Every time he dies, Ethan Hill gains a little more power. Earth was chosen for Integration into a System Interface controlled by alien Integrators, but Ethan knows the honor is a lie. Trapped on an alien planet and caught in a time loop where each death grants strength and insight, he fights for humanity and his own humanity. Across loops he gathers a base of power, confronts Trialgoers who have perfected their Integration (like She-Who-Whispers who controls Isthanok), uncovers the Empty City's secrets about Firmament and Integration, and races against collapsing time itself as rifts open into the past and the Sunken King awakens to swallow the galaxy.
The more lives you've lived, the more mana you have, and Cale has lived too many lives to count. At this point, his core is closer to the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor. The downside is that conventional spells have become impossibly difficult to cast: Cale simply has too much mana. His spells collapse under the weight of his magic. Then he finds himself summoned to a new world—one with a spellwork system capable of adjusting to his ridiculous reserves, creating new spells just for him. New magic means new things to learn, and if he wants to make spells worth having, that means going to a magic academy. On top of that, an old dragon has taken an interest in him, the kingdom's hunters seem alarmingly intent on attacking his classmates, and Cale's pretty sure at least one ancient evil has followed him from a past life. With magic back on the table, he might finally be able to perform what he sees as the true pinnacle of spellwork: baking.
In the Prime Kingdoms, the system dominates everything — it dictates one's strength, skills, and power, spawns dungeons and guides the actions of their monsters. Four oddball adventurers — Derivan, an enchanted suit of armor in an existential crisis; Misa, a tanklike half-orc who loves exploiting the system; Vex, an anxious lizardkin wizard who ran from his family; and Sev, a cleric who would rather have tea with his god than worship him — are pushed to their limits when a simple quest reveals a mysterious dungeon linked to each of them. As the system malfunctions, magic fluctuates, gods are endangered, and the night sky empties, the found-family team must rely on trust, communication, and dungeon dives to determine why their world is falling apart. A cozy, twist-filled LitRPG adventure with almost two million views on Royal Road.
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