The Ancestral Engine

Renzo was a hardcore real-time strategy geek and a brilliant modern mechanical engineer who lived for "Hell Mode" gaming challenges. Bored out of his wits by the overpowered factions in his favorite full dive VR RTS game, EPOCHS: Rise of Nations, he made a reckless choice: he picked a completely unformed, blank-slate tribal zone in the ancient, pre-colonial peninsula of Tangway (a pre-colonial geolocation of the Philippines) just to see if he could pull off the ultimate underdog victory. Then, he died in the real world. Instead of a blackout or the heaven he believed in, Renzo wakes up trapped inside the very game he just booted up.