Chapter 82
The Discarded
(Luna Paraisthisi)
One thing that they never teach you in history class, is what happens to the displaced people after a city, or region of land falls.
Everyone knows that there are dead zones, lands that were once habitable, but have now become vacant lots. While everyone knows that those zones e...
2026-01-07 10:55:27 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 384
Slander of the Highest Order
(Two Weeks Later)
(Maltese)
It felt odd being back home.
Not my true noted home, not the place I carved for myself out of the middle of a desert, in the middle of a wasteland so vile that no one in their right minds would ever choose to settle down there. But my first true ho...
2026-01-06 06:55:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 81
Piercing The Veil
Sadly, it wasn’t until my third night while being dressed up as an embodiment of death that I truly saw past the glitz and glam of the stage.
Being my third day in a row, I began looking beyond just the competitors who were all hoping and vying for a chance at fame and fortune, when I was finally ...
2026-01-04 18:01:49 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 80
Advanced Bartering
Isn’t it weird how you always feel more tired after a nap, than you did before the nap? That is my current state of being. After my Skill upgrades, I was shoved off to bed, so that I could rest for a few hours before I would be called back into action for healing duties later tonight, which was n...
2026-01-03 17:09:31 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 79
Demons Among Us
“EEP!” The powerful expressive eep, and definitely not the panicked shriek of someone who just witnessed the impossible. Of someone who just witnessed the fact that their mentor’s face was coated by an illusion. That the illusion of a powerful and proud warrior had dark sclera filled eyes tha...
2026-01-02 20:09:12 +0000 UTC View PostInterlude XXXI
(Larry Yo-Boy’s BiPrism News + Magical Supplies)
“Regionals? Am I right?” Larry asked, a semi-defeated tone filling his voice, only made more pathetic by the cast he was now sporting on stage. While he was at the center of the screen a number of servers with various odds and probabilities of winning spots flashed...
2026-01-01 16:36:59 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 78
Yaoguai Qūmóshī For Me
There was an issue with my training to advance my Skills. Well, looking back there were multiple issues, that ultimately got me to the wrong correct ending.
What do I mean? What is my main problem?
“You managed to alter those Skills?” Mr. Yi asked in confusion as my glowing golden ...
2025-12-31 17:24:43 +0000 UTC View PostInterlude V
Crime Scene Reconstruction
(Anastasia Bloom)
If Anastasia had to use two words to describe the process that the Minister of Intelligence’s approach to investigating an active breach, the terms would have to be Slow and Methodical.
The entire process took hours. Anastasia watched as the Mini...
2025-12-30 08:47:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 383
A Sim-Ocracy
I could already tell whatever was going to happen would be trouble.
How did I know? Did any of my mystical powers related to danger flash to life? No, but I still knew it was trouble when seven of my eight Simulacrums all converged together for one massive meeting out of the blue. A meeting where...
2025-12-29 11:02:28 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 77
To Stay, or Continue
“Choices are always best made when made on a full stomach, let us eat lunch before you decide your future,” the ominous words of Mr. Yi. Words that haunted me from the moment we got to the Bloom Estate and were effectively given free time to do what we wanted to do. Especially after Markan realized...
2025-12-28 14:13:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 76
We Need to Talk
“Vivienne?” Third Prince Theo Fiammata asked, a note of surprise and infatuation filling his gaze.
I was not the only one who saw the Third Prince’s lustful gaze upon Madame Voyou, as Mr. Karl had already stood to his full intimidating seven foot plus tall stature. Letting his massive frame rise...
2025-12-27 11:14:24 +0000 UTC View Post<<<<Author's Note: Thank you all and hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I know I did, and now I'm back to work. >>>>
Chapter 75
B.O.S.S.
“Bestiary Originated System Suppression, at least that is what everyone refers to the markings that appear,” Markan began as he ...
2025-12-26 14:58:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 74
Evaluating the Rookie
(Vivienne Voyou)
(Ten Minutes Ago)
Vivienne Voyou knew that fighting was a young person’s game. That many people spent time going to the wastelands first, before even daring to tackle a rift. Even for well maintained teams, there were issues that could always come into play.
Take f...
2025-12-24 20:34:24 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone,
I hope you are all having a great holiday season.
This started off as a joke at my son's words, "I can't put my pants on." But with the power of AI the song turned out quite amazing. The song is titled "Seasonal Fears" which many of us might be able to relate to.
Hope you enjoy and hope you are having a grea...
Chapter 73
ABCs: Actions Before Consequences
My feet slid on the ice. As I held my glowing blade straight in front of me.
Had the beast been slightly more aware, or slightly less engaged with whatever it was doing to Mr. Karl, it might have heard the dry scratching sound that my shoes were making against the ice. It might have ...
2025-12-23 11:09:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 72
Murphy’s Law, and the Odds of Fighting Alone
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Shots echoed, as smoke and dust rose up from the pistols that Markan was firing his enhanced earth infused bullets from. Bullets that I know for a fact can pack a punch and penetrate the hardest of materials with wedging effect...
2025-12-22 10:52:21 +0000 UTC View Post<<<Author's Note: I don't mean to end this on such a cliffhanger, and I apologize. I will try to finish this up later tonight, but it might have to wait a bit. Going to celebrate my Mom's birthday today! Time just got away from me. See you soon.>>>
Chapter 71
A Chorus of Syne...
2025-12-21 14:55:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 70
Eagle Eyed
Exploration.
Exploration and mud, those are the two words that I would use to describe the final process of clearing a rift. Or at least the final processes of clearing a marsh rift.
Apparently, the process for clearing each type of rift, for yes there are types, is different. Mr. Yi our scout was th...
2025-12-21 10:01:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 69
Red Versus Yellow Versus Blue
Size does matter.
Or at least the size of a monster does play a large part in whether we stop and harvest the core from a monster’s corpse or not. That is what I have learned thus far.
“All the creatures of the rifts do in fact have cores, but the smaller ones will have cores t...
2025-12-19 11:29:48 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 68
Harvesting
What happened next was a nightmare class in why healers should avoid rifts.
Moving in a diamond formation, we began to explore the rift. Meaning I was in the exact center and theoretically one or two members of the team were there to protect me at all times.
However, people being in the way to protec...
2025-12-18 10:35:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 67
Adaptive Crystallization
Like a demonically possessed Christmas ornament, the dimly glowing core that Mr. Karl was holding began to flash to life and then glow excitedly as it absorbed the ambient healing energy from my Trash Skill.
“Eeep!” Mr. Karl cried out, in the most non-manly way possible, as he dr...
2025-12-16 11:09:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 66
Three Main Types of Crystals
Thick slime.
That is the first thing I felt once I crawled out of the giant serpent’s maw. A sensation that seemed to be heightened by the minor breeze in the air. Ironically, the breeze was slightly warm, which only exacerbated the problem of my body being coated in slime, for...
2025-12-15 12:12:34 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 65
Skald-ing Cold Water
“Hiss!”
An annoyed angry cry of an enraged serpent cried out, as a giant lumbering form rose from the thick ground fog that had momentarily been pushed back to only encircle us.
The beast was so large and imposing that it only needed to coil itself once to stand over the waist ...
2025-12-14 14:44:55 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 64
Entering A Rift
Fresh air.
The scent of ozone, and morning dew will forever be my first impression upon entering the rift. Particularly as my vision was momentarily darkened upon entering, leaving my mind to go wild as I instantly used my other senses to help take over.
That was how my second clear sensation wa...
2025-12-13 14:07:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 382
A SIM-Tervention
(Penelope)
“There you go, how does that feel?” Penelope asked Ship and Pirate-Ulacrums, the Guinea pigs for her prototype soul bound space suits. These suits had the same pattern layout that Cass’s would have, but are made in different colors, to help others differentiate the Simulacrums from ...
2025-12-12 11:12:01 +0000 UTC View PostPrelude II
(Third Prince Theo Fiammata)]
(The Royal Estate)
The third prince sat in his office, reading the report that Minister of Intelligence Goffard just handed him.
After reading the short report twice, Theo Fiammata paused and looked up, locking gazes with Goffard, and spoke.
“Is this accurate?” Theo asked...
2025-12-11 09:54:05 +0000 UTC View PostEpilogue
(Johny DiVoratore)
John paced the unseasonably cold marble hallways. Today was one of those days where his old bones awoke with a chill, something that he had not been affected by ever since his Skills first began to truly manifest as a necromancer. Ever since that day, the cold never held any power over him, which only made...
2025-12-10 10:17:52 +0000 UTC View Post<<<Author's Note: This is the end for book 1, but don't worry the chapters will continue as I think we are just getting started. Thank you all for reading until this point and Book 2 will begin shortly>>>
Chapter 63
The Five Percent Expectancy
“The guaranteed way to increas...
2025-12-09 10:55:59 +0000 UTC View Post<<<<Author's Note: Changed the average life expectancy from ~50 years to ~70 years as detailed below. This changes it so that Common Class owners can only expect to live to approximately 45 years old (50 years with a class reduced by 50% for a loss of 25 years added to the base age of 20). Then those with a Rare clas...
2025-12-08 17:38:54 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 61
A Slight Miscalculation
A cocoon of unending darkness surrounded me.
For a moment, my mind flashed back to my vision from last night, one where I was swallowed whole by an apparent Death Eater. Yet unlike that time, this time there was hope. The sun was up, causing multiple rays of light to come in and slowly wither ...
2025-12-07 15:28:29 +0000 UTC View Post