Brandon Varnell

STnS: Chapter 194

Yu Qian did not rush at Wu Jian. He had expected the battle to start off with a bang, but the older man remained standing in place. Did he expect Wu Jian to attack?

“Are you not going to move?” asked Wu Jian.

Yu Qian smiled. “My preferred style of combat is to let my opponent make the first move.”

“So I see.”

That single statement told Wu Jian a lot. This man likely relied on countering his opponent’s attacks instead of initiating his own.

There wer...

MMG005 Cover

Lonwa came through with the Man Made God 005 cover. I hope you like it.

STnS: Chapter 193

Everyone followed Yu Qian to the arena floor. The stands were full of people, so many that they looked like nothing but a sea of hair.

Wu Jian’s eyes were better than most, and because of that, he spotted Hou Jingshu near the front seating. She was surrounded by her fellow Core Disciples. Most of them were men, but a few were women. It looked like she had been chatting with them, but she turned her attention toward him the moment he walked onto the arena.

She waved at him.

STnS: Chapter 192

Life returned to normal after the auction. Wu Jian spent most of his time either training alone or with Hou Jingshu. He would sometimes spend time with Ding Hong and Yai Bazhu, and Xia Lin would occasionally join them.

No one really bothered him, but he was rather famous by this point. Everyone knew about his relationship with Hou Jingshu. He had expected people to make trouble for him, but that didn’t happen. No one accused him of being a toad lusting after swan meat. No one tried to...

STnS: Chapter 191

Wu Jian didn’t even need to turn his head to see the destitute expression on Hou Jingshu’s face. He could see it reflected in the window. Still, he turned anyway, glancing at the woman whose shoulders were slouched in defeat and whose face looked like the world was coming to an end. He’d never seen anyone appear so heartbroken.

It hurt.

“That’s 56,000,00. Is there anyone else willing to top that?” asked Zhou Lihua, glancing in the direction of their booth with a frustr...

STnS: Chapter 190

Duo Long sat in his booth and observed the currently empty stage. They were on a break. Many of the audience down below had taken the chance to get up and stretch. Some had even gone to grab something to eat.

As a VIP guest, Duo Long and Mo Zhi had food brought to them. The Shang Kingdom’s food lacked the delicious blend of spices of the Ming Province. But he was hungry, and so he ate the food offered.

“So that was your disciple’s killer,” Mo Zhi said after he finished swa...

STnS: Chapter 189

“505,000!”

“510,000!”

“600,000!”

The price for the ingredients continued to climb. Only the people in the general seating were competing right now. Everyone in the VIP booths remained silent, allowing the price to climb.

“She did that on purpose, didn’t she?” asked Wu Jian.

Hou Jingshu tilted her head. “You’re talking about how she decided to auction off their star item before the Fifteen Thousand Year Spirit Spring Water?”

He nodded...

STnS: Chapter 188

Duo Long wasn’t alone. An elderly man was with him. He did not look like much, but Wu Jian could not see his cultivation. He was at least at the Human Limit Realm. His hair was white and his eyes gray. He had a fu manchu that went past his shoulders and wore a yellow yomeno on his head, which matched the color of his imperial hanfu.

“I heard the Zhou Family was auctioning off the ingredients for a Three-Layered Red Yin Yang Pill. I simply had to come,” said Duo Long. Although it s...

WIEDERGEBURT 14

Not much to say. Let them wedding bells ring.

STnS: Chapter 187

Wu Jian kept his eyes closed. The solitude of his room prevented any sounds from reaching him. He could only hear the sound of his own breathing and the beating of his heart.

As he took a deep breath in, it felt like he was breathing in the world. The yin and yang of the world permeated every fiber of his being.

Rooms in the academy had a grand sealing array that helped gather chi so people could cultivate. He heard from Hou Jingshu that these rooms were a far cry from those of se...

STnS: Chapter 186

Wu Jian spent most of his time at the academy cultivating. He and Hou Jingshu were provided Meridian Opening Pills and Middle-Grade Chi Gathering Pills by Zhou Lihua, who had come personally to deliver the pills to them. Thanks to her pills, Wu Jian had been able to break through to the Eighth Subrealm of the Asura Realm. Hou Jingshu was pushing into the Ninth Subrealm.

They were both making steady progress.

When he wasn’t cultivating, Wu Jian was sparring with Hou Jingshu. Thei...

STnS: Chapter 185

Wu Jian returned to his room after talking to Hou Jingshu for several hours. They had discussed the upcoming auction, her plans for the national tournament, and what she wanted him to do.

His task right now was increasing his cultivation and joining the Core Disciples as soon as possible. There would be a test hosted about two weeks after the auction. The test was for Outer Court Disciples to join the Inner Court Disciples. Anyone could participate regardless of when they joined, so Wu ...

STnS: Chapter 184

Wu Jian spent a moment admiring the young woman. He didn’t want to interrupt her when she was in the middle of sparring. There was another part of him that just wanted to admire her. Hou Jingshu was at her most beautiful when she was in the middle of combat. She looked like a fierce warrior princess from ancient myth.

She moved like a graceful dancer as she dodged attacks.

Her attacks were fiercer than a dragon.

The look in her eyes captivated the soul.

He watched an...

WIEDERGEBURT 13 - WIP

STnS: Chapter 183

The other students’ testing did not last nearly as long nor were they as fierce as when Wu Jian fought Yu Chuanguang. Yong Hai had done decently well in his sparring bout. He had seemed rather determined. Wu Jian wondered if maybe seeing his spar had lit a fire under his bum. The young master of the Yong Family seemed like the kind of person who hated losing.

Once every person had been tested with a sparring match, the instructors and Yu Chuanguang had congratulated them.

“You...

STnS: Chapter 182

“Congratulations to all who passed. You will all be allowed to enter the Shang Kingdom Imperial Academy. However, before we let you go, I would like to have each of you tested. Don’t worry. This won’t affect your admittance. We just want to know how strong you are so we can figure out how best to help you grow.”

The crowd began to murmur, but no one seemed surprised, leading Wu Jian to believe this part of the test was well-known to everyone. Ding Hong and Yai Bazhu were both li...

STnS: Chapter 181

It took almost an hour for the crowd of prospective students to gather. Yu Chuanguang gazed at the crowd before spotting Jian Wu among them. The young man was standing beside two others who seemed to be chatting with him. He didn’t think those two knew anything about him, so it was probably just a coincidence they got together.

“Welcome, young hopefuls,” he said. His voice carried to every corner of the pavilion, silencing all conversation. “You are here because you wish to atte...

STnS: Chapter 180

Zhou Lihua informed them over breakfast one morning that the auction had been delayed. This came as a relief to them since it meant they had more time to accrue funds for it. The Ten Thousand Year Spirit Spring Water was a rare item that many alchemists coveted. What’s more, Cì Chuān was obviously aiming for it. He came from one of the wealthiest nations on the continent. There was no telling how deeply he had lined his pockets for this auction. They needed to gather as much money as they...

Just a quick preview

Look who's gonna be wearing wedding dresses soon.

STnS: Chapter 179

Wu Jian stared up at the ceiling in a daze. He had just gotten out of the bath after having spent maybe three hours inside. Only about fifteen minutes of those three hours had been spent getting clean. The rest of the time had been spent getting dirty.

Very dirty.

He glanced down at the woman on his chest. Hou Jingshu refused to look at him. Her head was buried against his skin. She was pressing her nose into him.

“Are you really that embarrassed about what happened?” 2022-11-14 17:02:58 +0000 UTC View Post

STnS: Chapter 178

Everyone was silent on the carriage ride home. Wu Jian glanced at Zhou Lihua, who looked to be in a foul mood. He didn’t blame her.

Cì Chuān had completely disrupted the flow of her mini-auction for the last several sets of Meridian Opening and Middle-Grade Chi Gathering Pills. He would bid five hundred thousand spirit coins every time--a price none of the other cultivators present could match. To make matters worse, Zhou Lihua could not tell the man to piss off. They needed this mo...

STnS: Chapter 177

“Well?” Zhou Lihua’s eyes crinkled as she spread her arms as though to unveil herself to him. “What do you think?”

What did he think? Wu Jian wasn’t sure what to think. His brain had melted through his ears and all he was able to do was see. He stared at the two without being able to adequately express himself at all.

“Um… p-please don’t stare so hard. This is embarrassing enough as is,” Hou Jingshu mumbled as she tried to cover herself.

Her word...

STnS: Chapter 176

Zhou Lihua managed to refine roughly three hundred pills. Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu came by on the fourth day to discover the woman sitting before her cauldron, black bags under her eyes as she stared dazedly into the distance. It looked like she hadn’t slept a wink.

She wasn’t alone. Standing beside her was a middle-aged man with graying sideburns and dark eyes. He wore a silver alchemist robe with blue accents. Wu Jian recognized him from the time when he, Wu Meiying, and Hou Jingsh...

American Kitsune Manga - Low-res, Censored

STnS: Chapter 175

Zhou Lihua sat before her cauldron, which came up to about her waist when she stood up. It came almost up to her head while sitting. He’d never actually seen an alchemist’s cauldron until yesterday, so he had no idea they were so large.

“Do you know how alchemy works?” asked Zhou Lihua.

“You explained a little to me before. You refine ingredients into a pill shape. But I don’t know much more than that.”

“That’s only the basics. Alchemy requires two elements...

STnS: Chapter 174

The early morning sun streamed in through the window in Wu Jian’s bedroom, but he ignored it, focusing inward instead of outward. He was seated on his bed, his legs crossed, eyes closed, and hands forming the tiger seal.

His consciousness was already deep inside of his chi sea. He floated above his chi sea and studied the thirteen golden drops of blood floating above it.

These drops, which were roughly the size of his head, was the blood that belonged to Byakko. Four of them wer...

November 2022 Newsletter

Patrons!

This newsletter is a little late. Life has been... hectic. Between trying to maintain a social life, writing, publishing, and dealing with back pain, I haven't had much free time. But that's fine. I have a bit of time now, so I'm gonna let you all know what's happening with Patreon.

Severing Time & Space is now on volume 5 of the series. I've tried my best to add some good twi...

STnS: Chapter 173

“There’s another crack… I don’t think I can let anyone else know that I’m alive,” Wu Jian said, holding the necklace in his hands. Two cracks ran through it. One went lengthwise and the other traveled vertically from one end to the other. He was fortunate the cracks didn’t go around, but he had the impression the necklace would break if just one more person learned of his survival.

“I think you’re right,” Hou Jingshu agreed. “It was probably reckless enough just to...

STnS: Chapter 172

The carriage they rode in would have been considered by many to be understated. It was a simple carriage with enough room to sit six people, three on either side, and while the interior contained soft cushions and nice decorations, many nobles had more luxurious carriages.

The Jun Family did not believe in displaying their wealth unless needed. It was one of the many lessons Hou Jingshu’s father had taught her.

They did have fancy carriages  they used when the situ...

Aris Art Preview

Corresponding patrons should get emailed some time within the next few days regarding this month's Aris artwork. I'm just waiting for Patreon to finalize the payments.