She’d done it—she’d taken Ruyi’s hand! She’d been brave and done it and she was so proud of herself.
As she led Ruyi along, princess Song dearly hoped she was doing a good job hiding her nervousness. Every night in her diary she wrote a snippet about Ruyi. Some nights she wrote mortifying things, things she blushed at and crumple...
2023-08-06 16:35:40 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: Think I will start scheduling uploads at 12:30PM EST
//
She looked like any other peasant girl. Tattered tunic, trousers ratty but sewn neatly, with care. Rather plain-looking, Ruyi thought.
“Ah,” said Jin. “Mei—I… didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Ren,” she said again, looking shatte...
2023-08-05 16:10:52 +0000 UTC View PostSoon Gao let her start work on her own research.
Most of it was purely observational. For instance, Alchemists from the western Frostbite Peaks province had isolated an extract of frost dragon saliva. It was her job to stare at its energy patterns for hours and hours, for so long she started seeing its shape in random places, like in cloud...
2023-08-04 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostAt first Ruyi thought she’d hallucinated it.
Until she turned, and her last coherent thought vanished from her head.
“Who are you?” She croaked.
But in truth she didn’t need to ask who this was—she knew. Just look at her! This was what folk thought of when they thought of a princess. This small angel...
2023-08-03 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostYou knew when you entered the Emperor’s territory when you saw the flowers. Orchids, peonies, plum blossoms and lilies dotted hill after hill. The road to the palace was lined with the Emperor’s favorite: Cherry blossom trees. They were planted so their branches embraced, making a natural pink canopy.
It was autumn and the trees were s...
2023-08-02 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“We can’t have you going to the Banquet looking like this,” said Mother. “I won’t allow it.”
“What? Why?” Ruyi did a little turn before the full-length mirror. She had on a blue dress which had no tears or stains as far as she could tell. “It looks fine to me. Even Father says so.”
“Oh, honey...” By the way Mo...
2023-08-01 19:16:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi took a written test and a practical test, and she was told she’d be mailed her results in a week.
In that time, a stranger came to visit.
It was Ruyi who answered the door. “Can I help you?”
“Rue?” whispered the stranger, removing her cap. “Is that you?”
The stranger’s eyes were almond-shaped, just li...
2023-07-31 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi knew in a vague way that Jin meant a lot to people. But he was always just Jin to her. They grew up together. It was hard to idolize someone when you’ve seen them wet themselves.
So she wasn’t prepared for the warzone she walked into.
A huddle of guards shepherded her to the arena, pressed so tight to either side it was like...
2023-07-30 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostOstium, Demon Lands
At the heart of the Demon Lord’s Palace there was a garden. Cherry blossom trees lined its pebbled paths. It was late spring and the trees were in full bloom, a festival of pink under a clear blue sky. The Lord stood there in perfect silence, watching a single blossom sag, droop, and at last break fro...
2023-07-29 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostFather was true to his word.
A week later he brought the other four volumes of the Principles of Alchemy. By the time he returned, she’d long since finished them. He picked up a volume, flipped to a random page, and quizzed her on it—on Demon cores and their uses. She recited the page verbatim.
She had seen that soft hap...
2023-07-28 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi remembered when she first realized there was something wrong with her.
There were signs, early on. Every weekend the Yang household welcomed a parade of serious-looking people with big instruments and bigger coats. They would tell her to open her mouth, or press these painful cups on her back, or draw her blood. Most of these people s...
2023-07-27 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: I know I said two weeks but I'm impatient
This will be a slower burn compared to Speedrun; more serious tone too
//
Where the mighty White River met Jade Dragon City, it split into two streams. One stream hugged the city walls to the east, the other to the west.
The eastern stream basked in the sun f...
2023-07-26 21:02:45 +0000 UTC View PostA/N:
you lot have successfully cyberbullied me into adding some more stuff >.>
//
2 years later, Dorian’s Estate, Zenith Realm
The restored Zenith realm floated above all others on an expanse of endless cottonball clouds. Two suns bathed the realm in eternal joyous shine; a handfu...
2023-07-25 02:28:38 +0000 UTC View PostEDIT:
OK I HAVE EXTENDED IT-- POSTED
2023-07-25 00:17:46 +0000 UTC View PostEXTENDED VERSION OF THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN POSTED
//
2 years later, Dorian’s Estate, Zenith Realm
The restored Zenith realm floated above all others on an expanse of endless cottonball clouds. Two suns bathed the realm in eternal joyous shine; a handful of phoenixes drif...
2023-07-24 23:50:33 +0000 UTC View PostDeciding between a few ideas, but 80% sure this will be the one. More character-focused, slower paced series. Mix of trad fantasy and xianxia—setting will be largely trad fantasy inspired, with a lot of Xianxia in the magic system.
Title: The Unknown Arts
Temporary Synopsis:
Prophecy tells of...
2023-07-24 22:56:32 +0000 UTC View PostDorian could not stop smiling as he downed his healing elixirs. Houyi, you sly bastard!
For nearly four hours he sat there, letting his bones set back in place, his muscles bind together, skin and scale stitch until they were one unbroken hide.
Then he felt the call.
A sparkling of Dao—a tremor in his Black Hole. A s...
2023-07-24 03:26:32 +0000 UTC View PostDorian barely had time to wrap Sun behind his wings when the blast struck.
It rammed him into a wall and sent him sliding to the floor in a smoking heap, huge swathes of skin burnt off.
“It’s over,” said Jez. “Listen.”
Silence reigned in the chamber. In the battlefield outside. Hours ago it’d been so loud he could h...
2023-07-22 19:33:59 +0000 UTC View Post“Go in the Chamber and stay there,” breathed Dorian.
“Why?” said Sun.
“So you don’t get whiplash or worse. With how fast I’ll be moving, and how much collateral damage this’ll cause, cloaking will be fairly pointless! Don’t worry, you won’t be in there long.”
Sun looked like she had a lot more questions, b...
2023-07-22 05:10:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe fourth floor was corridors leading corridors to corridors leading to corridors. Each corridors had doors upon doors upon doors. The floor, walls, ceiling were all made of this luminescent marble that looked the same everywhere. It was as though the whole thing were designed to make intruders like them hopelessly lost.
Dorian was pretty...
2023-07-21 04:28:47 +0000 UTC View PostWith the Blessing of Hecate, Sun’s cloaking had reached surreal levels; as they weaved between the crowds of soldiers, rushing blindly forth, eyes fixed ahead, not registering them in the slightest, it felt like they were but ghosts observing the real world. They had no maps, no real plan, even. All they knew of the tower was that it had floor...
2023-07-20 05:53:51 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone! I’m both excited and nervous to announce that Speedrunning the Multiverse Book 1 comes out today on Kindle Unlimited and Audible! It’s...
2023-07-19 13:54:46 +0000 UTC View PostBefore the Battle…
“Hey, you’re still alive!” beamed Sun as Dorian pattered up beside her. “Good job!”
“Why, thank you.”
“Would you like a carrot?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, good,” said Sun, relieved. She popped it into her mouth, let her eyes flutter shut, and started hap...
2023-07-19 03:41:52 +0000 UTC View PostIt was wrong to take pleasure in the suffering of others. Even that of his enemies.
Jez knew this. And yet right and wrong were concepts which only existed in his new reality. A reality which had not yet come to pass.
And so he allowed himself this indulgence. He smiled as he prowled the corridors of the Labyrinth...
2023-07-18 05:46:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe village was abandoned. No smoke left the chimneys. No trails marred the grounds; wild grasses ran free, and ivy had claimed the cobblestone houses for their own. It seemed fitting somehow.
He found his body at its center, slumped in a crater. It looked exactly as the statue had, except its eyes were closed and its mouth drawn in a tigh...
2023-07-17 04:58:29 +0000 UTC View PostThe Rainsong Canopies was a realm smothered in giant trees with leaves the size of lily pads. It rained constantly there, and the raindrops drummed out lively melodies against those great leaves day and night. It was humid year-round. Most folk here had at least one set of gills. Even the land-dwellers were amphibians, sporting mottled breathabl...
2023-07-16 03:14:51 +0000 UTC View PostOrynthia
Middle Realms
In Orynthia, everything floated. Gravity was not so much a law here as a helpful suggestion, often ignored. Most buildings were situated on floating islands; cities were merely islands clustered together, making a sort of giant dirt clump mid-air, linked by chains and bridges. ...
2023-07-15 02:43:17 +0000 UTC View Post“Huh. You’re not supposed to be here,” said Dorian. “It’s only been six hours! Last time it took that other mutant, what, a day and a half?”
Unsurprisingly, the chimera was not interested in what Dorian thought of its timing. It just attacked.
[Blessing of Hermes!]
He was there—but blink, and he was not. Where Dor...
2023-07-14 03:46:51 +0000 UTC View PostThis was not a smart idea.
It was the curse of monstrously powerful creatures the Multiverse over—their bodies failed them before their force did. So it was the case here.
Dorian blinked at the meat paste that had once been his hand. Fourth Form Torchdragons were as durable as you could get in the Multiverse—the greatest shields ...
2023-07-13 04:42:28 +0000 UTC View PostEden — Upper Realms
There was a saying of Eden: a seed planted at midnight flowers at dawn.
In the Multiverse’s early aughts, Eden’s soils were sampled and carted off to other realms for analysis. Everyone wanted whatever secret ingredient made Eden’s crops grow so much bigger, its flowers so much brighter, i...
2023-07-12 05:15:46 +0000 UTC View Post