Having been established decades ago, the Holy Army of Knowledge had many elite units at silver and even gold rank. Other armies, both of nations and other gods, had lacked the forewarning of the goddess of knowledge. Without the lead time for recruiting and preparation, their ranks were mostly comprised of people who had ranked up using monster cores. They hadn’t intended to be adventurers, h...
2024-06-10 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThis is just a reminder that there will be no chapters in the first week of June as I go to set up some home care for my mother. She lives on the other side of the continent, now, so visiting is a whole thing.
At the end of next week, I'll have an announcement about some things that are happening around the launch of book 11 in July.
Located safely away from Yaresh was an outdoor testing facility for the Magical Research Association. The Yaresh branch was one of the first, when the association was still looking to establish itself, and Clive had selected the location carefully. At a time when Yaresh was still rebuilding and struggling to control the surrounding region, the guards protecting the testing centre were, by defau...
2024-05-31 23:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostCompared to most of Yaresh, the district containing the Magical Research Association campus was heavy on stone and light on trees. It certainly had none of the towering glass of the central district. Located right across the road from the campus was the Alchemy Association’s main research centre. The urban planners in charge of rebuilding Yaresh wanted to centralise the places most prone to u...
2024-05-29 23:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostFarrah stepped out of the portal onto sand. She was on a beach that ran from turquoise water up to rainforest. A trail went off though the trees and a pier led into the water where a cluster of bungalows sat on stilts. The beach wrapped around a lagoon, sheltering the over-water bungalows. Looking back over the trees, several small mountains were visible, waterfalls spilling off their sides. 2024-05-27 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
“Now that I’ve seen you in action,” Valdis said, “I see a lot of potential angles to take another run at you.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a big arena guy,” Jason said.
They were in the participants lobby, lounging with drinks, snacks and some of their friends who either had fought already or were getting ready to.
“You should rethink that,” Val...
2024-05-24 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostLife force was an odd thing. The more Jason rose in rank, the more his body became an arbitrarily shaped collection of blood, flesh and bone. The very concept of life force was increasingly divorced from the condition of his body, becoming more like abstract health points from a game.
The way life force manifested at high levels differed from person to person. For most, they seemed imperv...
2024-05-22 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe mirage chamber in Yaresh was one of the newest in the world and featured the latest design innovations. Seating was arranged by rank, not because of privilege but because the projections in each section were tailored to different perceptual speeds. When gold rank fighters were just a blur to lower-rank spectators, it required a curated experience of replays and slow motion for them to enjoy...
2024-05-20 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostJason walked with Clive and Valdis down a tunnel towards the mirage chamber’s participant lobby. The passage was cavernous, their footsteps echoing on the blue tiles. Glow stones set into the walls, ceiling and even the floor let off a teal light with a shimmer effect that made the hallway feel like it was underwater.
“This reminds me of the underwater subway back in Greenstone,” Cl...
2024-05-17 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostShortly after visiting Yaresh, Jason and Sophie had participated in a fighting arena. The venue, like most of the city, had been wiped out during the messenger invasion. As part of the reconstruction, the old arena was replaced with a massive mirage chamber. The domed building, constructed from hexagonal segments of stained glass, was a landmark that curved high over the trees.
Mirage cha...
2024-05-15 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostRick Geller and his team arrived just as a brothel fire sent a group of scantily clad women stumbling onto the street and right into Jason. Dustin Kettering, from Rick’s team, went in and used his ice powers to extinguish the blaze.
“Are you setting these up?” Rick asked Jason incredulously.
“I’m genuinely not,” Jason assured him. “Were you cursed by the god of lust or...
2024-05-13 23:00:00 +0000 UTC View PostTL;DR: Taking the first week of June off to go help my mum.
I would really prefer not to take another break so soon after the slowdown in April. During my break, however, my mum was hospitalised twice. I am going to go over and see her, and arrange home help so she can keep living independently. She lives on the other side of the country to me, so going over there i...
Trading with Rexion, even Outer Rexion, came with many complications. Both natural and magical environmental conditions outright killed people unless they were brighthearts or at least silver rank. The effects of the natural array inside Rexion were not as severe as when the array was rendered unstable by the messengers, twenty years earlier. It was still enough to cause problems for the weak a...
2024-05-10 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostOuter Rexion had many temples, but they weren’t clustered together, as was the norm. With the town itself circling a massive shaft, the temple district likewise took the form of a ring. Positioned just behind the shaft-side plazas and entertainment districts, the houses of the holy were conveniently located for post-sin repentance.
What the locals called the Worship Ring was a wide boul...
2024-05-08 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe subterranean border town of Outer Rexion was a ring of lights in the dark. Accommodation anywhere but the back tunnels was expensive by most standards, but gold rank adventurers had standards all of their own. Zara Nareen entered her suite and immediately spotted something different from when she left it. Someone had been in her room, despite explicit instructions to the contrary.
It ...
2024-05-06 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJason stood in front of the portal. He took a long breath and let it out slowly.
“Here we go.”
He stepped through and emerged in the portal room of Rexion, which had changed quickly in his absence. Previously empty but for one desk staffed by a bored attendant, it was now a combination greeting room and administrative centre. A path ran through the room from the portal to the do...
2024-05-03 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
[Prime Avatar]: A prime avatar is a physical and spiritual gestalt that serves as a mortal anchor for transcendent power. It does not have a soul of its own, serving as a vessel through which your soul can be expressed, fully embodying your consciousness and mortal power. The power of your avatar is limited to your mortal power and serves ...
2024-05-01 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostAs he walked the short distance between Carlos’ research centre and the portal leading out of the astral kingdom, Jason contemplated what Carlos had said about how he sounded when he spoke. He drew up his character sheet and looked over the ‘inherent gifts’ his prime avatar possessed, replacing his old outworlder abilities.
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Inherent Gifts 2024-05-01 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Jason didn’t need to fly around in a sphere or have Shade turn into a vehicle to get around his realm. But after years of being what amounted to a disembodied spirit in landscapes that were more metaphor than reality, he was enjoying the feeling of limitation. And, by alerting Carlos of his approach, the priest had the chance to prepare for an event he’d been working towards for more than f...
2024-04-26 23:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostThere were two shafts leading into the Brightheart city. One had been dug upwards by elemental messengers, and that had become the main shaft. The other had been dug down by regular messengers. It was now heavily fortified, even though the messengers on the surface were gone.
In that second shaft, Jason’s avatar floated in the air, at the very edge of his domain. There was a Brightheart...
2024-04-19 23:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJason Asano
Nature: Prime Avatar of an Astral Nexus
Current rank: Gold
Progression to diamond rank: 29.5%
Attributes
[Power] (Blood): [Gold 2]
[Speed] (Dark): [Gold 4]
[Spirit] (Doom): [Gold 2]
Lorenn and Jason were on opposite couches. The setting was casual, but their discussion had the potential to shape the Brightheart city for generations.
“I respect that you have done what you can to give us autonomy,” Lorenn said, “but there are some issues that can only be resolved by you.”
“Religious issues?”
“Yes. You are, of course, aware of much of the polit...
2024-04-12 23:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostJason and his familiars stood in a doorway that opened onto a blank void, serving as a private dock to the deep astral. Any cosmic visitors had to approach Jason’s astral kingdom from elsewhere, as this was for his use alone. It had once led to the Cosmic Throne, but Jason had relinquished that link.
As they watched, a nebulous orange and blue eye opened in the dark. Motes of light, pou...
2024-04-05 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
TL;DR:
Release slowdown over April
Weekly chapters will release at the end of the week
Book 11 cover and release date: July 23
Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who has been so supportive as I figure out how to approach my break over April. To what I imagine is very little surprise, I've decided to go with lea...
2024-03-29 22:05:00 +0000 UTC View PostNigel looked up, watching the night sky close over the nebulous eye. The blue and orange light painting the city disappeared with it, allowing the moonlight to once more have primacy. The macabre remnants of the city were illuminated in silver. The buildings were warped, like plastic models melted under a hot lamp. Some sections had broken down entirely, leaking cloud material that sparkled in ...
2024-03-29 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the light coming through the window turned from moon silver to orange and blue, Nigel and his team moved to look outside. The moon was still there, but its luminance was being outshone by a massive, nebulous eye, floating over the city like an alien invader. Colour spread out from it, more like fire crawling across the sky than simple light. The orange danced like fire and the blue swam li...
2024-03-27 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostNigel Thornton hadn’t been the first person on Earth to hit gold rank, or even the first to do it without cores. The US had non-core training programs long before Farrah Hurin arrived, so that title went to some unnamed yank. Nigel’s claim to fame was being the first outside of the US to hit the milestone core-free.
The rest of his team were core users, and still only silver rank. The...
2024-03-25 22:00:00 +0000 UTC View PostJason slowly recovered as he hobbled along the path of light that stretched from his universe to the castle. The pathway was growing unstable, with parts blurring, dimming or falling away entirely. Jason, his familiars and Arbour were still in the company of Raythe who walked alongside them.
“Why did you stay?” Jason asked her.
“To check on you. Dawn will want to know how you ...
2024-03-22 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJason thought he would never endure pain as comprehensive as the Builder’s attack on his soul. The Cosmic Throne proved him to be profoundly mistaken. His true body was now an entire universe, and only an avatar had sat on the throne. Even so, the agony was mind-blanking. He awoke, face down on the throne room’s grimy floor, having tumbled off the throne and down the stairs of the dais.
... 2024-03-20 22:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs Book 11 is complete, please enjoy the complete PDFs.
2024-03-19 23:14:11 +0000 UTC View Post