Announcement: Edited chapters have been merged into the Patreon from chapter 172 onwards

<<<⚠️IF YOU HAVE JUST JOINED THE PATREON, DO NOT READ ON, OR YOU WILL BE SPOILED!!!! THIS IS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE READ PAST CHAPTER 195!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!🙃>>>

And with the warning out of the way... Hi everyone! Hope you all are doing great!

I just had a bit of a quick (sorry, it was meant to be quick, but it grew on me) and late night announcement.

With Book 3 editing done, and Book 4 being finished either tomorrow or Monday, I have shifted the chapters from the old versions to the newer, edited versions that I will be handing over to publisher.

This is done so that one, I only have the one version of events in my head, and don't confuse myself, and two, and much more importantly, because I genuinely think that the edited chapters read a lot better (I hope!!), and I'm really excited to share them with you all!

So, the swapped chapters start from chapter 172 (the latest one released today on RR) to the current one, which is chapter 222 and beyond.

The changes should be mostly on quality of reading (again, I hope!!), and the chapters should also be a bit bigger as well, but there shouldn't be anything too jarring/breaking in there! That said, there are a couple of important changes that have gone into the story that I need to mention, as they will pop up soon, and they will have consequences for the plot:

1) Because Arc 2 was split into Book 3 and 4, the aftermath of the Den fight needed a little bit more going on, so there's a bit of a much more intriguing and plot driven little bit there at the end of chapter 176, if you would like to go back and read it (and which should tie in very nicely with upcoming events!)

2) [Threatning Hits 3]: Nar had this passive skill, and this is how he actually manages to hold aggro (this skill applies constant aggro through damage). As some of you mentioned, it didn't make sense for Nar to be able to hold aggro back during the Climb, when his DPS was weaker than the others. So, that whole situation has been revamped, mentioned and adressed in the story as a mystery, and as it turned out, at the end of the second bridge crossing (before the cannibals), Nar always had [Threatning Hits] all along, but it was kept hidden from him...

• BUT I say had, because this skill was, in the meatime, upgraded after the Confluence fight to this other passive skill:

  -[ Aura Infused Strikes (Aura/DPS/Aggro Gen.): You have become adept at cycling aura to your weapon, and your hits will cause increased and lasting aggro due to the mighty aether in each of your aura infused attacks (exception when a tanking active skill is detected on the same target). Your attacks also have a chance of triggering [Lingering Aura]. - Uncommon

  • Lingering Aura (Aura/DPS): Aura and aether attacks always have a chance to infect targets, but you will cause increased damage if your aura manages to spread into your target, ravaging them from within for much more damage than usual. However, aether and aura will counter this effect as quickly as possible, but doing so will consume your target's aether or aura. The damage caused by his damage-over-time effect is unquantifiable and its duration will depend on how quickly the target can burn through your invading aura. - Uncommon ]-

3) [Toughness]: Building up on the previous point, when Nar discovered that he had [Threatning Hits], he also wondered if he had hidden [Toughness] as one of his [???] attributes. But, and long story short, a mysterious Sender reached out to him at that moment, and we pretty much got the impression that Someone was messing with his gains, and keeping [Toughness] blocked from him... Now, currently, this has been confirmed by the Master of Blades (and there's a whole thing about the gods enjoying messing around with people), and [Toughness] is still being blocked from him! 

4) Nar's affinity: Some of you also mentioned that Nar should know enough of himself to at least suspect what his affinity was, and while I didn't quite go in that direction, instead, the affinity assessing machine had been disabled to not show the external displays that the other's saw, and we now know that Lut, the affinity assessor, was ordered to not tell Nar of his potential affinitty, because orders from above are that whatever that affinity is, they want it to be changed before it unlocks!! However, Lut remarks that given the data from machine, she doesn't know if that is possible...

5) Nar's attribute: as I edited from the beginning of the story, I realized that in my worry to not make Nar too OP from the start, I actually became a little too stingy with his gains, so I've been bumping them up little by little and as appropriate/deserved, so you might notice a mismatch in the numbers at some point.

And that should be everything! I'm really excited to finish editing Book 4 and share the newer ending chapters with you all, as I think they will be nicer, and set a much better foundation for us heading into Arc 3.

Let me know if you have any questions, and have a great night everyone!

Everhart