Zero Realm: The Age of Mechs and AI

In 3500 AD, Year One of the Star Calendar, Earth's resources were depleted. The Huaxia civilization was the first to achieve curvature drive technology, launching the Star Ocean Exploration Project. The first colonial fleets of the Great Voyage set sail, and human civilization began expanding on a massive scale from Earth into the visible universe.

In Star Calendar Year 1126, on the frontier of the Western Qin Empire, in the New Supercluster, on Kucha, stood a mining town buried in dust.

An eighteen-year-old boy scraping by in the junk market. A secondhand gaming terminal with a cracked casing.

Huang Yuyi had no connections, no backing, and no money. His only weapons were the quick mind and capable hands forged in the harsh conditions of a mining planet, along with an unorthodox fighting style.

Yet with that style, he racked up twenty-eight consecutive wins in the solo arena of Zero Realm: Tenfold Showdown, the hottest mech-fighting game in the universe.

Then he received a private message from an unknown sender: "Join West Pole. I'll give you GM privileges and show you the real world."

He replied with a few words: "Who are you? Selling something?"

What Huang Yuyi didn't know was that the game had become a tool for selecting humanity's elite.

Every player was secretly tagged. Every match was recorded as data.

And the old man who got dead drunk at the tavern every day was actually...

He had no idea that the better he played, the greater the danger, and the more likely he was to attract attention. Once noticed, they would either use him or destroy him.

But he wasn't the only one fighting this battle.

There are no born heroes in this book. Only a group of people who refuse to be manipulated.