that she dominated. He poked her brother’s big belly and snorted. The eldest had dark brown skin that was originally more a caramel color, but after years of rough treatment, it had decided to stay a darker shade. In his sister’s opinion, he looked like a bear through his mass, though significantly less hairy. With dark black hair that was the bane of barbers everywhere, he was letting it grow out again as winter was winding down.

“A god just spoke to the whole world and the first thing you thought was… You want a refund?” she asked slightly bemused and annoyed at her brother's flippant attitude.

He turned to look at her, his brown eyes dull and seemingly bored as they always did nowadays.

“Yeah, I mean it's not like our church can’t afford it. Look at all the freaking gold they have. Jesus was a carpenter and they have him on a gold cross that fucking shines even in the dark,” he said seriously.

The sister opened her mouth to reply but faltered as her younger brother, the tallest of the family, came into the living room stretching.

“So did you guys hear that voice in your heads too or am I crazy?” he asked.

“Nope, I heard it too. Was just telling Evelynn that we should go to that church grandma makes us go to and get a refund on our donations.”

“ Yeah and how would that go, Iskander? ‘Hi I want a refund on my devotional tribute?’” mocked the youngest brother.

“ Fuck yes,” said Iskander in his version of a sarcastic tone which was next to indistinguishable from his other tones.

“ You know I can’t tell if you’re being serious or sarcastic,” said Evelynn.

“I was being Sarcastic,” he said turning off his phone and sitting up with a groan.

“But on a serious note I’m going to go lock the door, people are going to be going crazy…,” he began before he stopped as a blue screen appeared in front of him.

“Is this…,” began Máximo, “an RPG stat screen?”

“ Looks like it,” whispered Iskander as he ran his finger along it frowning.

Evelynn looked at the screen and was dumbfounded she touched it gingerly ad when nothing happened she tried to grab it. Nothing happened.

“Okay, how does this work?” she asked looking at her brothers.

“It’s pretty simple I think…,” said Iskander. “Let me finish exploring it before I try and fiddle with yours.”

Evelynn watched as her brothers continued to fiddle with their stats screen.

“Oh awesome I have a blessing,” said Iskander abruptly.

“ A blessing to never trip,” he said, “Awesome.”