That night, Akari dreamt of her old life in Last Haven. She’d been avoiding these dreams for reasons she couldn’t explain. Even in Vordica, she’d held them back with all her mental might. But the day’s match had left her exhausted, and the pressure had been building up for weeks, like a Missile beneath her skin.
Now, Elend’s technique finally broke through, and the memories returned in full force.
“Where are we going?” Emberlyn asked from several paces behind her. It...
2024-01-13 19:47:07 +0000 UTC
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Later that evening, the team gathered in Akari’s hotel room to discuss their match. A TV sat on top of the dresser, showing the footage from various perspectives. Akari, Kalden, and Relia sat on one bed, while Arturo sprawled across the other. Zukan sat on the floor, while Elise leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.
This footage confirmed their suspicions about the match. Garriland’s wind and gravity artists had flown their teammates straight to the center in less than ten ...
2024-01-07 19:16:52 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Hi everyone,
Sorry for the long wait between chapters. I’d hoped to be more productive in December (especially since I had a break from work) but then I had some distracting medical issues to deal with. Things are slowly getting better now, but still not 100%.
Anyway, you might notice that I stopped capitalizing phrases like “mana artist,” “stone artist”, etc in this chapter. Basically, I looked at similar series like Cradle...
2024-01-05 13:45:18 +0000 UTC
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The weekend came far too quickly, along with the first interschool games. Akari’s team boarded an airship on Kelsday afternoon, joining several more squads of their peers. The ship flew north across the bay, passing miles of open water and coastline before it set down in Garriland.
The landing pads sat on the north side of town, and a pair of buses carried them down a busy road that cut through the school. Garriland’s campus was far newer than Koreldon’s. Instead of old brick buil...
2023-12-23 18:17:06 +0000 UTC
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Elend stepped out of the car when they reached the East Shore Bank. It was almost midnight, but Koreldon City never slept. A sea of lights swept over the horizon, from the skyscraper’s windows to the clustered streets below.
Irina slid out of the car behind him, and they stepped through a pair of sliding glass doors. Half a dozen guards filled the lobby, clad in black suits and armed with long Missile rods. The guards were only Artisans, but those weapons could probably stun someone m...
2023-12-16 18:41:09 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Hi everyone,
As you might have noticed from the title, this chapter is actually a second epilogue for Book 3 (Web of Knowledge) rather than a new chapter for Book 4 (Web of Aeons.) This means it takes place before the events of the current book.
I’d outlined various scenes in Book 4 showing the antagonists advancing their goals (or the protagonists figuring things out afterward) but I found myself not getting excited about any of th...
2023-12-10 19:03:20 +0000 UTC
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Akari stood with Arturo on the catwalk, watching their classmates fight the mana spawn below. These weren’t real spawn, of course. These were dream projections based on a Mystic’s model. Thousands of other students would be training on the same models worldwide.
She had to give the military credit: they were dangerously efficient when they had a common enemy.
This chamber itself was just like the one from Raizen’s class, with high domed ceilings and three fighting rings set ...
2023-12-05 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“Approaching Koreldon University,” said a voice from the intercom.
The train doors slid open, and Akari stepped onto the raised platform above Chapel Street. Thick white snowflakes drifted from the gray sky, covering the sidewalks and the streets below. A line of cars sat bumper-to-bumper, and the scent of burning mana crystals hung heavy in the winter air.
Akari followed a crosswalk over the congested street, then she raised her hood as she descended the stairs on the south s...
2023-11-28 13:09:24 +0000 UTC
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Akari’s second break flew by, and the Cloak portion began.
The Missile and Construct tests came with progressively harder rounds, and those rounds kept coming until you failed. It was sort of like a video game in that sense—a video game where no one but a Master would ever reach the end.
Meanwhile, the Cloak portion only had ten rounds, but the rounds themselves got harder. Failure was inevitable every time. The only question was how long you would last.
Each round had y...
2023-11-23 01:31:35 +0000 UTC
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Akari leapt to the right as a Missile flew past her face. She gathered her own mana in her palm, waiting for a chance to strike back.
Her last opponent stood on the opposite end of the chamber, a human-shaped Construct made of dream mana. Like all the testing opponents, this guy was solid blue with no face or hair. And while the figures wore no clothes, they also lacked all the dangerous bits beneath.
The figure took cover behind a wall, and Akari relaxed into her Silver Sight. Th...
2023-11-21 12:48:00 +0000 UTC
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Akari and the others walked eastward along the coast. Relia had a spring in her step the entire time, and who could blame her? She’d survived! If the theories were right, then krustoplegia was meant to prepare her body for an Aeon soul. Now that she had it, her condition would never threaten her again.
They’d already celebrated this news once, the day they’d learned about Relia’s bloodline. Still, a shred of doubt had hovered above their group like a storm cloud. A chance at lif...
2023-11-12 12:43:37 +0000 UTC
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Relia braced herself as the dragon closed in. Icy flames shot out from its mouth, leaving a deep trench in the barren earth. Even from half a mile away, Relia felt the weight of its power.
Her group had their backs to a steep cliff that overlooked the Inner Sea. Waves crashed on the shore below, and the winds blew as fierce as ever, threatening to push them off their feet.
“Pass me some mana,” Akari said to Kalden. “I’ll make a portal.”
“I’m out,” Kalden shou...
2023-11-07 12:24:25 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 11: Raptors
They walked for another six hours before the desert gave way to mountains once again. At that point, even the allnighters couldn’t keep them on their feet. Of course, Relia hadn’t taken a potion in the first place. Elend had sent her here to push her body to its limits, and she hadn’t reached those limits yet.
The group set up two tents in a narrow ravine beneath a rocky overhang. It might not be a cave, but it was the next best thing. Arturo pulled out t...
2023-11-05 13:15:36 +0000 UTC
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Akari opened her eyes and found Relia kneeling over her. A fire burned somewhere nearby, casting flickering shadows on the cavern walls. She felt the warmth on her skin, but it did little for the chill in her bones.
She tried to speak, but the words got caught in her barren throat. Kalden brought a water bottle to her lips, and Relia forced life mana into her channels.
“Try to cycle.” Relia’s voice came out dry and breathless as if she’d been sprinting up a mountain. “As...
2023-10-31 11:32:24 +0000 UTC
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Akari glanced back at her teammates, hoping against hope that someone had an idea. No such luck. The winds threatened to blow them off the mountain, and they had to cycle their mana at full force just to keep the cold at bay.
She tried to breathe, but the thin air offered no relief. Her chest tightened, and her heart raced even faster. The others didn’t look much better, either. Arturo let out several ragged coughs, and Relia curled up in a ball behind her. ...
2023-10-28 13:52:13 +0000 UTC
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The next few days passed in a blur, and Akari and her friends trained harder than ever before.
Kalden spent several more days in his alchemy lab, making soulshine pills for himself and Akari. Like Relia’s pill, these were each attuned to their own bodies and mana, letting them increase their daily gains with no side effects.
Akari made slow progress on her displacement technique, but she struggled to dig up the right memories. She knew her father had several theories about this,...
2023-10-22 14:51:19 +0000 UTC
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The sun had barely risen when Kalden followed Akari into the hunting room. Snow covered the backyard once again, and heavy flakes clung to the room’s tall glass windows.
Elend and Irina lounged on a leather sofa near the tree, and Relia sat across from them, wearing a pair of pink flannel pajamas. Kalden wouldn’t be caught dead wearing pajamas in front of people, and the rest of the house seemed to share that sentiment.
Well, except for Glim, who lounged in one of the mirrors,...
2023-10-19 01:02:00 +0000 UTC
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Silence followed Elend’s announcement, and Akari could have sworn she heard a cricket chirping near the forest.
Finally, she broke the silence with a nervous laugh. “That’s a joke, right?”
Elend smiled at her, but it wasn’t his usual humorous smile. This one was more sympathetic, as if he knew exactly how much she didn’t want this job. Akari glanced at her teammates, but their expressions ranged from shock to confusion. Kalden and Relia were no exception, but she didn...
2023-10-05 12:23:11 +0000 UTC
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Akari followed her friends into the backyard for their first day of team training. By now, they were two weeks into their break, and Midwinter was just a few days away. A warm spell had swept through Koreldon City, melting the snow and turning the yard into a soggy mess of puddles and mud. The remaining snow flashed in the morning sun, causing her to squint.
They followed the path from the patio to the edge of the pool. Heat sigils prevented the water from freezing, but it was still too...
2023-10-01 14:17:06 +0000 UTC
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Relia spent the next hour training in the backyard and cycling her new pill through her channels. By the end of the session, she could almost feel her soul dilating, letting in more mana than before. She’d have to go easy on Akari when that happened. She’d spent years learning to control her power as an Apprentice, but this was all uncharted territory. One wrong move could actually kill someone.
Kalden had returned to his alchemy lab instead of joining them. He was already making so...
2023-09-24 12:11:59 +0000 UTC
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Relia sat with Akari on the back porch of the Darklight estate. Flames danced in the outdoor fireplace, and a thousand footprints covered the surrounding snow.
She and Akari had trained out here every day since the start of Midwinter break. They started at sunrise, bundled up in four layers of clothing. By noon, they’d usually stripped down to their pants and tank tops.
Relia had always trained harder than her peers; she had to if she wanted to survive. But motivation was a funn...
2023-09-17 19:21:52 +0000 UTC
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Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Kalden trudged down the stairs and opened the door to his alchemy lab.
He liked sharing a room with Akari, but she’d gotten more unpredictable over Midwinter break. Some nights, she would lose track of time and stay on her computer until well past midnight. Then there were days like today when she woke up before the sun and trained with a sudden burst of energy.
Kalden’s brain worked better with a routine, and a part of him liked school f...
2023-09-12 11:58:11 +0000 UTC
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Akari stepped across the playground, searching for her best friend. Woodchips crunched beneath her shoes, and she had to dodge a few muddy areas from last night’s storm. Even the play equipment still glistened with raindrops, from the aluminum swing set to the massive yellow slide.
Shouts and laughter filled the courtyard as her classmates ran back and forth. A small crowd gathered around the sandbox where Reoko was constructing a massive castle. The boy had become a Sand Artist last ...
2023-08-27 16:58:18 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Hi everyone! The final draft of Aeonica Book 3 is only about 90% done, so I’m not officially done with my break yet. However, I did promise to have at least one chapter of Web of Aeons done before the end of August, so here it is! I should be back into my usual routine sometime next month. (Although, I do have Chapter 1 almost done, so I plan to post that soon as well.)
Elend trudged through the snow, on his way to anoth...
2023-08-26 16:40:04 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone,
Thanks for your patience during my short break from the WoS series. I thought I’d check in with a quick update.
First of all, I finished a new (temporary) cover for the fourth book, Web of Aeons. And Glim won the poll! Like I said, these MidJourney covers are temporary, and I mostly use them for the volumes on Royal Road. Eventually, I’ll be commissioning actual art for the covers when it’s time to publish.
Secondly, things are going good wi...
2023-08-04 00:30:48 +0000 UTC
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I don't know if everyone has seen these yet, but I used Midjourney to make some temporary book covers for the WoS series, and I’ve been using these covers on Royal Road. (If you haven’t seen them yet, you can here.)
So far, we have:
- Web of Secrets (Akari)
- Web of Dreams (Relia)
- Web of Knowledge (Kalden)
Like I said, these are temporary c...
2023-06-22 00:14:51 +0000 UTC
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Well, this wraps up another volume of this series! At over 125k words, Book 3 ended up being the longest one so far. Book 1 had 119k words, and Book 2 was the shortest with 95k.
I was mostly happy with the way it turned out. I know some of you weren’t a fan of the school games and lower stakes battles, but hopefully you still found them entertaining overall.
Book 4 will probably focus less on school battles than Book 3 did. Although, that shouldn’t be hard. Between the qualify...
2023-05-22 16:54:49 +0000 UTC
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Akari lay in Kalden’s bed, wearing nothing but her glasses. Endorphins ran through her brain like mana, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
Needless to say, their date night had been a success, and the qualifying rounds were just the thing to help them relax. Not the game itself, but the aftermath. She’d been too tired for any proper training. That left watching movies, and . . . other things.
Kalden lay behind her, running a finger from her hip to her knee. Akari seized his hand...
2023-05-22 12:18:20 +0000 UTC
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Relia slouched in her computer chair, locked in a staring contest with a blank document. Master Nightfang’s final paper was due this Kelsday, but she couldn’t find the energy to start it.
Training had always come easily for Relia. When she trained, she bought herself more time in this world. Even if she didn’t reach Artisan, every bit helped. But school papers were a different story.
She’d always promised herself she’d never complain about her condition, or use it as an ...
2023-05-21 01:27:23 +0000 UTC
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Elise pressed a hand to the front door, sending a burst of pure mana into the lock. Mana signatures were as unique as fingerprints, and this lock was attuned to her and her family.
A Midwinter tree filled the vestibule, two stories high, and wider than a car at its base. Garlands and ornaments ran around the stone pillars, and the pale lights reflected off the marble floors. Beyond that, the Moonfire estate sat in silence, and her footsteps echoed through the halls.
Elise pulled o...
2023-05-18 12:43:22 +0000 UTC
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