《Hybrids | BTS FF》Chapter Forty
Advertisement
"I was adopted by a sweet old lady who taught me a lot about the world. During my younger years, she looked after me and during my older years, I looked after her.
We had an amazing bond on a parental level. She was like a mother to me and I was like a son to her. Despite her being human, she still taught me about how horrible others could be, especially the HSC. She taught me to be strong-minded and unafraid. I never really knew why she was trying to cram so much into my mind until a month after our first lesson. I often collected the post for her, sometimes even read it when she was having a particularly bad day with her eyes.
I'll never forget the day that she asked me to read the letters and I found out that she was dying from stage four breast cancer. It broke me to pieces but I tried not to let it show because I didn't want her to worry when she had enough on her plate as it was.
My whole life changed...
I cooked more, cleaned more and did everything I could just to make sure that she was comfortable in her final stages. She was a stubborn old bat who didn't think that she needed medical treatment or help.
She'd often say that she felt like she was stuck in a care home with me constantly hovering around. She'd joke around the idea but it still made me cry because I felt like I'd failed her.
I didn't want to lose the only parental figure in my life because she was all I'd ever known. The outside world was strange for me. I hardly ever ventured past the four walls that confined me unless it was to the local market just 'round the block.
Advertisement
It was mainly home deliveries and takeaways once she became bedridden. I never wanted to leave her because of the fear of her dying alone. I wanted to be next to her so that I knew she wouldn't be in pain.
All I did was step out to make tea...two minutes and I was back to her, but it was too late. She'd died before I'd even made it back...
It was the worst feeling in the world to experience someone you cherish die. I felt like I'd died with her. All I really remember is dropping the cups and rushing over; the sound being muffled and my sight being blurred. I could only focus on her at that moment.
The first tears dropped when I felt how cold she was getting and saw how blue her lips were turning. I was scared of fully letting go so I didn't report her death until a few hours later.
With hybrid senses being stronger, it didn't take long before her natural scent was being replaced with the strong smell of decaying flesh. I think at that moment, it finally solidified in my mind that she was actually gone.
I needed to move on somehow...
I reported her death under a false name and fled with all of my belongings. I knew that the HSC wouldn't be so nice to me if they were to find me still there. It was obvious that they would turn up with the police to get the body removed because she had a hybrid registered under her name.
She was a smart woman, I'll tell you that...
She never registered me under my legal name, but instead as bear...of course this was done illegally. She knew that without my proper identification, the HSC would have a harder time tracking me down.
Advertisement
I never used the money left to me for shelter because I knew that it'd be risky. One of the top rules was to never trust other humans, no matter how hybrid friendly they are.
I couldn't risk getting caught when I'd already made it so far. The centre was a new area for me. It was scary but I couldn't risk letting that fear be seen because it can be used as an advantage against you.
The first ever time I met Jimin, I ignored his entire existence despite the tug I felt every time I saw him in human or fox form. It didn't take long until my walls were being cracked by the sly devil and I was welcoming him into my arms.
The first time he shifted, he pounced. He had me begging for him to stay by the end of it."
Advertisement
- 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.
8 153 - In Serial246 Chapters
Maou Shoujo Magical Chaos
Volumes 1 to 7 are available on Amazon! The books are going onto a different track, so don't miss the new adventures of Chaos! Death and Reincarnation. Kuroe Makoto, the tomboyish ace of her high school track and field club, never spared a thought for these things before. However, when she falls asleep in her Tokyo home after an exhausting marathon and wakes up in a fantasy world, those concepts become her reality. And unlike in the common light novel setting, she isn't reincarnated as the naturally good-looking and talented human hero who gathers a harem effortlessly. In fact, she isn't reincarnated as a human at all. She is reborn as 'Chaos', child of the demon queen and heir to a kingdom at war with humanity. Maou Shoujo Magical Chaos puts the Japanese high school girl in a tentacle monster, in this strange tale of a sound human mind possessing a horrifying creature's body. Join Chaos on her oftentimes humorous but also perilous journey through a world of sword and sorcery, as she discovers a newfound appetite for life, terror, and demi-human girls. This story features just yuri, as the female protagonist only has interest in other females. Current Release Schedule: One to two chapters every week. Expect an announcement if I can't keep to that. Pledge of Completion: With the release of the ebook on Amazon, I pledge that this series will never be dropped, and see completion. Standalone spin-off featuring Senka: Red Mantis and Avenger Doll Cover art by Peperon.
8 178 - In Serial8 Chapters
Raising A Princess In A New Frontier
An astronaut set out on the voyage to colonize Mars. Thanks to an unexpected accident he is lost to the void of space. He awakens bloodied in his spacesuit in an unknown forest. The crows warning him to run from a demon dead set to turn him into a corpse. He must now survive in a world that defies his scientific understandings whose technological era seems to be years in the past.He's not the hero of this new world. He was neither a special nor an important individual. Can he use his knowledge of the modern world to give him an edge?A girl bullied by the darkness of society. Pushed to her mental limits and bound to escape finds her salvation under the hands of a complete stranger. Will she be able to follow in his steps, or will he forsake her like many before?In an era where magic is worshiped, kingdoms colonize, and gunpowder has begun its mass production.
8 130 - In Serial6 Chapters
KING - HIATUS
Valentia Academy for the Gifted; the top school in the country known for educating the strongest individuals to exist. Gifteds are humans with combat powers in the form of spirit weapons. These individuals are rare in society, only ten percent meeting the criteria as powers are passed down by blood [upper-class] and luck. Among these individuals, less than zero point one percent pass the first stage. One day, to everyone's surprise, a non-gifted aces the admission test with perfect scores: both in combat and academics. With his charming looks, white hair, and childish personality, nobody could understand how he passed the firm doors. Who is this person? Where did they suddenly come from? And what is their purpose for coming into the school? And perhaps, there is more than what meets the eye. The cover photo is not mine. All rights reserved to the anime. I found it on pinterest. Thank you.
8 74 - In Serial25 Chapters
Protector's of Worlds
Welcome, everyone. This story is about a group of friends as they embark on a journey throughout multiple worlds. On this journey, they will encounter many obstacles, new allies/enemies and things they believed only appeared in myths and stories.
8 148 - In Serial14 Chapters
One Week Trip to Where?!✔️
Completed✔️~Tom Holland's Peter Parker.~What will happen when Peter's Decathlon team goes on a one week field trip to The Avengers Tower (Stark Tower)? More importantly, will he be able to keep his identity hidden?~join the discord: discord.gg/FFATbP7~[#8- peterparker] - july 17, 2020[#4- scarletwitch] - march 20, 2021[#8- vision] - may 13, 2021
8 82

