yrsillar

Chapter 95 Patron Preview (Red+)

Zhengui had grown, and not just physically. 

When she had lain down for her weekly sleep, he had still been big enough to fit in her hands. When she awoke and went to fetch him from his kiln, she had found the entrance cracked open and two, much larger sets of eyes staring up at her. She could still pick him up comfortably, and even hold him in her arms, but he was nearly a half meter long, ignoring his serpentine half.

‘Fix? Sorry.’ His thoughts wer...

Tales of the Argent Sect

First part of the preview is now up on Discord.

Chapter 94 Patron Preview (Red+)

Ling Qi sat atop the roof of her home. Her eyes were closed, but her awareness spread far from her body. She felt the trickling streamers of starlight, dyed silver by the power of the moon, streaming down from the vault of the sky, and as she breathed, she drew them in and wove them carefully into her own qi, circulating and compressing until the stellar energies were indistinguishable from her own. Her dantian pulsed like a heart, growing infinitesimally denser with each cycle.<...

November Bonus Poll

It's that time again and I think I am settling on a schedule here. Thank you for your patience everyone.

Let me also give an update on the sidestory project. I know folks have been waiting a long time but I am still working on it. I've written and rewritten but so far haven't gotten something I'm happy with. I hope the addition of preview chapters has helped make up for it!

In any case here are this months options

Chapter 93 Patron Preview(Red+)

Ling Qi cast a glance up at Cai Renxiang, who despite her minor injuries showed not the slightest hint of lacking confidence. No, in this case, the heiress had indicated that she should continue retreating, and that meant Cai Renxiang had something in mind. She did not want to interfere with it out of some misplaced and pointless courage.

She caught Gu Xiulan’s eye and jerked her head in the direction of the plaza and the lecture hall, playing all the while. They needed t...

Chapter 92 Patron Preview (Red+)

“Very well. I hope you know what you are doing, Ling Qi.” Gu Xiulan turned on her heel, heading back into the crevice. Ling Qi, for her part, turned to keep an eye on her surroundings, even as she pulled her new talisman from her ring into her hand, rolling up her sleeve to put the thing on. Thankfully, Chu Song’s armband shrunk to fit her much thinner arm. Her ribbon soon took its place in the ring. Now that she had the time to consider it, her ribbon was no longer very us...

Chapter 91 Patron Preview (Red+)

The trail of destruction was thankfully easy enough to follow; Xiulan was hardly subtle. The still smoldering trees and torn up turf told the tale of a running battle, but she didn’t have the time to decipher the details. 

Ling Qi quickly became aware that danger still remained with loose groups of qi signatures hunting through the woods. She was able to avoid them with a bit of effort, but she had to wonder why they hadn’t simply followed the obvious trail she was...

Chapter 90 Patron Preview (Red+)

“We each get something for our victory,” Ling Qi decided, casting a glance at Meizhen and Chu Song as she and Su Ling helped Li Suyin stand. Her friend’s arm was still twisted badly, and Ling Qi could see a massive bruise forming across her side through the rips in her gown. Su Ling was less badly off, being in a similar condition to Ling Qi save that she lacked the benefit of clothing that repaired itself.

Ling Qi could feel the deep ache that she had come to lea...

Chapter 89 Patron Preview (Red+)

“I don’t get it,” Ling Qi said bluntly, relaxing her stance fractionally. She wouldn’t bolt immediately because something was off here. She wanted to check up on her friends, particularly Meizhen and Xiulan, but she wouldn’t help anyone by being reckless. “This whole scenario makes no sense. If you didn’t want me to interfere, why approach close enough to be sensed at all? If you’ve been keeping an eye on me, you must know that I would have been cultivating for at...

Chapter 88 Patron preview (Red+)

Given the early hour, Ling Qi decided to simply head to the vent and cultivate until the sun rose. She had a heart and spine meridians to clear if she wanted to make full use of her new Thousand Ring Fortress art, and even if the site didn’t exactly help her to do so, soaking in the Argent energy helped her concentrate and focus. Besides, it would be some time until she would meet up with Meizhen for training.

Ling Qi would be lying to herself if she said that the f...

Chapter 87 Patron Preview (Red+)

Studying through all of the security formations laid upon Wen Ai’s home was incredibly tedious, but if she was going to bypass them without breaking or defacing the schemes, it was an unfortunate necessity. She still wasn’t a fan of spending an hour in a cramped booth with a guy she didn’t particularly like. At least he wasn’t a creep like Huang Da.

Once the review was done, she got to work on her other mundane tasks, including going out to hunt and stockpile cores ...

Chapter 86 Preview (Red+)

If she could talk to Xiulan, then surely she could manage to talk with Meizhen, and restore… something of what they had.

In the end, she had to sit up in the front room of the house for most of the evening, doing her best to calmly meditate as she waited for Meizhen to come home. Zhengui was resting, dematerialized for the moment. They were still practicing with it; he got antsy if she kept him that way while he was awake.

It was difficult to keep herself calm, but ...

Chapter 85 Patron Preview (Red+)

Ling Qi lifted her hand from Zhengui’s shell and wiped away the sweat that had beaded on her forehead while she concentrated. Her spirit lay on the ground before her, his serpentine tail curled around his shell as he slept. Scattered fragments of beast cores lay all around him, the only sign of the week’s worth of hunting income that she had fed into the all consuming furnace of his stomach.

“That was well done.” She looked up as her teacher, Elder Ying, spoke. The ...

Chapter 84 Preview (Red+)

Ling Qi had fun shopping about with Xiulan, and by the time they arrived at the meeting point, she was actually considering wearing her hair loose for awhile, perhaps just gathered in a tail with braids on either side of her face. She had seen a few ornaments she liked, and there were oils for keeping even her rebellious locks relatively straight. It hardly occurred to her to wonder just how badly Xiulan had corrupted her. 

They arrived at the meeting point together to...

Chapter 83 Patron Preview (Red+)

The focus of the lessons remained on her connection with Zhengui, the way her own qi affected him and vice versa. While Zhengui was too young to benefit from any such lessons, he did get to enjoy the fruits of the Elder’s garden. The little xuanwu was kept occupied during the long sessions of meditation by gnawing on fruits half the size of his own body. Ling Qi was glad her gown was self-cleaning, else it would probably have ended up quite stained.

She felt her connectio...

August Bonus Poll

It is that time of the month again. My apologies for the delays on the second tier exclusive interludes everyone. Will be getting the first part out within a week or two.

Chapter 82 Preview (Red+)

The lessons with Elder Ying proved a stark contrast to the rest of her day. She was not sure when she had become acclimated to having friends and acquaintances around or perhaps it was the echo of Elder Ying’s story, but she did not like being alone again. Meizhen was nowhere to be found, Li Suyin was busy with work, and even Su Ling appeared to be hiding out in seclusion still, going by the sealed entrance to her cave. Gu Xiulan was busy with that business Han Jian had talked ...

Chapter 81 Patron preview(Red+)

The unopened letter resting on the desk in her room stirred several conflicting emotions in Ling Qi as she stared down at it. Guilt because she had completely forgotten about the burgeoning correspondence with her mother in the rush of events, faint hopefulness that she would be able to reconnect with her, and regret when she recalled how flippant she had been in her own letter. Would this just be a cursory response from a woman who probably couldn’t fathom Ling Qi’s current ...

Chapter 80 Patron preview (Red+)

The end of the week and the day of the council meeting both came quickly after that. Unfortunately, things with Meizhen didn’t improve. The girl showed up for their training sessions but vanished just as quickly thereafter, brushing off all attempts to draw her into conversation.

By the time the last day came around, Ling Qi had decided to simply give Meizhen the space she clearly desired. This meant that she ended up walking to the meeting alone. Given the hours she kept...

Chapter 79 Patron Preview (Red+)

Much of her time and attention still went to Zhengui, keeping him from wandering off, eating strange things, or any number of other troubles he tried to get himself into. She was glad she had gotten more patient since she began cultivating or Zhengui probably would have driven her to her wit’s end.

Luckily, Zhengui seemed to be very much a creature of the day so by the time the sun had fallen and the bright half moon had risen, he was well asleep for the night atop the he...

Chapter 78 Patron Preview (Red+)

It had only been a single day since the egg had hatched, and Ling Qi was already feeling harried. Her spirit’s constant hunger and desire for her attention consumed hours of her time. She had run out of grade one cores in short order and had been forced to put off research into his nature in order to get more.

There was a minor lucky break when she had left him in the garden atop the still warm kiln to retrieve some items from her room, only to return and find that he had...

Chapter 77 Patron Preview (Red+)

The musical experimentation helped quite a bit, she thought, in letting her reflect on the difficult situation she was in with Meizhen. She was still angry at the breach of her personal space, but more than that, she was worried about her friend. Although Meizhen remained as harsh and unflinching as always during their training together, outside of it, she found the other girl avoiding her eyes and keeping a distance that she hadn’t before. Someone who didn’t know Meizhen as ...

Chapter 76 Patron Preview

Her efforts to help Su Ling took place at night. She met the fox-eared girl at the vent, and they went from there, taking the narrow natural paths that lead higher on the mountain.

“Tell me I’m not the only one who thinks there’s something weird with that girl Li Suyin is training with,” Ling Qi said as the two of them climbed a short cliff face with mostly effortless ease.

Su Ling grunted in response, easily finding foot and hand holds as she moved up the roc...

Chapter 75 Patron Preview (Red+)

The following days, Ling Qi threw herself into training and meditation to distract herself from the confusion and uncomfortable feelings that filled her thoughts. With such frantic focus, the second level of the Argent Mirror Art came to her swiftly. It was not a comfortable experience; the art was focused on self-reflection and clearsightedness, and further mastery only left her less able to hide from her thoughts. 

She found herself thinking over past events. Su Ling...

September Bonus Poll

Its that time again, here are your options for this months bonus.

August Preview

The August Interludes preview is up in Discord

Exorcist of Tonghou

The second Side story is now posted on the anthology published in Royal Road, if you haven't yet had a chance to read it, check it out!

Sidestory 3

Sorry this took awhile, Time to select the new story prompt though!

Sidestory complete

The second siestory, 'Exorcist of Tonghou' has its first draft complete. You can find it on the Discord in the 'Exclusive Interludes' Channel. Links are Pinned

August Bonus Poll

It's that time again. Here are your options for the next month. Voting will end on the 1st of August.