That night, Akari dreamt of her old life in Last Haven. She’d been avoiding these dreams for reasons she couldn’t explain. Even in Vordica, she’d held them back with all her mental might. But the day’s match had left her exhausted, and the pressure had been building up for weeks, like a Missile beneath her skin.
Now, Elend’s tech...
2024-01-13 19:47:07 +0000 UTC View PostLater that evening, the team gathered in Akari’s hotel room to discuss their match. A TV sat on top of the dresser, showing the footage from various perspectives. Akari, Kalden, and Relia sat on one bed, while Arturo sprawled across the other. Zukan sat on the floor, while Elise leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.
This footage...
2024-01-07 19:16:52 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hi everyone,
Sorry for the long wait between chapters. I’d hoped to be more productive in December (especially since I had a break from work) but then I had some distracting medical issues to deal with. Things are slowly getting better now, but still not 100%.
Anyway, you might notice ...
2024-01-05 13:45:18 +0000 UTC View PostThe weekend came far too quickly, along with the first interschool games. Akari’s team boarded an airship on Kelsday afternoon, joining several more squads of their peers. The ship flew north across the bay, passing miles of open water and coastline before it set down in Garriland.
The landing pads sat on the north side of town, and a pa...
2023-12-23 18:17:06 +0000 UTC View PostElend stepped out of the car when they reached the East Shore Bank. It was almost midnight, but Koreldon City never slept. A sea of lights swept over the horizon, from the skyscraper’s windows to the clustered streets below.
Irina slid out of the car behind him, and they stepped through a pair of sliding glass doors. Half a dozen guards ...
2023-12-16 18:41:09 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hi everyone,
As you might have noticed from the title, this chapter is actually a second epilogue for Book 3 (Web of Knowledge) rather than a new chapter for Book 4 (Web of Aeons.) This means it takes place before the events of the current book.
I’d outlined various scenes in Book 4 sh...
2023-12-10 19:03:20 +0000 UTC View PostAkari stood with Arturo on the catwalk, watching their classmates fight the mana spawn below. These weren’t real spawn, of course. These were dream projections based on a Mystic’s model. Thousands of other students would be training on the same models worldwide.
She had to give the military credit: they were dangerously efficient when ...
2023-12-05 13:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post“Approaching Koreldon University,” said a voice from the intercom.
The train doors slid open, and Akari stepped onto the raised platform above Chapel Street. Thick white snowflakes drifted from the gray sky, covering the sidewalks and the streets below. A line of cars sat bumper-to-bumper, and the scent of burning mana crystals hung he...
2023-11-28 13:09:24 +0000 UTC View PostAkari’s second break flew by, and the Cloak portion began.
The Missile and Construct tests came with progressively harder rounds, and those rounds kept coming until you failed. It was sort of like a video game in that sense—a video game where no one but a Master would ever reach the end.
Meanwhile, the Cloak portion only had ten ...
2023-11-23 01:31:35 +0000 UTC View PostAkari leapt to the right as a Missile flew past her face. She gathered her own mana in her palm, waiting for a chance to strike back.
Her last opponent stood on the opposite end of the chamber, a human-shaped Construct made of dream mana. Like all the testing opponents, this guy was solid blue with no face or hair. And while the figures wo...
2023-11-21 12:48:00 +0000 UTC View PostAkari and the others walked eastward along the coast. Relia had a spring in her step the entire time, and who could blame her? She’d survived! If the theories were right, then krustoplegia was meant to prepare her body for an Aeon soul. Now that she had it, her condition would never threaten her again.
They’d already celebrated this ne...
2023-11-12 12:43:37 +0000 UTC View PostRelia braced herself as the dragon closed in. Icy flames shot out from its mouth, leaving a deep trench in the barren earth. Even from half a mile away, Relia felt the weight of its power.
Her group had their backs to a steep cliff that overlooked the Inner Sea. Waves crashed on the shore below, and the winds blew as fierce as ever, threat...
2023-11-07 12:24:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 11: Raptors
They walked for another six hours before the desert gave way to mountains once again. At that point, even the allnighters couldn’t keep them on their feet. Of course, Relia hadn’t taken a potion in the first place. Elend had sent her here to push her body to its limits, and she hadn’t reached those limits yet.
... 2023-11-05 13:15:36 +0000 UTC View PostAkari opened her eyes and found Relia kneeling over her. A fire burned somewhere nearby, casting flickering shadows on the cavern walls. She felt the warmth on her skin, but it did little for the chill in her bones.
She tried to speak, but the words got caught in her barren throat. Kalden brought a water bottle to her lips, and Relia force...
2023-10-31 11:32:24 +0000 UTC View PostAkari glanced back at her teammates, hoping against hope that someone had an idea. No such luck. The winds threatened to blow them off the mountain, and they had to cycle their mana at full force just to keep the cold at bay.
She tried to breathe, but the thin air offered no relief. Her chest tightened, and her heart raced even fa...
2023-10-28 13:52:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe next few days passed in a blur, and Akari and her friends trained harder than ever before.
Kalden spent several more days in his alchemy lab, making soulshine pills for himself and Akari. Like Relia’s pill, these were each attuned to their own bodies and mana, letting them increase their daily gains with no side effects.
Akari ...
2023-10-22 14:51:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun had barely risen when Kalden followed Akari into the hunting room. Snow covered the backyard once again, and heavy flakes clung to the room’s tall glass windows.
Elend and Irina lounged on a leather sofa near the tree, and Relia sat across from them, wearing a pair of pink flannel pajamas. Kalden wouldn’t be caught dead wearing...
2023-10-19 01:02:00 +0000 UTC View PostSilence followed Elend’s announcement, and Akari could have sworn she heard a cricket chirping near the forest.
Finally, she broke the silence with a nervous laugh. “That’s a joke, right?”
Elend smiled at her, but it wasn’t his usual humorous smile. This one was more sympathetic, as if he knew exactly how much she didn’t ...
2023-10-05 12:23:11 +0000 UTC View PostAkari followed her friends into the backyard for their first day of team training. By now, they were two weeks into their break, and Midwinter was just a few days away. A warm spell had swept through Koreldon City, melting the snow and turning the yard into a soggy mess of puddles and mud. The remaining snow flashed in the morning sun, causing h...
2023-10-01 14:17:06 +0000 UTC View PostRelia spent the next hour training in the backyard and cycling her new pill through her channels. By the end of the session, she could almost feel her soul dilating, letting in more mana than before. She’d have to go easy on Akari when that happened. She’d spent years learning to control her power as an Apprentice, but this was all uncharted...
2023-09-24 12:11:59 +0000 UTC View PostRelia sat with Akari on the back porch of the Darklight estate. Flames danced in the outdoor fireplace, and a thousand footprints covered the surrounding snow.
She and Akari had trained out here every day since the start of Midwinter break. They started at sunrise, bundled up in four layers of clothing. By noon, they’d usually stripped d...
2023-09-17 19:21:52 +0000 UTC View PostStill rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Kalden trudged down the stairs and opened the door to his alchemy lab.
He liked sharing a room with Akari, but she’d gotten more unpredictable over Midwinter break. Some nights, she would lose track of time and stay on her computer until well past midnight. Then there were days like today when she w...
2023-09-12 11:58:11 +0000 UTC View PostAkari stepped across the playground, searching for her best friend. Woodchips crunched beneath her shoes, and she had to dodge a few muddy areas from last night’s storm. Even the play equipment still glistened with raindrops, from the aluminum swing set to the massive yellow slide.
Shouts and laughter filled the courtyard as her classmat...
2023-08-27 16:58:18 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Hi everyone! The final draft of Aeonica Book 3 is only about 90% done, so I’m not officially done with my break yet. However, I did promise to have at least one chapter of Web of Aeons done before the end of August, so here it is! I should be back into my usual routine sometime next month...
2023-08-26 16:40:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone,
Thanks for your patience during my short break from the WoS series. I thought I’d check in with a quick update.
First of all, I finished a new (temporary) cover for the fourth book, Web of Aeons. And Glim won the poll! Like I said, these MidJourney covers are temporary, and I mostly use them for the volu...
2023-08-04 00:30:48 +0000 UTC View PostI don't know if everyone has seen these yet, but I used Midjourney to make some temporary book covers for the WoS series, and I’ve been using these covers on Royal Road. (If you haven’t seen them yet, you can here.)
So...
2023-06-22 00:14:51 +0000 UTC View PostWell, this wraps up another volume of this series! At over 125k words, Book 3 ended up being the longest one so far. Book 1 had 119k words, and Book 2 was the shortest with 95k.
I was mostly happy with the way it turned out. I know some of you weren’t a fan of the school games and lower stakes battles, but hopefully you still found them ...
2023-05-22 16:54:49 +0000 UTC View PostAkari lay in Kalden’s bed, wearing nothing but her glasses. Endorphins ran through her brain like mana, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
Needless to say, their date night had been a success, and the qualifying rounds were just the thing to help them relax. Not the game itself, but the aftermath. She’d been too tired for any proper trai...
2023-05-22 12:18:20 +0000 UTC View PostRelia slouched in her computer chair, locked in a staring contest with a blank document. Master Nightfang’s final paper was due this Kelsday, but she couldn’t find the energy to start it.
Training had always come easily for Relia. When she trained, she bought herself more time in this world. Even if she didn’t reach Artisan, every bi...
2023-05-21 01:27:23 +0000 UTC View PostElise pressed a hand to the front door, sending a burst of pure mana into the lock. Mana signatures were as unique as fingerprints, and this lock was attuned to her and her family.
A Midwinter tree filled the vestibule, two stories high, and wider than a car at its base. Garlands and ornaments ran around the stone pillars, and the pale lig...
2023-05-18 12:43:22 +0000 UTC View Post