It's been 152 years since the creation of The Mindscape. No one really knows who made it, why they made it, or where they went. All that is known is that the developer called themself "Tel-nu."
No one has been able to find anything else out. Yet somehow, The Mindscape is now an integral part of society and has a huge impact on everything from daily life to secret societies.
Perhaps it was the mysterious appearance of the system or the unexplained phenomenon of how it works outside of the laws of our current science. When it first made its appearance, many people called it magic. Its impact wasn't noticed until close to 20 years after.
It changed everything. People changed, they quit aging, no one got sick, no one had cancer, no one went hungry, and so on. I still remember that cursed day when they appeared.
Version 1 of the OmniCrystals, the interface for The Mindscape. It was June 23rd, 2037. The last day of the old world and the birth of the official mindscape. The world was rotten, yet somehow the human race was still eking out a living.
Like cockroaches that just don't die. It seemed like the world was trying to thin the herd. We had 2 recessions back to back, followed by a plague, and just when the world seemed to be getting better, the gods laughed at our arrogance.
In 2025, the magnetic poles of the Earth decided to flip the script on us. North became south, south became north. It nearly tore this planet asunder. Until 2031, volcanoes worldwide kept erupting, earthquakes ravaged the lands, whole continents disappeared below the oceans, and blood-boiling heat waves assaulted the planet. Temperatures would change dramatically through the course of the day. At daybreak, seeing 70-90°F temperature was normal. By noon, it could reach upwards of 370°F. By dusk, it would drop to 70-90°F again. By midnight, it would drop to -70°F. We were witnesses to Mother natures' true wrath.
When it finally settled down and began to normalize, humanity had been reduced back to the stone age. It wasn't until 2036 that we realized just how badly we suffered.
By 2025, Earth's population had risen to nearly 7.91 billion. In 2036, we realized that there were maybe 3-7 million people alive worldwide. We were living in a post-apocalyptic world full of wastelands of every variety you could think of: radiation, ash, water, urban, and trash, to name a small few. However, it seemed to be a real wake-up call for people. Many of the urban wastelands were being converted into tradeposts for the wandering types and a respite for the rest. Bartering was back in full swing, and things had finally settled to a normal era. The New Renaissance Era to be exact.
There were artists, musicians, innkeepers, general goods, merchants, blacksmiths, and so much more. It was almost like a Renaissance festival. You could almost forget about the apocalypse. Almost. And then came June 23rd, 2037. These crystals appeared out of nowhere. The OmniCrystals. Nobody really thought much at first. They were everywhere. To many of them to be worth anything. That is, until everyone across the planet fell unconscious.
"Welcome to the mindscape. I am Tel-nu. The developer of this technology. This is a worldwide metaverse for the evolution and ascension of humanity. The Mindscape tutorial will now begin."
This is where my story began truly began. I am Delson Snow, and I should have been dead. You see, it was on this day that I was out of luck. The New Renaissance Age was a gift to everyone else but me. I was in debt and never seemed to be able to keep doing just one thing and jumped from job to job and snubbed one too many toes. So, let us begin with this story, the story of My Nemesis Rising.
(IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT LORE, SYSTEM'S AND MORE)[from the Author]
As I write this book, I plan on releasing tid bits of information involving the social hierarchy, justice system, currency, religions, and so on. This will be done via information chapters through the book, which will be updated as needed. For example, one of the first ones I am working on is the social structure of the book. This is taking a large quantity of info and stuffing it into the chapter. This one, in particular, is probably going to drop around chapter 10-15 and will include bits about the social structure during the apocalypse with some finer details to add more to the rest of the book and hopefully make it more enjoyable. These particular chapters are going to be more like extensions of the story and not a necessary part of it. In case this book does really well, I want this to be said before, so if you end up spending coins on this, you don't waste them on a chapter you might not be interested in. Again, these information chapters are going to be there so I can go into greater detail about the world this book takes place in without having giant sections of a chapter being devoted to detailing too much. I will have details and descriptions in various forms in the book to describe things such as things inside these funny symbols [example], which means the person is thinking it. Or these