Hello everyone, and welcome to Cookie’s Q&A session! Let’s give a round of applause!

I’ll say this in advance: there might be spoilers so if you haven’t caught up (Chapter 70 and onward should be fine), I strongly advise my audience to go do that first (After all, this Session isn’t going anywhere!).

Alright, now that we got that cleared up, we can begin! Here we have our first few questions! Note that, since some of them are similar/connected, I will answer them all at once, so as not to repeat the same answer all over again!

Also I’ll warn you… I can be logorrheic… A lot. It comes with being an author that has nothing to think about all the time except for trying to make his story more interesting...

Alright then, first question:

How did the story start out? Was Cheng Hao’s name random?

Well… It all started out with a short story I never published, called "The Adventure Of The Golden Saint".

This story told the adventures of a young man, rebelling against the heavens for their unfairness. By his side were his five thrust-worthy brothers: a Golden Chimera, an Azure Dragon, a Black Tortoise, a White Tiger and a Crimson Bird (Inspired by the Five Beasts from Chinese culture).

These friends would then slowly build up their strength to challenge the heavens! This work was never finished, nor has it ever been published anywhere. Now that I think about it, it has been inside my mind for quite some time before I actually began writing.

I read many books of a genre that can be referred to as Eastern Fantasy (Many call it Xianxia, others Xuanhuan which is technically more correct, I myself prefer to call it simply "Eastern Fantasy" so I won't incur in the wrath of either side).

I downloaded these novels from WuxiaWorld or similar sites and read them in my spare time on my phone. Days went on like this: wake up, go to school, play sports, meet with friends, read in my spare time, play games on my tablet... It could be called a normal yet boring and plain teenager's life.

Other times however, I began to write down a few chapters of "The Adventures Of The Golden Saint", just for the sake of it.

It had no true ‘story’, no storyline, just a mass of random chapters that were none other than many separate episodes.

As time went on, I felt that it was not a story anymore as much as it was a compilation of short stories, with each having the same cast of characters.

Clearing that up, I changed a few things here so that it had a storyline that made sense and changed the title: "The Adventures Of The Golden Saint" became "Chronicles Of A Mortal's Rebellion".

Many characters were added: ‘the Heavens’ had now become now a single person, a 'Tyrant' that gained that power by overthrowing the 'Jade Emperor' (Again, another character from Chinese culture, also referred to as the 'First God').

At the time I didn't have a name for this evil guy in mind, so I went with a random villainous name I recalled from the back of my head, Ji (ISSTH, anyone?).

The story got more fleshed out, even more chapters were added to the original five-ish drafts and it became a story about twenty chapters long. The encounter with the Glacier Old Man, the MC's meeting with Xiao Lan, member of a Clan that also had enmity with Ji, the fight against the terrible Hell Wyrm (which would in time turn into the Hellish Nightmare Dragon)...

I went on for a while, it had become an hobby of mine: had spare time, waiting for the translators of "ISSTH" and other Eastern Novels to upload their chapters? Write "Chronicles Of A Mortal's Rebellion"!

However, something happened. Luck has it that, while trying to make some space on my phone by deleting some files, I accidentally deleted the app where I was writing on at the time.

Of course, I installed it again but found out with horror... that I didn't remember my password! As for the email to recover it... Well, the passwords were the same, so I was kind of screwed.

All the effort spent on "Chronicles Of A Mortal's Rebellion"... Gone, vanished!

Time passed, I read some new books, never picked up writing ever again...

...

Since I am writing right now, you should already know which part of the statement is bull****, shouldn't you? However, I didn't trust these sites again so easily...

Just like that, in a few weeks, I found my phone's notes full to the brink with one-shots of all kinds of genres. However, if there was one gender I didn't pick up at the time, it was Eastern Fantasy.

Have you ever played with lego? If you have, then you should know the feeling of building something incredible with your own hands, with your imagination... And stare in despair as it shatters into bits.

"Just do it again! It might even come out better than the previous one!" your parents would say, but you, as a small child, a stubborn youth, or a person that has a lot of free time on their hands (I envy you so much), would simply grit your teeth and throw all the pieces into a box, hiding them from your sight.

However...

Let's speak honestly... Who actually really never picked up legos again? That's right, nobody. At least, I didn't.

The ecstasy of creating, we all felt it. I myself, could never bear to part with the little plastic bricks. The same was with my first ever story, whether it was the former "Adventures Of The Golden Saint" or "Chronicles Of A Mortal's Rebellion", I never truly could forget about it.

That is why, one day that I found the games on my old tablet particularly boring, I decided to give it a shot. The result? A catastrophe.

I couldn't write out a story, the vibe was very different than what I had wrote down in the past. My hands felt like they were moving within jelly and I couldn't write properly.

It was not a writer's block. I was bored. Bored of my work, bored of a story I had already halfway-finished back then.

I couldn't bring myself to write it down. Writing down a story I wasn't inventing, exploring, at the same time my fingers tapped on the screen, but was actually a fruit of the labor of my past self... Simply didn't feel right.

It was as if I had someone behind me, yelling "Write it down, write it down immediately!" It just made it that much more difficult.

I was not in the mood. Still, I forced myself to write down a few chapters nevertheless, same old story, same old characters, same old dialogues...

Then I made a mistake. It was this mistake that changed everything. What was it? Simple. I confused the name of the protagonist of my story back then, (Xu) Cheng Feng, with the one of ISSTH's MC, Meng Hao! Guess out what came out?

Cheng. Hao.

I don't know, maybe I was possessed at the time or it was just a coincidence. Simply put, the name Cheng Hao rang much better in my ears(mind) and I wrote down a chapter with a story I came up with on the moment.

Four of his five comrades are missing, only the Golden Chimera, not exactly his best friend at the time, is left. His identity cannot be revealed as it might bring down a catastrophe if Tian (Literally, the Chinese words for 'Sky' or 'Heavens' which, at the time, I found it would fit the antagonist perfectly) were to know of his location, as the MC's strength had been stolen.

A single chapter, a full 10000 words long, in a little over three hours of nonstop tapping the screen of my tablet!

For those who don't know, writing can be pretty tiring. Most authors on sites such as RRL usually take a break around the 1500~2000 words, a times even less.

It usually goes on like this: have I reached 1500 words? Damn, I am missing a few hundred... Alright, let's add a bit here, than there... Oh, 1600 words already!

Yeah... For those who also gave a shot or are actually authors, whether here on Royal Road or on other sites, I think you should know what I am talking about.

Sometimes, I was able to fuse multiple chapters together and came out with 3000 or so words within a single chapter. However, the problem here is that, to those who have a good eye, it can be seen the flow is different in the first and the second half. It just isn't the same as writing it down all at once.

To write a single, good chapter more than 3000 characters long all in one shot, it takes great inspiration and writing skills. To write a chapter more than 10000 words long requires an incredible amount of luck. Yes, luck.

Why was it that, after that time, everything flowed perfectly? I don't know, maybe it was just the name Xu Cheng Feng that didn't work out at the beginning? I began to change all the Xu Cheng Fengs into Cheng Haos, however I soon found out that this defeated the purpose of the surname Xu!

That is right my friends, while most of this story is fruit of intuition and the ideas that come to my mind as I write, there are quite a few things that I think of before-hand. The MC's surname was one of them.

However, I just couldn't bring myself to change all the 'Cheng Hao's back into 'Xu Cheng's, so I played around a bit. I explored this 'Sect with an evil monster sealed within it' setting a bit longer... It came to a point where these two stories began to form two different universes altogether!

However, as soon as they did, they began to merge back again! Soon, it was not a nameless genius that challenged the dragon, it was a Reborn Soul of an expert who died fighting the Heavens! A Golden Beast (Now a Golden Dragon) is his trustworthy companion, his enemy is really powerful and his past self is surnamed Xu... Rings a bell?

Yep, this is how Immortal Ascension Tower started out: two universes, two different concepts, a single story.

And Cheng Hao kind of fell in there because the name sounded cool.

How do you name characters?

Many are random chinese names I can recall from all those cultivation novels I have read in the past. Others, however, have deep meaning. Xu Ling, for example...

- I will be putting a ‘Spoiler Alert’ here, even though you should already know this if you have read all chapters up to Chapter 70 -

Xū, at least, one of the meanings for the character Xū (虛) in the chinese ‘alphabet’, is empty/blank. Some of Líng’s (靈) ‘interpretations’ can be Mind, Soul, Spirit, ecc, ecc. In our case, Cheng Hao’s past self’s name is basically Empty Mind.

Just like that, Ren Hong (人 - Rén, 紅 - Hóng) can also be interpreted as a Red Person (After the color of her skin), while Ren Long (人 - Rén, 龍 - Lóng) is basically Dragon Person.

Note that I am not a chinese native speaker, so to those who are or do know chinese, these names might sound awkward or unfamiliar… I can only blame my ignorant self for that.

What about the english names, like Blindlight and stuff? Well, you might already have noticed this, but I suck at naming stuff… Those may as well be random as long as they sound cool.

What is the process of forming the Satellite during the Superior stage? And why did the MC only form one Satellite? Can he form more later and can satellites be destroyed in order to be replaced by a more compatible or powerful one?

Alright, so to answer these questions I will have to add things that have not been mentioned in the Main Book yet. I may actually make a glossary about this someday, but I am way too lazy to do that now.

That out of the way, let’s begin: each Stage has some kind of ‘hidden’ requirement. Why ‘hidden’? Because it is not truly difficult to find out, however people might not know about this and only be aware of the changes discernible at a first glance, such as the difference in power.

It is common knowledge that to enter the Inferior stage one must first sense the Qi. However, few know that actually their Sensed Qi is not the same as what other have sensed. We, as the readers and writers, have followed Cheng Hao and have seen stuff from his perspective and thus are aware that there are different kinds of Sensed Qi and that there are actually countless variations.

The Satellite is one of these requirements for breaking through the Superior stage. This is a huge bottleneck for those in the Mortal Realm as it does not require a higher quality of Qi, but instead it needs enlightenment. Without enlightenment it would be impossible to break through the next stage (This is also a reason the Twin Stars required a cultivation of the Superior stage, because that would mean that he or she would have the ability to gain insight on the world, one of the greatest requirements for cultivators).

The Qi will then react and form a Satellite following the instructions the cultivators provide him, a bit like the DNA contains the information to ‘make’ proteins. After that, a Satellite will form, fruit of the enlightenment of the cultivator during his breakthrough.

Theoretically, the most Satellites, the better, right? Wrong.

More Satellites means that the power of each one is greatly diminished. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so if one Satellite is weak, the whole Core System (Just thought of the name, sounds cool. I think I’ll stick with this!) will also diminish in strength and power.

To have only one Satellite means that, while on the process of awakening, the MC was able to keep his focus on the whole rather than individual parts (Then again, his insights are from his past life as a Heaven-shaking expert plus the knowledge he got during his current life). In short, One Satellite > Many Satellites.

Yes, Satellites can be changed, but that would require to break down the whole thing and go back to the Advanced stage. Cheng Hao already has one of the highest quality Satellites out there, why would he have to do that?

I’ll just borrow these questions to say this: Satellites can be used in battle, but that will need a sky-high cultivation to achieve.

This may illustrate just how long it would take to be able to use it: when one is at the low level Superior stage, his control over the Satellite is about one percent. At mid level, he will be able to control two percent and at a high Superior stage he will be able to wield three.

One will only be able to use it fully when it reaches one-hundred percent. To make a comparison and to show the power of the Satellites, it will be like having a built-in Martial Way, except for the fact it would be of a low quality and if broken it would also mean loss of cultivation and the cultivator would be crippled, forever blocked at the Advanced stage.

Of course however, if one has more than one, he will still retain some of his cultivation but will be unable to climb up once again above the Mortal Realm. The reason is because the process to step into the Realm of the Ageless requires a fine cultivation, so having a crippled Satellite is a no-no.

Even if it is removed, unless the other Satellites are extremely few and all of them high-quality (So that they are able to take on the burden of their broken comrade to some extent) or many and of extremely low-quality (As there would be little difference between having one or not), it would still be impossible to even challenge the Tribulation that will fall on those who attempt to break past the Mortal Realm.

It doesn’t require one to be too much of a monster to form only one Satellite, Zhao Bu also had one and Sou Rou (Although it has not been explicitly explained) only has a one.

How sane were you when you wrote this? How drunk and/or high and/or over-caffeinated were you when you wrote this?

Drunk? High? Over-caffeinated? Whatever might you be talking about? I’m a pure and innocent underage teen, I would never do something like that…

…

...

Alright, the cop that was looking at me is gone. So, as I was saying…

And I am sane. I never had to take any kind of medicine. I escaped the lab before they could sedate me… Ooops, that was a slip up, don’t take it too seriously.

Why did you pick cookie as your name?

Meh, was on a whim. Looked and sounded cool. And I like cookies.

Cookies are tasty!

I am a cannibal, mwahaha!

Are authors humans or cyborg/robots?

It depends on your point of view. If you count coffee as an energy source akin to a battery then I guess we are kind of both. After all, could a robot alone piss someone off so much?

Oh, wait, Siri can.

Point withdrawn.

We are robots that require caffeine to keep living and music to keep typing.

What were the 'levels' Jin Fenghuang and Worker spoke about?

That’s a massive spoiler, cannot answer it… Yet. I’ll only tell you this: they are not levels of cultivation. although they are closely related. The higher the level, the higher the strength one possesses.

Have you seen Hentai?

*Cookie Poker Face*

Whatever might you be talking about, gentleman?

I got the guess right. I deserve a cookie. Where is it?

You… Are you asking a cookie for a cookie? You got guts… Congratulations, I guess, that’s all you are going to get from me, you heartless bastard…

...

Here you are. Be sure to savour it.

What are Ancients? What’s the meaning of the circle symbol on Ancients?

I was conflicted whether I should answer these or not. In the end, I decided I would. However, this can be considered a - Minor Spoiler - if you haven’t read the Prologue to the Fourth Arc (Prologue of the Second Book).

If this Q&A chapter is up, that should be up as well, so you can just go read that and quickly come back here if you haven’t done so already. This is the last question so you won’t be missing anything else.

Ready?

Alright: as ‘explained’ in the Fourth Arc’s Prologue (Not really, it is just barely mentioned), Ancients are the descendants of the being that called himself Hundredth Xu (The same Xu as in Empty, Body, Spirit, ecc, ecc).

His appearance? Quote: <”Out of nowhere, apparently out of thin air, a young boy with red eyes and a strange mark on his forehead also joined the bloody war, the Endless Slaughter!

A single triangle inscribed into a square, that same square inscribed into a circle.

Extremely mysterious, holding countless mysteries within, this strange mark was right between his eyebrows: it represented the Underworld below the Earth and the Heavens above them both! The Heavens above all!”>

This guy, who would in the future become the Jade Emperor, would be the Ancestor of the first humanoid beings, and thus these guys would be called Ancients.

After that humans appeared as well and blah, blah, blah…

Now that I think about it, shouldn’t humans be an ‘ancientoid’ beast then? After all, if Ancients came first, they shouldn’t be considered ‘humanoid’, instead they should be the very criteria for… Whatever, let’s keep going.

As I was (not yet) saying, when Tian created the Nine Heavens, that mark, present on the body of each of the Ancients, changed.The Mark cannot be erased. If the flesh is carved out, it would appear elsewhere.

The Mark initially meant the Heavens above them all, however now that symbol has changed into a circle with seven triangles inscribed on its circumference… I wonder what it might mean? Feel free to guess but I doubt you would get it right as there isn’t enough information to go on with...

That aside, being an Ancients has its perks. One of these is the so-called ‘Farsight’ that allows an Ancient to piece together information he receives from his five senses together with his extremely developed sixth sense to see the whole picture of what is happening around me. The scope varies from individual to individual, it is not a question of cultivation as much as it is being able to become one with the world.