Treating the Matriarch’s condition would not be easy. For anyone else, Sen thought it might be all but impossible. If for no other reason, it required a certain level of mastery in both formations and alchemy. Few cultivators were skilled in either, and he wasn’t aware of any who were skilled...
2025-05-28 20:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostWhile Sen would have preferred to get started immediately, it seemed that nothing in his life was immediate any more. First, he had to contact the generals and explain he would be away for at least a day or two while he tended to the Matriarch. Then, he had to explain to the other Order of...
2025-05-27 20:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the guards pulled aside the canvas to let Sen enter the hut. He didn’t recognize the cultivator who stood by the makeshift bed. It wasn’t clear if the man was watching over the Matriarch or praying for her. Either way, Sen had to suppress a wince. It seemed he would need to have...
2025-05-26 20:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Who is she?” asked Falling Leaf, peering curiously at Chou Dai Lu.
“This one is Disciple Chou Dai Lu, Lady Fa,” answered the girl with a bow.
“I caused her some problems,” explained Sen. “So, she’s part of my sect now.”
The ghost panther looked at the g...
2025-05-22 19:55:11 +0000 UTC View PostThe last few days had been quieter since Sen gave the order that the training was on hold for a week. At least, it had been in some senses. He still went out and turned huge tracts of the wilds into ashes and killed most of the spirit beasts that came out of their infernos. He’d also tak...
2025-05-22 04:57:06 +0000 UTC View PostKelima had been in a state of complete bewilderment since the night before. First, she’d had to face up to the fact that, somehow, Terry had recognized that this village was evil on sight. Sure, the man was unreasonably powerful, but that was true of every rank 2 adventurer. It just ca...
2025-05-21 10:33:58 +0000 UTC View PostThat began a period of grinding routine for Sen and the army at large. They got up, stowed the camp, marched for part of the day, set up camp, and trained. Then, they did it again. And again. And again. However, even with that routine, it wasn’t entirely smooth. The soldiers, who were used to t...
2025-05-21 05:36:34 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Chan Yu Ming left, Sen was finally able to turn his attention to what the cultivators and soldiers were doing. The results were interesting, if not entirely successful. When dealing with weaker spirit beasts, one cultivator working with a small group of mortals worked fairly well. Th...
2025-05-20 02:47:54 +0000 UTC View PostPeople seemed to want more of this, so here's a fresh chapter. I'm going to title this thing any day now. Enjoy! ~Eric
***
Jason was both surprised and a little relieved that Alex wasn’t waiting outside the Patriarch’s throne room. Not that his b...
2025-05-19 08:14:40 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a lot of controlled chaos below as cultivators and mortals got into position. Sen had decided that this slow slog through the countryside wasn’t just an opportunity for the mortals to gain experience with spirit beasts, but also for the mortals and cultivators to find wa...
2025-05-17 09:56:08 +0000 UTC View PostTerry was so surprised to see the innkeeper standing over him with an enormous knife that he froze. It wasn’t until the other man brought the knife down that Terry managed to react. He glared at the man.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I…That is…” the innkeeper mumbled....
2025-05-16 08:53:58 +0000 UTC View PostSen noticed Falling Leaf glaring over her shoulder again.
“I know they’re still following us,” he told her.
He’d been more or less escorting the new cultivator recruits back to where the army had set up their most recent camp. He’d been less than thrilled when he sens...
2025-05-16 06:21:44 +0000 UTC View PostSen walked away while Chan Yu Ming fruitlessly tried to get his attention. Her efforts to also avoid drawing too much attention to herself fatally undermined that cause. Sen shook his head a little. He might understand, somewhat, where her hostility came from, but that didn’t make him ea...
2025-05-15 11:50:36 +0000 UTC View PostThe deeper Terry got into the village, the more unsettled he felt. Mostly because the place just looked so innocuous. Nothing looked too new, but most of the places looked cared for. There were adults, a smattering of children, and some teens who looked like they were aching to make a bad decisio...
2025-05-14 10:22:57 +0000 UTC View PostSen glanced around at what was left of the Clear Spring Sect. The compound was a place he’d never intended to return to. He’d been attacked there, and the patriarch had allowed the man responsible to escape. Sen had accidentally found that man, a member of the House of Xie, and killed ...
2025-05-14 05:57:38 +0000 UTC View Post“Do you think we should help them?” asked Kho Jaw-Long as he watched the battle below with idle interest.
Feng Ming glanced at his old friend before returning to his own evaluation of the clash between humanity and spirit beast below. His first instinct, one honed by thousands of...
2025-05-13 06:46:50 +0000 UTC View PostA little preface. I hadn't planned on writing anything like this. But someone at my publisher planted the notion of a sci-fi/cultivator crossover story in my head and it got lodged. So, I decided to see if I could make it work. These are the two very rough first draft chapters I wrote of some...
2025-05-12 01:04:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe next few weeks turned in a grueling routine for Sen, if not the army as a whole. He supposed this was all pretty normal for them. They’d break camp early in the day, eke out ten or fifteen miles of marching, and then set up camp again. Sen had taken to going out with the cultivators ...
2025-05-09 18:03:15 +0000 UTC View PostSen stood up from the table where all the generals and other senior officers sat. He’d endured their transparent attempts to ingratiate themselves to him for at least…He was pretty sure he’d suffered through it for three or four minutes. Now, he was done. All of the army officers wer...
2025-05-09 04:02:47 +0000 UTC View PostSen refrained from looking at the cultivator that Falling Leaf still held. He was half-convinced that she’d forgotten she was holding him, but then she’d tighten her grip any time the man tried to gather his qi or started to struggle again. He supposed that the cultivator was getting a...
2025-05-08 02:58:39 +0000 UTC View Post“I know,” said Sen.
“This is boring,” said Falling Leaf with quiet menace.
“Didn’t I just say that I know,” said Sen.
He hazarded a glance at Falling Leaf to discover that she was still glaring at him, as she had been for at least an hour. She was riding a h...
2025-05-07 06:13:33 +0000 UTC View Post“I’d be a lot more comfortable with this if I was going with you,” said General Mo.
Sen glanced at the man before returning his gaze to the army. The final preparations to leave had been started days before, but it would still be late morning before they actual marching ...
2025-05-06 05:11:10 +0000 UTC View PostYeah, I still haven't even given this thing an interim name, but i did write a couple more chapters. This also brings the total word count u
Yeah, I still haven't even given this thing an interim name, but i did write a couple more chapters. This also brings the total word count up to a...
2025-05-04 08:41:48 +0000 UTC View PostThe next several days were much busier than Sen would have liked. Much of the preparation that the army had initially done for their march had to be redone. Partly to shore up stores of fresh food that Sen wound up putting into storage rings, and partly to account for all of the additions that wo...
2025-05-03 00:40:55 +0000 UTC View PostSorry everybody. No new chapters of anything today. I got slammed with another migraine this morning. It took two of my prescription pills and sprawling motionlessly in a dark quiet room all day to finally put it down. You can thank the weather, I think. We’ve had storm fronts moving through. E...
2025-05-02 00:39:21 +0000 UTC View PostSen stared at the group of cultivators that he had dim memories of trying to teach his new qinggong technique. He’d largely allowed himself to forget about them because they all seemed so hopeless at it. Not that he blamed them for that failure. Their respective sects had been adamant th...
2025-05-01 03:20:24 +0000 UTC View PostI’m just saying that I’m in your mind, complained other-Terry. The universe shouldn’t be trope-stomping me for things that are only said in your mind.
Oh, my fucking God, you need to let this shit go, snapped Terry. I already told you my theory<...
2025-04-30 03:06:21 +0000 UTC View Post“What do you mean to do with it?” asked Lo Meifeng as she looked around.
The sect compound that had oh so recently housed the Lunar Tiger Sect now stood empty. Sen had swept through the place, seizing the treasures he personally wanted and securing vows to the heavens from the le...
2025-04-29 23:34:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe death of an elder had a noticeably chilling effect on the rest of the sect, which had been Sen’s intent from the start. He loathed the waste involved with killing powerful cultivators who could be put to far better use in battle. However, by killing that one elder with an almost casu...
2025-04-28 22:06:03 +0000 UTC View Post“James, this is Strix,” said Sig.
The mage had cheered up considerably since they’d left the alchemist shop, returning to his laconic tendencies rather brooding silence. Strix, on the other hand, left James at a bit of loss as to how to react. The man was extremely tall, thin to the p...
2025-04-28 04:55:15 +0000 UTC View Post