Just as a little reminder--only two chapters in the next week. I'm just a bit tired and recovering from sickness, so reduced chapter output until next Thursday.
TJ introduced himself more formally to the other parents, and then, as the winds said there was something nearby, he went on alert. Even with the wind’s...
2025-05-21 15:51:40 +0000 UTC View Post“The ants!” He shouted. “There’s something that’s changed about them. They aren’t responding to our influence nearly as completely as before
“The ants!” He shouted. “There’s something that’s changed about them. They aren’t responding to our influence nearly as completely as before.”
“You aren’t doing any...
2025-05-21 03:25:17 +0000 UTC View Post
No real words for this, but check it out! Holy crap!
I saw Whitehorn liked this--if I'm not mistaken, that's the illustrator! Yes. Yes it is. Here's his artstation!
https://www.artstation.com/luonghoang
2025-05-20 17:53:33 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: BTW--book 1 is going live for free tomorrow. As such, I'm going to take a week off posting for free. Ordinarily, I take that time to just get further and further ahead on Patreon. This time, though, I'm going to post two chapters for the True Keel tier, and then not post for the rest of the week. I'm recovering from a really painful sore th...
2025-05-20 16:09:56 +0000 UTC View Post***
More weeks passed, and there was precious little for us to do except to continue preparing for the attack of the Misti Hawar. That the ants continued to grow more and more active wasn’t helpful, but we had a tenuous relationship with them, and they were useful. How we could change this relationship longer term was a mystery, though. ...
2025-05-20 05:43:42 +0000 UTC View PostHe was grateful he’d deactivated Divine Transformation, because while people could Appraise him and quickly figure out he was a person, there was no way that TJ could expect rational initial reactions from anyone, himself included. As such, he rolled his shoulders, saw that his clothing was mostly all whole, and put his spear in his hand with ...
2025-05-18 15:28:02 +0000 UTC View PostWhat he’d thought was the sewer was much more than the sewers that he knew about. Where pipes had once been the sole reason the earth hadn’t collapsed, now there was a full cavern. Disgusting water dripped from the roof, but TJ couldn’t take the time to evaluate his surroundings. Instead, he threw himself to the side as a deluge of rubble ...
2025-05-17 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post***
Look, you all have seen the soldiers and militia. You have seen the Red Abbey’s graduates immediately step into positions of power. You have heard of the Synod and Families. You’ve seen their strength and their power, how their Words flow freely from their tongues and their Speaking is constantly growing more and more p...
2025-05-17 04:58:33 +0000 UTC View PostThe night passed, and TJ hadn’t made any meaningful headway in teaching himself Lightning Manipulation. As he’d attempted it, though, he pretty quickly realized that having the thing he was trying to move with his mind be around would be necessary. As such, after an hour of useless thinking passed, he’d used Stormcaller to generate a storm...
2025-05-16 17:28:54 +0000 UTC View Post[The Alpha of Tala POV]
As one, the Alpha rose. They had spent the vast majority of their life like this, and when one heard something was of import, they both would learn of it. The dream that one had received came to the other, and they knew they needed to go out and be ready. There was precious little to do but to ensur...
2025-05-16 04:23:09 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s kinda weird.” Sam said as they sat around a folding table in TJ’s room. “Everyone who comes in is getting pulled apart to different groups, and each group is being taught by one of the people from Sven’s Tutorial. They’re talking about what worked in their Tutorial, how they could trust in the strongest people to take care of...
2025-05-15 08:38:53 +0000 UTC View PostFoire had obviously prioritized reducing his footprint over anything else. Even so, there were a couple signs of his presence in a clearing: a discarded bone here, a broken branch much too large to have been snapped by any of the creatures nearby, and a place where the grass had been tamped down in a suspiciously Keel-sized shape. Most concernin...
2025-05-15 04:07:16 +0000 UTC View PostLuz struggled as TJ carried her through the streets back towards campus. His plans of how he would go and train were dashed, and he didn’t care. Thoughts of serving himself died as, instead, he cared for the confused child. She didn’t say anything except for what he slowly came to understand was “Mama”. And she loved her mom. TJ...
2025-05-14 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostSince it had been as long as it had since anyone around had seen Foire, I looked for Trai first. She was as flighty as ever, but her most recent obsession had been the nursery, so I looked there first. I was lucky enough to find her right away, teasing the hatchlings. The Kha continued to reproduce, and it didn’t take long from laying to hatch...
2025-05-14 03:49:05 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Bit of a warning at the end of this chapter.
TJ dropped off the entirety of what he considered to be valuable from his home back at the New Republic’s headquarters. He’d been assured by Raya’s assistant, a Dirt tier man named George, that the room he deposited his things in would be left entirely alone and considered as his prop...
2025-05-13 17:37:59 +0000 UTC View PostAs far as I could tell, there wasn’t any [Skill] for using a spear. At least, not one I’d gained in the past days. I could feel that I was getting more competent and comfortable with the weapon, but I knew that, in terms of skill, I would be far outclassed by anyone who’d held a weapon for more than a year or two. That I’d only spent a c...
2025-05-13 04:05:20 +0000 UTC View PostThe path through campus was easy, especially since more than half of it had been left untouched by the New Republic. The places that Sven and Raya had seemed to decide they couldn’t protect were left alone, and they’d chosen to disregard the buildings already destroyed by monstrous presences. TJ realized that he hadn’t asked anyone about i...
2025-05-11 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe two greatest shifts in the physiology and potential for any Participant come at the time of evolution to the Copper (I) tier and at the time of evolution to the Ruthenium (VII) tier. This is due to the injection of Divinity at both times. A Dirt (0) tier individual evolves once they have touched on the true essence of Divinity, and a...
2025-05-10 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostI nodded at Trai, who pouted as I stepped back from ambushing her. I’d finally made the progress I was looking for, and I quickly thanked her as I turned my attention to the [System] notification.
[Skill: Soundless Stealth; This is a Skill of one whose control over sonic waves allows them to manipulate how far sonic waves can travel from...
2025-05-10 04:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“They seem to have a good system going on for getting people experience.” Sam explained. “It sounds like most Tutorials were like ours, pretty laid back compared to yours and Sven’s. Theirs had 60 survivors, so yours must have been the most difficult one around here. I wonder if there were any that had no survivors… Anyways, Gus said t...
2025-05-09 17:47:06 +0000 UTC View Post[Varali POV]
She walked with her head down, her focus entirely on staying out of notice. Nobody had said anything that wasn’t supportive since the High Colonel di’Thnufir had thrashed Leiyalt for her, but she felt like all the problems the Fort was facing was her fault. The supportive words and looks she was always get...
2025-05-09 06:31:25 +0000 UTC View PostSo. I don't have any specifics for them, but Book 2 of AR is nearly done with edits, Book 1 is being sent to the Audiobook production team relatively soon, and I'll move onto Book 3 edits soonish. Book 1 of SoK should be finished getting edited sometime in the next week or so, for me to then go through and do further edits. Things are real excit...
2025-05-09 06:28:19 +0000 UTC View Post“Yeah,” Gus said as he gestured to TJ, “this is TJ, and he’s pretty strong. Brought these other people with him too, which could be promising too.”
TJ Appraised the man that was almost a foot taller than him with a quick thought.
Zealot (Copper (I)), 28
He felt his eyebrows raise as he saw that Sven w...
2025-05-08 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe Gran Verat has called, and we will answer! Efforts in colonizing the northern Akitla Peninsula will be resumed in earnest. If you’re interested in lending your strength to the militia that will be necessary to maintain control over the land we reclaim, speak with any one of the many colonization representatives found in the garrisons throu...
2025-05-08 04:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostTJ didn’t hesitate to summon a blade of wind just behind and above his head as he stepped in front of the other Participants. His Perception had slid over this person until he was aware of them, and he didn’t like that. It was probably a Stealth Skill or something adjacent to that, but he hated the idea of being surprised by anyone. 2025-05-07 15:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post
“I’ve seen how they ambush, this is a better trap!”
“You were only on the other side of the swarm when they met three disgraced and outcast members of their people. You know nothing about how to watch the Zaaktif kill Misti Hawar.”
The disagreement nearly soared to something that’d need to be taken to the pits at that, bu...
2025-05-07 04:28:09 +0000 UTC View PostTJ slept fitfully. Every movement he heard outside had him out of bed and patrolling the area. There were a dozen interruptions to his sleep, but TJ didn’t begrudge that, as being ambushed would have been a lot worse than sleep less with a body that nearly didn’t need any. The wind danced through the house, bringing him news about whatever w...
2025-05-06 15:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostI brought Tar to speak in front of the rest of my council, though most didn’t have a language in common with the rat. Or, the Beastkin, as he had told me. I had burning questions about his people and what they were capable of, but the Beastkin had other things to tell.
“The Misti Hawar have always worshipped the great hunter, Ill...
2025-05-06 04:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“I want to be an Armorsmith.” Sam said simply. TJ didn’t respond, instead letting the teenager explain himself as they walked into the remains of Roger and Susan’s house. “I want to be able to protect myself as well as others. That’s why I took the Skills to get the sword and shield, because I thought that I could use them to protect...
2025-05-04 14:57:26 +0000 UTC View PostSorry! I just... forgot to schedule this.
With a snarl and the ripping of wood and brick, the entire side of Roger and Susan’s house disappeared. As TJ watched, a horse-sized wolf pulled its head back and howled at the sky. The hole it’d ripped into the house was twice its body’s size, but TJ immediately saw how it had enacted so mu...
2025-05-04 04:08:41 +0000 UTC View Post