The next few months were rather hectic with rapid changes taking place in the world.
First and foremost, almost all governments had shut down, with the few remaining ones being under military rule. The Otaku Faction, once a joke to world leaders had become the world's most dominant faction, their span of control present in every country with their influence being felt clearly.
With rumours of the leader being a TIER 3 being with many TIER 2 beings serving as his generals from each continent, the faction name had turned into a household name, one spoken with fear after a live footage showed the leader setting himself ablaze and walking, with roads and tanks in his vicinity melting away due to the heat which made even the satellite video captured of him blurry.
There were rumors of the faction's weird initiation; narrate an anime, manga or novel at one of their recruitment centers and be verbally quizzed on it.
This proved to be much more difficult than expected since each book or animations had a quota on how many times it could be narrated and with internet connection and power flow unstable due to the destruction of property, both private and public, of which cell towers, wind turbines and power grids were among.
Just like any other other group or faction, the Otaku Faction did not go unchallenged as many other aspiring factions sought to rise to fame by taking them down by hook or crook, but even with the use of spies, moles and rioters, these challengers got defeated and ultimately got absorbed, all except for one; New World Order.
This group composed mainly of murderers, rapists, arsonists and other scum of society operated on only one law. The law of the jungle and in its early days of formation, members used to attack and kill one another, until the leader, another rumored TIER 3 outlawed it.
It was very easy to identify a member of the NOW, after all, each of them had a dark presence to them that made the spine tingle when they passed by, with the higher ranked members having faint red aura and the leader's aura being bright red and tangible, sort of like the rumored bloodlust ability.
They had been a thorn in the side of The Otaku Faction, since the former were hardened criminals specialized in human deaths and the latter were shut-ins who specialized in dungeon warfare.
Speaking about dungeons, they had now become a major resource in the world since they were the only socially approved way of gaining exp to increase stats.
With most dungeons under the control of The Otaku Faction, it served as one of the reasons to join the faction since only members of the faction were allowed to use them to become stronger, something that everyone wanted to do.
As expected, with no official rulers or governments in power, prices of goods and services kept fluctuating until everything just crashed, including the stock market which affected Leone the most, after all he was one of the hidden hands who controlled the whole market.
With the economic collapse came the rise of the new currency. Coins, specifically the ones gotten from callings. Since the calling only happened once a year per person, coins became very rare with the official conversion amount of, 1 coin : 5000 dollars, and since they couldn't be robbed, the only other way of getting them was killing the person, an act which branded you as a NOW fanatic and lover who should be killed on site.
With all this happening and the world falling apart, it was only natural that the movements made by the Windsor and Smith families remained hidden and undiscovered unless by people who knew what they were looking for.
The families had scoured all continents including the edge of Antarctica until they found a dungeon for each of them.
From Asia, they found dungeons for Ayleen, Maria and Isabella. Ayleen got a snow leopard dungeon that was found in the Himalayas. The Leopards were all TIER 1 with a lesser ice affinity, which when combined with Ayleen's wind slice ability could generate a mini blizzard.
Maria got a panda dungeon in which the dungeon environment was a huge forest full of bamboo trees. The pandas themselves weren't aggressive and only became so when attacked or when a bamboo tree got cut down or damaged, a lesson Mateo learnt after testing his Earth boulder spell on the trees.
Isabella got a dungeon full of Siberian tigers who despite their numbers proved to be no match for the group who had all evolved to TIER 2 and had manually unlocked an extra stat.
In Africa, Wilson soloed a dungeon full of bone- plated rhinoceros and claimed it as his own whilst Carmen spent some time in the Blaze Cheetah dungeon, mostly to study the way the cheetahs used the small flames flickering on their feet in an attempt to gain some enlightenment, which she did.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group decided to tour the continent in this chaotic period the world was going through. Well most of them did, except Leone who decided to capitalize on the chaos to build some small time gangs in every continent they went to. His purpose, to regain control of the world finance through these small-time gangs acting as loan sharks.
In Europe, Julian took charge of an Earth Bear dungeon while Leone finally settled on a Illusive Mist Fox dungeon, believing that they were a route to unlocking his illusion ability he believed was locked somewhere in his nguruvilu bloodline. A theory he thought of the day they met Amber, the mermaid who could control water.
In Antarctica, Daniel conquered a Moon Bear dungeon. These bears were a variant of the polar bears who spent most of their time under the sunless skies of Antarctica. The moon bears were also stronger and more aggressive at night.
Surprisingly, Australia was the hardest continent to enter with the Otaku Faction using it as one of their headquarters due to its strategic location, but with weeks of planning, negotiations and a little show of force, Angel got her hands on a spider themed dungeon and finally do something she always wanted to do.