When virtual reality becomes real enough that people feel as if they're being transported to another world, Valia Online arrives.
A man running from his past joins the game to forget it all. Calling himself Jack Thorn, he chooses an undead race, Deathlord.
A mage by choice, and a swordsman by necessity, he soon finds out that he'll need to use much more than magic and steel to survive; strategy, creativity, and carefully chosen words can often accomplish what simple attacks can't.
As the game becomes too real and touches a part of him that he'd rather leave buried, he is faced with two questions: Who is he, really? And who should he become?
Challenge is book one of the Unbound Deathlord series, a LitRPG saga.
Death came on swift wings. A soul, blessed by a goddess, falls to the land and enters his new life. He clings to a single memory, the defining moment of his previous life. Now he learns how to succeed in his new life as a new dungeon heart. To become the best dungeon he can be, he partners with the one existence all dungeons need: his bonded dungeon pixie.