“Are they ready?” Sen asked.
He feared that he knew the answer already, but he had to ask anyway. He’d been feeling increasingly on edge as the time trickled away. He’d also been feeling increasing boxed in by the demands of the capital. That cluster of messengers and servants after his brief training session with Jin Bohai a few days earlier had just driven that point home. If he didn’t get things in motion soon, he’d end up bogged down by a government that increasingly rel...
2025-02-05 06:32:03 +0000 UTC
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“How can this possibly be my fault?” asked Kelima with a glare. “They were clearly here before I opened the door.”
“I take it you’ve never heard of wave function collapse?”
“No! What does that even mean?”
“Basically, it means that you were Schrödinger’s Murphy’s Avatar. Until you opened the door, I didn’t know what kind of disaster you caused. I knew you caused one, but I had to observe the disaster to know what it would be,” explained Terry.
...
2025-02-03 00:35:30 +0000 UTC
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Sen wanted to dredge out every bit of knowledge that Jin Bohai possessed about shadow and darkness qi. Barring that, he wanted to begin immediate experiments with using darkness qi to pass through walls. It sounded like it could prove very useful, but that usefulness would depend entirely on Sen’s familiarity and speed with using the technique. He knew better than most that familiarity and speed came only with grueling, countless hours of practice. And even then, it’s full value would onl...
2025-02-01 07:51:05 +0000 UTC
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“Now, I assume that Ruolan taught you shadow stepping,” said Jin Bohai.
Sen pursed his lips as he thought that over. He didn’t remember Fu Ruolan ever teaching him anything that she used that specific term for. Maybe he just means shadow walking, thought Sen. It would make sense that the man might have started calling it something else, or that Fu Ruolan did because she was a little bit unhinged. He decided that it was best to check rather than assume.
“You mean t...
2025-02-01 04:01:12 +0000 UTC
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“The mistake that most cultivators make when dealing with shadow is trying to make it act like water,” said Jin Bohai from his seat opposite Sen. “You’ve clearly moved past that problem, but it’s an easy mistake to fall into if you’re not careful.”
Sen nodded as he looked out a window onto the palace grounds. He had very nearly fallen into that mistake. Less because it was a natural assumption and more out of a human need to find similarities between things. The problem wa...
2025-01-30 09:58:48 +0000 UTC
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Sua Xing Xing lingered near the edge of the training field and watched as the students drilled forms, sparred, and learned. Honestly, it made her feel like her own former sect had rather shortchanged their outer disciples on that front. She certainly hadn’t been receiving direct instruction from core formation cultivators when she’d been an outer disciple. Nor had her teachers had been quite so talented. It honestly boggled her mind that Lu Sen had been able to recruit them.
Especia...
2025-01-29 10:25:39 +0000 UTC
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“I’m really sorry!” said Kelima for at least the ninth time in a truly pitiful voice.
“I heard you the last eight times,” said Terry as he scanned the market square.
“But you’re still angry,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m still angry. I’m really angry. I asked you to do exactly two things. That was it. Two things. I fought the knight and the squires and even dealt with the gryphon. All you needed to do was protect my cat and my hat. And you didn’t man...
2025-01-29 01:03:32 +0000 UTC
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“Are you adopting more strays?” asked Lo Meifeng as she peered out a window and down into the courtyard of Lu Manor.
“Not exactly,” said Sen. “But I will a need a little help with them.”
She turned a baleful look his way and asked, “Did you feel like I wasn’t pulling my weight? I don’t have the time to be training—”
“Not that kind of help,” said Sen in a soothing tone. “I’ll be doing most of their training.”
He proceeded to explain the r...
2025-01-28 07:00:51 +0000 UTC
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“Terry Williams!” shouted Alment Kingsten. “I challenge you—”
“Zip it, armor boy! You can wait your turn,” snapped Terry, his blistering gaze never leaving Kelima’s face.
“I—” she started.
“Nothing bad ever happens in a market square,” he said, throwing her own words back at her.
There was another bestial roar that shook the earth beneath Terry’s feet. He turned to glare at the gryphon, which was standing on the destroyed remains of several ...
2025-01-26 09:25:22 +0000 UTC
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After a quick look around, Sen decide that he needed to take the conversation with the soldiers he’d picked out somewhere else. Anywhere else. While everyone had been dismissed and even told to go eat their dinners, a distressingly large number of them were dawdling nearby or angling their paths to intersect with Mo, Sen, and the dozen spear wielders he’d chosen. Plus, if I take them elsewhere, it’ll buy me a few more minutes to figure out what in the...
2025-01-25 08:02:32 +0000 UTC
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I’ve got a bug or maybe a cold. I’m not sure. I usually try to write through these things, but after a few paragraphs, I realized it just wasn’t working. It was really bad. Stuff like: “Sen looked at them. They looked at Sen. They all looked at each other. Sen tried to decide what to say.” So, I’m going to try to sleep it off and start fresh tomorrow.
2025-01-24 01:03:26 +0000 UTC
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It wasn’t much of a surprise when their next stop was the training area. What was more surprising to Sen was how much space it consumed. He’d only ever seen it from the air or the top of the wall. On the ground, there was no escaping the reality of thousands of people doing spear drills or sparring or even just some basic calisthenics. The ground would sometimes tremble as several hundred people took a hard step forward and executed a thrust. That as to say nothing of the sheer scale of t...
2025-01-23 08:18:31 +0000 UTC
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There were several different kinds of silence after that outburst. The other cooks were either in shocked silence or, more tellingly to Sen’s mind, a resigned sort of silence. A glance at Mo showed that the man was unperturbed by this and maybe even a little amused. A look at Kang showed that the man had been struck dumb by incandescent rage. His eye was twitching furiously as his face grew redder and redder. He thrust a finger at Zhang Bai.
“You insubordinate wretch!” roared Kang...
2025-01-22 04:50:54 +0000 UTC
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While Chin Gui might not have recognized him, Sen soon realized that boy was part of a tiny minority. Most of the soldiers either recognized him directly or saw him with general, took in his blue robes, and did a little basic math. There was a constant background hum of voices whispering things like Lord Lu, Judgment’s Gale, or The Warstorm. It took an extra effort not to wince at that last title. He’d at least gotten used to hearing people call him Judgment’s Gale. He still thought it ...
2025-01-21 06:22:52 +0000 UTC
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“Is this truly necessary?” asked Sen.
“It is,” answered General Mo Kegong.
Sen looked down at the snow on the ground. Much of it had been trampled into a brown, dirty slush around the army camp, but it remained largely pristine where he stood next to the general remained largely pristine. An odd sort of nervousness had taken hold of Sen. He tried to pinpoint the moment when that had started, but it was elusive. He only knew he hadn’t woken up feeling that way, and the va...
2025-01-18 07:18:54 +0000 UTC
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“Time to go,” said Terry.
The noble girl let out a surprised squeak when Terry grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the pile of screaming, bleeding, and apparently incompetent thugs. He took her down the first alley he saw, emerged onto a different, equally unfamiliar street, albeit one with less blood, and crossed the street. He took her down another alley and finally emerged onto a larger road. Larger roads are good, he thought. They usually go places people actu...
2025-01-17 05:41:40 +0000 UTC
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Whistling Winds took a deep breath before he said, “Why are we doing this?”
He fully expected to be struck down for the insolence, but he felt that someone needed to ask the question. Instead of finding himself on a swift trip into his next life, Whistling Winds found himself falling beneath the evaluative eyes of Laughing River. The elder nine-tail fox’s expression remained frighteningly neutral for several, eternal seconds before he smirked.
“...
2025-01-17 04:01:20 +0000 UTC
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Sen stood on the city wall and watched the army below. There were some people drilling with spears, shields, and swords. He had to avert his gaze from those drills. Otherwise, he feared he might be overwhelmed with an urge to go down and correct the countless errors he was seeing. There were great rows of tents stretching out away from the city. There was less happening around the tents since so many people were doing other things, but even there he saw people preparing food, repairing weapon...
2025-01-16 12:18:22 +0000 UTC
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Terry looked around a little more, even as he fully recognized the futility of the action. No matter how much he looked around, he wasn’t going to know where to go. A quick glance at Kelima told him that she was equally baffled about where they were. He wasn’t actually worried about anything happening to them. He just didn’t want to dawdle any longer than necessary in the city.
Hey, he thought at other-Terry. Do you know how to get us back to the gate?
No.<...
2025-01-15 08:31:40 +0000 UTC
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“Do you truly mean to march armies in winter?” asked Jing. “General Kang was right about that much. Armies don’t normally march in winter.”
“I know,” said Sen while staring down at the pool of blood left by General Li.
The room was empty save for him and Jing. He’d been in no mood to discuss the particulars of his plan, so he’d ordered everyone away with a general directive to begin preparing the armies. His unwillingness to get into the details stemmed mainly fr...
2025-01-15 05:08:53 +0000 UTC
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No one spoke. No one moved. The only person in the room other than Sen who seemed even remotely relaxed was General Mo. He looked calm and there was a quiet sense of satisfaction radiating from the man. Sen wondered what kind of bad blood had been between the Mo and Li. He supposed that Mo would probably explain if he asked, but Sen decided that it wasn’t really his business. It wasn’t like knowing would change anything. He’d wanted to gauge the state of things in the army, but the enti...
2025-01-14 05:18:01 +0000 UTC
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I try not to update with purely personal stuff too often because, well, I'm a keyboard monkey who writes about magic ninjas vying for immortality and people getting sucked into other universes. Why would you care what I think about most things? Plus, I'm crazy boring in real life. Case in point. Today, on my day off, I watched a three-hour documentary about Richard Nixon. I found it fascinating, but I suspect that many of your are just like...Why? Probably slightly less boring for so...
2025-01-12 04:39:53 +0000 UTC
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There was a burst of objections, mostly from the officers hovering around Jing. Sen lifted a hand and snapped his fingers while weaving qi throughout the room. He was careful to shield everyone’s ears as the sound shook the very walls and rattled their bones. Despite protecting their hearing, he saw or felt almost half the people in the room stagger. There were pale faces even among those who had managed to maintain their positions. Satisfied that he’d made his point, Sen turned looked to...
2025-01-11 07:14:09 +0000 UTC
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Sen made a point to enter the room with an air of calm, controlled confidence about him. A feat made easier by the fact that he was actually relaxed for once. He hadn’t gotten even a sliver of sleep the night before, but that turned out to be an exchange that was well worth it. He could shrug off a night without sleep. Even one that had proven to be quite vigorous. He didn’t actually care how anyone viewed him, except for those he held as family, but he knew that appearances mattered. Of ...
2025-01-10 05:03:59 +0000 UTC
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You are anything but fine, said other-Terry. I can practically hear you hyperventilating. I just can’t figure out why.
Why? I’ll tell you why. This girl has been giving me the side-eye for like half a mile!
Who cares?
I care! It’s creepy, Terry thought-yelled at other-Terry. Wait a second. Hear? Can you hear? Like actually hear?
It’s complica...
2025-01-10 00:15:29 +0000 UTC
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Sen watched with cold eyes as Jin Bohai make a hasty retreat over the palace walls on a qi platform. He took a calming breath, happy that he hadn’t given in to his anger. It had allowed him to turn what increasingly looked like a fruitless conversation into an advantage. Still, it had been harder to control that anger that he would have liked. Part of him knew that he didn’t need to defend Grandmother Lu’s honor that way. She might have been offended, but would have just disregarded the...
2025-01-08 21:11:42 +0000 UTC
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Kelima glanced at the man beside her for what felt like the hundredth time as they approached the gates of the city. She simply did not understand him. Sometimes, he was playful if a bit mean about it. Other times, he was like a force of nature. She’d watched him casually dispatching monsters that she wouldn’t have fought without a lot of thought and a carefully laid plan of attack in hand. At still other times, like right now, he exuded a sense of hesitant anxiety that seem...
2025-01-08 07:36:05 +0000 UTC
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“Is that— Is that— Is that your primary affinity?” said Jin Bohai, stumbling over his own words
“Well—” began Sen before he stopped himself.
First, he wasn’t sure that was information he wanted to share. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he wasn’t actually certain anymore. It was one of his stronger affinities, but was it his main affinity? Sen looked inward. Back when he’d still had a core, it had been easier to evaluate those kinds of things. Now that his...
2025-01-08 04:04:18 +0000 UTC
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Sen found that, as he aged, fewer and fewer things truly surprised him. He wondered occasionally if that was a sad thing. A sign that he was becoming ever more jaded and that the world simply held less wonder for him. However, Jin Bohai’s admission that he was Fu Ruolan’s master had surprised him. She had mentioned having a master, but she’d been beyond sparing with the details. Sen hadn’t pushed because it hadn’t seemed like something he genuinely needed to know about. After all, h...
2025-01-07 03:49:03 +0000 UTC
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By the time Sen managed to escape the bureaucrats, he was well and truly ready to be done with everything for the day. He stepped outside and grimaced when he saw that the sun was already setting. Despite having accomplished things that day, he didn’t feel like he’d done much of anything. It was frustrating and yet, somehow, it also felt unavoidable. What he really wanted to leave the capital, but leaving too soon would just create a cascade of future problems. He needed to ...
2025-01-04 10:04:17 +0000 UTC
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