Fourteen-year-old Caden Taylor was just an average MMO gamer, caught up in the thrill of leveling with his friends. But then a flash of blue light at the corner of his vision transforms his ordinary gaming session into an extraordinary warning.

A cryptic message blinks across his vision - 'Standby for System Message.' It's an alert from the enigmatic Universal Development System. And with only hours left on the countdown, the world as Caden knows it is on the brink of a seismic shift.

With the arrival of the Universal Development System, reality will merge with the rules of online gaming, altering life as Caden knows it. The game isn't virtual anymore, and there's no option to log out. As the boundary between the digital and the real blurs, Caden must level up for the most critical challenge yet - survival