no mantis by popular vote!
leopard was a little too subtle and sneaky, so
//
Ruyi woke to a slow boiling of pain, under the skin, searing her inside-out. She jerked awake, gasping. She couldn’t move her arms but she could feel bands of hot steel searing her wrists, locking her ankles in place. It felt like she was caught between two giants’ hands and they were bent on ripping her apart, slowl...
2023-09-05 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostAN: think I will try devoting Sundays to doing 1x a week of a more conventional litRPG cultivation story and try a 6x Twinned, 1x other thing schedule. Or possibly a 5x Twinned 2x other thing (weekdays/weekends split) once I get Twinned's Dragon Tier backlog up to ~25 chapters
Working (generic) title: Solo System Cultivation
Basic premise is MC is the only one with a system in a cultivation world--the 'system' is really an AI chip powered by the Dao of Fate.
They held a funeral for Mei in the Bakery’s front yard. Jin said it’s where she would’ve liked to be buried.
Mei didn’t have paintings of just herself hanging in the Bakery—she wasn’t that kind of person—but she did have a painting of the two of them sitting at the edge of a roof, hands held, smiling at the horizon. It seemed to have been done in some haste; the strokes lapped over each other, but still the painter had captured something of her. Maybe it was the way she sm...
2023-09-03 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostShe didn’t make it ten strides out the door before Jin landed in her path.
“Sis,” he said, voice low. “Slow down.”
“Get out of my way.”
“You have that look on your face,” he said.
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re about to do something very stupid.”
“Jin, I swear...”
He held up his hands. “Look, sis, I care as much as you do, but you can’t just run off into a warzone—”
“I lied to you.” 2023-09-02 16:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Weeks later…
The Middle Wall split the round lands of Jade Dragon City in two, curved like the line between dark and light in a yin-yang. It split the Upper and Lower Cities. Dynasties rose and fell but the wall remained, as it did in every major city in the realm. Walls meant order, structure, this thick plain of gray you could see from nearly anywhere in the city—an inspiration, or so said the Emperor. Among nobles there was a saying: the Wall keeps the peace.
... 2023-09-01 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe Villa of Swords, which housed Li Family’s Jade Dragon branch, sat outside the city walls amid an artificial lake which drew its waters from the White River. Fingers of mist spread over the lake’s surface, veiling the Villa, but Ruyi could see its shadowy outline—a five-floor pagoda.
The wooden plank path up to the island villa was too narrow and frail for carriages; she and Mother had to dismount.
“The path itself is a test,” said Mother. “Only those with a swordsm...
2023-08-31 16:31:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi’s usual training clearing had been subject to a hostile takeover by a family of wild ferrets. They’d gnawed through half her ‘KEEP OUT!’ signpost. After a brief skirmish and a screaming match—which she won—she drove them off.
Then she started on her usual benchmarks.
Speed. She ran one hundred strides in a little under three-eights of a breath. A good deal faster than last time, but her gains were slowing. Still it sent up warm fuzzy sparks in her chest. She remem...
2023-08-30 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostNote:
Added this section to chapter 20, just after her demonification, to (hopefully) make her hiding seem a little more plausible—
‘She ordered body dyes from the Alchemist’s Guild. She found she had to paint her arm daily; the pink tone just wouldn’t stick. It didn’t really look like skin up-close, it looked like paint, but it’d hold up under cursory inspections. She’d probably be fine if something briefly tore her glove off.’
// 2023-08-29 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Days later, there was still no reply from Sen.
Ruyi told herself not to panic. It’d come she told herself—she’d wrung herself dry worrying over Tingting’s letters, for nothing. She wasn’t playing this game anymore.
Sen had seemed shaken when last they met. Maybe she needed some time.
Still Ruyi worried, but not any more than she normally would.
***
“Coming through!”
The horde of black-cloaked cultists parted way before a rattling steel trolley...
2023-08-28 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostShe woke to a whiff of iron and salt. She cracked an eye. Her hunger was a low-pitched scream; she felt she could swallow an elephant and still be famished.
“Gluh?”
By the bed, piled high, a plate of bloodied raw steaks. There was a note.
“From Mother, with love.”
Mother knew her so well.
Halfway through the pile, she could think again. Her hands were bloodied. She’d gotten blood all over her nightclothes, the silk blankets, her face was smeared with it...
2023-08-27 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostAdded to Ch. 27: “I would say,” he said at last. “The king of poisons. A poison so potent, so possessive, it even consumes other lesser poisons. Moon Serpent venom.”
Basilisk is too western, so swapped it out. Idea is to keep the western (human) side of the mountains Ancient China-inspired while the eastern (demon) side is Ancient Greek/Rome inspired; you can see this in the names. The beasts that populate their respective lands derive from their respective myth...
2023-08-26 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostSen was heavier than she looked, and she looked quite heavy. As she loaded the girl up on her back, Ruyi nearly fell over. Did she have lead for bones? The training boulders at home were much heavier, but they were smooth stable things with steel handles welded to the sides, and flat bottoms for easy carrying. Bodies were all floppy and wobbly and lurched with every step. Plus Ruyi was a head shorter, which meant she had to bend so far over she was staring at the ground.
She settled on ...
2023-08-25 16:35:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi couldn’t move. She couldn’t think to move. She was stuck at the bottom of a vast sea of feeling, drowning, slowly crushed. She couldn’t breathe. She tried and tried but there was no space in her chest.
“Incredible,” said the demon, eyeing Sen. “Such will… I’d come to see one of humanity’s genii. What a rare pleasure that I should witness another.”
“Run!” cried Sen. This time her voice trembled. Her whole body trembled, and Ruyi knew s...
2023-08-24 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostZhilei led them to the kind of cave you’d expect silly children to wander into and never come out; the kind of cave where bones crunched beneath your feet with every step. It looked like it housed a basilisk.
He had a wood torch in hand, its tip a knot of burning cloth.
“Stay close,” said Sen, hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Okay,” said Ruyi happily, and nuzzled up to her.
“Please,” said Zhilei. “I wouldn’t let harm come to either of you.”<...
2023-08-23 16:32:50 +0000 UTC View PostWhen they entered, Sen didn’t follow.
“Would you like to come in, Miss Li? I have some wonderful Oolong brewing,” said Zhilei.
“No,” said Sen. “I’ll stand guard. I’m to keep Ruyi safe—I promised the Mistress.” She scanned the sleepy town like any of the little thatched huts might be harboring a hive of demons.
***
The air outside had a morning chill to it but none of it seeped inside. A light fire rumbled in a stone hearth, casting a warm glow over ...
2023-08-22 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe carriage climbed up a winding rocky path. As they went higher the trees got thicker, bigger, their leaves narrower and narrower, until they looked like thousands of needles hanging off branches thick as human trunks. It rained much less up here, but Ruyi had read the roots went far deeper. Unlike in Jade Dragon City, the soil here hadn’t been leached dry by hundreds of years of farming spirit crop. If Ruyi closed her eyes, she could sense the motes of qi were brighter here—in the air,...
2023-08-21 16:30:59 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: power levels: (human)
Qi Condensation
Foundation
Core Formation
Nascent Soul
power levels (demon):
//
“The Butcher requests an escort.”
Sen sheathed her blade. She wrenched off her sweat-stained blindfold; the hay dummies before her lay scattered in a loo...
2023-08-20 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Ruyi became a demon, her research output shot up.
She found she tired much less easily. When her mind was distracted, seized by an urge, she couldn’t think. But when it was quiet she could turn her mind to nearly any task, even boring ones like hours-long ingredient dissections. She could set her mind on a thing and trust it would stay there forever if she so wished; the way you could set a cup on a table, and trust it would simply stay.
Distractions had been as natural as...
2023-08-19 16:52:34 +0000 UTC View PostWhen she got home, the first thing she did was pull Jin out of his evening spear practice.
“We need to talk.”
He was drilling the Nine Sun Rises, one of the signature Yang spear arts which Father had pioneered as a youth. A chain of nine thrusts, each a sun rising at the tip of the spear, brighter and fiercer than the last.
Also louder, too—so loud she had to shout twice for him to hear her.
“What is it?” he said, mopping sweat off his brow.
**...
2023-08-18 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi was right. Behind a grand wood desk sat the footman, smiling as genially as when he helped her off the carriage at the Banquet.
His smile froze on his face.
“It is you!” she exclaimed.
For a moment every muscle in his face was still.
“Why,” he said. “What an unexpected delight. Miss—”
“Nala,” said Ruyi, her eyes flicking to Mei. “Call me Nala.”
He seemed amused. “Very well. Nala it is. If I had known it were yo...
2023-08-17 17:25:28 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: changing the story's name to either "twin destinies" or "twinned destinies" -- lmk which you think sounds better!
//
Mei scrubbed the residue off the rest of her oven racks, wiped down the tables, and shut off the lights, one by one. She locked the front door twice, the back door once, wedged wood blocks over the windows, and powered up the alarm arrays.
All done, she said, “Come with me.” They set off.
She still couldn’t decide if Nala was ...
2023-08-16 16:34:35 +0000 UTC View PostThe ground ruptured under her feet; vines of stone lashed at her ankles. She yelped, stumbling over herself.
A Foundation aura bloomed behind her—that freckly little twig was at Foundation?!
She was so screwed.
She dashed faster, swallowing great swathes of earth with each stride, bracing for a spear through her back.
None came.
She chanced a glance back. Where was he? Ah—that dot back there, bumbling closer. Why was he so far back?
He really s...
2023-08-15 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostNote: removed teeth mutations.
in chapter 10, when talking about the demon cult, Jin says, “I don’t agree with the idea of summoning demons to gain quick power” rather than “eating demons to gain quick power”
Onwards!
//
She found a nice flat slab of ice, bathed in moonlight, in which to admire herself.
Her Demon Limb drew her eye first. It was said to be the locus of demonic energy, like a human’s heart—to kill a demon you only nee...
2023-08-14 16:30:59 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time dinner finished and the dancing began, she wasn’t shocked anymore.
Just furious.
Tingting wouldn’t meet her eyes. Not once did Tingting acknowledge her. Didn’t she deserve that, at least?
Apparently not.
She couldn’t be bothered to dance. Could hardly stand up straight as it was. The room was steaming hot, filled with other people’s breaths, other peoples’ insufferable happiness, and it was driving her mad. She excused herself and shoved her way...
2023-08-13 16:31:00 +0000 UTC View PostSo the trip did not go as planned.
She had fallen flat on her face. Physically, once. Metaphorically, the whole trip.
But she had it! Stored away and triple-locked in her fridge.
That night she tried sleeping, but she just couldn’t manage it. Her heart was beating too heavy in her chest; it kept her up. She was terribly afraid a thief might snatch the flesh in the darkness.
After an hour of tossing, she cursed, got up, marched over to the blackboards in her lab, and ...
2023-08-12 16:46:20 +0000 UTC View PostThe Underground was every bit as boorish and disgusting as Ruyi had imagined it.
On one side were tables of huddled gamblers, throwing up cards and coins, smoking so heavily they were shrouded in their own atmosphere of noxious fumes. On the other scantily clad men and women danced and laughed and lured drunk patrons behind velvet curtains.
The centerpiece was worst of all: bouts run one after one, sweaty men and women in loincloths and tunics raging at each other. Hair was torn. ...
2023-08-11 16:33:44 +0000 UTC View PostThey arrived in the Lower City late in the darkening evening.
The main street looked like a battlefield. The charming little shops had closed up early and wedged boards over their windows. The grounds were worse than she remembered—rucked-up debris was sprinkled up and down the roads along with fresh craters, some still smoking. Half the lanterns on the string had been shot out, casting the street in islands of flickering light.
“There was a protest,” explained Jin. “Culti...
2023-08-10 16:31:00 +0000 UTC View PostRuyi led her to the lab. It had started off as this little dungeon in the ground, but over the years Ruyi had tacked centrifuges, smoke vents, and a tiny garden to the top for quick-and-dirty ingredients. The insides were strung up with pipes, humming with dial-ridden instruments sunk into the walls. The rest of the space was clogged with papers and scattered with the shells of a kind of nut she liked chewing while brewing. It was a glorious mess. It was probably the closest thing you could g...
2023-08-09 16:30:59 +0000 UTC View PostA/N: edited the start of chapter 1
It's cleaner now I feel :)
//
Two months before the Midsummer Banquet, Father gathered them at the dinner table.
“Marcus has slain his second,” he announced, drawing a gasp from Mother. But the name meant nothing to Ruyi.
“You may know him as the Demon Lord, but I’ve never liked such monikers,” said Father with a dismissive wave. “They grant him too much mythic power. He is mortal and he is fallible....
2023-08-08 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe Codex felt like a bomb sitting in her satchel. Yet each time she tried to read it the letters slipped through her head. It was clear no work was getting done that night.
She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. She couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly be sad when the world was so bright, so various, so full of color. She smiled at a passing fly. She got lost in the swirling wood patterns of the floorboards. She flitted about weightless, a sprite of sunlight and fluff.
...
2023-08-07 16:31:00 +0000 UTC View Post