《Of mortals and gods》21 - A step in the divine
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Darkness came. The rune was expanding in front of my eyes, until there was a ball of darkness the size of my hand hovering over the bed. I barely managed to remain conscious. I had no mana left, and only one hundred and some HP remaining. As I saw the ball wasn’t intent on moving, I took the time to look at the blue windows.
New skill discovered!
Life conversion is now level 1!
+1,5 END, +1,5 MEN per level.
..
..
Life conversion is now level 4!
+1,5 END, +1,5 MEN.
Mana sense is now level 4!
+1 PER, +1 INT, +1 WIS.
Congratulations! You casted a spell meant for the divine!
New perk acquired : Divine spellcaster.
Divine spellcaster
As one that took a step in the realm of divine magic, mortal magic seems trivial to you.
Reduces standard spell costs, eases learning of new standard spells, eases learning of new manipulation skills, eases creation of standard spells. +30 MEN.
THAT will be useful! I think I understand how good of a gift those spells were.
Congratulations! You created a sentient creature!
New title acquired : Creator.
Creator
You created a sentient existence from nothing. Though imperfect, it’s still a great achievement.
+5% Life affinity, +5% Death affinity. +15 WIS.
Yes, Life affinity! With this, I can avoid Death affinity changing my mind.
Congratulations! You created an elemental!
New perk acquired : Elemental creator.
Elemental creator
You created an elemental, an existence between life and death, born from magic, intent and at least one affinity.
Elemental will be aware of this when meeting you, potentially altering their opinion of you. +5 INT, +5 WIS.
I’m not sure if that’s good. Are they going to like the fact I created an elemental? Or will they try to kill me on sight? Be more specific, damned Will!
Congratulations! You created an undead!
New title acquired : High necromancer.
High necromancer
As one able to create an undead from nothing, you stand at the forefront of necromancy. Your pairs bow to your talent and might.
Any necromancer you meet will be instinctively conscious of your achievement. +10 INT, +10 WIS, +20 MEN, +20 CHA.
Wait, an undead? I thought I created an elemental? Can something be both an elemental and an undead? And I’m a necromancer now? Aren’t there people who hate necromancy? I’m not sure this is a gift, but the stats are pretty cool. And there’s a LOT of it!
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Congratulations! You created an elemental undead!
New perk acquired : Elemental necromancer.
Elemental necromancer
As one able to create an undead from nothing but pure affinity, your pairs recognize the progress you’ve made.
Any necromancer you meet will be instinctively conscious of your achievement. +5 INT, +5 WIS, +10 MEN, +10 CHA.
Ok, that spell was clearly something far too powerful for a novice like me. I already got 20 INT and WIS, 30 CHA, and 60 CHA! And there are so much windows still!
Congratulations! You’re now a level 5 ‘Valkyrie’.
+1 to all stats except Luck.
Choose a skill :
Might of the warrior
Prerequisites : 100 STR.
Mind of the warrior
Prerequisites : 100 INT.
Body of the warrior
Prerequisites : 100 END.
Soul of the warrior
Prerequisites : 100 WIS.
I quickly checked every one, but they were pretty much all the same. They all gave +1 in a stat, and +2 in another every level. Might had DEX and STR, Mind had PER and INT, Body had AGI and END, and Soul had CHA and WIS. It’s strange that Hearth of the warrior already gave me some WIS, it seems redundant. I pondered it for a while, then decided for the Body of the warrior. After all, you can’t level up if you’re dead.
Congratulations! You’re now a level 6 ‘Valkyrie’.
+1 to all stats except Luck.
Congratulations! You’re now a level 7 ‘Valkyrie’.
+1 to all stats except Luck.
Congratulations! You’re now a level 8 ‘Valkyrie’.
+1 to all stats except Luck.
Is this serious? I took four levels, from that spell only? I know I almost died, but still. Wait, maybe I still had some experience from hitting Loki? So only three and some levels? It’s still too much!
Congratulations! You’re now a level 9 ‘Truthseeker’.
+1 STR, +1 END, +1 AGI, +1 DEX, +3 PER, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA, +1 MEN, +0,5 Luck.
… Incredible. Though I only got one level here. Oh, right, Liberator of gods gives me more experience for my Divine classes. That might explain the explosion of levels.
You have created : Lesser pseudo-soul of Darkness.
Do you wish to bind it to a material body?
Well, the choice is already made, I don’t have a body to give it, and it seems the yes is grayed out.
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You have created : Lesser darkness elemental.
Do you wish to name it?
I can’t let a living being go without a name, but I didn’t see anything to help me name it. I don’t even know it’s personality! Can’t I do it later? As if one cue, the window disappeared.
Lesser darkness elemental wants to enter a binding contract with you.
Do you wish to make it you familiar?
Of course I want it! I’m not going to let it alone! I pressed the Yes option in my mind, to see a new window pop up.
As Lesser darkness elemental has not awakened yet, it’s personality isn’t determined. Please think about what you want it to be.
That’s strange. But since there’s no option, I figure I can’t go on without doing it. So, I can think about anything? Like, I could have my own butler, like Alfred…
Input accepted. Pattern identified. Personality being implanted.
Do you wish to name ‘Lesser darkness elemental’ : Alfred?
No, no no no! Stupid Will, I wasn’t done thinking! Come on, you can’t do that… My protest doesn’t seem to change anything, so I agree to the name. After all, it would probably be very disturbing to have been made in the image of someone and not have that name.
Congratulations! You’ve entered a binding agreement with an elemental.
New perk acquired : Elemental familiar.
Elemental familiar
Though they may try to look like some real life creatures, elementals are made of pure magic. As such, they don’t have any blind spot, nor weak points (they can still have elemental weaknesses).
Elemental will be aware of this when meeting you, potentially altering their opinion of you. +5 CHA.
At least I gained some CHA, I think I’ll be in trouble when meeting elementals.
As I was coming to terms with the events, I saw the ball of darkness twitch. It did it again, and again, before slowly moving to take the form of a dark humanoïd shape, barely 50 cm high. Two spots of more intense darkness appeared on the head, in place of eyes. Then the shape bowed.
“Greetings, Mistress Lomero. I wish to thank you for the opportunity to live and serve under you. I’m awaiting my orders.”
The voice was unbelievably deep, but close enough from human range to seem plausible. I looked him into the eyes.
“Hm, A… Alfred, first you don’t need to call me Mistress Lomero. Call me Sarah. Then, I would like to know what you can do.”
I almost asked him what he wanted to do before remembering that he was barely a few minutes old. And I suppose he would have repeated his introductory thanks.
“Sure thing, Mistress Sarah. My powers are limited, but rest assured I will try my utmost to grow them. I don’t have a physical body, but I can force it to become tangible in order to interact with objects. I have a basic knowledge of this world, thought no greater than your own. I can use Darkness and Death magic, to a certain extent. I got a basic martial arts formation from you at creation. And of course, I know how to clean, tidy, cook, and generally maintain a house.”
Of course, you asked for a butler. He can probably distinguish one hundred varieties of tea, or know which fork to use for salad. Well, maybe he can do research.
“If I gave you a computer, could you do research for me?”
“Of course, though I will admit that I prefer books.”
What do you mean you ‘prefer’? You never touched any of those! That damn personality implant.
“Thank you Alfred. Can you tidy up the room, while I do some researches? I will see if I can get you a computer, so you can help me.”
“Yes Mistress. Thank you Mistress.”
He then started to fold the sheets on the bed, distorting his body to do it in a perfect square.
I walked to the computer, before remembering I had to go see Pr Ming-We. What time is it?
“I’m almost late! I need to go, Alfred, please stay here when you’re done.”
“Yes Mistress. When can I expect you to return?”
“I don’t know, around eight. I’ll come get you before we eat.”
“Thank you Mistress. Have fun and be safe.”
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword 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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Dominic Miller lived an average and simple life until he was suddenly reborn as Nathaniel Armis into a strange world. Dominic, now Nathaniel, soon comes to accept his isekai situation and works hard to become strong like any other isekai protagonists. However, he soon comes to learn the harsh reality that blindly climbing upward will only cause one to fall, hard. Meanwhile, an ancient prophecy surrounding Nathaniel's best friend looms in the horizon, along with signs of a massive demon invasion from the south. Not only that, conspiracies haunt the very structure of Camiare. At the same time, Nathaniel must figure out the mystery behind the Ortus Project, the only hint he has about his mysterious rebirth. Enjoy! (comment any ideas or thoughts, I would love to get some feedback!)
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