《Hybrids》Visiting Hours
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Rez would unfortunately be bedridden for a while, a fact which greatly displeased him. He wasn't sure what to do with himself whilst he was stuck in a medical bed in a quiet room. Of course he had the television, although it would often be interrupted by Theodore's propaganda.
It would spout some patriotic speech about protecting your homes from the 'terrorist' threat that Ironclad posed while showing footage of Officers marching in ways that paint them as heroic and strong.
Of course what the footage doesn't show is Officers brutally executing people speaking out against Theodore.
Rez recalled a time where he overheard an Ironclad soldier talking about his experience in one of Theodore's so called integration facilities.
He was unlucky on a mission, half of his team was killed in an explosion and the rest, including him, were taken hostage.
They were there for months, forced to take part in an Officer assembly line under heavy surveillance.
Abysmal conditions and horrid treatment were one thing, but if an Officer malfunctioned during its test, it would mean a very unpleasant death.
It convinced them all not to even try and sabotage them.
Rez had stopped listening at that point as it reminded him of his own time at the strange laboratories underneath the surface of Venus, but he was pretty sure he heard that the soldier's friend was practically quartered by four Officers as an example of failure.
Rez shuddered at the though and exhaled as he looked down at his arm, still in a cast and kept close to his chest. It was healing much faster than anticipated, but not fast enough for Rez. He was eager to get back out there and continue his training. Although he wasn't even sure if Jacks would accept that. She hadn't visited since the incident.
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Now that was something that made him worry, if Jacks was so angry that she couldn't even visit him weeks after, then his life expectancy just halved about ten times.
But the sliding sound of the medbay door brought him out of his thoughts, and he looked over to see who was there. He was pleasantly surprised to see Yui standing there, she waved and smiled as she walked over.
"Hey" she said gently "How're you doing?"
Rez smiled, it was always nice to see Yui. She had visited a few times before, but it never hurt to see her again "I'm doing alright, apart from the arm. What about you?" Rez replied as he sat up in his bed, flinching slightly at the stinging in his side.
Yui pulled up a seat and sat next to the bed, she had a small box with her that was red and tied up in a blue ribbon.
"I'm alright. A bit stressed out with everything at the bar. Business is slow..." she stated, sighing with a defeated tone, before continuing.
"I've gotta think of something to get people coming back in, y'know?"
Rez nodded in agreement, glancing down at the present, then back up to Yui "Well, you could maybe redo the menu, or have an event night. Like a big quiz for people to come to and take their minds off of things." he suggested, adjusting the sling around his arm.
Yui seemed to think for a moment, before nodding and smiling "Yeah that actually sounds like a great idea. Thanks Rez." she smiled at him, then seemed to remember that she had brought something.
"Oh, sorry. I got you this." she handed him the box, then put her hands on her lap as she waited eagerly to see his reaction.
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Rez looked at her and smiled, and thanked her before he undid the ribbon and opened the box up to see what she had gotten him.
He was pleasantly surprised to see a scale model of Mars that slowly rotated on its base. It even had a small light that shone up onto it.
Yui scratched the back of her head, her cat like ears twitching "Sorry if you were expecting something you could actually, like. Use. But I saw it in the store and thought of you"
Rez had to take a moment as he got lost in thought, seeing his red home again. He shook himself awake and looked to Yui with a smile "Hey, don't worry. I love it. I'll put it right by my bed" he said as he gently ran his finger over the smooth surface of the model.
Yui seemed happy at that, and she placed her hands together "I'm glad!" she said, her silky tail flicking back and forth behind her.
Setting the model down by his bedside table and watching it slowly spin for a moment, Rez exhaled as he sat back, then looked over to her "I can't wait to get out of here. But it did give me time to catch up on 'Biz's Construction Conundrum'. It's pretty cool how they build those giant apartment buildings."
Yui smiled at him, then she looked down at her watch "I'd love to stay and chat, but I've gotta get back to the bar and help out, okay?"
Rez smiled, but puffed his cheeks up "I bring up my enjoyment of documentaries and you're ditching me?"
Yui gave him a small laugh, then smiled "I didn't take you for the kind to enjoy them, to be honest." she said, then waved as she left.
Rez gave her a wave back, then laid his head back and sighed. He looked back over to the model of Mars and remembered the time he spent there, living in a city of gigantic glass towers and advanced technology. Maybe one day if everything goes back to normal he could show Yui what it was like before Theodore and his Officers crushed the solar system under their boot. That's what he hoped for anyway. But he knew it would be a long time until that was even a possibility.
He sat back and flicked the TV on, looking for something to watch.
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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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