《The Great Ancestor》Yes! I am Lan!
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He saw two genuine old men walking inside. Genuine is the key word. The long white robe fluttering without wind, which along with same color hairs and strong gait can surely certify them as ' old men who did something great in their life.'
Such men were followed by crowd of young people and few ladies. By hubbub in teenage crowd anyone can guess they were expecting some show now.
When one of the old man, one with bushy eyebrows stopped his strong gait and observed Lan sitting in Main seat with mess of empty plates around everywhere, saw still the unconcerned expression on Lan's face. He snapped,
"Whoever you are? Kneel and beg for mercy now for this atrocity and you will be forgiven or else even god cannot save you from me."
By the look on other old man, he was also eager to add something. Lan observed the angry old man with droopy eyes and picked up a bone and start slowly chewing it. The expression on his face was clearly asking for beating. Situ Rin the new gang member was muttering something incomprehensible. She was totally neglected. The young crowd started cheering for Bushy brow old man by adding few lines about how to beg and all.
Bushy brow was sure that his threat will work as he did not sense any cultivation from opposite party. And when he spoke, he made sure to add spiritual pressure, before his 5th level Martial General cultivation mortal human would surely be compelled to beg. But the skinny old man was still leisurely chewing on bones with arrogant expression, he quickly guessed something amiss.
He was family head after all. He changed his approached and calmed the young crowd with silent glare,
"Why are you here? No matter how weak our family is now, we will not be pushed around by anyone."
He made sure to include everyone.
Young crowd now understood they were before someone of very high cultivation and quickly quiet down. Some who spoke earlier were trying to hide behind others.
Lan was little happy. He already knew that even silence of powerful people can terrorize weak ones. Still he commended the quick wits of old guy.
From Situ Rin's mutters he managed to decipher that the Bushy brow one is current family head named Situ Xi and other one is Situ Pao his brother.
He observed people among young crowd by slightly tilting his head, one in particular caught his attention who was standing in front of everyone, 'must be pushed to front by one trying to hide' he thought.
'But the gloomy face surely reflects some hardship.'
He also noticed one wobbling in crowd.
He came back to Bushy brow – Situ Xi,
"If it was any other time I would have slapped you till you become silly, call that Lady Stealer Fang in 10 seconds, can't recognize your own ancestor, Kid's nowadays."
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He sighed. Last line was clearly said in mutter but was enough to reach everyone's ear. It was purely added by Lan to satisfy his desire to flaunt his age around.
Suddenly crowd was quite as … as fuck. They were too quite.
Everybody was looking at Lan like he is some mysterious creature.
Situ Xi suddenly recalled old painting of Great Ancestor Lan.
'This old man looked similar to Ancestor Lan. Yes that crooked nose…he is the Ancestor Lan.'
It was as if he was shot with 1 Liter chicken blood. He started crying his eyes out,
'Now my days of worry will be over, I don't have to carry shame of being the one to lead his family to extinction.'
He came forward and bowed so deeply that his head was touching ground. He shouted while crying,
" Great Ancestor Lan, forgive this junior, Junior is old and senile doesn't have good memory. Forgive me..Forgive me..*sobs*"
He cannot say that he has never seen Ancestor Lan personally, as Ancestor was always cultivating even since he remembers. When he became Family Head, he was shown painting of Ancestors of family. That was all he saw of the ancestor.
All the crowd now got confirmation and turned boisterous, they also joined with Family head.
"Forgive US Great Ancestor! Forgive Us!"
Lan was satisfied with them.
'This is it, This is how elders should be respected.'
He swept glance across masses, he noticed somebody was bowing too deeply…He carefully observed..
'Fuck.. That one was sleeping. Never mind, as a great ancestor, I will forgive you.'
Caretaker Rin was also basking in worship as she was standing near ancestor and did not catch the bowing train. And to bow now, will be very awkward. And as she was under ancestor's wing she doesn't need to bow.
'Yes, that's it. I should not; it will be bad for ancestor's image if his teammates start bowing.'
She convinced herself. She noticed ancestor's signaling her towards somewhere. Then she saw the sleeping Situ Kulu.
She was furious' Sleeping here in front of Ancestor? What a gall?' and marched to wake him up.
Lan nodded satisfactorily seeing that guy wake up and scrambling to bow. He then continued with dignified voice,
"No need to do all this. I know you guys must have never got chance to see me. I forgive you. Now hurry up and call that Fang."
Situ Xi stood up and signaled other old man- Situ Pao. Situ Pao forgot his strong gait and ran like small kid towards the entrance. Situ Xi smiled,
"Great Ancestor, Ancestor Fang is in secluded cultivation, other juniors will not be able to invite him, Pao Pao will bring him here as soon as possible."
Lan smiled showing he has no problem with it, He asked to pass time,
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"So, tell me why you looked to be in dire state? Other than both of you kids, no one has high strength. I noticed this place looks like thoroughly cleaned out of any valuables. What is happening here?"
Lan has noticed nothing, it was all based on gossip by Rin. 'If they are financially tight, they must sell something from here, right?"
Situ Xi was awed that Great Ancestor figured out his condition with just a look, nobody will be able to find out these things so easily. He respectfully explained,
"Great Ancestor, after false rumor of your demise was spread by our enemy, Hai clan, and as you would not bother to clarify those lowly rumors, as it would have hindered your cultivation. Rumor was accepted as truth. Other clans especially Song's followed Hai clan's lead to pressure us to leave the tributaries of river. Our income drastically dropped as we are totally depended on the naval trade. Then Hai Clan's Ancestor Hai Delu broke through to Martial King Rank, it was like mountain crashed on us, our other business and shops in Blackcloud city were forced to close, we would have been kicked out of city if not for Ancestor Fang and me to threaten them with fight to death. Now that you have come out of seclusion, everything will be good as old days. Everything will be good as long as you are here."
Lan was happy with wits of Situ Xi, he did not even mentioned about Lan's death. Lan was sleeping in coffin,
' Don't tell me people here do cultivation in coffin? This guy is good with words. No wonder he managed to hold out for three years without any support.'
"No worries, Your Ancestor is here now. Just stand by and enjoy the show."
But he was thinking something else,
'These guys where ganged up by everyone, they did not have a single friendly clan. They must have been bullies when they were in power, no wonder nobody tried to help them when they were down. And this Situ Xi wants to go back to old days, days of bullying others. Like hell!' Still he confirmed his guess with Caretaker Rin, who explained in whispers,
"Our clan was so respected that people used to come every month just to pay us money and nobody used to charge us anything when we buy things. It was so good."
That was good way to explain extortion. Lan sighed, thing he hates most is forcing other because they are weak. Weak is keyword. He is familiar with the feeling of being bullied and extorted from his last life. From the looks the people gave him when he forced them to do his work or took their money, he knows all their pain. But he only forced who thought they were strong and liked to flaunt. Now he is in team with people who are bullies, he doesn't know what to do. He need time to think.
Situ Xi saw Great ancestor lost in thoughts he worriedly explained,
"Great Ancestor, Ancestor Fang will be here shortly, his place of seclusion is at some distance away from Family grounds. That's why it is taking some time."
Lan shook his head, as Great Ancestor, 'Now I think about it, waiting for other is big NO for me, plus I needs to think something to rehabilitate the bullies',
"No need, gather everyone from family after a week, by everyone I mean every single person in family. If I found anyone not attending they don't need to call themselves Situ anymore."
With that Lan flicked his sleeves and started going out of the building. Caretaker Rin hurriedly followed him.
Situ Xi was worried about facing Ancestor Lan's wrath. He furiously shouted,
"Send message to all members of family, Report here in 3 days. Use Gray hawks to send message to the ones in Tian Academy and Reku Academy, and Long Roar Academy. All should gather here in 3 days. Butler Yan use reserve funds to make arrangement, I WANT THIS DONE!"
He also flicked his robe and started going out. Then he stopped, 'Ancestor must be still outside, better to go out after some time, I don't want to face him now.'
As Situ Xi thought, Lan was standing outside, in flow of act he came out of the Main Hall but he don't know where to go.
'I cannot go back to coffin, they must have some place for me right? I was here since 3rd Generation; I must have an area under me, right?'
He glanced hopefully back at his new gang member who quickly got clue,
"Ancestor Lan, let me take to your Gray Courtyard. It has been untouched since you left. I always clean it even though nobody told me, I kept it clean to show you proper respect."
By now Lan understood all about this gossipy girl, who loves to promote herself at every opportunity. Still she is all he got for now,
"Good. Lead the way kid. Tomorrow, I give you something awesome as reward."
Caretaker Rin joyfully guided him, on the way she also explained about lot of famous clothes, jewelries and other female products currently in trend in detail, in a worry that Ancestor must not give wrong gift due to generation gap.
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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.
8 153Knights, Nobles, and Cannibals
Empires wage all out warfare for control of powerful crystals. Twelve unique shards capable of becoming battery banks for different special powers designated by colors, with alchemy infusions adding even more. The faction that mines, barters, or conquers the most rocks will dominate the planet of Tenare!
8 189Eclipse Online
Its the year 2050 and gaming industry has reached the level of developing VR system that supports full dive. It brought a wave of new games, but none stood above the greatest of them all, Eclipse Online. A world where everything and anything is possible to gain one of the five kings titles, so how will you rise above all? This story will be a side project and will not be my primary focus, so updates will happen when I feel I have reached a mental block and need something else to clear it. I don't own cover art
8 126A Fate Set in Stone (On Hold)
After dying and making his way into the afterlife, our protagonist happens to have a stroke of good luck. With the help of the substitute god of death, he's given a second shot at life in a world run by gods who probably played too many video games as kids. Monsters, magic, dungeons, bandits, and all that good stuff is there, except it turns out to be much different than Jed initially expected.(I picked some generic tags since this is my first story and I am not 100% sure where it is going to go. Mature warning is only there for some less-than-polite language.)
8 108Wanting in Paradise
Mia was a somewhat weird child living in her remote beastmen village with her family. Until one day the human nation invaded on their way to defeat the Demon king. Her village pillaged and herself thrust into slavery she longs for the day she can return to her own little slice of paradise. How will she reclaim what was wrongfully taken from her? Is it even possible? With the odds stacked against her she will certainly try her best, but she might need a few second chances.
8 125IGCSE BIOLOGY
- Chapter by chapter of IGCSE Biology syllabus - Disclaimer: I AM A STUDENT. I cannot guarantee that everything written is accurate.
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