There are moments that you forget as you grow old, the details fading with time, and there are other moments that will forever remain as a snapshot in your mind. While the background noise of the exact way the trees moved then might have not been imprinted in my mind, Tatiana’s stricken look could never leave me. It took me years to understand exactly why she was so startled, but...
2021-07-01 05:53:05 +0000 UTC View PostNose in the air, the wolf zeroed in on the scent. He wasn’t familiar with that particular type of animal, but the tanginess of death was hard to ignore. He had found some deer with that scent on them a week ago, still alive, their eyes taking him in with frightened expressions as they lay paralyzed.
He might have felt bad about it, tearing into them without a care for how t...
2021-06-30 04:14:56 +0000 UTC View PostHey guys, a couple of things to get through.
1) Thank you for being with me this month. you don't know how much I appreciate you guys caring enough about this story to want to read ahead.
2) If you are intending to finish with the story for a while or altogether (thank you so much for starting it at all) this is the 2nd to last update you'll get this month. Do...
2021-06-28 06:05:17 +0000 UTC View PostJames released a frustrated sigh, and maybe a small, tiny, miniscule sound of annoyance. She had been excited, at least initially, when she had set out to probe her mana. Especially so when she realized she hadn’t ever really paid any attention to it all before, or noticed it, really. To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t sure if she could always see her own mana or if it was a re...
2021-06-28 06:05:06 +0000 UTC View PostIn the past couple of hours, James had faced two foes: a goblin and a plant. Both had treated her to a surprise attack, and both had been defeated without the use of her ultimate Skill. Still, one of the two left her on the ground panting while the other let her continue going about her day.
The goblin, for all that it was the clear enemy since the beginning of the Tutorial, ...
2021-06-25 08:13:40 +0000 UTC View Post--Any chapter title suggestions for this one?
The poisoned notifications continued to pile up, but James refused to be a passive participant in her own poisoning. Granted, she might have caused it to herself by believing that she could weather whatever was thrown at her, and not really considering how poisonous plants could be, so really her role wasn’t very passive, but th...
2021-06-23 06:38:19 +0000 UTC View PostJames refused to count how many fish she had just gone through. Maybe more stats meant increased appetite. She doubted that was true since she’d been eating less since going out to the forest on her own, but a girl could dream.
Maybe new stats meant increased appetite? She had gotten some levels from her morning fight with the goblin, and now that she thought of it, the fir...
2021-06-21 06:34:15 +0000 UTC View PostHi guys!
Since I'm transferring the Sharped Carps over to eventually be 30 edited chapters (rather than all my edited chapters and all my drafts making it so I don't have any back catalog- an unsustainable strategy), I thought I'd let you know I have a little side project so you don't get bored over the weekend. I'm basically using this story as my writing palate cleanser from Mana Anxiet...
2021-06-18 08:46:05 +0000 UTC View PostBeauty is an interesting thing. For so long I thought it was a miracle as my family doted on me. My eyes had revealed their graces at two weeks earlier than expected, opening up to the world but only perceiving it with the naivety only children possess. My teeth developed our race’s signature, coveted sharpness at a year old, eschewing the usual belief that such features were rel...
2021-06-17 08:03:47 +0000 UTC View PostDismissing the notifications, James went to get the dead fish, doing that awkward breaststroke with her head above the water. Grabbing it with a stray leaf that was floating by, she got out of the water. As opposed to the first time she handled the fish, her grip was confident and normal- not the furthest it could be from her body and with only two fingers helping it fight gravity....
2021-06-16 07:21:18 +0000 UTC View PostWhile the start to the day couldn’t have been any more exciting, its continuation was decidedly not. Uneasy with the recent events, James decided to stay close to home and maybe try her hand at cooking the Sharped Carp again. With her haul from the cottage, she was sure to make something of at least decent quality. After all, she had salt now! Not to mention a bunch of other spic...
2021-06-14 23:53:27 +0000 UTC View PostOk, first, an announcement. I'm not home this weekend, so there won't be any updates during that time.
But... I'm not home this weekend. So what better time to come up with possible side stories?
These are the possible topics I came up with. If you have any specific ideas, or some other thing you want to explore altogether, leave a comment:)
The one rule is that a side story c...
2021-06-12 06:46:14 +0000 UTC View PostJames woke up to the sound of an animal sniffing at her. In her sleep-addled state that didn’t mean much, and she tried to push the animal away, turning on her side. Maybe this was a dream about being a veterinarian. But her hand didn’t budge a thing, and, blearily opening her eyes, James’s brown eyes met those of a goblin.
Suddenly it registered that her lovely little ...
2021-06-11 07:10:10 +0000 UTC View PostReaching a tentative hand forward, she touched a wisp of silvery blue mana. Like in the weird dimension she had just returned from, it started to swirl around her without her feeling a thing. Absentmindedly licking at her ice cream, she took her hand back.
Looking around the small ice cream shop, she started to register how everyone had mana in them. Her mother had a sickly n...
2021-06-09 22:50:25 +0000 UTC View PostMana Dance [rare]:you’ve seen mana in its pure form and danced at its magnificence. You scoff at those that treat it as just a force to manipulate for their benefit and the mana acknowledges and rewards this outlook. Dance to the beat of the mana and gain (marginal) greater fluidity and conversion rates in your casting. Effects increase with Skill le...
2021-06-09 06:32:19 +0000 UTC View PostHi guys, thank you so much for all your support, I just wanted to tell you a bit more about the Chapter Title Suggesting Skill!
Both goblin meat and sharped carp sashimi connoisseurs can directly suggest names in the comment section. If you want to vote on a title you can 'like' that comment to show your support and I'll take that into consideration. If your title gets chosen I'll give yo...
2021-06-09 03:55:45 +0000 UTC View PostHer trip back to home base was uneventful. She might have noticed the goblins giving her some extra attention if she had any ability to care, but… she didn’t. She just wanted some sleep.
Now she was all snuggled up in her treehouse, the orange mana veins threading through it, providing more warmth than ever. It seemed like every time she came back to the tree it had nurtu...
2021-06-07 07:31:18 +0000 UTC View PostYou’ve gained Skill Mana Manipulation [Common]!
Mana Manipulation [Common]:Mana is a natural occurring force in the System unified multiverse. You have taken your first step on your path to manipulate it. Level 1.
Would you like to integrate Skill
Well, she had sunk her time into getting better at manipulating the mana outside her body. She was far from good at the exercise since it still took intense concentration, but at least she could semi-reliably do it. Now James turned her focus to the grey and beige covering herself. Could she move it? Was it even a good idea to?
Being a scientist, she tried to establish a base...
2021-06-02 05:46:41 +0000 UTC View PostBeing in the color world for long enough, beige and grey started to collect on James again. This time, though, whenever that happened, she would scratch at the colors until they went away. She could think clearly enough to know that she should do that. Or perhaps she maintained enough clear headedness on that particular thought since it was the last thing she tried before she seeming...
2021-06-02 05:43:14 +0000 UTC View PostProf hadn’t enjoyed himself like he had in the Tutorial for a long time. Years maybe. And he felt a little guilty about it. After all, he had started it all with James. And she had seemingly disappeared. He had tried asking around about her after knocking on her apartment door and receiving no reply for two days in a row. But nobody knew where she was if they had ever even regist...
2021-06-02 05:41:42 +0000 UTC View PostThere were colors surrounding her, moving, and playing around her. What James currently was, she couldn’t really say, since, looking down, she couldn’t spot her body. Weirdly enough, this didn’t scare her. Who really cared?
Reaching out with an invisible limb, she tried to touch one of the colors, but she didn’t feel a thing. There was neither resistance, nor...
2021-06-02 05:40:20 +0000 UTC View PostThe clearing wasn’t much of a clearing anymore. As the System-enhanced humans encroached on the forest it increasingly started to resemble a temporary town. Only a temporary town because all the work looked suspect and perhaps even ugly, as none of the builders had any sort of true building inclination. Accordingly, the clearing space had also grown as the woods around it were cu...
2021-06-02 05:37:19 +0000 UTC View PostShe didn’t turn around in her sprint the whole time she held it, slowly feeling as the ground got back to its normal, largely flat, shape under her feet. Doubling over about a minute later, she turned around and looked back. The cottage was a surprisingly long ways out, her sprint had evidently been a lot faster than she thought. It was probably all of her new points in agility t...
2021-06-02 05:36:03 +0000 UTC View PostJames was enjoying herself. Hiccup. Properly enjoying herself. With things other people would enjoy too, so she wasn’t even being weird. Turns out old wine bottles had high alcohol contents. And they were pretty tasty. So, James was enjoying herself in this dungeon she found.
It had taken her a while to get drunk though, but James had proven herself determined. It was probabl...
2021-06-02 05:34:21 +0000 UTC View PostApparently, the door was unlocked, and fairly easily dislodged, as it opened with her knocking motion. Hesitantly stepping into the dusty environment, James coughed a little and waived her hand in front of her face. With the sunlight streaks visible in the particle-filled air, she examined the living room she found herself in.
The three-seater couch was a soft cream color, fa...
2021-06-02 05:32:08 +0000 UTC View PostTwo days later, James was looking a lot better. Finally over that critical 90% of health points, she was also finally feeling better. Her whole-body bruise was replaced with a healthy, natural glow. It also helped that it didn’t hurt to breathe anymore.
Despite not being totally fine, she had enjoyed her two-day break. With her new fire starter and dagger, she had finally b...
2021-06-02 05:30:33 +0000 UTC View Post54 minutes and 7 seconds later, James reappeared outside the dungeon’s cave. And it was like breathing in fresh air for the first time. She hadn’t realized how stifling the dungeon’s green mana was to her Mana Sense. While it still lingered around her, the mana didn’t feel as condense as it did there. Finally, she could sense the world again.
Remembering her ...
2021-06-02 05:28:56 +0000 UTC View PostFor all that the fight took less than a minute, James looked worse for wear. Her left palm was covered in blisters, her left arm was cut, her right wrist was twice its normal size, and it hurt to breathe. Not to mention that her whole body just looked like one big bruise. Even her eyes were swelling up as if she had gotten a black eye. And it hurt.
James was learning...
2021-06-02 05:27:33 +0000 UTC View PostJames stared at the stairs leading downwards, and, with a big sigh, began to descend. Her breakfast had been the leftovers from the night before, and they tasted all the worse for it. Apparently, the appeal of having meat disappeared after a day if it was nutria. Bringing up her stats, she was satisfied that everything was topped off.
Name
Class...
2021-06-02 05:25:49 +0000 UTC View Post