Adam Sampson

Book Two Is out now!

The Mage of Shimmer Mountain: LitRPG Book 2: Strange Bodies  came out yesterday. You should totally check it out! I would love it if you read and reviewed it.

What do you think of the nox on the cover? Is it what you imagined one to look like?

Second Prestige Chapter 11 : The Element of Choice

“Thanks for staying after,” Parem said.

Hugo shrugged and tried to pretend he wasn’t nervous, “Sure thing. What do you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to talk to you about your stats. I am sure when you went through intake that they told you your dexterity was unusually high,” Parem said.

“Yeah, I think they were personally offended that someone so gifted didn’t come from noble blood,” Hugo said with a smile.

“Gifted is correct,” Parem said, “G...

Second Prestige Chapter 10 : Flair for the Dramatic

Hugo sat forward. He was actually excited to learn today. His first barrier class had started off with a bang, and the sage got right into the interesting stuff.

“I wanted to congratulate you all on choosing the best domain. Barrier domain mages have the most flexibility and speed of all of the mages. With my tutelage, you will be able to create anything you can imagine. If you need a giant sword, or a dainty tea cup, you will always have what you need,” Sage Parum said and matched ...

Second Prestige Chapter 9 : Growing Pains

Perhaps it was because he was nervous because of his upcoming trip to be soulburnt. Perhaps it was because he was built that way. Either way, he had nightmares again.

He didn’t remember the details, something about golems and blood, runes and explosions. He woke up gasping, sweat dripping. It took some time for his heart to stop racing and his thoughts to slow down. He meditated for a bit, which helped him keep a calm demeanor until the trip to be soulburnt.

While he was waiting...

Second Prestige Chapter 8: Choosing a Domain

Dean Artjom steepled his fingers. “Normally I try and give students advice when the choice isn’t clear. I understand you have already made your choice.”

Hugo nodded, “I want to be a formations mage.”

“And why is that, exactly? I doubt you would be in my office today if you didn’t have a reason why.”

“Couple of reasons, I guess. I have always wanted to be a formations master, and create something wonderful. Plus, it’s what my father wanted for me before he...

Second Prestige Chapter 7 Cohort Introductions

It was Oskar, again. Even with a new body and new admissions time, Hugo still ended up with the same roommate. Hugo stood there, stunned, as he met Oskar for the first time again.

“Hello roommate! I’m Oskar, nice to meet you,” he held out his hand to shake, then said, “Let me put down my stuff first. Oh, I see you left me the bed by the door. How very considerate of you. That gets you extra roommate points for sure.” He plopped down everything onto his bed as he kept talking, ...

Second Prestige Chapter 6: Family Secrets

“Would you like to have your results displayed to the crowd? It costs four copper,” the attendant said before Hugo took his turn with the light mage.

“Why, yes. That sounds like a fun idea,” Hugo said and handed over the money.

The light mage put her hand on his shoulder and read off the numbers she saw to the attendant. With a bit of mana and a few mirrors, he had his eight stats showing to the crowd as he stood underneath. He was glad that he had ranked up before he came...

Not a Chapter

Hello my patrons, this is a post to prompt discussion. I wanted a second opinion on some changes I am making and your opinion matters a lot to me.  Please post a comment, I read every one from my patrons.

None of these changes would delay posting new chapters though, I still have a large backlog.

I am thinking that the first trip back in time was too late. It's a time loop story with almost no looping. I am thinking of adding a short loop where Hugo goes back to his own body ...

Second Prestige Chapter 5 : Speaker for the Dead

His hand hesitated at the door. He had to make a decision now and stick with it for the rest of his life. Did he want to abandon his mother, and tell her that her son was dead, or did he want to tell the truth and go through the hassle of convincing her who he really was. Now that he thought about it, there were several things that only the two of them knew about. He could do it, he could convince her that he really was Hugo.

If he went down that route though, he would be committing to ...

Second Prestige Chapter 4: Problem Solver

The mountain guide returned shortly, carrying a large duffel bag. He opened up and pulled out a strange contraption, it looked like a small cannon on a tripod. Hugo doubted that he could lift it with his current strength, and the brothers were moving it about one handed.

It didn’t take Hugo long to realize that the cannon wasn’t special, they set it off to the side negligently. Then, Feynman reverently pulled out the ammunition. It was a heavily runed cylinder with a pointed tip. It...

Second Prestige Chapter 3 : Brief Negotiations

Cristian must have been paid to help kill the other hopefuls so that Florian could get soulmarked. Florian’s mom seemed pretty mad that hadn’t worked, judging by the way she was holding Hugo up against the wall. Last time around he had gotten out of her grip by exposing the fact that she knew how the ritual worked and she encouraged her kid to kill people.

That wouldn’t work this time around. As far as she was concerned, he was a failed protector at best, and a murderer at worst.<...

Second Prestige Chapter 2 : Giant Spider Guts

The spider leg pierced his stomach on his left side. The leg went through him and deep into the gravel below him. The spider pulled its leg back, taking Hugo with it. He was stuck on the spider’s leg, just past the blades. The legs had barbs on them, locking him in place as the spider moved. Hugo grabbed the leg in front of himself and held on.

The spider tried to shake Hugo off, but that only made him slide higher up on the leg. He screamed in pain as he was whipped around. He could ...

Second Prestige Chapter 1: New Beginnings

Hugo carefully looked around. The mountain, the slowly fading ritual circle, the collection of people he hadn’t seen in a year. It all pointed to him traveling back in time. But evidently something had gone wrong in transit.

He hadn’t traveled back into his own body, he was in someone else’s body. He didn’t recognize who exactly, but it was clear that no amount of time travel would change his skin color and height. He was about six inches taller now, and several shades paler. 2022-05-19 00:12:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 37: The Heartbeat of the Mountain

The first week after the heist was the worst. Hugo kept expecting to find shimmer corps at this door. They had set up an elaborate trap with a mana core. It was ridiculous to think that they couldn’t find out who had taken something with that value. The earthquake had disrupted things, but he found it hard to believe that they could let something like that slip from their grasp.

He spent his birthday inside his apartment, he didn’t even leave the room once. He was eighteen now, fina...

Chapter 36: Evading Traps

They were both inside the warehouse when Hugo realized that he had been manipulated again. This was a stupid idea. The whole city was up for grabs and he was being sent to the one place that they knew was a trap. The boss had used his charisma on him again, and convinced him to do something that might get himself killed. The corps weren’t going to treat him with kid gloves, not tonight.

Hugo was about to tell Sebastian that they had to leave, when the young man pointed to the left and...

Chapter 35: Emergency Response

When Hugo reflected on the last three weeks of work, it was with a mixture of self loathing and relief. It wasn’t as hard as he had expected, which of course made him feel bad about himself. He hated that he was a criminal. That feeling was fading though.

The first week they had given him a key to copy, which he had easily done. Then they sent him in alone to steal. It had been tough, very tough, to convince himself to go through with the robbery. Eventually he convinced himself to g...

Chapter 34: A Skulk of Foxes

Hugo spent the first day back at home crying. He just laid on his bed and cried for hours straight. He was mad at Oscar for betraying him, but even more mad at the academy for believing the lie.

If Hugo hadn’t even gone to the academy, he wouldn’t be in an impossible situation. Harvesters made money, they didn’t get into enormous debt. He should have been a harvester.

Even a hedge mage would be better than this. Even though most of them were garbage, some hedge mages could d...

Chapter 33: Cost of Friendship

The thief had Hugo where he wanted him, on the ground and fearing another fireball. Instead of pressing his advantage though, he just made sure Hugo stayed down. He walked over to the cash boxes, with the one hand always pointing at Hugo.

“Halt!” a voice yelled.

It was a shimmer corpswoman. She stood a dozen feet away from the pair, pointing a shimmer gun at the two of them.

Hugo smiled and said, “Thank the gods you are here. That’s the guy.” Hugo said and pointed ...

Chapter 32 : Actions Have Consequences

It was late at night and Hugo was trying to get used to the fact that he had free time. He wasn’t dating anyone and he didn’t need to study. He had caught up with the general math knowledge he needed as a formation student, Rasmus had even stopped tutoring him. Cryptozoology and History were still a pain, but they didn’t require as much time as they used to. Right now he was listening to a student concert in the auditorium. The performers were standing in a ritual that let the audience ...

Chapter 31: Four Armed Tigers

With a smile, Hugo quickly chose three random cards. From her answers to Oskar, it was clear that she had some sort of true magic. But it couldn’t be real power if she still didn’t know the answer to Oskar’s final question.

The first card she unveiled was a skeleton holding a sword. “This is the card for death, your beginnings are seeped in death, and you wonder if it is all your fault.”

Hugo shifted uncomfortably. He still had nightmares about the people that died when ...

Chapter 30 Past, Present, and Future

History class was a bit of a misnomer. If Hugo had named the class himself, he would have named it etiquette class. Every day, Sage Ioana would start the lesson with a short story from history, usually one that ended in death or war. Then she would explain how it all could have been avoided if they had just remembered history and respected culture. The slave uprising of 3244 could have been avoided if the Nox mayor had understood the importance of remembering a human’s name when introduced....

Chapter 29: Seeing the Truth

Hugo hefted a small bag in his hands, wishing it was empty. As discussed, Hugo asked his culling party for silver based on how many shots of his they used. The other formation student paid him right away. When Hugo pressed the others, they were mostly noncommittal about it.

He had expected them to blow him off, but it still made him angry. Every single one of them could easily afford to pay him, but now that they had ranked up, they didn’t feel like following through on the payments. ...

Chapter 28: Pressure Vessel

Midterms had been a blow to Hugo’s ego. He had assumed that he was doing well in all four classes. Only Sage Marta agreed with him and gave him a one. He got a three in formations, which was devastatingly low. Not that Hugo disagreed with the grade, he had messed up on the math section of the test. A two in athletics was better, but Sage Hanna encouraged him to try harder. The worst was cryptozoology. He got a four in Sage Laisk’s test. She had apparently expected a perfect memory of her ...

Chapter 27: Applications of Magnesium

When he first had this idea, he dismissed it right away. Far too dangerous. But if he didn’t perform well on this next monster culling trip, he wouldn’t rank up with the rest of the class. He had to try out something new. His crossbow wouldn’t cut it with the bigger monsters they would be facing on their next outing.

So he was alone in the classroom, double checking his math. When he felt like he understood the new design, and his jitters finally went away, he stuck his hands into...

Chapter 26: Blossoming at Azad

The early morning hours were the calmest part of Hugo’s day. He loved getting up early and feeling like he was the only one up on campus. It was so quiet and serene.

This morning he pulled up his screen and thought about where to put his stat points when he ranked up. Four points were up for grabs. His strength had automatically gone up four points, so he would need to put at least a few points into dexterity to balance it out. If he didn’t, he would run the risk of tearing his musc...

Chapter 25: Culling Party

The entire first year student body was arrayed in front of the Puumets forest. Over two hundred students decked out in armor and sporting weapons. A total of ten instructors accompanied them, along with a few upperclassmen.

Hugo shifted uncomfortably. He was wearing a set of resin armor on loan from the academy. It didn’t fit. Obviously designed for someone with a smaller chest and arms, the armor dug into him uncomfortably. And he didn’t dare loosen it. Hanna had already beat anoth...

Chapter 24 : Intense Training

That night Hugo went to his dorm room right after dinner. Instead of studying like he was used to, he started creating new designs. It wasn’t that different from studying. He sketched out the design, worked out the math, and tried to create something new. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes he went back to the math. Thankfully he had passed the point where his creations exploded when the design was imperfect. He thanked  Sage Marta after every failed design. Her mana manipulation class ...

Chapter 23: Applying What You Learned

“Good news everyone!” Hanna said at the beginning of class.

This immediately put Hugo on edge. That woman didn’t give out good news, only pain.

“As of today, your daily runs to start off the class are over,” Hanna said with a smile.

Scattered applause and shouts rang out among the two hundred gathered students. Hugo didn’t join in, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Starting today, we are going to do combat training,” she said.

There it w...

Chapter 22: Trusting the Wrong People

He made it to the apartment building without further incident and walked up the stairs to her floor. When he knocked on his mother’s door, a man answered. Looks like mom had found a renter after all. It was someone he knew well.

“Hugo!” he yelled, “Good to see you. What a surprise.”

“Marius, good to see you too. I sent mom a letter, she should be expecting me,” Hugo said. He was ushered into the apartment.

His mother came out from her bedroom, “Hello Hugo. I ...

Chapter 21: Long Journey Home

The next morning, Hugo woke up before the sun as usual. He turned back over and tried to go back to sleep. He was still tired.

But not tired enough evidently, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Giving up on trying to sleep, he pulled up his stat screen. Quickly calculating the number of points he had gained, he saw he had enough to rank up to five. That was a bit of a surprise, since survival points were supposed to cap out at rank four. Killing that dire wolf with the explosive rune must...