hermitscave

Twisted Skies, Chapter 3 - Investigation

 The sliding door towards the back half of their train was occupied by the overnight cabins and the toilets. Different from most passengers on this long journey, Thurain himself didn't have a cabin ticket. Though of course he didn't need one, since he was just cultivating the entire time. Or rather, he would have been, had he not been so rudely interrupted by this inconsiderate jewel thief. Thus, he had instead opted for a transit ticket. While it had saved him some money, but he also ha...

Twisted Skies, Chapter 2 - Rich Man's Troubles

 “He's a cultivator! Just look at his robes! Not even a poor person would would wear something this shabby, so he must be a hidden master!” A young girl around fifteen years of age had stood up to support Thurain. While the young cultivator was thankful for her help, there was no reason to be this rude about his clothing. He looked down at the long sleeves of his frayed, white cloth. Although the robes might have been old, at least they were clean. Even more, they were also made of s...

Twisted Skies, Chapter 1 - Cultivator on a Train

 In eternal struggle, red chased after blue. A giant snake of yang relentlessly chased after a little fleck of yin, fire after water, always round and round in an endless circle, along a course of human design. In their struggle, they ground against the edges of their confinement and got thinner and slimmer in the process. As time went on, both became faster, more agile, a result of their efforts.   

In time, the eternal link between them would rupture, and set them f...

New Novel: Upward Spiral

Heyo, people. Hermit here.

As promised, here are the first few chapters of my new novel. Though they're a bit late, to be fair. I've been struggling with the title and character names a lot and I'm still not sure about either, so they may still change.

The novel is a xianxia novel with a strong murder mystery component, but hopefully with none of the cliches.

For now, here's a preliminary synopsis for you: 

Cultivation used to be a secret art, transmitted from mas...

Chapter 275 - Ideal and Reality

 Once they had made a comprehensive plan of attack, Sumaci finally made her fire and fashioned a torch for Corco to use in his exploration. Now armed with light, as well as an axe salvaged from the shipwreck, he returned back to the center of the island. Meanwhile, Sumaci reorganized the salvaged materials along the beach and stoked the fire further, to be used later.   

Although he had talked a big game, Corco's stomach began to churn as soon as he got close to the f...

Chapter 274 - Sudden Vacation Plans

 As Mayu stormed towards Corco, his scrunched up face darkened further.

“Where did she go?” he asked from between his teeth. Even from a distance, Corco had been able to smell the alcohol in his breath already. This close, the king had to tilt back his head or he would have gotten drunk off the breath alone.

“What the hell are you doing?” Corco asked back, rather than answer his question. For any noble, Mayu's behavior was less than appropriate. Even worse, ...

Chapter 273 - Bathhouse Incident

 The trip back through the island wasn't a long one for Corco. While in reality, the place was larger than in his cartoon imagination, it was still small enough to be crossed on foot in a single day, at least so long as one didn't lose his direction. Though he didn't have a working compass with him and thus struggled with his absolute orientation, on the way back he simply had to follow back the markings he had left on the trees. Thus, he shouldered the small bundle of firewood he had co...

Not an April Fool's Joke

Hello, hermit here.

Yes, I just got finished posting the 24 chapters I've owed. Honestly, the inconsistency has become a huge problem. For me it's mostly a combination of bad luck, stress and anxiety that keeps causing issues.

I ruined my hand in February, which meant I couldn't write for a while. When that wasn't an issue anymore, I somehow got terrified of my patreon etc. The thought of people paying me for chapters I hadn't released and letting you down as a result f...

Chapter 272 - Problems Beyond Problems

 “While you were away, there has been a message from Arguna.”

When the king entered his study again, Fadelio was already greeting him with new work before he had sat down.

Just like Corco had expected, when he returned to Rapra Castle his responsibilities were piling up. Although his outing to the theater was barely over, he had to throw himself back into work already.  For the moment, he didn't even have time to care about his allies on the Verdant Isles, ...

Chapter 271 - Lonely Island

 In a different life, during his youth, Corco used to love old cartoons. To him, the cliché imagery of a person stranded on a lonely island had always possessed an innocent charm. The tiny island in the form of a half-sphere, made entirely of perfect, yellow sand and surrounded by endless water. One palm tree would sit on its very peak, with a single coconut hanging below its leaves. Back then, he had always wanted to end up on one of these peaceful little islands, if only for a day. To...

Chapter 270 - Treasure Trove

 A violent cough assaulted Atau, which caused him to drop the cup in his hand, and the drink with it.

Ever since he had experienced his first sip, the admiral had been a big fan of coffee. So when the dark-skinned foreigner had pushed a cup with a steaming, brown drink into his hands, he wasn't shy and accepted it without a second thought. It turned out to be a terrible decision.   

Seconds later, a fire burned in his mouth and all the way down his throat. ...

Chapter 268 + 269 - Raven Theater

 “And under the crystalline shore 

Not anger nor sorrow remain 

Their hearts were no more as before 

The sun would rise once again”

Atop the stage, the musicians performed their final song of the night. Most of the patrons of the Amber Cup tavern had already cleared out long ago. Only a handful of stragglers were left to enjoy the last, bitter sip of night at the bottom of the glass. They had driven away the darkness outside with loud music,...

Chapter 267 - In Transition

 In the end, Sami and Chanca had found a place for themselves soon after, but it wasn't the place they had envisioned.   

With a drawn-out sigh, Sami glanced through the dimly lit tavern as he brushed off the counter top and got ready for the evening. This place looked unspectacular both inside and outside, a plain building in a plain street, but it contained a famous location within the local circles. Him and Chanca had found work here only three days after they had ...

Chapter 266 - Cold Reception

 Never before had Sami felt this cold in summer. Though he really shouldn't have been surprised, since that was exactly what he had signed up for back in Vallunaraju. His home had always been a cold place. Dominated by fishermen, lumberjacks, and endless ice, Vallunaraju used to be one of the poorest and smallest estates in all of Medala.   

Outsiders who traveled to such a far-off place were either merchants who made a killing on selling basic goods like salt and clo...

Chapter 265 - Searching for a Home

 While the signs of nature within and around Harkay improved Ulan's mood a lot, they didn't help her find work, or a place to sleep for the night. As she looked around for either, she soon realized that her options for work were in fact quite limited. Her previous plans had been to find a rich master's house to clean, or maybe to tutor a young, aristocratic daughter.   

However, there wouldn't be any rich young misses or fancy masters to serve in a place like this. Th...

Chapter 264 - Uprooted

 A single bad day was all it had taken to uproot Ulan's precarious life. In the streets of Arguna, she used to be known as the beauty with the silver tongue. Back then, she had sung for whoever would pay her, and she had gained much fame as a result.

But before even those days, she used to live in the city with her parents and her brother. Back then, there was order in her life. Their family had been the best performers in all of Arguna ever since her grandfather's generation,...

Chapter 263 - Turning Point

 Cold winds whipped swathes of water across the deck, harsh enough that the border between sea and air blurred.   

“Hold fast!” Atau screamed against the endless roars of the wind. Although he shouted to boost the morale of his men, he didn't know if anyone could even hear him over the infernal nature around them. He himself held on to the rigging to his side with all his power, to somehow stem the endless tide.   

As the floods battered him fr...

Chapter 262 - Pure Madness

 After Itzali had handed the earthen vial back to Naoka, the three men inside the palanquin became silent. Without any further interruptions, they made their way through the gates of the Silver Palace and to the front of the impressive Moonlight Ziggurat. The pyramid made of giant stone blocks and with the artificial lake right at its base was monumental and ancient, comparable to the greatest buildings of the ancient Chutwa dynasties.   

Once they had climbed up to t...

Chapter 261 - Forced by Choice

 For the first time in years, the ghost warriors' hideout above the Stone's Throw chess shop had seen a real change in its décor. A soft hum rang through the room now, its source sat atop a large table that took up an entire wall. Where before, everything inside the room had been understated, now a  complex machine of copper, wood and magic dominated the air.   

The radio – a new invention from Saniya – had been installed here not too long ago, but it alread...

Chapter 260 - Deep Undercover

 Mellana had been born a noble lady. As one of great general Atoc's daughters, she had been afforded special treatment from birth. All her life, she had been special, unique even among the noble warrior descendants of the capital. Even sons and daughters of the high noble houses would have to show her respect whenever they met. Yet now, she was carrying a tray of fruits through another lord's mansion like a common maid. Even so, she was elated. After all, she had spent much time and effo...

Chapter 259 - A Change in Perspective

 Above Itzali's head, the tent flapped in the wind. Like a river that washes away the dirt, a fresh breeze rushed through and swept away the stench all around, if only for a moment. As the doctor took the brief respite to wipe the sweat and grime away from his face, his eyes followed the path of the breeze to its source, the opening of the tent, with the city and the Sallqata Mountains beyond it.

Up above the lands of Rumas, a mysterious structure was being built into the moun...

Chapter 258 - Playing the Villain

 King Corco's study hadn't changed much since Antaya's last visit, but the changes were impossible to overlook nonetheless. Ever since she had entered the room, she had been asked to just sit there, while the king and her son Fadelio had worked on some strange automaton on the king's desk. From what Antaya could tell, the construct was just a confused mess of glass, dark wood and strands of copper that connected several smaller gadgets.   

At the base of the construct...

Chapter 256&257 - Enemies Meet

 Damn, damn, damn!

Over the past few days, Kizco hadn't slept very well. In his nightmares, the motionless face of a noble lady with a stern face and sharp eyes kept appearing. It was the same face he had seen again and again at his old work place, where he had pretended to be an apprentice. A look behind him told Kizco that his nightmare hadn't left him. In fact, it was closer than ever.

Getting rid of the police people had been easy. They were just common...

Chapter 255 - Breaking the Net

 Only five days after the fire in Saniya's flintlock manufactory, regular operations were about to resume. At first, there had been an extensive investigation, with police everywhere in and around the building. In the end however, the fire had been declared an accident by the police and any further investigation was suspended.   

Even so, the fire had left behind some problems. The building had been in use when the fire started, so many of the apprentices inside had b...

Chapter 254 - Fire Safety

 While the city's police was busy preventing a panic outside Chukru, the scene on the island itself wasn't the nightmare scenario many would have expected. All across Medala, a city fire would be a major catastrophe. After all, much of Medalan housing was built from wood and straw. Even in Arguna, where most houses were built from stone, if a fire like this were to break out the entire middle and outer city were built so close together that the flames would be almost impossible to contai...

Chapter 253 - Opponents Far Apart

 Earlier, when the apprentices had entered the manufactory's hall, the street outside had been almost empty. By the time they returned back to the light, the roads were packed with people. However, the crowd of Saniya wasn't in its usual constant flow. At this moment, the entire city had halted, and everyone had come outside, to stare across the river. Despite the masses, Kizco could see the two noble ladies through the crowd, across the street where he had seen them earlier. Again, a fe...

Chapter 252 - Infiltration

 From the time the sky over Saniya had still been dark, a row of young apprentices had stood at the ready in front of the city's newest manufactory. Now that dawn broke, some were tired and some were antsy, but none of them dared to move. After all, the chance they had been given was special, more for some than for others. For among them were a few special guests who didn't belong, yet were just as well behaved as everyone else.

“Are we sure this will work?” through gritte...

Chapter 251 - Setting Plans in Motion

 Around the time Antaya and her two children were enjoying their afternoon stroll, Corco was looking through the list of doctors he had received from Tama just before she had left. Although he called it a list, it was a series of extensive documents, so they deserved a closer look. After a while, he put down the papers and mumbled to himself.

“So in the end it's still Itzali, huh?”

The documents contained all basic information about all the Chutwa doctors who ha...

Chapter 250 - Family Vacation

 While much of Saniya had been rebuilt since Corco's takeover, the public bath was still the same as it had always been. Just like in most of Medala's cities, the public bath of Saniya was a center of communal activity. The grand construction with its endless closed-off pools and halls of stone had always been the place for all important people to come together and talk business or familial relations – at least all those who were not quite important enough to afford a proper bath in th...

Chapter 249 - Meeting the Boss

 On Antaya's journey through Saniya's old town, she was astonished by the familiar images around her. Although she had never been to Saniya before, it looked much like Arguna did: A chaotic mess of activity, with much of its social life going on in the wide streets of the city or in the open courtyards to the side. Even the ghost warriors with the green headbands could be seen from time to time.

However, while Arguna's liveliness was surrounded by slums on all sides, and alway...