Hi everyone,
Hope you all keeping well!
It was crazy busy today, so I forgot to add this reminder in earlier.
The Patreon was supposed to be pausing today, but since there were a couple of cool folks joining us this week, I've extended it to tomorrow. Hopefully, that gives enought time to finish reading, as I don't know if you'll lose access to the chapters when I pause. But let me know if you need more time!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Everhart
2025-08-23 20:26:29 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone!
This one is just a quick reminder that the Patreon is now on hiatus, and no more new chapters will be published on any of the tiers. So please, remember to unsub before you get charged again!
And for the lovely folk who've joined last week and even just yesterday and today, the Patreon will stay active until next Saturday to give you time to read all the chapters. Then, it will go on pause.
And that's it! Have a great weekend everyone, and see you all again in l...
2025-08-17 10:13:26 +0000 UTC
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As requested, here are the gains (and yes, its a lot!). And, just a little snippet of more alongside them, hehe!
Sorry for any errors, and again, remember that this is all subject to change/fixing!!
I'm leaving the access for this one as public, just in case you already unsubbed!
**********
-[ Hidden Quest, Survive the Fall, completed!
Congratulations!!
The dungeon guardian is pleased with your perfo...
2025-08-15 14:53:48 +0000 UTC
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Gad shifted in the darkness.
Her eyes burned at the touch of the cool water, but she forced them to stay open. Around her, she found the shapes of the others, slowly falling alongside her down into the deep darkness beneath.
-[ Hidden Quest, Survive the Fall, has been completed.
The dungeon guardian is impressed by your performance.
You have been awarded gains.
You have gained the knowledge of how to swim....
2025-08-15 10:42:28 +0000 UTC
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When you go beyond pain, there is a threshold at which some point your body simply decides that enough is enough. That no matter how powerful the will that commands it, there are limitations carved into the very fabric of existence, and such limitations are not meant to be crossed…
“Come on, Nar! Keep going!”
I’m… Trying…
His sword fought him. His aura fought him. And now, his very body sought to drag him under for his own safety, regardless of the giant...
2025-08-15 10:42:10 +0000 UTC
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He had no clue what a rage affinity archer path would look like, though he didn’t doubt that they existed, in that endless reality and its infinite variety of paths. However, while Mul had become filled with rage, he had instead found another way to deal with his crappy life. When he could, Jaz complained, and when he couldn’t, he joked about it… And he had joked so much that it had become the affinity of his very soul.
Of course, there was only so long a joke could run for, and h...
2025-08-14 10:23:36 +0000 UTC
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“Quiet!”
Sej’s warning cut through their cautious, but bubbling excitement like a slap.
They had been walking in hushed whispers of excitement in the dimming red light, as according to the guide, they had actually made pretty good time and should be just about to reach the lake, and the safety and clear air its shores promised.
At her call however, everyone sealed their lips and went deadly still.
Nar pushed out his [Hearing], spreading it in a wide radi...
2025-08-13 10:30:41 +0000 UTC
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Someone shook him off the deep trance he had plunged into, and he emerged from its pain filled depths with groggy blinking .
“Nar?”
“Are we leaving?” he asked, his voice raw, parched husk.
“Yes,” Jul said. “Are you alright? You should drink some water… Maybe?”
Nar flexed his fingers, making a face at the echoes of pain deep within him.
Things were settled for the moment. Thanks to his stronger pathways, he had come to realize that he wasn’t in...
2025-08-12 10:27:36 +0000 UTC
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“Tuk.”
The ring tosser inhaled sharply and threw his eyes open as wide as he could.
“Maybe you should stand after all?” Gad asked him.
Jul smiled down at him as the morsvar offered him a hand.
“Yeah. That’s probably the best,” Tuk said, taking her hand as he stifled a yawn.
Gad pulled him up easily to his lanky height, and Tuk sighed as he checked the confusing mesh of branches outside their little nook.
“Hang in there,” the tank said. “...
2025-08-11 10:31:13 +0000 UTC
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The hot, stifling night air was a vice around Nar’s throat, and the jungle echoed with the increasing screeches of the pucks that chased them.
That’s a lot of them! Nar thought, grimacing at the storm of furious wings heading their way. A lot!
“Are we close enough to the lake?” Mul asked.
“At least a day,” Sej said, her tone strained. “For now, let’s just focus on trying to lose them.”
“Can we lose th...
2025-08-08 10:29:32 +0000 UTC
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“Stop!” Sej called, an eternity later. “Stop!”
They collapsed against one another, in a jungle that had grown mercifully silent around them.
“Did we do it?” Leon asked, gulping air like a mad man.
“For now,” their guide said, scanning their surroundings. “The harrar won’t chase us into something else’s territory. But that just means we are in something else’s territory.”
“I hate this place,” Jaz mutt...
2025-08-07 10:30:02 +0000 UTC
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Shadows dropped from above, impacting against the branch they stood upon with dull, meaty thuds.
“Grab them! Quick!” Sej shouted.
Her gun was in her hands in the blink of an eye, her fingers deftly loading the weapon with red striped, black bullets.
“Quick!” Calli shouted. “Eum, grab Viy and Mach. Gad, you take Tun and Medis. And…”
“It’s not going to work! We’re missing one more person!” Leon shouted, as he ran the math and reached its unyielding ...
2025-08-06 10:29:40 +0000 UTC
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Nar’s leg was healing, and he was able to put more weight on it and call upon more of his [Speed] as he went. Not that the latter helped him much, unfortunately.
He had reached Gad and Viy’s position without much trouble, but the problem was, his [Hearing] placed them somewhere below him, and no matter where he looked, or where he tried, he just couldn’t find a way down to them.
How do they even get down there? He wondered, glancing up at the distant glimpses of red...
2025-08-05 10:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“... up!”
“Ugh…”
It was red, and suffocatingly hot and humid. And something thumbed hard from somewhere, sending shockwaves of agony across his existence, nearly threatening to bring him under again.
I… What?
Nar snapped back into being with a sharp, painful inhale. It quickly devolved into a coughing fit, and he flinched as pain raged across his body.
“Get up! Eum! Nar!” a voice shouted in his head. “Gad! Viy! Rel! Tun! Yo...
2025-08-04 10:28:55 +0000 UTC
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Wind rushed past Nar’s face, his stomach dropping as gravity took hold of him, Row and Rel, and his heart dropped as the gap between him and the ma’bat grew… Then Eum’s hands closed around his left, Gad’s doing the same over his right, and the two of them yanked him and his two passengers aboard the beast.
The five of them collapsed in a bundle, but the beast was still in free fall.
There was a sudden, piercing cry amidst panicked growling, and then, they were righting t...
2025-08-01 10:30:03 +0000 UTC
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Mul frowned at the sprawling view before them. “I knew it would look bad, but fucking Pile, what is this?”
“Crystal,” Lim whispered.
Nar, Tuk, Mul, Jaz, Raf, Lim and Mach stood right at the edge of a steep fall, eyeing an almost vertical drop of nearly 3000-feet down to the next area in their itinerary. As far as the eye could see, instead of a dense, dark canopy, there were only far stretching, faded red skies, and instead of giant trees, the landscape was now dominated b...
2025-07-31 10:30:12 +0000 UTC
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“So, there really was no way to make this work,” Row mumbled, passing a weary hand over her bright red hair.
“So it seems,” Kur said, holding onto his chin. “Question is, what do we do now?”
“I… Have an idea, but you guys probably already know,” Leon said.
The three of them sat away from the resting auramancer, while the able-bodied set up the rest of the tents. In the background, the aethermancer’s tent continued to glow the deep blue of the sleep aspect...
2025-07-30 10:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone,
How are you all keeping? I hope life's been good to you all!
So, unfortunately the time has come.
I was hoping to have Book 6 ready on time by mid-August, which is when Book 5 ends, but unfortunately, between life (I was literally just there having a plumber over to fix some overdue stuff ahead of the baby arrival in Oct :D) and the complexity of Book 6, I won't have it ready for release. At the same time, I'm now expecting my dev editor to come back to me with ...
2025-07-30 10:15:17 +0000 UTC
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They set up a tent for Era to heal Calli and Eum at the back of the cave, so that he could unleash the full might of aether healing skills. It was the home of the loentu nest, but as long as they remained within it, the beasts would not respawn by the dungeon guardian, and it was nice to be somewhere sheltered after all of the rain and mud of their drawn-out encounter.
Meanwhile, they had laid down the floor tarp close to the cave’s entrance, so that Jasphaer and Leta had somewhere cl...
2025-07-29 10:30:37 +0000 UTC
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At some point, an undetermined amount of time later, Nar’s [Awareness] alerted him to Sej’s arrival, but she seemed too stunned by what was happening to do anything, and when Leon arrived a few seconds later, he silently shook his head at her, and raised a finger to his lips.
Meanwhile, Nar idly stepped back, avoiding the ripper’s tail as it swung past him, and for a split-second he wondered if he was actually getting faster.
Maybe all this aura fixing me is doi...
2025-07-28 10:28:11 +0000 UTC
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A creature of nightmare stepped forward to greet them. Its eyes were bright twin orbs of wet crimson, set deeply on a face made of bone and exposed sharp teeth. Its skin was scaly and black, and it shimmered in subtle accents of purples and greens as it pushed past the glowing vegetation, its muscle rippling with each measured, agile step.
Nar glanced from the clawed feet that support it as it walked into the exposed mud, and considered the bony protrusions coming out of its elbows and ...
2025-07-25 10:20:15 +0000 UTC
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THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Here she comes! Rel thought, as the ground shook beneath her with every ponderous, rushing leap from the matriarch. They must have caused enough casualties to finally get its attention, and the shaking under her, the rare beast that led these loentus must be huge!
And with a deafening roar, the matriarch burst from the cave, landing outside with a great spray of mud.
“Oh, damn!” Lim whispered at her side.
Oh, damn! Rel thought...
2025-07-24 10:29:24 +0000 UTC
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Mul glanced up at the blinding light that shone from atop the rocky formation… And he blinked. And missed it.
In one moment, five loentu were scrambling up the rock ledge, to get at the ranged that rained death and destruction from above with impunity, the next, a distorted growl had deafened the battlefield in that moment of blindness in between blinking, and he was opened his eyes again, five loentu were in halves.
Their sliced flesh, bone and organs glowed w...
2025-07-23 10:31:01 +0000 UTC
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They crept through the underbrush, inching closer to the whines and snarls sounding from up ahead.
“Jul?” Kur asked.
“About eighty so far. Most of them are around the cave, with just a few on top of it,” she replied. “But I can’t tell how many are inside the cave, there’s too much echo. I’m sorry…”
“That’s alright. And the matriarch?” the party leader asked.
“Inside. I can sense her,” Jul said. “She’s dan...
2025-07-22 10:28:10 +0000 UTC
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The gatherers and harvesters worked well into the night after dinner, and even the rest of them pitched in to give a helping hand, as besides the vast quantity of jungle’s mercy, the itself pond had proven to be surprisingly deep, and the number of fish somehow living within it had far exceeded their expectations.
“It must connect to an underground stream somewhere,” Sej had told them. “That’s where they must be coming from.”
The thin, forearm length fish were slippery...
2025-07-21 10:28:21 +0000 UTC
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“That is insane!” Rel breathed, her golden eyes wide as the cave entrance was lit up by another bright flash of deep blue.
“But cool?” Eum asked, grinning.
“Super fucking cool!” the archer whispered, as another flash of blue lashed outside, thunder breaking overhead and deafening reality.
Eum leaned against the left side of the cave’s entrance, while Nar sat on a flat root with Rel standing at his side. The of them stared, slack jawed, at the flashing,...
2025-07-18 10:14:51 +0000 UTC
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They traveled in three single file lines.
The rain had deigned itself to give them a little respite, and people were in high spirits as they headed further into the jungle.
Their gathering and harvesting had thus far been bountiful, and their gains explosive, as promised, and the previous two weeks felt like a tutorial of sorts that had been surpassed. Sure, there were issues and headaches in mixing aethermancers and auramancers together whose scope was still yet to fully reveal i...
2025-07-17 10:30:02 +0000 UTC
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Days in the jungle blurred past in a haze of rain, mud, glowing flora and beast fights, as well as long treks through dense, soaked foliage accompanied by the calls of hidden birds in the canopy, and of distant cries of beasts. Sometimes they even heard the sounds of battle from afar, though they didn’t have any reason to seek out any of the other almost five hundred apprentices currently making their way through the Jungle Tops.
Time under that rain and vegetation either hung slow an...
2025-07-16 10:33:41 +0000 UTC
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Alright! Aggregate level 44. Let’s see what good stuff we got this time, Nar thought, as he pulled up his gains notification.
-[ You have leveled up!
You have gained:
Strength 41 -> 43
Constitution 57 -> 61
Stamina 61 -> 64
Vigor 13 -> 14
Speed 64 -> 67
Agility 64 -> 66
Hearing 42 -> 44
Sight 38 -> 41
Smell 19 -> 21
Dexterity 19 -> 20
Reflex 72 -> 7...
2025-07-15 10:31:17 +0000 UTC
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Nar flew.
He sliced through low hanging branches and fronds, splitting through glimmering raindrops as he cut the very air before him, aimed at the glowing green and blue plumage that sought to attack him… The real him, who stood motionless, sword in hand, nearly 40-feet below the flying edge of aura and….
The domain twisted around him, up became down, north became south, and Nar stumbled sideways. Above him, his [Aura Blade] exploded short of its target, lighting up ...
2025-07-14 10:26:19 +0000 UTC
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