Shirtaloon

Chapter 906: Protection of a Dictator

Having been established decades ago, the Holy Army of Knowledge had many elite units at silver and even gold rank. Other armies, both of nations and other gods, had lacked the forewarning of the goddess of knowledge. Without the lead time for recruiting and preparation, their ranks were mostly comprised of people who had ranked up using monster cores. They hadn’t intended to be adventurers, having little combat experience outside of monster surges. But when the call to war from their monarc...

Reminder of week off

This is just a reminder that there will be no chapters in the first week of June as I go to set up some home care for my mother. She lives on the other side of the continent, now, so visiting is a whole thing.

At the end of next week, I'll have an announcement about some things that are happening around the launch of book 11 in July.

Chapter 905: Objectives

Located safely away from Yaresh was an outdoor testing facility for the Magical Research Association. The Yaresh branch was one of the first, when the association was still looking to establish itself, and Clive had selected the location carefully. At a time when Yaresh was still rebuilding and struggling to control the surrounding region, the guards protecting the testing centre were, by default, required to safeguard a wide area around it.

Clive had situated the facility between two m...

Chapter 904: Vast Cosmic Power Types

Compared to most of Yaresh, the district containing the Magical Research Association campus was heavy on stone and light on trees. It certainly had none of the towering glass of the central district. Located right across the road from the campus was the Alchemy Association’s main research centre. The urban planners in charge of rebuilding Yaresh wanted to centralise the places most prone to unexpected explosions, inadvertent poison fog and accidental fire titan summoning.

Both organis...

Chapter 903: Defier

Farrah stepped out of the portal onto sand. She was on a beach that ran from turquoise water up to rainforest. A trail went off though the trees and a pier led into the water where a cluster of bungalows sat on stilts. The beach wrapped around a lagoon, sheltering the over-water bungalows. Looking back over the trees, several small mountains were visible, waterfalls spilling off their sides.

Jason stepped out of the portal to join her, the archway then vanishing into the sand. She looke...

Chapter 902: Listening For Whispers

“Now that I’ve seen you in action,” Valdis said, “I see a lot of potential angles to take another run at you.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a big arena guy,” Jason said.

They were in the participants lobby, lounging with drinks, snacks and some of their friends who either had fought already or were getting ready to.

“You should rethink that,” Valdis said. “They loved you out there.”

“It was a different experience,” Jason admitted....

Chapter 901: When People See My Powers

Life force was an odd thing. The more Jason rose in rank, the more his body became an arbitrarily shaped collection of blood, flesh and bone. The very concept of life force was increasingly divorced from the condition of his body, becoming more like abstract health points from a game.

The way life force manifested at high levels differed from person to person. For most, they seemed impervious to damage when their life force was high. Their health points were reduced with minimal, if any...

Chapter 900: A Lunatic's Nightmare

The mirage chamber in Yaresh was one of the newest in the world and featured the latest design innovations. Seating was arranged by rank, not because of privilege but because the projections in each section were tailored to different perceptual speeds. When gold rank fighters were just a blur to lower-rank spectators, it required a curated experience of replays and slow motion for them to enjoy the experience.

Jason had seen some of this in the VIP section, finding it startlingly simila...

Chapter 899: We Need to Put a Stop to It

Jason walked with Clive and Valdis down a tunnel towards the mirage chamber’s participant lobby. The passage was cavernous, their footsteps echoing on the blue tiles. Glow stones set into the walls, ceiling and even the floor let off a teal light with a shimmer effect that made the hallway feel like it was underwater.

“This reminds me of the underwater subway back in Greenstone,” Clive said.

“Don’t change the subject,” Jason said. “This is not a good idea.”

�...

Chapter 898: People Think You're Blowing Up Cities

Shortly after visiting Yaresh, Jason and Sophie had participated in a fighting arena. The venue, like most of the city, had been wiped out during the messenger invasion. As part of the reconstruction, the old arena was replaced with a massive mirage chamber. The domed building, constructed from hexagonal segments of stained glass, was a landmark that curved high over the trees.

Mirage chambers created false environments where people could be projected into as illusionary doubles of them...

Chapter 897: Like an Adventurer

Rick Geller and his team arrived just as a brothel fire sent a group of scantily clad women stumbling onto the street and right into Jason. Dustin Kettering, from Rick’s team, went in and used his ice powers to extinguish the blaze.

“Are you setting these up?” Rick asked Jason incredulously.

“I’m genuinely not,” Jason assured him. “Were you cursed by the god of lust or something?”

“No,” Rick said, then gave his wife Hannah a side glance. She gave him an a...

Short Break in June

TL;DR: Taking the first week of June off to go help my mum.

I would really prefer not to take another break so soon after the slowdown in April. During my break, however, my mum was hospitalised twice. I am going to go over and see her, and arrange home help so she can keep living independently. She lives on the other side of the country to me, so going over there is a whole thing.

I'm sorry to do this, but I get along much better with my mum than Jason doe...

Chapter 896: We Have Forever

Trading with Rexion, even Outer Rexion, came with many complications. Both natural and magical environmental conditions outright killed people unless they were brighthearts or at least silver rank. The effects of the natural array inside Rexion were not as severe as when the array was rendered unstable by the messengers, twenty years earlier. It was still enough to cause problems for the weak and ill-prepared.

The ambient magic interfered with many forms of elemental magic and was hosti...

Chapter 895: Try Not to Bring Down Civilisation

Outer Rexion had many temples, but they weren’t clustered together, as was the norm. With the town itself circling a massive shaft, the temple district likewise took the form of a ring. Positioned just behind the shaft-side plazas and entertainment districts, the houses of the holy were conveniently located for post-sin repentance.

What the locals called the Worship Ring was a wide boulevard. The cavernous ceiling accommodated the often exotic architecture of the temples, lining both ...

Chapter 894: Mandatory Team Activity

The subterranean border town of Outer Rexion was a ring of lights in the dark. Accommodation anywhere but the back tunnels was expensive by most standards, but gold rank adventurers had standards all of their own. Zara Nareen entered her suite and immediately spotted something different from when she left it. Someone had been in her room, despite explicit instructions to the contrary.

It was a multi-room suite, centred on two chairs and a couch set around a low table. There was somethin...

Chapter 893: On a Whim

Jason stood in front of the portal. He took a long breath and let it out slowly.

“Here we go.”

He stepped through and emerged in the portal room of Rexion, which had changed quickly in his absence. Previously empty but for one desk staffed by a bored attendant, it was now a combination greeting room and administrative centre. A path ran through the room from the portal to the door, with a half dozen staff now stationed to either side.

In the middle of the room was Marla....

Chapter 892 Extra: Inherent Gifts

[Prime Avatar]: A prime avatar is a physical and spiritual gestalt that serves as a mortal anchor for transcendent power. It does not have a soul of its own, serving as a vessel through which your soul can be expressed, fully embodying your consciousness and mortal power. The power of your avatar is limited to your mortal power and serves as a means to grow that power. As the anchor for your transcendent power, the prime vessel is requir...

Chapter 892: Just Some Guy

As he walked the short distance between Carlos’ research centre and the portal leading out of the astral kingdom, Jason contemplated what Carlos had said about how he sounded when he spoke. He drew up his character sheet and looked over the ‘inherent gifts’ his prime avatar possessed, replacing his old outworlder abilities.

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Inherent Gifts

• [Prime Avatar]

• [Numen]

2024-05-01 23:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 891: Butchery

Jason didn’t need to fly around in a sphere or have Shade turn into a vehicle to get around his realm. But after years of being what amounted to a disembodied spirit in landscapes that were more metaphor than reality, he was enjoying the feeling of limitation. And, by alerting Carlos of his approach, the priest had the chance to prepare for an event he’d been working towards for more than fifteen years.

Carlos had been conducting his research inside Jason’s soul realm because here...

Chapter 890: The Topic Of Pants

There were two shafts leading into the Brightheart city. One had been dug upwards by elemental messengers, and that had become the main shaft. The other had been dug down by regular messengers. It was now heavily fortified, even though the messengers on the surface were gone.

In that second shaft, Jason’s avatar floated in the air, at the very edge of his domain. There was a Brightheart fortress on the spot and Jason was hovering in front of a wall that sealed the entire shaft. A woma...

Chapter 890 Extra: Character Sheet

Jason Asano

• Nature: Prime Avatar of an Astral Nexus

• Current rank: Gold

• Progression to diamond rank: 29.5%

Attributes

• [Power] (Blood): [Gold 2]

• [Speed] (Dark): [Gold 4]

• [Spirit] (Doom): [Gold 2]

• [Recovery] (Sin): [Gold 2]

...