Street Cultivation 2: Chapters 53-55

It's definitely an unusual approach to character, so I'm glad there are some who enjoy it! There will be a lot more of this explored in the third book.

Sarah Lin

I love these stories, in particular the aspect of Rick trying to get a sense of how the world outside his experience works. Some have complained about it, but it rings very true. Take someone from a lower class background, with duffus parents only capable of short-term thinking (or growing up in a bad foster home), and you have Rick. Those people's understanding of the world is his understanding. Because they didn't have a clue how things worked for the middle or upper classes, he doesn't. He's sharp enough to have a sense of it, but is not quite sure what it is or how to get there. In our world, that would be things like education, saving money, not going into debt, plus the advantages of having someone around to help you bridge the gaps. He's figured out that fighting and muscle based work is a dead end, where once you can't participate, people throw you away. Him figuring out how to go forward is a really interesting story arch, and his struggles seem completely realistic to me.

Chong Go

I actually kind of liked her statement. It gave me the impression that she was more self aware, and combined with her willingness to help, even though she was unhappy, made her seem a deeper person, able to function outside of her damage.

Chong Go

Those are a seed for later.

Sarah Lin

Hmm, that's fair. I intended him to mainly tip them off about the connection, but them requiring something more concrete seems reasonable.

Sarah Lin

Also, are we going to get to see the Demonic Bond and Demon Mass working together? I thought those might be showing up here, like somehow the bond would trigger something. Just curious.

Chong Go

Just my two cents from the peanut gallery: The only thing that didn't work for me was Rick's "proof" that Jack was a plant. All he did was make an unsubstantiated accusation. I don't think that would mean anything to people as cynical as he was dealing with. It feels like he'd need more than that. Mayyybe it would be enough if he brought up that Jack's cousin had been sponsored by the American Basilisk? It feels like Rick needs to bring more, and not just something supplied by Granny. Also, if Rick could take away Jack's tattoos, that'd be cool, lol.

Chong Go

The real fight all along was the mystery he solved. Who would have thought that Rick was actually a noir detective all along? This actually does remind me of wuxia like Hero where the martial arts is hung on a mystery.

Runcible Technician

it could be just me, but if you're looking for a place to improve, I find that the dialogue can sometimes feel a bit awkward/stilted

GoodOldChap

Next week!

Sarah Lin

Glad to hear you enjoy my worldbuilding! You'll get more information about the release right here.

Sarah Lin

I'm glad I discovered this series only when this book was almost done!

Chong Go

Makes sense; I figured that might be it still I imagine being in the combat state would make it more difficult to process emotion not easier

tehlu

I gotta say these books really hook me and I usually hate litrpg elements but you work them into the stories really organically and did an awesome job building your world and it has a lot of internal logic and consistency. When I saw you were posting your chapters for the next book I read up to here in two days I'm defiantly gonna grab the book day one.

That's fair; it may not have conveyed quite what I wanted. My intent was less vulnerability and more Emily being extremely blunt coming out of her combat trance.

Sarah Lin

Fantastic chapters as always; only thing I’d comment on is Emily admitting to being bitter, it threw me off. I get her saying she’s still upset but admitting to bitterness about it strikes me as a bit more openly vulnerable than she’s shown herself to be.

tehlu

Yeah, I intended the solution for the climax of this book to involve Rick figuring out some of what he really wants. My intent for the third is for him to take that to a much more developed position, though with some missteps along the way.

Sarah Lin

I find it really hard to relate to readers over the last couple of updates complaining about Rick not being special enough. I find the power of actual introspection and reasoning ability way more interesting, and much much rarer in a protagonist, than any kind of special combat ability. Really looking forward to more high-stakes inference action in the next book.

Desertopa

It's true, I'm working on my own (terribad) short stories and was considering a similar strategy.

That's a danger of serialization. Hypothetically I could lump chapters differently in the future, but I pledged weekly chapters for this book.

Sarah Lin

I think you should have lumped these with the Emily break up and just made us wait. In the context of the novel, I can appreciate it more this week.

Pretty good. I was wondering how Rick was going to thread this particular needle. Its a bit of a shame that he couldn't get a clean win, and the ending felt very slightly anti-climactic, but that actually sort of makes sense. As important as this competition was to Rick, its honestly probably not that big a deal to the GLA. But it was cool seeing the Dark Blood Kettle activate, though it seems its still mostly a mystery. Edit: I will say, I was expecting more of an upgrade to Bunyan's Step from what we saw before. Edit2: I actually really like where it left off both with the Kettle and Rick's employment prospects. Because I think it'll mean we see more of Adsila, Wemilat, and hopefully Delsin.

Cteatus