Exploration

  Welcome to the Multiverse: Book 10

  Sean Oswald

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Exploration: Welcome to the Multiverse 10

  Copyright © 2026

  Sean Oswald

  Contents

  The Story So Far

  Prologue: Change

  Chapter One: New In Town

  Chapter Two: Odd Auras

  Chapter Three: Review

  Chapter Four: Clear Mind

  Chapter Five: Time to Look Around

  Chapter Six: Into Basetown

  Chapter Seven: Sargin

  Chapter Eight: Guild Master

  Interlude One: New Players

  Chapter Nine: Enter the Dungeon

  Chapter Ten: Loot and Progress

  Chapter Eleven: Power-Leveling Makes the Best Friends (part 1)

  Chapter Twelve: Power-Leveling Makes the Best Friends (part 2)

  Chapter Thirteen: What a Dungeon Wants

  Chapter Fourteen: Futures Possible

  Chapter Fifteen: Popping in Unannounced

  Chapter Sixteen: New Allies

  Chapter Seventeen: Visions Revealed

  Chapter Eighteen: Awakening

  Chapter Nineteen: Playing with Rocks

  Chapter Twenty: Chaos and Order

  Chapter Twenty-One: Humanity

  Chapter Twenty-Two: In the Shadow of Eternity

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Just Like Old Times

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Stone Foes

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Psi

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Soul Tinker

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Flesh Builder

  Interlude Two: Moving Pieces

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Out of Time

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Spatial Disruption

  Chapter Thirty: Decisions to Make

  Chapter Thirty-One: In for a Penny

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Step One

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Primordial Core

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Step Two

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Level Appropriate

  Chapter Thirty-Six: More Dungeon Fun

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Punching Up

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Behemoth’s Treasure

  Interlude Three: Drawing Closer

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Liquid Magic

  Chapter Forty: Learning More

  Chapter Forty-One: Finishing Up

  Chapter Forty-Two: Design Phase

  Chapter Forty-Three: A Most Welcome Friend

  Chapter Forty-Four: Delivery

  Chapter Forty-Five: Flame and Hammer

  Chapter Forty-Six: Happy Birthday

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Test Protocols

  Chapter Forty-Eight: What a Golem Wants

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Lights and Mirrors

  Chapter Fifty: More

  Chapter Fifty-One: Duplication

  Chapter Fifty-Two: What Else Can Be Done?

  Interlude Four: Closer Still

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Decimus

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Bargain

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Time Pool

  Chapter Fifty-Six: The Noose Tightens

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Price of Hubris

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Loading Room

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Undead Suck

  Chapter Sixty: Obvious but Unavoidable

  Chapter Sixty-One: Springing the Trap

  Chapter Sixty-Two: Violet

  Chapter Sixty-Three: The Graveyard

  Chapter Sixty-Four: Keep

  Chapter Sixty-Five: The Lich

  Chapter Sixty-Six: Time Out

  Chapter Sixty-Seven: Death Knight

  Chapter Sixty-Eight: Unity

  Interlude Five: Here They Come

  Chapter Sixty-Nine: Preparations

  Chapter Seventy: Introductions

  Chapter Seventy-One: Preparation

  Chapter Seventy-Two: Upgrades

  Chapter Seventy-Three: Intermediary

  Interlude Six: And So It Begins

  Chapter Seventy-Four: Unleashed

  Chapter Seventy-Five: Ascendant Battle

  Chapter Seventy-Six: Across the Void

  Stats for Book Ten

  Other Books by the Author

  The Story So Far

  Induction

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book One

  Meet Silas, a then-22-year-old who had dropped out of college to be there for his mom and sister after the death of his father. It was a tough time, but tragedy turned to cautious optimism when they learned about an inheritance from his uncle.

  They believed Uncle Dan was insane, but he’d been a Forerunner—a representative for Earth in a competition between five worlds.

  His first exposure to the competition came in the form of a man-sized, mana-infected squirrel with a taste for blood. Silas prevailed and gained access to the system, a mysterious, omnipresent guide that let him know what was what in the strangeness of this new Earth.

  After the fight, Silas formed a class combining elements of rogues, mages, and healers. But his new life wasn’t all blood and gore. His first mission sent him to the dungeon world of Galen, where he made some new friends—a rogue named Dori, Nevin the mage, and Crag, the aptly-named warrior.

  Silas was tasked with putting an end to a war between two native races, centered around the city of Proximus. The Ceorgi were tiny humanoids, gifted with innate magical abilities, while the Delmin were the opposite, relying on size and brawn. It appeared the Delmin were the aggressors, bombarding the city filled with Ceorgi civilians. After agreeing to help the Ceorgi, his contact taught Silas how to better connect with the magic that permeated this world and others, resulting in an attunement to life mana.

  But it turned out the Ceorgi only wanted to use Silas’ abilities to cycle ambient mana into life mana, providing them with a battery for the shield that protected the city. Until that point, they’d been sacrificing captured Delmin to feed the shield. Silas took a stand against the enslavement and murder, but in destroying their defenses he was forced to kill several helpless Ceorgi.

  He returned to Earth, and had brief encounters with three of Earth’s other Forerunners—Jiang, Nuri, and Anika. His last mission was a race on a cosmic track, along with his Galen team, the Forerunners from Earth, and Urg, an eidolon he’d learned to summon as a personal protector. There, he met three of the other races competing against Earth—the Crembori, the Furlooni and the Nargossians. The Earth team prevailed with the assistance of the Crembori, destroying the Furloon vessel and killing all three of their Forerunners.

  Countdown

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book Two

  Silas found a mentor in Samvek of Rayden Clan, who taught him vital details about leveling. Under a brutal training regimen in a graveyard dungeon, Silas made his skills part of him. Abilities were given by the system, but combat skills were earned.

  After a hard-fought battle with a banshee, Silas inherited her Spirit Singing ability, which opened up a much wider understanding of the multiverse. It took a chunk of Life Mana from the crystal he gained on Proximus to defeat a lich necromancer, but the victory netted him a huge gain in world points, a mission for his clan, and a visit from a mysterious priest of the Sect of Veiled Infinity.

  Back on Earth, the Crembori lost their patience and tried to force Silas’ hand by revealing their ship over Washington, DC. In the resulting confrontation, Silas ended up reaching a deal to grant asylum to the Crembori. In return, they would allow him to study their technology to further his newly obtained Junkman Artificer occupation.

  After forming an Uncommon core, Silas received a message from his deceased uncle. In it, Uncle Dan warned Silas not to trust any of the other Forerunners, and hinted that some of them had nefarious plans. With this in mind, he broke into the prison which held Emil, the final Earth Forerunner. He refused to leave with Silas, but used him to release a massive burst of mana into a residential neighborhood in Norway. The creatures he bred spread outward, while the people affected by the mana were either killed or left experiencing strange sensations.

  The system didn’t look kindly upon this and accelerated the countdown to induction by over two hundred days, penalizing Earth three million world points and dropping it into fourth place.

  Collapse

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book Three

  Silas was left cleaning up the aftermath of the mana wave on Earth. Oslo was ground zero—thousands died in the explosion, and creatures began to mutate from exposure to mana. Some monsters were far more powerful than humans could deal with.

  Silas returned to Oslo to rescue those he could. Along the way, he shared a car with some locals, to get a feel of life on the ground. Dutch was an engineer, trying to make it to Oslo to find his daughter. He ended up inducted into the system after killing a monster with a low-tech weapon.

  Silas was certain the system had intentionally stuck the other local in his path. Asta Larsen, daughter of Forerunner Emil Larsen, was beautiful and brave, and only a couple years older than him. She was inducted as well, assuming a combination aerial-warrior-and-tamer
class as she fought through a mouse trap dungeon.

  From there Silas went off world to deal with the chaos on Galen. He negotiated trade agreements with all three of the corporations there—Transhek, Bymorte, and Acme. In a raid on one of the orbiting Transhek mana ships, he collected a massive amount of broken tech to use with his Junkman Artificer occupation.

  After some brutal training with his mentor, Samvek, he experienced a racial evolution from Homo sapiens to Homo inspiratus, a species driven by instinct. He oversaw the induction of his sister, Cece, who showed an immediate aptitude for Fire Mana. His mother couldn’t handle the chaos and her health started to fail, so Silas had the Crembori put her in stasis until they could properly help her.

  Resistance

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book Four

  So began the Wild Hunt, a battle royale where the Forerunners were pitted against each other, with the fate of their planets at stake.

  Silas, Jiang, and Asta were dropped on the jungle world of Veil, a planet inducted long ago, relegated to resource production. They faced off against Anika and Nuri, who had betrayed Earth for their own personal gains. After their defeat, Silas found out that Nuri had already selected an inheritor to take over for her—the leader of a terrorist group in Syria. But Silas convinced Anika to give him the right to pick the Forerunner who would replace her in exchange for the lives of her family.

  Next came the confrontation with the last remaining Bar’jeki Forerunner, Morvarg. They discovered he’d slaughtered his entire race and was now an agent of Oblivion, seeking the end to all things. Silas was able to overcome him, but reluctantly had to accept the help of the system to succeed.

  They formed an alliance with the Lepun, a race of rabbit people led by Vex the Thumper of Veil, a thousand-year-old woman with necromantic powers. Their assistance proved invaluable to Silas’ survival on Veil, leading him to offer the Lepuns asylum on Earth, bringing nearly a million of them back to Shawnee.

  Their final challenge was against the Huntsman, a primal being who existed before the system, and was the embodiment of a concept rather than a being of flesh and blood. The team rose to the challenge, helping to free the Huntsman from the system that had trapped him for so long, gaining his blessing in the process.

  Nargossa and Furloon lost all their living Forerunners, making Earth the world point leader. Unbeknownst to the crew, Earth had become part of a contested sector between multiple systems. Silas was familiar with one, and it had a name—the Heavens. But another existed, perhaps more. The Hells offered him power beyond his imagination. Silas accepted a hint of the power that could be his, and found he liked it.

  Ultimately, Silas and the others returned to Earth and found a swarm of monsters attacking mainland Europe, with nearly a thousand inducted humans fighting a losing battle trying to hold them back. Silas became a one-man wrecking crew, clearing the beach of the scourge.

  But many people were witness to the act and the man streaking through the air, blasting waves of cold at his enemies. Word quickly went viral, and talk began to spread of a new superhero in town.

  Contention

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book Five

  This one started with a kiss. As far as first kisses go, Silas couldn’t think of a better scenario, flying at Mach 10 across an ocean, or a better woman to share it with than Asta.

  He got a little crafting time in before the end of the world, learning how to make biologically reinforced steel, which made for some amazing armor. He also learned how to mass-produce blueprints that could transform any humble dwelling into a miniature fortress. Now, Silas only needed to find a way to get them out to as many people as possible.

  The Lepun finally got to call Earth their home. Their Sacred Root found Earth compatible, sprouting what became the world’s largest tree in what was once Shawnee National Forest, towering over the oak and ash that had colored the area for centuries. The Lepun shared this reserve with the Delmin, another race that Silas granted native status after the system destroyed their planet for resources.

  Silas wasn’t prepared for one of the most strenuous tests that would ever be asked of him—going public, revealing who he really was to the people of Earth. The rumors of the ‘flying man’ had been spreading like wildfire ever since Normandy. He addressed the world, healing a young boy of his cancer in the process, then got out of there before the crowd got any funny ideas, like worshiping him.

  The plan was to induct as many people as possible into the system before the apocalypse counter reached zero, but those plans were put on hold by the opening of a portal to Hell in the middle of Singapore. A grand battle followed, where Silas put down the insect-like demon queen, but not before losing much of Singapore’s population in the process. It was a wake-up call, signaling what was surely to come.

  As the countdown timer reached all zeroes, Silas stood with his family and friends, hand in hand, and watched the world end.

  Control

  Welcome to the Multiverse - Book Six

  The induction came to pass. Silas and the team quickly took stock of the situation, as incursion portals could pop up anywhere, at any time. They’d done all they could to prepare Earth for what was about to go down, but Silas worried it wasn’t enough.

  The first portal opened in Dubai, and the initial reports weren’t good. Construction teams were razing the city and its inhabitants, and all reports pointed to a race of aliens called the Rigellians. After some careful reconnaissance, Silas decided the best course of action was to use his Forerunner prowess along with his squirrelly personality to talk the invaders into a temporary cease-fire.

  The globe-hopping Forerunner then sped off to Australia, where wave after wave of monsters terrorized the city of Sydney. After a little tinkering with the system, Silas was granted a new ability, in which he could bring a gargantuan, mana-based version of himself to the battlefield.

  Back in DC, Silas learned of a plot by certain nefarious Alliance members to kidnap his mother, in hopes of bending the Forerunner to their will. He quickly taught the traitors the error of messing with the family of the system-appointed ruler of Earth. It turned out one of those responsible, the envoy from Korea, had been possessed by a Hell demon.

  As if the constant incursions weren’t enough, a new type of portal had opened up, from an area controlled by a system known as the Divided Realms. Only two creatures came through—a woman by the name of Cami, and her bonded, an ancient, sapphire-scaled dragon. After meeting Silas, the pair left without causing major damage, but Silas knew he hadn’t seen the last of them, or the system which had opened the portal.

  Then, in an event that shook the planet, a ship the size of a city appeared over Nepal, bringing hurricane-force winds in its wake. Silas knew who was on board—the Turga family, one of the system’s famed ‘peak’ families. With all the demands on Silas’ time in the period leading up to the induction, he’d put off answering their letter.

  They’d evidently chosen to deliver the next letter in person. There were consequences to ignoring a peak family.

  Invasion

  Welcome To The Multiverse - Book Seven

  Silas got his first taste of peak family diplomacy in the form of a sparring match with Selena of House Turga, on board the enormous ship that had suddenly appeared in Earth’s atmosphere. Easy on the eyes and a terror in the arena, she was determined to bring Silas into the Turga fold to get her hands on his genetic potential.

  To clear his mind, Silas rescued a few locals from certain doom and transported them to the colony of Sanctuary, overseen by Mr. Willmarth and fed by Silas’ mother. The town was gaining a reputation as a safe haven, thanks to the reinforced buildings and mana weaponry Silas had helped design.

  After clearing out a rat infestation in the subways of New York City, Silas filled a position he’d desperately needed to for a while—his Chief of Staff. Simone was an ace organizer, and after arriving at Rayden HQ, quickly got his affairs in order.

  Then, it was back to Sydney to put down the Sharknado incursion once and for all. Normally Silas would have been right there on the front lines, but he decided to take a step back, and let the forces of Earth handle the aquatic invaders. Yet another beauty vying for Silas’ genetic potential made herself known—Lilly Aspen of the Elvimpiris. Silas thought she looked like a Gothic elf.

  Soon after the victory in Australia, Silas received another set of visions. Some showed a brilliant future for mankind, where Turga ships floated alongside Crembori and Rigellian vessels above an Earth that had become a hub for multiversal culture and trade. The visions quickly darkened into scenes of destruction and despair, all overseen by ships that looked a lot like the one the Aspen girl had arrived in.