As strange as it might seem, returning to the dungeon felt a lot like going home after being away for a long time.
There was no need for me to interact with the Gatekeeper prior to reentering since the portal was still unguarded.
There was a sign I’d failed to notice during my last visit, which detailed the process for requesting entry to new challengers. The directions were clear that those who had reached at least the eighth floor before leaving could enter without taking any ...
2025-07-30 03:51:22 +0000 UTC
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“I didn’t really expect you’d reach Master Enchanter before returning to the dungeon,” Vice-Guildleader Rhania remarked when I informed her of my success. “I especially didn’t expect you to manage it with the first challenging commission I gave you.”
“Well, I told you I was close.”
The elf chuckled lightly. “A lot of Enchanters claim they are close to the next stage. Most still have quite a way to go since they tend to stick with crafting the same types of item...
2025-07-26 20:44:47 +0000 UTC
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I spent the next week quietly saying goodbye to all of the acquaintances I’d made over the last several years. Most were Epikairos disciples from the Celtor branch that I’d gotten to know over the years.
I hadn’t gotten particularly close with anyone since I knew that my time there was limited, but I’d been friendly enough with several individuals that I felt it would be inappropriate to simply disappear without warning.
I went back and forth on whether or not to te...
2025-07-24 18:51:22 +0000 UTC
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“Don’t forget to spend time in the Arcane well,” Anya reminded me just before I left. “I’m not sure how it will help, but my intuition is adamant that it will.”
“I won’t forget,” I assured the Fate Mage before disappearing from her spacious apartment.
I’d interrupted one of Anya’s rare days off, which probably should have made me feel bad, but it didn’t.
Returning to my demesne, I opened a portal to the Arcane well and watched as the mana once again p...
2025-07-20 05:43:50 +0000 UTC
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“If you want to be involved in dealing with the undead, I can certainly put you in contact with the ones in charge,” Anya said amicably after explaining that she didn’t think I’d want any more to do with the fallout from the war now that it was over.
I felt an impulse to offer my assistance since that seemed like the right thing to do. But before I could make the offer, Anya held up a hand to let me know she wasn’t finished speaking.
“However, I don’t recommend tying...
2025-07-17 02:14:07 +0000 UTC
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A/N: I swear, sometimes it feels like coming up with a chapter title is harder than writing the dang chapter. There's a reason the published version doesn't have chapter titles!
“I’m guessing Grandma told you,” Amie said with an exaggerated sigh at the look I gave her when I arrived. “I told her not to say anything yet. We only just started courting.”
After checking in to make sure I wouldn’t be interrupting anything, I’d teleported to Amie...
2025-07-13 03:43:50 +0000 UTC
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“How’s your disciple training going?” Mom asked as I helped her prepare dinner a couple of weeks after my pill-making class started. Though
“How’s your disciple training going?” Mom asked as I helped her prepare dinner a couple of weeks after my pill-making class started.
Though she had one of the newest versions of the MealMaker, my mother often preferred to cook her meals fresh instead of eating food that had been transmuted. It wasn’t that she distrusted th...
2025-07-10 05:23:26 +0000 UTC
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“Oh! Did you hear that Celestia officially joined the Alliance?” Zavira asked with a hint of excitement.
“No. I’ve been a little disconnected from the news lately,” I replied.
Celestia was effectively the head of the Collective since it was the only inhabited Tier Nine world in the Collective. There were two additional Tier Nine worlds, one of which housed the Arcane well I’d found, but the Collective had never expanded to either of them for some unknown reason.
...
2025-07-05 22:51:11 +0000 UTC
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“This is so weird,” I said to myself as I examined the crystal veins. “It’s definitely a mana well, though none of the others I’ve found loo
“This is so weird,” I said to myself as I examined the crystal veins. “It’s definitely a mana well, though none of the others I’ve found look anything like this.”
Upon returning to the unnamed Tier Nine planet, I resumed my search for the Arcane well while also roughly mapping the crystal veins I’d noticed underground....
2025-07-02 23:37:29 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Okay. I'm not married to this part. I like the idea and only plan to dedicate a few chapters at most to exploring it, but if a lot of you dislike it or feel like it just doesn't fit, then I'm okay cutting the chapter out. Feedback would be appreciated.
“Would you be amenable to resuming classes in a couple of months?” Patriarch Fora asked after our discussion of the potential new sect branch tapered off. “I suspect most of our deployed disciples will have ret...
2025-06-29 01:17:19 +0000 UTC
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I spent the next week searching for the Arcane well while waiting for Bell to finish the project she was working on. When I still hadn’t heard from her after a week, I reached back out.
“Do you need help finishing things up?” I asked.
There was a pause, then I heard Bell sigh through the phone. I was using an Atlas Glass phone to contact her instead of calling through my interface since interface calls were significantly more expensive.
I wasn’t worried about ...
2025-06-25 22:50:57 +0000 UTC
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Just like with Book 1, I'll be giving away five free audiobook downloads from audiobook.com. Here's how it'll work:
If you're interested, comment on this post. On July 1st, I'll pick the winners by assigning everyone numbers based on the order in which they commented. Those with a Low-Tier membership will get one entry (one number assigned), Mid-Tier will get two, High-Tier will get three, and Peak-Tier will get five.
I...
2025-06-24 21:58:42 +0000 UTC
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It didn’t seem like much time had passed when I received the notification everyone was waiting for. Attention! The open war between the ‘the
It didn’t seem like much time had passed when I received the notification everyone was waiting for. Attention! The open war between the ‘the
It didn’t seem like much time had passed when I received the notification everyone was waiting for.
Attention! The open war between the ‘the Alliance’ and ‘the Collective’...
2025-06-22 01:10:36 +0000 UTC
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There were a lot of uniformed soldiers in the Council Headquarters when we returned. “How was your mission?” I asked Anya when I saw her sta
There were a lot of uniformed soldiers in the Council Headquarters when we returned.
“How was your mission?” I asked Anya when I saw her standing by the door, still wearing her combat gear.
“Mostly good. We managed to stop the Necromancer from unleashing his army of undead. It was a close thing.”
“Really?” I said, ...
2025-06-18 04:57:04 +0000 UTC
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I felt something odd when I targeted the Assassin with Stasis, but I wasn’t worried since he would be transported within the stasis section of my demesne. Even if he managed to somehow retain awareness, he wouldn’t see much with how I’d positioned him.
His was one of the first covert assault teams in place – not because I wanted Cin’Specter out of my demesne faster (which I did), but because ‘Team 1’ was one of the three groups assigned to assault the Coll...
2025-06-14 22:06:56 +0000 UTC
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A/N: It's a bit of a longer chapter. I hope everyone likes it. Let me know what you think.
Even with the oaths she’d sworn, a part of Cin’Specter expected his former target to do something once she had him within her grasp. He certainly would have been tempted if he were in her position.
To protect himself, the Assassin had cast a very thin layer of Stasis around his body in the microsecond that it took the weaker Time Mage to target him with her spell.
2025-06-11 22:59:12 +0000 UTC
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Anya monitored the groups in their individual rooms through the Council Headquarters’ network.
Most of the Space Mages – including Emie – had already set out to scout their evacuation locations, leaving the rest of their teams to discuss the logistics surrounding their respective assignments.
Having been given recordings and intel gathered from both Emie and the stealth specialist they’d hired, the teams wouldn’t need long to prepare. And since the Space Mages were mostl...
2025-06-08 02:45:37 +0000 UTC
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Exciting news! Primer for the Apocalypse Book 1 was just released on audiobook today! For those who are interested, I have FIVE free download codes to share!
If you are interested in potentially winning one of these free codes (redeemable through audiobooks.com), post a comment below.
Low Tier patrons will get one entry, Mid Tier will get two, High Tier will get three, and Peak Tier will get five entries! I'll assign n...
2025-05-27 23:02:31 +0000 UTC
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I followed Anya into a large conference room where Councilor Lance, Arbiter Farrah, and eight unfamiliar individuals had gathered around a l
I followed Anya into a large conference room where Councilor Lance, Arbiter Farrah, and eight unfamiliar individuals had gathered around a large, rectangular table.
I identified each of them, wondering which one was the notorious Assassin responsible for my time locked in a Challenge Rift. When I scanned a handsome elf sitting halfway down th...
2025-05-27 22:45:53 +0000 UTC
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It took three days for me to find the first mana well on the Tier Nine planet.
I almost overlooked it because the Magma well served as the core of a magma lake beneath an active volcano.
I’d initially assumed the buildup of Magma mana was due to the volcano. It was only when I happened to notice the mana radiating from the center of the lake that I realized what it was.
That discovery shifted the way I searched, and I soon found two more – a Water well deep inside one of...
2025-05-24 04:04:50 +0000 UTC
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“That took you guys a really long time,” Kaylee commented when we returned to my demesne. “It’s been, like, fifteen hours.”
“I told you the time dilation was pretty strong,” I replied with a smirk. “It was less than an hour on our end.”
“Well, Dad, Caesi, Daniel, and Eve have already turned in for the evening,” Kaylee informed us with her hands on her hips. The pose made her look so much like Mom. “You didn’t specify who got which room, so Daniel and Eve ...
2025-05-21 02:36:39 +0000 UTC
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It turned out that getting an E3 talisman to Lucas wasn’t all that difficult. I just had to add a dozen extras for some very important people and link their recall location to SEF headquarters – a task that wasn’t hard at all.
The recall location was probably the easiest part since all I had to do was link the talismans to a physical [Beacon] artifact and have them keep it at a safe, open location at SEF headquarters.
“Would you mind helping me visit Eve during your break?...
2025-05-16 20:04:30 +0000 UTC
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“You didn’t find them initially because the illusion array made the facility appear to be a normal demi academy,” Anya informed me when she finally reached out. “Since it was a normal academy before the war, it’s understandable why it would be overlooked.”
“What happened to the students?” I asked as I sat in my demesne.
The time dilation had automatically synced to Sira to facilitate the call. Anya never even commented on it. Since she was the one to initi...
2025-05-13 22:23:57 +0000 UTC
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While I was mentally prepared for several things, finding myself inside a hub-space was not something I anticipated.
Instead of a dimensional space with a single entrance, the space appeared to be a conglomeration of several small dimensional spaces. The linked space allowed whoever used the space to easily travel between anchored locations.
The closest analog I’d seen were the portal hubs within the Alliance. However, instead of setting up several semi-permanent portals in one ...
2025-05-11 00:57:25 +0000 UTC
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Searching an inhabited planet for hidden dimensional spaces was much harder than examining a relatively empty one. The sheer volume of dimensional spaces on a mid to upper-tier world was simply mind-boggling.
Just dimensional artifacts alone made it difficult to find what I was looking for. So, to make things a little easier, I started my search on Davrim by focusing on dimensional spaces that were anchored to a location instead of an item.
I expected to find black markets and oth...
2025-05-07 02:06:09 +0000 UTC
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The whimpering alerted me to Bell’s return to consciousness before Lisa got the chance.
“Hey, Bell,” I said softly when I reached the edge of the formation. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I should be dead,” she said through labored breaths. She was still lying curled in the fetal position on the small mat I’d placed under her. “Fuck. Can you just knock me back out for a while?”
“I’d rather not,” I said apologetically. “I can give you something more ...
2025-05-03 20:56:39 +0000 UTC
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Since I had an actual mission to do, I didn’t want to spend too much time working on side projects. Still, Anya had specifically mentioned studying the dagger, so I didn’t feel too bad about the hours I had dedicated to the task.
“I really need to increase my Arcane affinity,” I said with a frown as I struggled to cast the modified spellform. “It’s barely worth even learning with how much mana it takes to perform the original task.”
Arcane was undoubtedly the most ve...
2025-04-29 19:04:12 +0000 UTC
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“I know you’re currently assigned to Garnet City, but since it’s already been attacked once, it’s unlikely to be targeted again,” Anya began once the door to her office closed behind us.
She motioned for me to take a seat on one of the chairs in the small sitting area just inside the door.
Once we both got settled, the Fate Mage continued, “I’d like you to shift your efforts to scouting. We still don’t know where the Collective’s base is, but it has to be somewhe...
2025-04-25 17:43:00 +0000 UTC
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“Trinity Emie!” a kastet female in simple, dark gray robes called out as the body of my latest opponent disappeared into my storage.
I eyed the kastet curiously as she approached. Her robes nearly matched her fur, which had a strange, almost navy sheen to it. The hint of color was also reflected in the humanoid feline’s vertically-slit eyes.
Shadow and Void? I wondered.
I cast a quick Assess, but only Shadow appeared on my information readout....
2025-04-25 00:38:43 +0000 UTC
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Attention! You are now at war!
‘The Collective’ has officially declared open war on ‘the Alliance.’
A war exception is in effect for violations of Article 2 of the Accords.
Note: Children will be protected. Article 5 still applies.
The note at the bottom of the bright red notification soothed my heart. I’d wondered how the system would handle children since the Accords specifically had an article dedicated to their protection and well-being.<...
2025-04-23 21:35:32 +0000 UTC
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