I spent a few minutes resting in the sand, letting the piercing pain in my brain slowly fade away. Then, as the effects of the Call of the Ocean faded into the back of my mind, I made my way towards the village. Since my arm and some of my ribs were broken, every single step hurt, but I needed to make it to the village to get the healing process...
2023-01-21 04:50:16 +0000 UTC View PostI froze, staring at the giant eye that lay deep in the ocean, before I saw it disappear just as suddenly as it had appeared.
I stopped moving as I looked around, but I couldn’t see the rest of the giant creature. The ocean seemed normal. Giant fish continued to swim around, disinterested in their surroundings. I simply kept scanning my s...
2023-01-18 23:30:56 +0000 UTC View PostI spent the next few days with my friends and family. I did all that I could to prepare – which wasn’t much, considering how little we knew about what lay under the surface of the ocean. I wanted to say goodbye, in case I didn’t return. My mother and father had uneasy expressions on their faces as I talked about what should happen in the c...
2023-01-17 05:40:55 +0000 UTC View PostWhen they arrived at Boris’s house, Natasha warmly greeted Alice, giving her an enthusiastic smile. She also gave Professor Feliza and Immortal Ethan a respectful nod when she saw their Mage emblems, although the two of them got far less enthusiastic greetings than Alice. Alice was more than slightly amused to see that she had been given more ...
2023-01-14 08:53:34 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the presence of the outsiders was confirmed by the scout boats, I spent a few hours thinking while the islanders did their best to observe the outsiders without being seen. In total, the Outsiders seemed to have eight boats, five more ship than the three damaged ones they came in last time. Furthermore, these ships weren’t damaged; they ...
2023-01-14 02:23:40 +0000 UTC View PostTwo more years passed. Felix and I turned fifteen, and Sallia turned fourteen. Perhaps due to how hard it was to keep improving my weapon mastery, I didn’t get any improvements to my Swordsmanship, Spearmanship, or Archery Skills. Sallia was still improving quickly, but according to her own assessment, she was still years away from reaching [A...
2023-01-13 02:28:38 +0000 UTC View PostIt took me a few months of practice before I finally learned how to teleport properly. It was very difficult to get used to seeing the ‘ripples’ in space out of the corners of my eyes and manipulating the space around me, but as I got more and more used to looking for spatial ripples and, I eventually figured out how to use my teleportation ...
2023-01-12 00:04:08 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the hunt of the glowing fish, months passed. Life returned to normal within the village. Two months later, I stabilized my fourth rune, something that made me extremely excited. I had waited a long time to form my fifth rune, and I was finally ready.
On top of my usual excitement to form a new rune, my fifth rune was going to be even...
2023-01-10 23:59:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe celebration lasted for several hours, with villagers wildly celebrating the success of the hunt. During that time, several boats also flew back to their villages, carrying word of the end of the threat to our homes and families, as well as news of who had lived and who had died.
After a few hours of celebratory foods and congratulation...
2023-01-09 23:22:11 +0000 UTC View PostI have been debating whether I want to do this for a while now. I have hesitated SO many times. But I think it COULD be fun, so I’ma give it a whirl and see how it goes.
If you feel like it, you can ask me a question on this post, and odds are good that I’ll answer it. It’s meant to be a fun Q&A about my writing process, or about...
2022-12-24 06:56:28 +0000 UTC View PostImmortal Ethan already had a manaless room set up in his mansion, so the experiment only took a few minutes to set up. After Immortal Ethan finished his preparations, he stepped into the manaless room while Alice watched. Alice activated her {Timer} Perk to get as accurate of a measurement of time’s passage as possible, and kept her eyes train...
2022-12-24 06:45:38 +0000 UTC View PostNote - I released two chapters for Markets and multiverses today. If you're confused by the fact that the story suddenly seems to have skipped ahead, look for the previous chapter first.
As people started to realize the glowing fish was dead, boats began to descend upon the beach and prod at the corpse. Hunters pulle...
2022-12-24 00:02:30 +0000 UTC View PostAs the fish glared at our boat, I scanned our surroundings, desperate to find a way to survive. I wasn’t done with this world yet - I wasn’t ready to die.
The fish teleported closer to our boat, completely disregarding the fact that we were out of range of its teleportation. We began desperately flying away, completely ignoring any opp...
2022-12-23 23:56:11 +0000 UTC View PostHuh?
I stared at the fish, dumbfounded, as I realized that I had already lost one of my two jobs in this fight. I had expected the glowing fish wouldn’t be tricked by my illusory boat after a while, but I had at least thought it would take a while. The fight had barely started, and my illusory boat was already useless.
“...
2022-12-22 19:17:17 +0000 UTC View PostThe morning of the hunt came. Before I could leave for the meeting spot, my mother stopped me by stepping in front of the door. She stared at me for a moment, as if memorizing every detail of my face. Then, she smiled at me, although her smile was a little sad.
“Take this with you, sweetie,” she said, and handed me a bracelet made of p...
2022-12-22 00:45:56 +0000 UTC View PostThe next morning, I found Sallia and Felix, and discussed what I had learned about keyword abilities and glut penalty. When I mentioned the ability to take magic systems from world to world, Sallia’s eyes lit up for a moment, before they dimmed.
I had gained the right to purchase a keyword ability by fighting the glowing fish and success...
2022-12-21 03:35:43 +0000 UTC View PostNight came, and as most people expected, the village chief called for a village meeting. Many villagers had already heard bits and pieces of the whole story, so people flocked towards the center of the village once the time for the meeting came. When I arrived, I saw people standing or sitting in a loose circle in the village square. The only pe...
2022-12-20 02:43:23 +0000 UTC View PostThe rest of the day passed quickly. After treating herself to a nice meal and then enchanting for a few hours, Alice returned to Ethan’s mansion for the night and slept. The following day was a normal Saturday – she played board games with Cecilia and her schoolmates, spent some time putting together an enchanted ring that would ‘expel’ ...
2022-12-17 06:12:57 +0000 UTC View PostOur brief respite didn’t last for long. My broken wrist throbbed with pain, and Claus’s missing leg was still dripping blood into the bandage wrapped around it. My father, along with Olav and Edel, struggled to their feet, before my father dug a fish core out and handed it to me.
“See if you can help Claus, sweetie. Olav and I will g...
2022-12-17 03:41:30 +0000 UTC View PostIt didn’t take long the find the village chief and lead him back to the shore. We returned to the spot where we had seen the glowing fish, before gazing at the ocean again. The glowing fish was still moving around in the distance, although it was hard for us to make out any details because it was too far away. The village chief, however, had t...
2022-12-15 21:44:43 +0000 UTC View PostI spent a few weeks learning to maneuver the boat with the rest of the fishermen. Flying using floatwood had a heavy demand on group coordination and teamwork, so it took me a while to reach a point where I wasn’t actively hindering the team. Finally, I reached a point where I wasn’t accidentally sending the boat in a weird direction, and so...
2022-12-15 01:17:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day, I visited the village chief and requested permission to end my apprenticeship under master Arne, and instead start learning to fish. In addition, I asked for permission to heal people with flesh-related injuries when I had leftover mana. Since I had four runes, and Olav had already said he was willing to take me aboard, the village...
2022-12-14 00:33:56 +0000 UTC View PostAfter I finished my initial experiments with my first rune ability, I went to find my friends. After retrieving them from their houses, we gathered near the ocean, far enough away from the village that we could talk with privacy.
“I can’t believe you’ve already gotten your fourth rune built,” said Felix, giving me a grin. “...
2022-12-13 00:44:27 +0000 UTC View PostIn total, Alice spent another hour trying to untangle what types of mana actually went into System mana. Since the idea of a ‘compound’ mana was so new to her, she felt that breaking down System mana into smaller chunks was a good way to start. She still wanted to create a System magic seed, after all, even if it would be quite a bit more co...
2022-12-10 06:31:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe difficulty of condensing a fourth rune was much higher than the previous runes. This was due to the fundamental change in nature runes had every third rune. The fourth through sixth runes could let people control water and air, bend weapons mid-attack, triple arrows they shot from a bow, and gain access to a myriad of other bizarre and usefu...
2022-12-10 06:28:02 +0000 UTC View PostAfter we finished healing up survivors, dealing with funerals, and thanking the other village chiefs for coming, our village began to focus on rebuilding. The other villages didn’t stand idly by after the catastrophe - many of them flew over extra manpower, supplies, and hunters to help us rebuild our village. I couldn’t help but be impresse...
2022-12-09 03:21:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe villagers we saw in the distance made their way towards us, one after another. Many people were injured, and after seeing them, two of the people in our group quickly began setting up a small healing area to tend to injuries. One of them could manipulate bones, allowing him to fix up any bone-related injuries, and the other could make people...
2022-12-08 00:52:22 +0000 UTC View PostI looked in the direction of the village, feeling horror as I realized what the last-ditch plan of the outsiders looked like. I hadn’t thought about it before, since nobody in the village had a rune that enhanced sound. After all, nobody here would willingly form such an ability - amplifying sound was completely worthless when it drew land bea...
2022-12-06 23:28:32 +0000 UTC View PostRecently someone messaged me and stated that they were having some issues with Patreon's payment information, and could not update it on their end. They state that they have attempted all troubleshooting advice and such, and still could not get anything working. Is anyone else having this problem? If there's a notable issue with Patreon, it woul...
2022-12-06 00:44:32 +0000 UTC View PostThe next two days were a flurry of activity, as the villagers prepared for the chieftains to meet with the outsiders. In that time, people engaged in all sorts of odd activities. Some ordered weapons from Master Arne or one of the other workshops, causing us to become incredibly busy. Master Arne and I churned out large numbers of bone weapons i...
2022-12-06 00:20:18 +0000 UTC View Post