Having only experienced his growth from inside, Terry found it fascinating to watch Kelima’s steady increase in power. If he’d had a computer, the proper software, and access to a gym, he expected it would make for some interesting graphs. It wasn’t following a linear curve or an exponentia...
2025-04-27 08:21:31 +0000 UTC View PostBey Peizhi managed to stand, staggered, and then clutched at his head. It had been a very, very long time since he’d last experienced anything like a headache, let alone the agony inside his skull now. That kind of pain was for mortals and qi-condensing cultivators. He wasn’t even sure...
2025-04-25 22:49:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe next few days passed with only mild irritations. Rather, they were mild irritations for Terry. He suspected the Kelima found the process of fighting monsters several times a day rather taxing. Although he did take great care not to let things devolve quite as much as he had in that first figh...
2025-04-25 05:57:55 +0000 UTC View Post“So, we just wait?” asked Falling Leaf.
Sen looked up from the scroll he was reading. The Lunar Tiger Sect members were still sprawled on the ground. He turned his head toward Falling Leaf, who was sitting next to him in a comfortable chair he’d summoned for her from a storage ...
2025-04-24 19:41:33 +0000 UTC View Post“Judgment’s Gale!” thundered a voice that made the stone of the palace shiver.
Sen looked up from the small mountain of paperwork that had been shoved in front of him by the small army of functionaries that did the actual work of keeping the kingdom running.
“How long?...
2025-04-23 21:34:34 +0000 UTC View PostOnce again, Terry worked his way through the sequence of sword motions that other-Terry had painstakingly walked him through. It all seemed oddly basic to him. He knew he had already performed far more difficult things with a jian before. It also lacked the strain that he’d come to associate wi...
2025-04-23 06:39:37 +0000 UTC View PostEvery cultivator in the room went silent as Sen lifted a hand and began to rub at one of his temples with two fingers. Grandmother Lu had been able to make excuses about needing to return to Lu Manor and departed almost the moment they got through the city gate. Lai Dongmei had been able to follo...
2025-04-22 18:14:02 +0000 UTC View PostAh, the start of new volume. And...here....we....go!
***
“They belong to the army now,” Sen told General Mo.
He gestured to the huddled mortals and the more stoic cultivators. General Mo didn’t say anything or even look at the people that Sen had...
2025-04-21 20:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, as promised in the update post, here's the thing that got in the way of me writing anything else. If you read it, let me know what you
Okay, as promised in the update post, here's the thing that got in the way of me writing anything else. If you read it, let me know what you think...
2025-04-19 14:24:10 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so nothing this week went the way I planned. I was sick for three or four days. (Summer cold, I think.) That delightful experience was followed up by two days of migraines (from not drinking nearly enough water for the three of four days where all I did was sleep and not feel good, I expect...
2025-04-19 14:16:45 +0000 UTC View PostSen spent some of those two hours gathering the scattered beast cores. He separated out the shadow cores from the destroyed constructs. After giving it some serious thought, he remade the constructs. However, they got made one at a time to limit the strain on that part of him that still ached. He...
2025-04-12 04:33:49 +0000 UTC View Post“I’m not entirely certain you want these people as your vanguard,” said Grandmother Lu.
“Agreed,” said Lai Dongmei. “This is not an impressive showing, particularly for the cultivators.”
Sen looked at Falling Leaf.
“They’re bad at this,” said Falling Leaf in ...
2025-04-12 04:17:08 +0000 UTC View PostA dull ache waited inside of Sen for when he woke up the next morning. An ache that refused to go away, which told him that he’d pushed too hard the previous afternoon. The worst part was that he knew that it wasn’t physical. As swiftly as he healed, any physical ailment would have repaired i...
2025-04-11 04:18:17 +0000 UTC View PostTen shadow constructs stood in a mostly neat row. Sen considered them with mixed feelings. He’d made them with the express purpose of fighting in the war. Something had proven both easier and harder than he’d expected. It was easier than he expected because the intention echoes inside the cor...
2025-04-10 02:21:12 +0000 UTC View PostDespite it feeling as though making the shadow wolves had taken a lot of time, Sen was surprised to find that it was still morning when they had all gone outside. Not that he felt the same weight of time pressing down on him the same way anymore. As they’d be taking mortals back with them, he...
2025-04-08 23:21:27 +0000 UTC View PostI've been a little slow to start today. Migraine season is truly upon us. I somehow manage to forget that this time of year always, always sucks harder than the rest of year for migraines. It's just the weather. So, anyway, I had a migraine last night which really screwed up my slee...
2025-04-08 21:44:11 +0000 UTC View PostA pronounced silence filled the air after Falling Leaf’s mostly hollow criticism. The quiet was almost immediately replaced by a wave of noise as three nascent soul cultivators started peppering him questions. The volume rose as they all tried to get their own questions answered first. Sen took...
2025-04-07 20:38:53 +0000 UTC View PostWithout a solution to the sapience problem or at least partial solution, it wouldn’t matter how durable he made the shadow constructs. They’d just end up being dark statues that consumed qi very, very slowly. That idea actually amused Sen a little. He could think of a few people that he might...
2025-04-05 05:09:00 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so the poll results are in and the overwhelming majority of voters (84%) prefer that the notifications resume. So, the notifications will resume starting immediately.
So, for anyone not caught in the current weather event that's happening in some parts of America, there is a weather e...
2025-04-04 21:43:50 +0000 UTC View PostDespite other-Terry’s possibly-good-natured-but-probably-mocking comments, Terry had been surprisingly content with his frost. It covered more ground than he’d intended, but it had been contained to a circle that was about six feet across. The point was that it hadn’t covered everything wit...
2025-04-04 09:14:54 +0000 UTC View PostI was going to do this tomorrow, but I figure everyone has had enough time not getting notifications to develop an informed opinion about whether they want them. Also, I accidentally let a notification go out today, so there's that. Anyway, this is your opportunity to participate in a democratic ...
2025-04-03 20:59:07 +0000 UTC View PostSen took his time getting ready in the morning. He made a lavish breakfast that required him to reshape the stone table. He’d worried that Ai might have started to outgrow her delight at such trivial tricks, but her eyes lit up as the stone flowed like water into a new shape. He’d also needed...
2025-04-03 20:49:34 +0000 UTC View PostSen hardened his expression as he landed outside of the makeshift camp that contained the cultivators and mortals he planned to take with him. He found it more difficult to harden his heart when he saw what a miserable state the mortals were in, particularly the children. He had ordered that they...
2025-04-03 04:32:38 +0000 UTC View PostDespite his intentions to leave after the third day, Sen couldn’t bring himself to do it. The prospect of leaving after the scant few hours he’d managed to carve out with Ai was simply more than he could bear. He also knew that his original plans were no longer viable. Before, he could have s...
2025-04-02 04:27:31 +0000 UTC View PostThere was a part of Sen that exulted at seeing the blinding happiness on his daughter’s face as the sky monster swooped through air. The rest and much bigger part of Sen found himself horrified at the speed of the Fenghuang. That was to say nothing of their distance from the ground. He reminded...
2025-04-01 02:29:59 +0000 UTC View PostAs Sen left his office and the building that contained it behind, he was shocked by how utterly tired he felt. It wasn’t physical fatigue. He was pretty sure he hadn’t felt that in any meaningful measure since the last time he almost died. That thought brought him up short. He couldn’t help...
2025-03-29 04:03:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe silence drew out as Sua Xing Xing seemed to weigh what she would tell him. Or, he thought, maybe she’s just trying to decide how to phrase what she’ll tell me. He doubted that she was going to come up with any kind of verbal magic that would succeed in making him less an...
2025-03-28 06:16:02 +0000 UTC View PostSen was happy and a little relieved he could put off what he expected to be an uncomfortable meeting with Sua Xing Xing, at least for a little longer. He’d decided to get some actual sleep for once and been woken by an ecstatic Ai jumping on him in the morning. That had led to breakfast and, th...
2025-03-27 03:08:27 +0000 UTC View PostAlright, alright, alright. Let’s get this training party started, said other-Terry in an accent.
Terry could not, for the life of him, figure out what that accent was supposed to be. It was only when he remembered hearing that alright<...
2025-03-26 22:37:11 +0000 UTC View PostSen stepped back into the galehouse after returning a semi-catatonic Zhi to her amused mother. The girl had been worn out by a combination of excitement, food, and non-stop chattering. He found Falling Leaf sitting in a chair he didn’t recognize with Ai curled up and sound asleep in her lap. He...
2025-03-25 03:30:47 +0000 UTC View Post