The Mana Influx Book 4: Bane World - a LitRPG Adventure

Book 1 - Tall Tales of Bronwic

Bronwic, a recently retired ice hockey enforcer, is trying unsuccessfully to rebuild himself in the remote Milford Sounds of New Zealand when a Mana Influx hits Earth. Danger is everywhere as oversaturated Mana creates wormholes that bring dangerous creatures to Earth. Animals and vegetation are warped and forcibly evolved into a new hostile food chain, and humanity is no longer at the top. Mana is the new power source for everything.

The Sapient Species Alliance intervenes to provide humanity with Mana Interfaces that allow people to gain powerful Classes and Levels, including rare forgotten alien Classes and new ones created from Earth's mythology. Classes Evolve from Basic to Advanced to Mythic to Legendary to Ascended, each time needing 30 Levels to progress. Skills become more and more powerful as people progress to new Classes, each one having 4 Tiers of Skills gained at Level 0, 10, 20, and 25. Each Class has 3 Skill branches. Many Classes also take advantage of Mana to cast spells and power weapons.

Caught in Milford Sound in New Zealand which is one of the highest Level, most dangerous areas on Earth, Bronwic desperately struggles to survive and regain his lost sense of purpose. He manages to escape from Milford Sound and encounters a Shop that is just setting up to cater to Galactic tourists after a short period of time. No humans were predicted to survive in Milford Sound. Within the Shop he meets Taiwo, a mysterious and powerful Merman who helps Bronwic out.

Bronwic manages to reunite with his older brother Carter and younger brother Robb, who before the Influx was making the trip to NZ as a last ‘bucket list’ item before dying of cancer. The Influx has healed humans of their diseases, cancers, and physical issues and all but the most serious injuries are healed by Mana within 10-15 minutes.

The brothers go to Queenstown where they meet some Uruk including no-nonsense warrior Kapila, battle some Wargs, and Carter finds out that their parents have died. As someone with a history of being imbalanced, Carter loses his sanity and is desperate to get back to Calgary. With no way back, Bronwic asks Taiwo to help and Taiwo agrees because between Bronwic’s insanely fast Health regeneration and Robb’s pooled Health Skill called Brothers in Arms, they are a perfect pair to help support Galactic tourists. Robb and Bronwic agree to a Contract that binds them to serving at Real Earth Tours and eventually to guide tourists in harsh other planets.

Robb and Bronwic have a series of adventures at Real Earth Tours acting as Health batteries for tourists and Bronwic decides to reconnect with others he’s known in New Zealand, including former hockey player and meatworks supervisor Kyle, who has a ‘Terran Assassin’ Class. He also clears an ice hockey rink Dungeon with Taiwo, Kapila, and the hottest Irish woman he’s ever seen, Alana.

Bronwic and Robb then help Kyle and other people from the Hamilton, NZ region to free Hamilton from the clutches of a mind-controlling Illusionist who is making life hard for everyone with high taxes. Now a Settlement owner, Bronwic returns to Queenstown only to find that it’s under attack from Monsters on all sides. He joins the Adventurers trying to defend the city and the barely manage to hold on, only for a dragon to arrive and threaten everything.

Taiwo comes to the rescue as the only Legendary around, but he is not permitted to be on Earth and goblins end up taking over Queenstown and Taiwo is exiled. Bronwic and Robb have their contract changed by Taiwo just before he leaves and their only requirement to be free of their debt is to do one Bane World tour. They hurry over with Kapila and go through the Portal, only for Bronwic to be attacked by a huge worm that takes out the Portal. He manages to kill it, but is now stranded. His only chance is to Level up, get his Class Skills, and try to Evolve one to get home.

Book 2 - Fury of the Clan

Bronwic battles on the Bane World, Holgaad, to rejoin humanity on Earth. Everything is deadly and mutated on Holgaad. Joined by Kapila and a strange alien named Strogan who is trying to obtain her Legendary Class on Holgaad, Bronwic gains Levels and a Dimensional Manipulation Affinity.

Eventually Bronwic unlocks his Class Skills and finally jumps up hugely in power, particularly with the addition of his Unbreakable Skill that reduces damage and Acceleration, which allows him to spend Stamina to double his Agility and Perception. After an encounter that leaves him alone and shaken, he decides to Level the rest of the way to 25 by continually clearing a lower Level Dungeon. After some time he reaches Level 25 and Evolves his Tier 4 Mythic Class Skill, Omnipresent, which now allows him to create a Portal to any human-owned MIS Hub, human known to him, or conflict involving humans.

Riding high, Bronwic returns to Earth and frees Robb from goblin slavers. Now returned to New Zealand after some time away, he encounters various characters and is approached through Kyle to take over more Settlements, so the target is on his back. After a while Bronwic reluctantly agrees and is in the middle of accepting other Settlements when assassins strike. Bronwic survives but Robb is brutally murdered and Bronwic goes a bit haywire, strongly driven to strike back at the goblins and to get rid of the bounty on his head.

Bronwic returns to Calgary to tell Carter about their brother’s death, but Carter already knows and Bronwic, joined by a Necromancer handy with a bow named Tatiana, agrees to help protect Calgary from a swarm of Monsters. He is joined by some higher Level Adventurers, but as the battle is really getting serious there is an assassination attempt on Carter’s family and Bronwic leaves to protect them. When he returns many of the Adventurers have died without him there.

Still with lots of mixed emotions, Bronwic returns to New Zealand and finds out a secondary Influx is on the way and he asks for Taiwo’s help again. He then kills the goblins that were responsible for so much pain, taking advantage of the secondary Influx and getting a small amount of closure.

Bronwic then hops around the world for the first 2 weeks of the secondary Influx, saving as many people as possible from the massive creatures that arrive through wormholes or that have been mutated by the extremely high levels of Mana. His power grows and he competes in the Koldaavi Combat Championship against the other most powerful humans and Galactics, after choosing a Legendary Class that requires a Class Quest to claim.

He wins humanity’s competition while finding some of the other powerful humans are aligned with his Class Quest and overall mission. Bronwic ends up losing in the Finals of the Galactic Division. At the end he gets a surprise righting of past wrongs from a goblin representative of the SSA, once again altering his views of how the ‘new normal’ works.

Determined to return to Earth and save as much of humanity as he can, Bronwic redoubles his commitment.

Book 3 - Sentinel

Bronwic battles to free Dakar with Kyle, and together they manage to stop the immediate threat. After resting, Bronwic feels refreshed and gathers his team—Jon, Finn, and Jeff—through Portals and plan to use Queenstown as their base where they find their power has grown way beyond their previous levels. The group decides to work together on select high-impact battles while also considering how to relocate people from vulnerable areas to their Settlements. Bronwic then further ties himself to Taiwo with a deal and the team goes to London where they meet some new people including Dennis, a Mythic Class Seer and he reunites with his Uncle Ant.

The team returns to a major battle in Dakar, but eventually prevail and evacuate those who want to leave. The team then agrees to become The Sentinels and Jeff reveals (sponsored) powerful armor for all of them. Bronwic is then offered a partnership from an alien guild which is waylaid when they find out that Oblivion Shroud, a powerful colonization organization, has set its sights on dominating Earth.

Bronwic and his allies engage in desperate battles and Bronwic gains his Legendary Class, as do others like Jeff and Jon. Bronwic's new Class abilities successfully lead a change in the momentum and humanity ends up prevailing despite the odds. Oblivion Shroud vacates Earth and humans are rewarded by the Sapient Species Alliance.

The book ends with an unfortunate further, stronger Mana Influx. Bronwic decides to be at Milford Sound where it all began when that Influx hits and helps his nephew Logan to get an extremely powerful Class on his 13th birthday.

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