The young man turned off his computer after finishing his last few trades in his favorite MMORPG game. He was tired, as he had been playing for over twelve hours at this point, and it was very late at night or early in the morning depending on your view. He was young, certainly not past his early 20s, but was overweight and out of shape. Close cropped sandy brown hair atop a chubby face with light blue eyes showed that if he took better care of himself he would likely be a handsome young man, but his path in life led him far from the standard that most humans accepted as normal.
The young man levered his bulk out of his expensive and well padded gaming chair before we pondered for a moment. He went into the small kitchenette in his studio apartment to grab a frozen pizza out of his freezer. Taking a few minutes to get it into the oven with a timer set he then made his way to the bathroom to take a quick shower and change into some clean clothes. The apartment was small but clean and well furnished. Everything in the living space was high quality and on the higher side of the price spectrum showing that the young man seemed to choose to live in a small space by choice rather than need as he appeared to have money enough to spend on high quality items for his home. Even his clothes, while not a premium luxury brand, were still of higher quality cut and focused on comfort.
This young man's name is Ryu Storm, not his birth name, but this was the name he first used as a small boy when he discovered online video games. Later, after his parents passed away, this was the name he legally changed to in order to continue building his various fortunes and brands that this name was known for online. You see Ryu was an early adopter of WeTube and online streaming. He found it fascinating when the first WeTube videos were released on the early internet and he could see how other people played his favorite games and very quickly adopted the technology to begin showing his own path as a gamer.
Ryu Storm quickly became a well known content creator for all the best games in competitive first person shooters, looter RPGs, and of course MMORPGs. He created content and did streams across a wide variety of games since he was 9 years old and built one of the largest followings on the internet for anything game related. He was often paid large sums of money by game companies to test and provide feedback on his games, to promote the games he plays that he enjoys, and to promote other products that gamers would enjoy. Hell, the pizza he had in his oven currently was a brand that he had promoted just last year as one of his favorite brands of frozen pizza for gamers and even after the paid promotion was done he still continued to eat and enjoy the food.
Ryu's parents, before they passed, had been proud of their son's achievements but had also constantly harped on him to maintain more life balance, always trying to get him out of the house, exercise, eat better, and such but with limited success. The one area they did manage to force their views onto him regarding was how to safeguard his newfound wealth. They helped him find a reputable wealth management company and after having meetings with many of their various staff members Ryu finally found and chose one of them to manage all of his financial affairs. He was a fellow gamer and fan of Ryu which, to Ryu at least, meant that the man was obviously trustworthy. Luckily in this case Ryu was correct as the young manager did very well by Ryu.
The wealth manager handled all of Ryu's financial affairs from paying bills, handling taxes, dealing with the legal teams for contracts, and investing most of Ryu's earnings back into additional ways to grow his wealth over time. The very building that Ryu lived in was a custom built apartment complex that catered to content creators and young people who were shut-ins like Ryu. The entire building was well sound proofed, had its own security service on site, maid service, shopping service, and a bunch of other features that only true shut-ins could truly appreciate and enjoy. Ryu also kept the rental price more than fair, since the apartments were all studios just like his.
The apartment building was five stories, a little larger than the normal 2-3 story tall apartment complexes that were in the area, and had four apartments per floor, each with their own balconies. There was also a small room that had vending machines, a washer and dryer, and small storage cubicles assigned to each apartment. Most people didn't use the small room as they could just order for delivery anything they wanted or use the laundry service to have their washables picked up, cleaned, folded, and delivered back to their front doors.
Ryu owned nearly a hundred such apartment complexes spread across the United States, at least one in every single state, as well as businesses in a number of different industries. One industry that his money was involved with was the very same one that his own family had been involved with. You see his parents ran their own military surplus store with an attached gun store and gun range. He grew up around all of that and understood quite well just how much money there was in catering to that small but dedicated crowd of people known as "preppers" or "survivalists".
Preppers were people who generally felt happiest when they had plans in place for anything that could possibly go wrong. They purchased long term food and water for storage, guns and ammo for a rainy day, and specialized survival gear just in case something bad happened. These are the families that anytime bad weather hits an area and causes power outages or other issues that shut down the normal functions of an area everyone turns to because they still have electricity, heat, food, and water. They were typically well adjusted people who worked middle to upper class, had families they cared about, and were often heavily invested in their local communities.
Survivalists are the more… well to put it nicely you would call them the serious older brother of preppers, to put it not so nicely these are the nut jobs who have a hundred and one different conspiracy theories they believe and share with everyone while also buying ten times what a prepper might because they believe the end of the world as we know it is right around the corner. They think the world will end in fire, brimstone, global ice storms, alien invaders, or the foreign countries developing special diseases that only target Americans… so yeah they were a little more difficult to deal with. Honestly thought, they were really good customers though because they bought in large quantities, often paid cash (because banks are the handmaidens of the Devil trying to control your mind through chemicals the coins we use are made with…), and were often repeat customers when they realized how good the service provided to them was.
Ryu's money, with his oh so competent wealth managers help, had sought out people like his parents to start and then manage various businesses that catered to these people all over the US. He had a company that made freeze dried and vacuum sealed foods for long term storage, a company that made, sold, and installed water filtration units, a company that built and managed underground bunkers, many gun stores, gun clubs, military surplus stores, and even a specialty security company for VIPs and high value people to receive bodyguards or even specialized training. Ryu knew about all of these things of course, as he received an hour-long call every month where his wealth manager went over everything with a big picture style report, but he was completely hands off regarding the whole thing.
Ryu even had a special survival bunker underneath the very apartment building that he lived in. He didn't have it installed because of any real fear for the future but simply because he knew that his parents would have wanted him to have it just in case. It also was filled with pictures of his family, family heirlooms, and various items that reminded him of his folks now that they were gone. He rarely went to the bunker but when he was feeling particularly nostalgic he would disappear into the basement for a few hours to remember good times. It was his version of an old money families heirloom vault really, but the fact it could be used to save his life if bad things happened was a happy bonus.
Ryu heard the oven timer going off and finished up his shower to go get his late dinner before it overcooked. It took him less than 20 minutes to finish off the entire large frozen pizza on his own and after looking through his small kitchenette he sent a message to the building's shopping service requesting a kitchen restock. They knew his tastes and frequent purchases quite well so they would be able to get him taken care of and deliver the food to his door by 7pm. They usually would look around for other products or items he might like and send along a bonus bag with new things for him to try. Ryu had discovered many new flavors of chips, candy, and soft drinks that he liked this way and it also allowed him to feel less like he was in a rut with his life without ever stepping outside.
Ryu finished placing his order and had just settled into bed after noticing it was 5am already when the world… shifted. It felt like, for just a moment, that all the world was lit up with a rainbow kaleidoscope of colors, smells, and tastes! All the emotions he had ever felt or could feel suddenly burst out of him and surrounded him each with their own unique flavors and smells! This seemed to last for an eternity and also for less than a moment before the world SNAPPED back into place with a message box appearing in front of his face.
"Ding! Congratulations user as you have survived forced integration with the Multiversal System! As one of the 25% of the currently surviving human population on Earth in Universe 777666, you are being granted Level 1 access to the System! At Level 1 you will be granted the ability to select a character class, after the System is provided enough time to better evaluate and match you to potential classes, you will be granted access to your stats, the ability to level up, and the inventory system. Additional features will be granted as you continue to level up and complete various objectives or achievements in the world."
The screen appeared just long enough for Ryu to read what was written before disappearing and another screen replacing it.
"Ding! Important Announcement to the Users of Earth! Please read carefully as this announcement contains information vital to your survival!"