Everything inside of Sen wanted him to… No, it was begging him to sleep. The kind of overpowering exhaustion that came from having your mind, body, and cultivation taxed to their limits wasn’t new to Sen, but it simply wasn’t something that a person could ever learn to shrug off. It went to...
2023-12-27 14:56:14 +0000 UTC View Post
The livestream will start in about five minutes.
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Okay...So, I'm going to try to do a patron-only livestream at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Christmas Day. This is all assuming that I can get the technology working correctly. Hopefully, it'll go smoothly. I hav...
2023-12-25 06:05:57 +0000 UTC View PostHe known that this moment would arrive at some point and prepared for it. Natural treasures and beast cores spilled from a storage ring and onto the ground. There were cores from lightning cranes, wind serpents, and some kind of strange shadow beast he’d never been able to identify. There were ...
2023-12-24 14:21:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe foxes disappeared inside the galehouse again after the meal was over, but it had a perfunctory look to it. Less of them resuming an argument and more of Laughing River preparing to tell Misty Peaks how things were going to be. Sen wasn’t sure it that was a sign that the elder fox had convin...
2023-12-24 14:16:18 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so a brief update.
First things first, Patreon rolled out a feature called Collections a while back. It's basically a way to round up related posts. So, I went ahead and put it to use. If you click on the collections tab, it should take you to a page where you'll find almost all...
2023-12-23 10:28:30 +0000 UTC View PostSen watched with a mixture of amusement and sympathy as Laughing River dragged Misty Peak toward the galehouse. The fox woman reacted like a feral cat that had just been seized by something bigger. She kicked, scratched, thrashed, and screamed. Sen could just barely sense energy movement of some ...
2023-12-23 09:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostSen had no ready answer to that emotional outburst. He lacked even a basic frame of reference, let alone the necessary experience to understand what the fox had been through. Sen possessed no wisdom to offer. He didn’t even have an empty platitude he could mouth. His only solace was that Laughi...
2023-12-22 12:54:22 +0000 UTC View PostSen thought that Misty Peak might follow him, but a glance backward showed that she had either left or hidden herself with one of those nigh-impregnable fox illusions. I wish I could learn that, thought Sen. How many problems would that let me just flat-out avoid? It was a pleas...
2023-12-21 15:52:46 +0000 UTC View Post“What do you know about nine-tail foxes?” asked Misty Peak.
Sen gave her a smirk and started to count on his fingers. The fox looked like she might actually lose a bit of her sanity when he did that, so Sen took a little pity on her.
“Let’s assume that I know nothing about you...
2023-12-21 11:09:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe silence between them drew out. There was a quality to it, a kind of sharpness that left Misty Peak certain she would cut herself with the wrong move. She kept her face, well, the face she’d chosen for this task, neutral even as her mind raced for the right thing to do. She’d misread every...
2023-12-21 05:49:47 +0000 UTC View PostLaughing River and Sen had stayed up for hours trying to work out options that would let them get Sen into the ruins and then back out again. While they both concluded that getting him in was probably doable, it was the getting him out part that was disquietingly nebulous. Part of that stemmed fr...
2023-12-20 10:21:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Speaking of priorities,” said Sen as he pulled out a healing elixir, “you should take this.”
The fox shook his head. “It won’t help.”
“It won’t hurt, either. And if it speeds things along by even an hour, that’s an hour we can’t get back another way.”...
2023-12-20 07:01:52 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the world finally started coming back together for Sen, it didn’t do it all at once. It was more like a patchwork of sensory information that came and went for a while before it finally, almost unwillingly, reassembled into something he could recognize. Even then, it was disorienting. Nigh...
2023-12-19 07:19:58 +0000 UTC View PostUpdate: Okay, both versions of Unintended Cultivator Volume 1 are officially live. So, anyone who was waiting for it to go live to grab it on Kindle Unlimited or wanted to get an official ebook copy, you're good to go. Also, for real this time, if anyone is inclined to leave a review over on Amaz...
2023-12-18 23:29:18 +0000 UTC View PostSen tried to work up some anger, but all that he could come up with an overwhelming sense of not caring. He shook his head.
“I’ve been working on being a fraction more diplomatic,” said Sen, “so please just say what you need to say and be done with it. I still have more work to do....
2023-12-18 09:02:16 +0000 UTC View PostThe three of them sat around that table discussing possibilities until late. Laughing River volunteered that he could probably provide a distraction to draw off the horde briefly if it came down to it. Sen had given the fox a questioning look at that. The fox just shrugged.
“I am...
2023-12-18 00:36:11 +0000 UTC View PostSen suspected it wasn’t an entirely fair question. He’d had a couple of hours to think about the problem and come up with a couple of possibilities. They weren’t what he’d call great ideas. At least one of them would require that he spend some time looking around to see if it was even fea...
2023-12-16 12:16:14 +0000 UTC View PostSen and Laughing River “discussed” what to do with Li Yi Nuo. Sen admitted it to himself. They bickered about it. Sen thought that Laughing River should take her back to the road. Having gotten a closer look at the fox’s true strength, he was supremely confident that the fox could take Li Y...
2023-12-16 12:14:18 +0000 UTC View PostLaughing River got a gleam in his eye that screamed mischief. Sen thrust a finger at him.
“No! Whatever you’re thinking, just no.”
“Oh, you should have given it a minute. You’d have enjoyed it,” said the fox, before shooting Li Yi Nuo a big smile. “She probably wouldn’...
2023-12-14 07:35:30 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so Volume 1 of Unintended cultivator comes out in about a week. I'd been thinking that I wanted to do something special for it, but I missed the window to order new art. That's double unfortunate because I've been meaning to do that for a while now. However, my publisher asked if I'd write ...
2023-12-13 06:51:55 +0000 UTC View PostThose words rang in his ears. I’m dying, Sen. How often had Sen himself uttered nearly the same sentiment? The effect of those words on him almost primal. He knew the lengths that someone in that situation might go. He understood that it would be a short step from where he him...
2023-12-12 05:57:53 +0000 UTC View PostLi Yi Nuo waited to the side and watched as Sen and Laughing River stood a few feet apart, gesticulated wildly, and yelled at each other like a pair of bickering siblings. It might have even been amusing, like some kind of comical theater performance. That is, it might have been if not for the fa...
2023-12-11 09:03:17 +0000 UTC View Post“Don’t glare at me,” said Laughing River in a hurt voice. “I gallantly left you alone after helpfully pointing out your mistake, and you wasted yet another opportunity by complaining about me. I mean, honestly, I don’t know what more I could have done to help you there...
2023-12-11 05:52:52 +0000 UTC View PostIt didn’t take long for Sen to catch up with the fox who, for whatever reason, had decided to stick to running through the forest. Sen dropped the qinggong techniques and fell in beside the fox. Li Yi Nuo caught up shortly after, and three of them were a trio of blurs in the trees until it grew...
2023-12-10 05:25:35 +0000 UTC View Post“I might have settled for a simple no if I was dealing with that awful woman you’ve got yourself mixed up with. Frankly, I’m surprised that Feng Ming was willing to tolerate it,” said Laughing River.
“Awful woman?” asked Li Yi Nuo.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sen.
<... 2023-12-09 21:23:20 +0000 UTC View PostOnce the business with Li Yi Nuo was settled, Sen stored the chairs and a handful of other items that taken out for basic comfort back into his storage ring. Li Yi Nuo watched all of this with a mixture of curiosity and bafflement on her face. Sen looked at her.
“Are you leaving or stayin...
2023-12-09 07:49:58 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Sen had directed Li Yi Nuo to one of the bedrooms, he’d retreated into the one he’d made for himself. One that had a heavy stone bar that he could drop across the door. It wasn’t meant to stop Li Yi Nuo if she tried to finish her mission in the middle of the night. It was just there t...
2023-12-09 01:33:24 +0000 UTC View Post“Do you know something that I don’t?” asked Li Yi Nuo.
“Probably,” answered Sen. “Then again, I imagine you know some things that I don’t. So, we’re probably even.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.”
Sen could see the obvious frustration on the woman’s...
2023-12-08 09:49:42 +0000 UTC View PostAside from pulling a comfortable chair out of his storage ring and dropping it by the fireplace for Li Yi Nuo, Sen did his level best to simply ignore the woman. He kept that up for an hour as he made food, all while pretending he didn’t notice her watching him anytime she thought he wasn’t p...
2023-12-08 04:08:16 +0000 UTC View PostSen lifted an eyebrow at Li Yi Nuo. He thought he’d been pretty clear. He wondered if maybe she wasn’t that bright. She’d seemed smart enough when they were talking. Then again, she did have a lot of time to think about what she wanted to say to him before they met. He sighed.
“I sa...
2023-12-07 07:33:06 +0000 UTC View Post