Much as Sen hoped it wouldn’t turn out that way, the pace of their travel slowed considerably over the next week. The three that he had let go had not been shy about discussing their experience with, as near as Sen could tell, every single cultivator they ran across. With their location narrowe...
2024-03-29 04:05:49 +0000 UTC View PostLong Jia Wei just kept staring, and it made Sen decidedly uncomfortable. It might not have been so bad if the man had spoken but that didn’t happen. He just sat there, silent, and stared. To make matters worse, Shen Mingxia kept staring at him like he’d lost his mind. When it got to be too of...
2024-03-28 05:06:52 +0000 UTC View PostSen waited with growing impatience as the half-dozen cultivators who had been slowly creeping up on them froze in place. They all blazed like torches in his spiritual sense, which made him wonder why they had bothered trying to sneak in the first place. After a rapid exchange of murmured conversa...
2024-03-27 23:41:10 +0000 UTC View PostShen Mingxia had learned a few things over the last week or so. One of the things she’d learned was about herself. Specifically, she’d learned about her terrifying ignorance of what it meant to travel through the kingdom. Having spent years traveling with Wu Meng Yao, she thought she understo...
2024-03-27 03:17:28 +0000 UTC View PostOkay. So a few updates on various and sundry items of interest and non-interest.
First up, Volume 2 did well during it's first two weeks up on Amazon. Like exceedingly well. Which is just awesome! It's currently sitting pretty at about 572 overall in the Kindle store and is still ...
2024-03-26 16:30:28 +0000 UTC View Post“Falling Leaf, this is Laughing River and Misty Peak,” said Sen, gesturing at the foxes.
Falling Leaf inclined her head to Laughing River in a gesture of muted respect. She eyed Misty Peak askance for a moment before issuing a little sigh and nodding to the other woman.
“Hello,...
2024-03-26 03:31:32 +0000 UTC View PostEver wonder what exciting, jet-setting things I, a mildly internet-famous author, do on my rare days off? Today, I’m sitting in a Firestone. Why? I’m getting the brakes done on my car, and probably a few other things. Shockingly, unlike in a movie, there are no models around for me to flirt w...
2024-03-24 17:23:27 +0000 UTC View PostFor all that he had does his best to prepare her for it, and that he had made similar trips in the past, Ai seemed no more settled with the idea of him leaving than any of the other times he’d gone. She refused to let him out of her sight, or her grip, for any longer than absolutely necessary. ...
2024-03-23 01:12:59 +0000 UTC View Post“And then the blue bird ate the bug!” exclaimed Ai as she mimicked a beak snapping shut with her hand.
Sen smiled as he listened and made sure to gasp loudly at her pantomime.
“Oh no!” he shouted. “The poor bug!”
Ai’s face scrunched up in thoughtful concentration f...
2024-03-22 14:44:43 +0000 UTC View PostSen stood motionless inside the shadow he’d wrapped around himself and watched as Wu Meng Yao conducted a class. Part of him hated to admit it, but he was pretty sure she was a better teacher. It wasn’t a matter of knowledge. He was, by all meaningful measures, the better swordsman. He unders...
2024-03-21 21:25:20 +0000 UTC View PostUpdate 3/23/2024: It wasn't my intention to set off a flame war or turn the comments section into a referendum on the author in question. I normally take a hands-off approach with the comments section, but with the caveat that people refrain from getting abusively hostile with each other. Since i...
2024-03-21 14:48:09 +0000 UTC View PostOkay. So there's a decent chance that I'm going to be wrapping up Volume 7 either today or tomorrow. That means that, as per usual, once I finish, I'll be taking a few days off. New subscribers, that explosion of laughter you just heard came from all the long-term subscribers who know that my dec...
2024-03-21 13:56:10 +0000 UTC View PostLi Yi Nuo had always thought of her sect as being rural. That was until she’d gone off to meet Sen’s nigh-mythological spear teacher. It had been a long journey. Longer than it needed to be. She found herself almost shaking with rage at the sheer number of times she’d been dragged into some...
2024-03-20 18:00:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe trees rushed by beneath him as Sen kept his qi platform moving at a steady pace. He didn’t try to go at full speed because he was relatively certain Sua Xing Xing couldn’t have kept up. Of course, based on the growing look of concern she wore the deeper Sen took them into the wilds, keepi...
2024-03-20 10:19:01 +0000 UTC View PostBased on the look that Wu Meng Yao was giving him, she clearly felt less confident about the plan than he did. He gave her a lopsided smile.
“What? I sense doubt. Do you question the wisdom of your glorious leader?”
“Yes. I do question the wisdom of leaving me in charge...
2024-03-20 07:25:56 +0000 UTC View PostUncle Kho wore a decidedly grumpy expression when he came out to the courtyard where Sen was waiting for him.
“Uncle Kho,” said Sen cautiously, nodding at the elder cultivator.
“You interrupted story time,” complained Uncle Kho.
“Story time?”
“Yes. Story time...
2024-03-19 13:35:29 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s a protection amulet,” said Auntie Caihong, eying the small object critically. “It’s actually quite a good one. This would probably stop an attack from someone in the early nascent soul stages. Just one attack, mind you, but that can be enough to let you escape. Where did you get i...
2024-03-19 11:09:15 +0000 UTC View Post“They looked at me like a stranger,” said Sen, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice.
Falling Leaf turned her head to peer at him for a moment before she went back to looking at the sky. They were sitting on top of the mortal training hall, which had long since gone dark and silent f...
2024-03-18 09:08:38 +0000 UTC View PostAlmost the second they were out of sight, Sen dismissed the two cultivator he’d let go. They might become a problem down the road, but the dead thing on the ground in front of him was much more likely to become a problem. It had been a situation without a way to win. If he simply let them all g...
2024-03-17 05:59:05 +0000 UTC View PostLim Haitao bent every last bit of his self-control on maintaining a calm expression, yet, the question rang in his ears like a death knell. And just what was your task? The man called Judgment’s Gale had asked the question in a neutral tone. Too neutral. It was the pause before the ham...
2024-03-16 20:01:14 +0000 UTC View PostSen was in the middle of jian training with Sua Xing Xing when he felt the approach of several cultivators. Cultivators that he didn’t recognize by feel. Cultivators that even he might feel inclined to at acknowledge if his initial impression of their strength as accurate. That was always a lit...
2024-03-16 17:02:04 +0000 UTC View PostSen realized that there was absolutely nothing he could say to make things better. All he could do was make things worse. So, he said nothing. Better by far to just let her get whatever it was out of her system. Especially since he was pretty sure her instability came from not getting things out ...
2024-03-15 12:44:52 +0000 UTC View PostSen pushed, and pushed, and pushed to suffuse his body with shadow qi. After months of effort, he finally felt like he was teetering on the very edge of success, like all he needed was one last infinitesimal iota of strength, one last smidgen of insight, and he would finally achieve victory. Howe...
2024-03-15 05:57:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe messenger was ushered into the room, and the immediately look of fear on the man’s face told Sen that Shen Mingxia was right. The room was too stark and foreboding to be somewhere that good things happened. Those realizations simply furthered his intention to let her think that this whole t...
2024-03-14 16:18:52 +0000 UTC View PostSen led Shen Mingxia over to the building where he kept most of the people who dealt with problems he didn’t want cluttering up his day. It seemed like there were more of them in there every day, some of them he had no memory of hiring, which made putting names to faces more than a challenge. A...
2024-03-13 08:41:27 +0000 UTC View PostI guess it’s for real now, thought Sen. All along, he’d thought of the academy as something of a safer middle ground and a half-baked idea that he could abandon at a moment’s notice if it seemed like too much trouble. Once he’d decided to accept students, though, the hypothetical...
2024-03-13 05:01:10 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, at least on Amazon US, Unintended Cultivator is live. If you've been waiting to grab a copy on Kindle Unlimited to see what, if anything, changed, you can find it here.
Update 1: Check...
2024-03-12 04:35:11 +0000 UTC View PostSoon Zi Rui’s heart still thundered in his chest as he fled from the training hall. Never before in his life had he been so casually suppressed by another person. It had been an astonishing display of raw, unknowable power that would have been even more impressive if it hadn’t been directed a...
2024-03-12 04:23:22 +0000 UTC View PostSen had been making excuses to avoid this task. He knew he’d been making excuses to avoid it. Of course, it helped that his excuses were, by and large, to do things like go train with Fu Ruolan, train the townspeople, evaluate Wu Meng Yao’s true skill level and shore up some of her weaknesses...
2024-03-11 15:17:41 +0000 UTC View PostSen shook his head as he silently observed Wu Meng Yao trying to observe the galehouse. He’d been standing about three feet behind her for five minutes. He’d also been hiding. He realized it wasn’t a fair test, but she had been lurking a lot the last few days. Maybe it was because ...
2024-03-11 09:43:18 +0000 UTC View Post