Hello.

As you may have noticed, there haven't been any chapters in a while. The short answer is that I was unsatisfied with the story after numerous complaints and issues were brought up. Because of that, I have began rewriting it here (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38704/ortus). Many things are different, such the protagonist actually having character and no longer being a dumbass. I'd appreciate it if you go on to read the story there instead of just dropping it.

Now, the explanation for why I'm doing this.

The story began as an idea I had not that long ago. I had just finished reading Delve, unsurprisingly, and as a result, wanted more. As it so happened, this was a day or two before the anniversary writing challenge launched. When that announcement came, I decided to try writing something similar to Delve, in the sense it's a litRPG but the character is strong because they are mathematically literate rather than because of anything else.

Naturally, that means the story was unplanned. I was writing as I went along, and this lead to numerous issues.

Number one, the protagonist lacks a character. Her agency was something I struggled with; it began as wanting to survive but, after that, what next? She didn't have a defined character and so lacked goals, wants, and ambitions. Additionally, this also meant she lacked a personality. Even the claim that 'she's methodical, smart, and analytical' fell flat with silly decisions.

So, with the rewrite, she actually has a strong personality and is very different from before. This should fix the majority of issues people have had, as decisions will be based not on where I want the story to go but, rather, what would the character do, since she now has a personality that can make decisions.

This means that she will no longer prioritise min-maxing before basic survival. She will also not be completely trusting and submissive. She should both be written more logically and coherently in addition to just being more fun to read.

Number two, this story exploded in popularity. I had 101 followers when the last chapter was posted. As I'm writing this, I have nearly 1000. That's an explosive amount of growth, as shown by this chart:

Whereas, before, I'd get a comment every few days, I was getting comments every few hours, and a lot of them were (rightly) pointing out issues with the story, beyond basic grammatical and spelling errors. Naturally, this began to wear on me as each new comment was essentially saying why what I had written was bad. It was overwhelming.

And they were right; it was bad in critical places. So, I'm trying to make it less bad by writing the story all over again but better and actually planned out this time.

Thirdly, the actual reason why there hasn't been any chapters. At the start, with the initial explosion, the comments got me down and I struggled to muster the motivation to write. After the comments continued to pour in, that was when I decided to just write everything again but better. So, I'd naturally not write a new chapter when I know I'm starting all over again anyway. That, and actually planning the story takes time.

The strengths of this story--whatever they are--should remain. So, if you like this story regardless of the faults, you would like the rewrite as it's the same but better.

If you were disappointed by this story--which is understandable as I am also disappointed with it--hopefully, you'll check out the rewritten version to see if it fixes any problems you had.

As such, I offer my apologies for writing a hastily-written story with a bunch of flaws and then not doing anything for two weeks.

I'd appreciate you going on over to check out the rewritten version as well as rating it. Starting anew is crippling for a story but I cannot continue writing when there are such blatant problems that need to be addressed.