《A Curious Bird》4. Surprise
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A mouse scurries around the ground searching for food and then it was pin to the ground. It looks up only see two pairs of eyes that it couldn't look away from and then found itself relax, uncaring, and unaware of its surroundings and the danger in front of it.
Aariv couldn't but sigh. This was the 30th mice he caught and use hypnosis on and it didn't level up from Lv. 5. He did level up three more times which was good. "Maybe I'm doing this wrong." He mutter. "Maybe I should hypnosis a mice and then unhypnosis them and repeat. Question is, how do I unhypnosis someone?" Aariv look at the mice and said, "You are not hypnosis anymore."
The mice seem to snap out of its trance, but it hard to tell for Aariv so he stops pinning it to the ground and the mice ran off.
[Hypnosis] - Lv. 5 ---> [Hypnosis] - Lv. 6
"Huh," Aariv said. "That work." He then shook his head. "That's still gonna take a long time. Most definitely because of the fact that the mice are low level and can be hypnosis easily." Something then caught his eye.
Crawling out of a cave was a feline which was the size of a person its claws were the size of a person's hands and its fur had electricity coursing through it. Aariv uses [Appraisal] on it.
[Thunder Cat] - Lv. 10 - A species of big cat that is able to use lighting magic to shock its prey. They are fast and couple with their senses, they make a dangerous predator.
Stats:
[Strength]: 156
[Endurance]: 89
[Wisdom]: 123
[Agility]: 286
[SP]: 98
[Mana]: 154
"Eh," Aariv said, shocked. He then hears something hiss and turns to the noise. He turns to the noise and almost didn't saw it. A snake curling around a branch with chameleon features and was blending with the branch.
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[Chameleon Python] - 12 - A species of python that develops chameleon features and is able to camouflage itself. It possesses great strength that it use to crush its prey.
Stats:
[Strength]: 225
[Endurance]: 123
[Wisdom]: 134
[Agility]: 189
[SP]: 108
[Mana]: 187
"Eh." Aariv then began to see monsters crawling out of caves, dens, and tree hollows. Aariv cast [Appraisal] on all of them and all of them were stronger than he could imagine.
[Troll] - 10 - A species of huge humanoids monsters that are able to wield primitive weapons. They also have some regenerative properties.
[Strength]: 286
[Endurance]: 213
[Wisdom]: 87
[Agility]: 98
[SP]: 198
[Mana]: 87
"Fuck." Aariv curse as he flew toward his home, which was a tree hollow mark with an x, and hid in there. "Why the hell are there so many strong monsters here!" He said as he peeks out of his tree hollow. You could say that Aariv can wait till night time before going out, but he would be tired and he's not tired enough to sleep till night.
"Guess I should look for mice or horned rabbits to kill." Aariv mutter. Then an idea pops up in his head. "Wait I don't have to kill those monsters for gains like level-ups, I could try and use [Hynposis] to try and level it up!" He said. "But that still would be hard to do since [Hynposis] take time to activate. I should try to get more skills then."
"From what I can remember magic can be done by imagining something and focus mana onto one place from what I can remember...."
He then pauses. "So if I focus mana onto one spot and imagine ice...." Aariv closes his eyes as he concentrates imagining ice and draw mana into one spot. Why ice? Well, it's because he could use to freeze his enemies in place which allow him to use [Hypnosis] more easily. After a moment he opens his eyes, sweat running his feathers. "It's harder than I expected." He said. However, Aariv wasn't going to give up and try again. He imagines ice and tries to draw mana into one place. As he was doing it, he forms the ice into a ball, and then he felt cold air.
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[Novice Ice Magic Mastery] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
[Ice Manipulation] - Lv. 1 Acquired.
Aariv opens his eyes and saw a ball of ice floating in front of him. He drops the ball of ice and smile.
"Success."
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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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At its core, magic is just the ability to change the laws of nature. Mason Grant's life was going just as he'd always planned. Then a knock at the door changed everything. Normally, he would have considered Professor Anklin's tale of a civilization destroyed because it had learned how to manipulate the laws of nature crazy. Of course, that was before he saw his couch resting on the ceiling. Travelling to Myscreth with the Professor, Mason discovers a world of contradictions. On a ruined world, the Myscrethian people live much like the early American settlers, yet thanks to the ability to manipulate the laws of nature there’s unlimited electricity and powered flight. As Mason begins learning to control abilities he never dreamed possible, he discovers that not all is as it seems. Even as the Myscrethian people try to rebuild their world, there are those who seek to once again unleash the power which led to its destruction. And this time it's not only Myscreth's fate that hangs in the balance, but Earth's as well. Author's Note: This novel is now complete.
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Two years ago, a meteor fell and decimated the southeastern lands of Gaia, turning them into wastelands constantly shrouded in white fog. None of those who saw the blazing calamity with their own eyes lived to tell the tale, and those who attempted to venture in never came back. Since then, towers, caverns, and ruins have appeared and disappeared without a pattern. Those who were brave enough to venture in were rewarded with a partner capable of defying the natural laws as humanity knows it. People started to call them ‘Incarnation’, and before long, more and more Incarnation were gathered and sold as commodity, especially after a billionaire has sponsored a fighting tournament offering cash prizes to those possessing the strongest Incarnation, spurring the greedy and desperate to hunt for the fabled creatures at the cost of their lives. Claire Saphira wanted none of that. She simply wished for a life where she could live without worry of her own survival. As she ran from the debt collectors for the umpteenth time, she was swallowed by an errant tower, where she saw a frail, pale-skinned girl with ashen hair hung by chains. It was a chance, a chance to participate in the tournament and live without worrying about survival. Yet, something nagged in the back of her mind. Why did she look so familiar? Planned release schedule: One chapter every day for Mon-Fri, and a break on Sat-Sun. The release will slow down at some point, but most likely won't go under 3 chapters a week.
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Bunny is a security officer in Puerto Limón, but when he start his work, as every day, he find a child in a place where there should be no people in the port. The child was locked in a bus, his first instinct is to run to rescue him. After rescuing him, he realizes that he accidentally entered The Unknown Dimension. With what he end up rediscovering the world around him, which is full of magic and unimaginable dangers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the English version of Dimensión Desconocida.
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