The three reflections had some commonalities. Hair color, facial features, and body build. The person that was reflected had little in common with my previous appearance. There were a few traces of the girl I had been, skin tone, long neck, and full lips. The woman was beautiful, otherworldly beautiful. And I knew that beauty was a gift of my Sidhe heritage.
The head remained the same across mirrors. Long platinum blond tresses tied high into a ponytail. The blond ...
2023-08-04 13:19:50 +0000 UTC
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I lost myself in disbelief and wonder as I internalized the historical information about my racial heritage. I felt excitement and embarrassment when I realized the gift I had been given. The history that had been shared and how I was connected to an actual God.
Claiming my new race, embracing the knowledge and instincts ingrained in each race. Information and enhancements that were momentous. The claiming of my own identity. Each managed to heal a crack in my ravaged s...
2023-07-25 09:29:41 +0000 UTC
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Changing races was nothing like character creation in a game. The process required a quantum shift in a person’s being. There were changes made on the genetic level, a complete rewrite of DNA that were necessary, but that was only part of the process.
The very soul of an individual had to be sculpted, shaped, and strengthened to fit the possibilities and abilities a new race entailed. The Sidhe/Atlantian hybrid required mana and psychic networks to be added to the body. New...
2023-07-17 14:56:40 +0000 UTC
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“If she chooses a race that has no ties to you or your [Domain], any Karmic ties that bind the two of you will be severed,” the [System Administer] warned as they watched [Time] rewind and System give the inhabitants of Earth a second chance
“Restrict her choices,” Teigh, God of Illusion and Glamour, demanded. “Allow her to choose between Atlantis, Tuatha de Danann, or a Hybrid of the two. If I am going to use the boon System owes me, I will give this girl as ...
2023-07-17 14:55:26 +0000 UTC
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“Why her?” The System Administrator asked.
Teigh, God of Illusion and Glamour, had been granted a boon. The System was given the people of Earth a do-over. It had reached an agreement with [Time] and [Paradox] to reinitialize System Integration. A remedy to redress the errors that a System Virus had introduced.
Teigh had been allowed to select one person. A person that was related to his original body, the body th...
2023-06-20 10:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Membership will now renew monthly on the day you subscribed instead of monthly. This should resolve double billings.
2023-06-15 19:44:13 +0000 UTC
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The next arc of Growing Pains will follow Geon and Syha. I've come with a few book covers. Only one for Geon... Take a look and see if you have a favorite.
2023-06-13 08:12:51 +0000 UTC
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Of those applying for the managing positions, Sen Feng, Chao Kho, and Lu Hong made the final cut.
Sen Feng would have been a scribe and librarian if he had managed to awaken his spirit root. He had that studious type of personality that went well with those professions. Chao Kho was relatively young in comparison and had a youthful energy and vitality that he brought that added a layer of excitement and adventure that would work well to keep people motivated.
...
2023-06-07 18:50:04 +0000 UTC
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I’m sure there were times when ruling a kingdom would be boring, but I hadn’t come across those moments yet.
Of course, things might have been less frantic if I didn’t insist on continuously introducing new ideas to implement. The newspaper had become more of a headache than I’d imagined. The issue wasn’t one of literacy; every Elf received an education. Even before the Four Element Sect was established and territories were claimed by Cultivators, the island was not...
2023-06-07 18:49:16 +0000 UTC
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I had blocked a few hours before the start of the day to consolidate my gains from reaching the Nascent Soul Realm. Besides the quantitative leap in power, an exponential increase that I was slowly coming to understand, I had gained another mind partition.
This partition was unique from any other I would gain as it was reserved solely for Cultivation. I was no longer restricted to cultivating manually. This section of my mind palace allowed me to automate the [Transcend the H...
2023-06-04 15:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“I worry that you are too reliant on the Hindel,” Clement advised me. “You will have to be careful that you don’t become a vassal state of their Empire.”
“I’m not sure what else I can do,” I admitted reluctantly, “I know it might be a mistake to rely on them for the long run, but until our people are stronger, using the Hindel as a shield seems the best defense.”
“I agree, but it would be best to find ways to leverage our strengths going...
2023-06-03 10:25:07 +0000 UTC
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First surgery is done, and the eye is healing. The next surgery will be June 20th. I am going to try to post a chapter a day until then, before I have to take another week or two off.
I did try using voice to text programs, but they were all mostly crap. The amount of editing I had to do was too much.
2023-06-03 10:09:17 +0000 UTC
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I stayed until the last spec of earth had been sifted for clues. I doubted we would ever know what family those toddlers belonged to, but I didn’t want to leave behind a mystery that could have been solved with some effort. There was no way to communicate effectively with the entire city, word of mouth was still the most common form of communication. Our comm devices helped, but not everyone could afford to purchase them.
There were times like this when a System would come ...
2023-05-23 08:03:45 +0000 UTC
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Somehow I managed to detach a retina. It is causing real issues with my vision. I've lost almost total sight in my right eye, and what is left is causing my left eye to have problems focusing.
I'm not sure which surgical procedure will be used to fix this, but until things are resolved, I won't be able to post.
I'll keep you informed and get back to posting new content as fast as possible.
Thanks for your support, and my apologies.
2023-05-05 21:18:26 +0000 UTC
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Her Hanfu also had layers of enchantments that affected perception skills. It was like a stealth field that wrapped Qi acting like a mirror so that my perception skill focused on what the enchantments reflected, not what was actually there.
I had never come across this type of enchantment before. I would discuss the technique with Pling. She was a new affiliate Clan member, part of the slew of Cultivators that Clement had managed to entice to join. One of a dozen that had agr...
2023-05-03 00:11:50 +0000 UTC
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The room Ja Fiat had created seemed innocent enough at first glance. But when I swept the room with my perception, I was able to identify the runes and arrays that had been crafted using blood.
What was worse was the adjoining room that she was using to hold the bodies of her recent victims. Four children, two boys and two girls, were hanging from the ceiling by meat hooks as if they were slaughtered animals. Tubs had been positioned under them to collect the draining blood, ...
2023-04-29 14:54:32 +0000 UTC
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We had to get past the defensive fortifications to get inside the house, so there was no point in hiding our presence now that I had explained the situation to my House members. They had taken up positions to surround Ja Fiat’s home.
Every point of escape was covered, and Storm had her avian flock circling just in case. If Ja Fiat was able to break free, they would continue to track her. I sent one long ping as a warning across the Gestalt before I launched my attack....
2023-04-27 14:42:36 +0000 UTC
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I didn’t give any warning or reason for my anger and killing intent to explode. I registered that a few members of the team were forced to their knees, but no one was hurt. Activating [Lightning’s Rush] and infusing it with as much Qi as I was able, I seemed to teleport from the cavern we were in.
I reached the cave entrance in a matter of seconds. Once free of those constraints, I flung myself into the sky, commanding the wind to part the air in front of me while buttres...
2023-04-25 18:03:08 +0000 UTC
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Storm was confused.
The flock she had ordered to watch younger brother and sister and begun squawking and chitting at her the moment she arrived at the perch she preferred to rest in while waiting for younger brother and sister to have playtime.
Things had changed lately for them. Storm had noticed the changes as they took place. First, they got a little stronger, their ability to store Qi making it easier to play with them without worrying about hurting them...
2023-04-24 13:21:11 +0000 UTC
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“This explains so much,” Aki muttered to herself. I had called Clement and Aki asking to figure out what the creature we were dealing with was and if we should remove it or let it be. Clement arrived within minutes, a Qi bubble enveloping Aki to allow her to travel with him.
That was one of the advantages of ascending to higher Realms. What took us most of a day to map, he managed in seconds. His perception was powerful enough to scan the cave network and locate us.
2023-04-23 16:47:54 +0000 UTC
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[Reap the Wind] was the newest martial technique in my arsenal of [Tessenjutsu].
It was an evolved form of [Dancing Wind and Rain], [Wind Over Water], and [Thunder Strikes]. I flicked both Tessen open, extending one as far forward as I could. I began fluttering the other, creating small eddies of wind that were directed at the extended Tessen.
Once the fluttering began, I used larger sweeps with the extended arm to capture the wind, to control it, and form it...
2023-04-22 11:18:38 +0000 UTC
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We cleared the upper tunnels, searching every offshoot tunnel and out-of-the-way cave in the process. We could have ignored some areas, but I wanted us to get used to working together as a team.
We had only encountered one group of beasts, a Mother Cave Bear and her cubs, that gave us problems. The adult bear was tier three, close to four, but that was nothing we couldn’t handle. What presented a problem was Siam’s plea to allow him to capture the bear cubs.
2023-04-20 11:01:50 +0000 UTC
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Finding out more about my Dark Elf heritage was interesting, but only academically. Once I was certain that a band of bloodthirsty assassins wouldn’t be attempting to track us down, I filed the information away as irrelevant.
It wasn’t like my Mother was a Dark Elf princess. She had come from a small House, and it was only misfortune and greed that had seen that House fall. I was conflicted with how I should feel about Geon or Syha taking up the reigns of that fallen Hous...
2023-04-19 07:00:00 +0000 UTC
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“Your father and I met in that town, both lost and lonely,” my Mother continued, “meeting each other only by chance.
“I had apprenticed to a local potion maker, and your father was one of the young Elves that supplied that shop with spirit herbs. He flirted with me shamelessly but never had the courage to ask me out.”
“Hey! I asked you out,” my Father interrupted with indignation.
“Of course, you did, dear,” Mother replied, ...
2023-04-17 13:19:16 +0000 UTC
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“Mother?” I said, turning to confront her directly. “Are you a Dark Elf?”
That made the most sense. Her skin tones had more shades of purple than Father, and while I admitted I had no idea what the difference was between Elves, those purple highlights had been completely missing on every other Elf I had encountered.
I should have realized when Mother spent so much time creating beauty creams that lightened skin tone that something was going on. Elves ...
2023-04-13 11:05:11 +0000 UTC
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“Jai,” I heard a second before I felt someone jump on me, “Mom says it’s time to get up. We have things to do before we get to the Sect.” Each word seemed to be punctuated with another bounce as whoever was trying to get me up continued to attack me.
Opening my eyes took some effort as my brain began the lengthy process of gaining control over my body. I was flooded with information as pinpricks flowed everywhere. The needles and pricks you experience when your hand falls asle...
2023-04-09 23:52:01 +0000 UTC
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“How are they?” I asked.
I had been right in my hypothesis of what was happening to my younger brother and sister. They had formed a spirit root. One that had never been seen before. It was segmented, with the root branching out to form a connection to Iron, Cobalt, Copper, Silver, Tin, Platinum, and Gold.
The seven branches of their spirit root had formed a five-pointed star that had centered around the Dantian and used two of the branches to connect the...
2023-04-06 01:52:13 +0000 UTC
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“Is it finished?” Duke Ishiroi demanded. The Duke wasn’t usually this impatient. He had schemed for centuries, stolen, killed, or bribed Sect Heads, Clan Heads, and bureaucrats alike to get to this moment.
His people were about to open a portal, one that would allow them to move from one point to another instantly. Technology that he had ‘discovered’ when a team of explorers stumbled across a mountain. A mountain with a tunnel system that fed into a city beneath the...
2023-04-04 21:08:18 +0000 UTC
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Royal Road's Writathon for April has started. I am going to try to release enough content for both Growing Pains and Tuatha de Danann.
Some of the word count will come from editing old content. I'd like to get the first book of each story reworked.
Fingers crossed. And if you notice any glaring plot mistakes as I churn out chapters, PLEASE point them out!
2023-04-03 00:35:39 +0000 UTC
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I didn’t stay to see if there were any ramifications from my edict. The former Baron would either comply, or he would die. I only stayed long enough to make sure there was someone in charge, someone who would make a Cultivator’s Oath before I flung myself into the sky, sending a mental entreaty to Storm.
Mother had called me on her com, frantic that both Geon and Syha were ill. An illness on its own wasn’t any cause for concern. Not with the potions mother could create ...
2023-04-03 00:31:36 +0000 UTC
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