So, while wandering the halls and events at Dragon Con, I occasionally meet famous people. I don’t usually remember to get pics with them, but today was different. I met Haylock Jobson, author of Heretical Fishing. And I got a picture.
If you look carefully, you can see James Hunter peeking over our shoulders. He’s my publisher for Unintended Cultivator and the author of, well, a whole ...
2025-08-30 04:42:16 +0000 UTC View PostSorry everybody. I did want to do a chapter today. But after I finished doing almost all of the things to prep for the Dragon Con trip and got my house-sitter settled, it was after 10 pm. I still need to finish up the last of my packing. Since I need to be up by 6am or so to make an 8 hour drive (which is about 7 hours from now), and I only got about three hours sleep last night, I really do need to go sleep. Otherwise, there is about zero chance that I'll be a safe driver. I should have
I don't want to lose the thread on this, so I keep chipping away at it here and there. This is the latest complete chapter. Enjoy! ~Eric
***
By the time they reached the inn, Varal’s vague concerns had crystallized into something more certain. Something was wrong in this town. He wasn’t sure what that something was, only that it existed. It might just be the product of poor leadership or a local downturn in the economy. He’d seen b...
2025-08-26 07:22:59 +0000 UTC View PostSen announced himself through the expedient of kicking open the gates and throwing the instigator from the crowd through the door of manor. The shocked screams and bellows about being under attack were satisfying in their own way. Not that he gave anyone time to mount a resistance. He was inside the manor before anyone could even grab a weapon. Since he’d arrived in Emperor’s Bay, he had been trying to take measured action. Kill only those he absolutely had to kil...
2025-08-26 07:16:24 +0000 UTC View PostSen expected his arrival back in Emperor’s Bay to be a relatively peaceful one. He’d left plenty people in place and fairly strict orders. So, he was baffled when he saw an unusually dense concentration of people near the Soaring Skies Sect compound. Curious about what was happening, he hid his presence, bypassed the gates entirely, and flew to the former sect compound. What Sen found was an angry mob of over a hundred commoners shouting threats at a stone-face, qi-gathering cultiv...
2025-08-23 05:16:03 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, I know most of you won't be at Dragon Con because A) It's expensive, B) It's expensive, and C) It's not practical for most people to take a week off from their life to go to Atlanta to talk to a bunch of out-of-shape writers who tell lies, er... um, I mean construct entertaining narratives for a living. However, if you are part of that select group of people who are attending, this is my signing schedule.
2025-08-23 00:59:56 +0000 UTC
View Post
When the cultivators from Emperor’s Bay met the caravan, it freed Sen from most of his lingering feelings of obligation. That was a relief. He’d been spending more of his time than he’d like dodging Elder He, Sun Xue, and Zhu Fen. Each of them wanted something from him, and Sen felt confident that he couldn’t actually deliver any of those things. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to simply leave without risking all the survivors from Tide’s Rest. He’d split the di...
2025-08-22 08:18:01 +0000 UTC View PostI have been chipping away at this a few hundreds words at a time, here and there, so I figured I toss what I've gotten done out there for your consumption. Chapter 7 was the last chapter in the extended prologue. These chapters are where the main body of the book picks up, approximately 10-12 years later. Hence the big bold Now at the beginning. I'm only explaining all that because you guys are getting these chapter with so much time in between them. It ...
2025-08-21 06:29:10 +0000 UTC View PostElder He looked across the caravan and wondered exactly what he should be feeling. After all, they were abandoning their homes. In his case, a home he had occupied for centuries. His life in Tide’s Rest had not been affluent by cultivator standards. The Stormy Ocean Sect was small and had never been rich. It many cases, it was more of a training ground for the rare sparkling talent that appear in the region. Most of those would leave for more powerful sects in places like Emperor’s...
2025-08-21 06:20:16 +0000 UTC View PostThis should be a quick one. I missed yesterday, but it wasn't by intention. This weekend didn't go at all as planned. I got a notice from my property management company late last week that a buyer rep was going to be visiting my apartment complex in general, and my apartment specifically, today. That necessitated doing a lot of things that I'd been sort of lazy about and put off. For example, organizing the frankly absurd pile of books that I've accumulated over the last few months and that w...
2025-08-20 05:07:50 +0000 UTC View PostWith his spiritual sense spread across the entirety of Tide’s Rest, if only at a very low level, Sen was aware of the exact location of every person. That was why he was standing where he was on the wall and hiding. It put him in a position to observe a group of children who were so achingly familiar to him. If necessary, he would gather them up and personally put them in one of the carts or wagons. What he wanted to know was whether or not it would become necessary. The children w...
2025-08-20 04:51:51 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, I don't do a lot of these, but my buddy Mark Stallings has just dropped The Animals, book 2 in his Silver Coin Saga series. It's a series that focuses on martial magic. So, it's not on the same swingset as Unintended Cultivator, but it's definitely in the same playground.
You get a weak to strong protagonist and a fun "magic" system. The world building is strong. And the characters do develop over the course of the books.
I have actually read these, and I like them. I also...
2025-08-16 01:27:14 +0000 UTC View PostSen knew from a lot of recent experience that getting any group of people ready to start traveling was a slow process. That process could be made even slower if people tried to resist or make unreasonable demands. For the most part, the people of Tide’s Rest proved reasonable. The knowledge that only his intervention had saved their lives was likely contributing to that attitude. That or the knowledge that he intended to leave. He had used to the communication core to inform his forc...
2025-08-16 00:59:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt was strange for Sen to fly over areas where he’s once cowered and hidden from pursuers who, he’d only learned later, never existed. He was so distracted by those old memories that it took several seconds to realize that he was sensing life ahead. Not just life, but also clashes of qi. He added speed but also took himself up high enough that his arrival would serve as a distraction. If there were cultivators fighting in Tide’s rest, he would wait to see what was happening befor...
2025-08-14 23:08:08 +0000 UTC View PostSomething Sen had become increasingly conscious of in the past few years was that going off and doing something by himself was never easy or fast. He spent most of a day just dragging up rock from deep in the earth to reinforce and, in one area, expand the walls. Then, because the nine-tail foxes were paying attention, he had to dissolve another noble house that thought his coming absence meant they could seize control of the former Soaring Skies Sect compound. Why they thought that wa...
2025-08-14 16:19:57 +0000 UTC View Post“I’ll be away for a few days,” Sen announced.
That brought on the expected flurry of politely-worded demands that basically amounted to, “What in the thousand hells do you mean, you’ll be away?”
He let them all get on with that for a minute or two while he thought about other things. Xu Xiao Dan’s words about mercilessness and cruelty had haunted him. It wasn’t that he believed the man was wrong. If anything, he thought the man was right and that it might be...
2025-08-13 04:27:56 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey. I caught us something to eat,” said Terry as he walked back to where Kelima and his pack waited.
“What is that?” asked Kelima, staring at the thing he’d dragged back from the river. “And what took so long?”
“Sharkodile? Crocoshark?” offered Terry.
He looked down at the sleek, gray-skinned creature with a long snout and lots of teeth.
“Crocoshark?” asked Kelima.
“Nope. It’s definitely sharkodile. I needed to hear someone else say cr...
2025-08-12 21:33:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Lord Lu, we cannot possibly support feeding all of those—” started the new city magistrate before being cut off.
“Children?” asked Sen.
“I just meant to say—”
“That we should stop feeding the children?”
“We’ll run out of food,” said the magistrate. “As things stand, we won’t be able to replace it come spring.”
“Yes,” said Sen, his voice pitiless. “If only all of those farmers hadn’t been left outside the ci...
2025-08-12 05:32:12 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, I never intended to write this much. Sometimes my imagination grabs hold of an idea and makes me write a couple chapters before it lets go of it. I never, ever imagined it would take 15,000 words to get it done. At this point, I'm almost compelled to finish it one day just because I've already sank so much time and effort into it. Plus, i think it's pretty good. Fortunately, my imagination is finally satisfied, and I go back to writing all those pesky projects that are already under con...
2025-08-11 20:57:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 3
“His name is Darim Conswin,” said the skinny fool between shuddering breaths.
Varal noted that name down in a small notebook. He narrowed his eyes at the limp form of the large fool. He’d lost consciousness when Varal had driven a dagger through his kneecap, but that had been a while ago. The assassin suspected the man might be feigning unconsciousness. He walked over and kicked the man in the small of the back. Other than a faint groan, there was ...
2025-08-09 23:06:35 +0000 UTC View PostShaking his head, Sen returned the manual and chair to their respective storage rings. He wanted to be furious with the heavens for choosing that inconvenient moment to begin Xu Xiao Dan’s tribulation. Unfortunately, he could only fling so much blame in that direction. The Shadow Gate manual had been in his possession for a long time. That he’d waited until a time when he’d known a tribulation might appear before he even started looking at it… Well, he could really only blame himself ...
2025-08-08 17:26:04 +0000 UTC View PostWhile you're all waiting around for me to finish writing today's chapter of Unintended Cultivator, here's the first couple chapters of the thing that my imagination has latched onto with an iron grip. No, that is not the final title. It's just better than me calling Possibly Light Novel Assassin Guy Thingy. Or, if not better, it's shorter. I'll just go ahead and tell you that this is part of what I'm thinking of as an extended prologue to the main body of the story. Feel free to drop you ...
2025-08-08 14:58:21 +0000 UTC View PostThe next week was a trial of tedium for Sen. When he wasn’t training Chou Dai Lu, he was checking on the progress toward the feeding, housing, and education of the homeless children of Emperor’s Bay. That was generally followed by a visit to the local nobles to explain that their most recent attempts to undermine or profit from that effort had just taken them one step closer to a mass summary execution. When he got done with that, he usually found himself trapped in meetings with t...
2025-08-08 06:27:38 +0000 UTC View PostIt's been a minute since I posted any of this, so here a link to the collection for this story (assuming this link actually works) where you can find the first parts if anyone wants to go back and read them. Also, no, I still haven't come up with a title for this thing.
***
4.
Elder Li gave Jason a considering look across her desk. He re...
2025-08-07 15:46:56 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so it's been a month, give or take twelve hours. That means that it's about time for billing to turn back on and chapters to start to start appearing again on here again. But, I'm sure you're all wondering just what I've been up to in my down time.
Well, for starters, I went to LitRPG Con in Denver. I got to meet a lot of people on my wish list of authors and narrators. A small list of of the authors I met or met again that you might have heard of includes Matt Dinnaman (Dungeon ...
2025-08-07 08:18:00 +0000 UTC View Post“I’d say that it’s good to see all of you again, but it isn’t.”
The mortal politicians sagged beneath the weight of Sen’s glower. He saw more than one of them glance at the ragged boy who stood nest to him. Their confusion was evident.
“Lord Lu—” the new city magistrate started to say and was immediately cut off.
“Explain to me why there are orphaned children starving in the streets of one of my cities,” Sen snapped.
“Lord Lu, yo...
2025-07-11 05:33:56 +0000 UTC View PostChou Dai Lu looked down at the little mortal girl who was holding her hand. The cultivator couldn’t help but wonder how she’d ended up where she was. On the one hand, she knew what had happened. The inexplicable bestowal of a natural treasure by Lord Lu. The confrontation with her own sect members. My former sect, she reminded herself yet again. Being cast out. Those awful days of hunger and cold. Then, being made a direct disciple of Lord Lu himself. She remembered it all happen...
2025-07-10 05:03:43 +0000 UTC View PostAfter three straight days of what Sen felt was gentle instruction in alchemy, he let the assembled cultivators return to the army. He’d been intent on continuing for at least another day or two. However, one of the cultivators had simply collapsed from exhaustion. He supposed that he might have been overestimating their stamina based on his own stamina when he’d been at similar levels of advancement. When he left the building he’d made for the training, he found S...
2025-07-05 02:45:30 +0000 UTC View PostEric here. So, while i spent most of the last three days sprawled on my couch and avoiding light and sound, (what a wimp, right? Can't even shake off a 3-day, category 5 headache) I had a lot of thinking time between the bouts of stabbing pain in my head. And one of the things I realized was that there is a lot happening this month.
I've got a book coming out next week. I've got copy edits to review for Volume 8, which will likely be followed up shortly after by reviewing the proofread...
2025-07-03 07:49:41 +0000 UTC View PostHi team! Kat here, just wanted to get you an update. Many of you know Eric has been fighting with migraines. Unfortunately he is on day 3 of THIS migraine, which means no new stuff yet- the lower tiers are still getting released as I have a few more chapters to get ya into.
If there are any questions I'll do my best to help, otherwise I know we are all hoping Eric has a speedy recovery. I'm sure once he's up and running he'll send an update. Fingers crossed.
I tried to add...
2025-07-02 20:20:31 +0000 UTC View Post