The Legend of Min Hong Chapter 18
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After the Min Tian duo left, Min Hong wanted to gain deeper understanding of the two techniques, so he went to the bath to soak. It was midnight, and the Qi mist surrounding the cottage was thick. But instead of thinking about both techniques, Min Hong found himself thinking about the mysterious cottage located just in front of the waterfall.
"It's a restricted area and you don't even know if it's dangerous. But grandpa also said I should always seize every available opportunity to increase my strength, and if the environment here could make me unlock my 8 great meridians, who knows how many meridians I might end up unlocking in that cottage."
"Moreover, with great reward comes great risk, and also fortune only favours the bold. I might really end up running mad if that cottage was actually as good as I think it is, and someone else reaped its benefits."
"If I can't even get into a cottage located in an area where my uncles and several elders of our family are, how can I have the courage to search for inheritances in unknown and dangerous locations in the future." Min Hong's mind was in utter chaos, as a battle between the thought of being wise and keeping one's life clashed against being brave and reaping rewards.
"If that place was dangerous, grandpa and the rest won't make this courtyard a spot for seclusion. Moreover, I fail to believe that the elders and uncles would continue their seclusion and let something bad happen to a family member." Min Hong reassured himself as his common sense lost to his curiosity and thirst for power.
As the battle in his mind concluded, Min Hong took a deep breath to calm his racing heartbeat. If anything goes wrong on this hunt, he might not even have enough time for regrets before he loses his poor little life.
Min Hong quietly stepped out of the family head cottage; he didn't want to attract anyone's attention lest his exploration ends before it can even begin. He gradually lost sight of everything around him as he approached the cottage as the thickness of the mist completely obstructed his vision.
Relying solely on his sense of hearing, Min Hong approached the waterfall. He knew he would at least get to the cottage first before he could reach the waterfall. Moreover, his target was the cottage and not the waterfall.
After walking for about a minute, Min Hong felt his foot hit something that seemed to be a log of wood. Bending to feel what it was, he found out that it was a staircase that leads to the front balcony of the cottage. Taking few easy steps, Min Hong arrived at the door and was stupefied at what he saw.
The door was currently slightly opened; peeping through the small aperture, he could only make out a praying mat and many motes of light which seemed to light up the room. After waiting for about 20 breaths to ensure there was no movement or sound within the room, Min Hong slowly and carefully opened the door and stepped in.
He made sure to leave the door opened as it would at least ensure an easy escape route should he be lucky enough to make it to the door. Min Hong could now clearly make out the contents of the entire room since there were many motes of light illuminating it.
Inside this room, there was a praying mat, a bath filled with the stream water and a little stone table at the back of the room.
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Sighing in relief at the absence of danger, Min Hong began to inspect the room; starting with the bath which was filled with pure and glittering stream water, followed by the praying mat which looked extremely ordinary no matter which angle he inspected it from and finally the stone table.
This stone table had some carvings on it that looked like runes which all gathered together to make a sort of formation. Min Hong tried to inspect this formation, only for his eyes to become blurry, followed by a sharp pain that threatened to split his head into two.
Recalling what he had read about formations, Min Hong scooped some stream water from the bath whilst inhaling a deep breath of dense Qi mist.
He approached the stone table again and poured out the stream water on it before exhaling all the Qi mist he had inhaled earlier on the table, but nothing happened. He had read once before that most formations require Qi to activate, whilst others required elemental energies, blood and other unique materials.
Getting no result from his earlier experiment, Min Hong wasn't deterred; instead he bit his tongue and spat a mouthful of blood on the formation.
This time around there was a reaction, Min Hong's blood split into two directions and traced the lines on the formation starting from the middle whilst spreading outward. When the two blood lines met at the edge of the formation, a rumbling sound rang out, before a glowing stone slab was ejected like a drawer.
On this stone slab was a deep palm print which looked more like a slot where one should place his palm. Min Hong was finally getting scared as this cottage was getting creepier by the minute, but that still didn't stop him from placing his hands in the palm slot.
The first thing he felt, was a soothing energy that washed through his entire body, making him feel safe and extremely relaxed. This energy then made its way to his head, soothing his frightened mind as he gradually lost his guard.
Immediately that happened, a rapid and strong suction force erupted from the stone slab, as Min Hong lost control of his body before it was sucked into the stone slab. He felt a splitting pain all over his body, the pain was so great that it approached Min Hong's endurance limit in a flash; and two breaths later, he fainted.
After a long time, which felt like an hour, Min Hong finally opened his eyes and was shocked to find out that he was within a passageway filled with extremely dense Qi mist and this passageway was lit by many motes of light.
Inspecting his surroundings, he found out that he was currently standing in the middle of a circular formation which was very similar to the one on the stone table within the cottage.
A narrow path that led to an unknown location was currently ahead of him, but at this point; Min Hong only wanted to return to the courtyard. He was now completely terrified of this place and was already cursing himself for not following his earlier thought of being safe.
He even tried spitting a mouthful of blood on the formation, but he was bound to be disappointed as nothing happened. His face sunk as he cursed himself once again.
"Since I can't return, I guess I can only proceed forward and pray there is an exit formation ahead." He consoled himself while his face turned solemn, before executing the "chaotic shadow steps". He thought that since he didn't know what was up ahead, it would be foolish for him to walk in a straight line and make himself an easy target for any sneak attack.
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After walking for about ten breaths, he could vaguely hear the sound of flowing waters echo out from around the corner. On getting to the source of the sound, Min Hong saw a wide area with a large pit that was at least fifty meters wide at the center. Glittering water continuously poured out of the pit before streaming towards the deeper part of this place.
There was a stone door by his right which seemed to be the entrance to a cave room. Asides that, he noticed all the Qi mists in this area was being generated by the water in this huge pit. Furthermore, these mists and motes of light seem to be seeping into the room covered with a stone door.
Seeing that there was nothing else worth noting, He approached the stone door. After praying to all the gods and ancestors he knew about, seeking protection from them, Min Hong finally rolled away the stone door. Instantly, a wave of potent Qi gushed towards him, but this time he did not dare to lose his guard again.
He entered the room and noticed that there was a fairly large formation on one side of the room. This formation was about ten feet wide, and all the Qi mist in the surrounding was gathering towards it before condensing underneath to form a pool full of Qi. This Qi in this pool was so dense it had turned liquid, and a simple white futon was gently floating atop the formation.
On the other side of the room was a tiny formation of about a foot wide which was currently gathering all the motes of light in the room, and they seem to be fusing with a slightly bigger ball of light which was gently hovering above the formation.
Although he knew this place was dangerous, Min Hong still couldn't help but approach the formation out of sheer curiosity. He knelt by the formation to get a perfect view of this ball of light and was mystified by what he saw.
Within the formation, the motes of light will first rotate around this ball of light like a planet revolving around the sun, before they are absorbed by the ball of light. Furthermore, the ball of light seemed to grow a bit brighter each time a mote of light was absorbed.
Min Hong was instantly mystified by this sight as he stared at the ball of light with heated gaze. As if it sensed Min Hong's fanatical gaze, the ball of light instantly shot into the spot between Min Hong's brows before he could even snap out of his stupor.
Min Hong's eyes instantly went dark due to the sharp pain that suddenly erupted from the point of entry of the ball of light, before it spread into his mind along with flashes of unknown information. This information seemed to be sealed within ball of light, and the only thing Min Hong could make-out from the occasional flashes of information, was a set of words that read;
>
The flashes continued for about five minutes before it gradually came to a stop along with the pain. Min Hong was currently covered in sweat as the pain he felt was utterly overbearing.
Just as he sat down to rest a bit, all the remaining motes of light suddenly darted towards him, seeking to bore through the same point of entry as the ball of light.
Min Hong was momentarily startled; he then took several erratic steps backwards, whist trying to dodge these lights in the process, but one of them managed to slip past his defenses and shot through his forehead.
The shocking thing was that; the pain Min Hong anticipated didn't appear, instead he felt a warm energy spread through his mind, furtherly soothing the extreme pain it just suffered.
Next, he felt his thinking speed increase significantly and when saw that the situation at the stone table didn't repeat itself, he finally stopped resisting and allowed the rest motes of light flood into his head in an unrestrained manner.
This process went on for about ten minutes, before Min Hong heard a loud "bang" in his head. It was like something just broke apart in his mind, then he suddenly felt his mental capacity begin to swell at an extremely rapid rate whilst lots of mental energy were simultaneously flooding into his mind.
Immediately, his reaction speed increased to a brand-new level. All his fears were suppressed and he felt extremely calm and collected. Also, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, and he could clearly sense all that was happening around him within a hundred meter radius.
"It seems I am currently within the Min Family mountain, the source of the waterfall to be precise." His senses were extremely sharp as his surroundings was laid bare before him, and he could even see the exit point of the streaming water.
"Since my mental energy just increased to another level, I should seize this opportunity to learn more about this so-called "Primordial Chaos Treasure". Min Hong thought to himself as he immediately sat cross-legged and closed his eyes, trying to pry out a little information from the ball of light
"The Eye of Myriad Universe. That sounds really cool." Min Hong was impressed by the name of the treasure, before he continued to pry out more information.
After about one percent of the information stored in the ball of light was pried out, Min Hong suddenly felt his mental energy being sucked towards the ball of light. He immediately ceased his prying as his mental energy ceased to deplete.
Min Hong's scalp tingled at the thought of having his mental energy, which he had gone through so much trouble to obtain get sucked away by this somewhat greedy ball of light. He then turned his attention to the little information he had just pried out of the light ball.
"The Eye of Myriad Universe… Possesses heaven defying properties as well as its own unique dimension?!" "let's see if we can find anything the current me can use in there." Min Hong thought to himself, before he eagerly shut his eyes.
According to what he read about the "Eye of Myriad Universe", he only needed to focus on the spot between his brows to find the mysterious ball of light, and then touch it with his mental energy, then he would be able to enter this unique dimension.
Min Hong then settled his anxious mind, before he focused on a spot on his forehead.
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Nine Star Hegemon Body Arts
Is he the reincarnation of the Pill Emperor? Or is he a fusion of spirits? A youth whose Spirit Root, Spirit Blood, and Spirit Bone were all stolen- Long Chen must rely on his memories of godlike methods to refine pills, as he begins training in the mysterious cultivation technique Nine Star Hegemon Body Arts. Part the misleading fog, solve the mystery, and shock the heavens. His hands hold Heaven and Earth, he steps through the cosmos, meets all kinds of beautiful women, and suppresses devils, demons, and gods. Legend has it: when Long Chen arrives, the lands roars and heaven screams, ghosts sob and gods weep.
8 313Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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On Y/N's wedding day, her fiancé's stepmother sent her to a new world, atleast for her, where she meets a man, Draco.All Y/N wanted was true love, she didn't know she was in for a long ride, but she knew, after everything, she'll have a happily ever after, forever and ever.~I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER, ENCHANTED, DISNEY OR YOU. I do not deserve the credit, so credits to JK. Rowling, Walt Disney and you 💜Published: February 25, 2020Finished: May 20, 2020
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