I was reborn… inside a painting. My own portrait. For eight hundred years, I was forced to watch my bloodline decay—generation by generation—helpless, forgotten, doomed to fade into irrelevance.

Everything changed when a kid named Anatole got curious. “I read in a book that our great Prince can be summoned. You just have to turn the portrait upside down. Everything’s written there.”

Impossible. Right? They figured it out at last.

I awaken to chaos. Enemies lay siege to the ancestral castle. My descendants panic, faint, and generally disgrace the family name.

Unacceptable.

It’s time to reclaim my rightful place, take command of the house once more, and restore order—whether my hapless heirs are ready or not.

Eight centuries of waiting are over. The Prince has returned.

And I will not let my lineage be erased on my watch.

Readers are probably familiar with dozens or even hundreds of stories about characters who get summoned to magical worlds or transported to them by the will of the gods. And those characters inevitably end up gaining extremely useful fighting abilities, unique weapons, and other items, if not immortal deities as companions, all of which allow them to survive in their new world and lead a generally carefree existence.

But what if you got sent to a dangerous and unfamiliar world without being granted any powers? No friends, no weapons, the same body – no gigantic biceps ripping through your sleeves, no muscular physique. Your only advantages are your wits and lots of experience playing computer games, mainly strategy.

Would you try to survive under those conditions? What if you could not merely survive but conquer the entire world?

People awake in a strange place with no idea of who or where they are. There is only a bizarre message carved into a metal obelisk and the growing awareness that every single living creature in this new world is a deadly threat. Even a seemingly cute and fluffy bunny has a taste for human flesh…

What are they to do? How will they survive? How do they stay sane?

Get this: you wake up in the hospital. You’re not feeling so hot - to put it mildly - and also, you’re surrounded by hordes of zombies! After trying to run away, you eventually find a map of the building, but guess what? It’s in French! Why? ‘Cuz you’re in France!

You’ve got nothing on you but a baseball bat, and the zombies are just one step away from biting you on your bare backside. But don’t worry, there’s still hope, because you’ve got your own personal shelter in spacetime.

An alien civilization offers the human race a deal – access to the Other Side and the extraction of its resources in exchange for technology and knowledge. Thanks to this, humanity opens up a whole new universe full of unusual opportunities.

Alex, just starting out as a prospector, sets off to the Other Side for the first time, but during the journey he finds himself in an unknown and extremely dangerous area, from where he can only escape over the bodies of his enemies.

We’ve all seen stories about parallel worlds where history has taken a somewhat different turn. In The Doctor from Nowhere, an army doctor Igor Ivanov finds himself in just such an alternate universe. After a fatal mine explosion, he awakens in late 1914 where World War I is raging and his home country Russia is on the brink of destruction.

Igor does what he’s always done: he starts saving people’s lives using scientific advancements that were inconceivable over a hundred years ago. In addition to his uncanny knowledge of futuristic medicine, he also amazes his colleagues with his combat skills - having served in 21st-century war zones, he knows how to handle a gun.

As time goes on, Igor starts making connections and climbing the social ladder, driven by a single ambition: to change the course of world history.

Might is right. This is the primal law of the jungle, and this creed not only rules the animal kingdom, but also shapes the lives of men.

Having harnessed the elusive Qi energy, humanity has divided the world into zones and mastered the creation of extraordinary artifacts, edging closer to immortality. Yet, this evolution has only entrenched the fundamental law: power grants privilege. The strongest claim the finest resources as well as the right to rise above others.

What chance does an ordinary youth from the neglected zero zone have in such a world? Is it his destiny to reach unimaginable heights — or to vanish into the abyss of mediocrity, just another forgotten face in a crowd of millions? The answers rest with the inscrutable Heavens—the silent watchers of human fate.

Incidentally, where do demons and ancients fit in this grand scheme? Their mysterious roles in this epic tale remain to be unveiled.

“Honor is the true measure of a man.” On this principle I built a powerful empire, united disparate lands and destroyed the greatest threat to our world. I died as a true warrior should: in battle. But instead of being granted a well-earned rest, I awoke on the border of a foreign kingdom, in the body of a noble-born outcast—with a noose around my neck.

Never mind if all that remains of my former greatness is a memory. Give me any backwater farm and I will turn it into a formidable stronghold! Give me any scruffy band of scoundrels and they will become the backbone of my new army! My experience, my knowledge and my memories remain with me.

Still, time is pressing. In the forests of this world, I encounter old foes: the same creatures that once nearly destroyed my kingdom. They have infiltrated even here. And only I, who know their nature, can stop them before it is too late. A new empire must rise, or this world will fall.

I used to be... well... nobody at all. A poor street dweller, one of the many vagrants of The Rothouse. By the standards of any ordinary, respectable citizen, I was a rat like any other, while for the bureaucrats, the merchants or, even more so, the secret-keepers, I was simply invisible—an empty space and nothing more. To hell with them all!

I could have been one of them! I had the means, I had the ambition and, most importantly, I had someone by my side, someone for whom I would have moved mountains. But someone else decided that Gray had squandered enough of their precious oxygen; that Gray had taken the final step along his path; and that was that.

It had all been for nothing! But I managed to writhe my way out of death's cold embrace and come out stronger than ever, having ignited within me the blinding white flame of witchcraft. I often recall how an old witch once told me: "He who takes what is not his will lose what is", and I have always tried to live by those words. But now? Well...

We'll soon see what's mine!

Dying at 65 as one of the world’s leading jewelers…

And waking up in the body of a 17-year-old apprentice?

Fate is a fickle mistress. My mind is an encyclopedia of 21st-century technology, and my hands remember working on the micron level… but now I’m surrounded by primitive tools and crude methodologies. The world should be my oyster, right?

Turns out it’s not that simple…