Ethan raised an eyebrow at Ember’s question. “What if I don’t help them and let them fend for themselves? You’d rather come with me than stay with them?”
The cat yawned. “[I have a pact with you, not them. And I’m not done exploring this world.]”
Ethan snorted. “Exploring? When? All I’ve seen you do is sleep.”
The cat’s ear flicked back and went into airplane-mode as she gave him a narrow-eyed look.
“Fine. Calm down. I’ll help. I’...
2024-11-21 19:31:05 +0000 UTC
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“[Okay Maurice. There’s a B-rank within two hundred feet of us. And it’s not moving, like you requested, and before you say anything, I won’t tell where it is. Does that work for you?]”
Maurice rubbed both claws together. It took them a couple of tries to get things right, but he could move on to the next step. “[It’s perfect. Don’t tell me where it is. But keep an eye on it okay? Don’t tell me anything else.]”
“[You got it, buddy. You n...
2024-11-21 19:30:56 +0000 UTC
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Soon after the revelation about rifts and other worlds, Liz got up and went to continue her watch. Amelie was quiet for a few moment, and then she sighed, then leaned over and scratch the cat behind the ears.
The cat purred happily, little flames dancing over its fur, which didn’t seem to hurt the healer.
“I should go continue my watch as well,” she said as she got up. She gave him a weak smile and heavy-lidded wink. “Welcome back,” she said as she trudged toward her spo...
2024-11-20 17:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Henry pulled himself into the mountainous cave and gave Stormsong a couple of seconds to slip past him before he plugged and camouflaged the exit.
From one of his many ink clones, he watched the green scaled creature leisurely swim by, undulating away. It hissed, and the sound made his flesh shudder. The sound reminded him of rattlesnakes, but the creature never even glanced at his cave and soon, it went past his furthest blood clone and disappeared in the distance, but just before it l...
2024-11-20 17:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Ethan trudged toward the light of the higher camp he could see in the distance, eyes peeled for Liz and her group. He tried to sense Ember, thinking it might be possible through their pact, but if it were, he’d have to do more testing because he got nothing.
Still, he kept the scales on and his [Mana Heart] pumping. The pressure in his soul wasn’t getting any easier, but it wasn’t the sharp pain of mana exhaustion and well, if he were to build a tolerance to the taxing weight of h...
2024-11-15 17:54:59 +0000 UTC
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The dragonic turtle rumbled as it passed above them. The light of the Current wasn’t really coming from above, but somehow, the giant being still cast its shadow over everything below it. Its presence was all-encompassing, heavy. It felt like a constant telepathic link and at any moment, Henry thought he might hear the monster’s voice bellow in his mind, like a crack of thunder, but it never spoke, and the huge presence only lessened and faded nearly minutes after the giant shape disappea...
2024-11-15 17:54:50 +0000 UTC
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The man stood up as he studied Ethan. Ethan studied him back, and the first thing his eyes picked up was the man’s bare feet.
Where are his shoes? I’m not one to talk, but that can’t be comfortable.
The stranger wore a black t-shirt with a popular metal band’s logo on it. Baggy washed blue jeans that may have been intentionally made into shorts, if Ethan was to go on with the rough and uneven tears. A bright smile stretched across the man’s deep olive skin as he...
2024-11-14 19:03:04 +0000 UTC
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Henry spent some tokens and finally brought his ephemeral skills into his class. Occasionally, he had to pause and let the clones that his scouting Octomind was creating out, then caught himself.
Why am I doing this myself?
Henry ordered one of his idle Octominds to take care of letting the clones out instead, then focused on his interface.
Alright, the abilities are in my class. Probably sticking to the class-frame. I’ll need to move them to an A...
2024-11-14 19:02:56 +0000 UTC
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A/N: New week! It was fun reading the comments on the last chapter and I hope you enjoy this week's chapters as well. Thank you all for reading and for your support.
Edit on the last chapter (1.38): The prime wand gives stat boosts for every manifested form, so when Ethan slotted [Breath Gland] in the Prime wand, he should have seen the boost as follows.
Stat Bonus: +5 to all, +5 Spirit, +5 Mana
------------
Ethan got up f...
2024-11-13 18:39:41 +0000 UTC
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A/N: New week!
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Henry didn’t know how long the process had taken.
It could have been hours. It could have been a couple of days. It might have been the former, but it most certainly felt like the latter and it was with great relief that the pulling and moving in his soul, the stretching and cutting and all other kinds of manipulation were over.
He could feel it winding down and as the fatigue slammed into his mind like a sledgehammer. A notification po...
2024-11-13 18:39:30 +0000 UTC
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A/N: And here's the fourth of the week! This one was fun to write and let me know what you think of the choices in the comment. I was gonna do a poll for the final one, but then worried the choice might not be a great fit, and I still need to keep writing and a poll would delay things... Still, I'd love to see what you all think!
See you next Wednesday (we're moving to 3 chapters a week if you haven't seen my notice form Tuesday. Might be back to 4/week in January)
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2024-11-09 20:49:46 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Sorry for the delay! I was swamped with work and my computer died (you'd know if you were reading Scorching).
I hope you you enjoyed this week's chapters! See you next week and thank you for your support. You all rock!
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Which combination would help Henry out the most?
Improving the Octominds even further sounded powerful, especially with how much mental effort he was about to start spending as he tried to get his mana manipulatio...
2024-11-09 01:29:25 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Hey all! Apologies for the delay. 1.38 is coming out tomorrow and in case you're not keeping track of RR, there was a big change in one of the earlier chapter. More folk pointed the issues with Lance's encounter, and I had to work on it and fix or I wouldn't be able to relax.
Someone had said it wasn't great in the Patreon comments, but I didn't catch the specifics of the issue until the folk on RR really told me what was wrong. It hurt only a little bit ;_; .
A...
2024-11-09 01:15:00 +0000 UTC
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Hey all,
my (main) computer is dead. You'll still be getting four chapters this week, but I don't think today's chapter will be ready on time. I'll try to do both tomorrow or it'll be tomorrow and Saturday,
sorry 'bout that. See you tomorrow
2024-11-07 22:01:11 +0000 UTC
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With Shiftiness upgraded and done, Henry moved on to Misdirection next and this Aspect did have secondary skills to upgrade.
Misdirection of the Trickster (C) - Level 1
Inkjet
Actives:
F-Rank: Shoot a jet of ink to confuse your pursuers and hide yourself.
E-Rank: Quantity of ink shot is increased. Ink can temporarily have properties of ingested foods.
2024-11-07 21:56:07 +0000 UTC
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A/N: I'm having some computer problems and it might (but it shouldn't) cause a delay in this week's chapters. My motherboard is dying, I think. It's barely a year old...
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Ethan quickly had eyes on his first victim, barely minutes after stepping out of the tunnel.
He was going to watch his back—just in case Amanda had any ideas—but the sooner he got the third form and unlocked whatever Ember had alluded to, the sooner he’d be able to ta...
2024-11-06 20:38:06 +0000 UTC
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A/N: I'm having some computer problems and it might (but it shouldn't) cause a delay in this week's chapters. My motherboard is dying, I think. It's barely a year old...
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A giant blue claw bopped Henry on the head.“[Dammit Henry! I just caught up and you decide to go ahead and get 25 levels? By yourself?]”
Another giant crab pincer was dropping toward him, but Henry just locked it up with Telekinesis. “[Did you not hear what I just sa...
2024-11-06 20:37:27 +0000 UTC
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A/N: New week! Thank you all for subscribing and for renewing.
After this week, I'm moving down to 3 chapters/week instead of 4/week. As some of you know, I'm also doing 3/week on Undersea, and 6/week is a more sustainable schedule for me (especially as I have some editing/backlog to work on).
I might come back to 4 chapters a week in January, but no promises. We'll see if I manage to build myself a rainy-day backlog.
Hope you enjoy this week's chapters!
...
2024-11-05 19:57:47 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Thank you for your support!
EDIT: I did an edit on chapter 1.26 to frame the encounter and the decision to deal with Lance a bit better. Events have not changed, but the setup/rationalization has been tweaked. Details in the chapter itself
https://www.patreon.com/posts/scorching-1-26-114324216
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Ten-inch long claws tore into the first ...
2024-11-01 19:35:02 +0000 UTC
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Henry cursed profusely as he threw caution to the wind and started dumping all of his arsenal of venoms into the open wound he dug up, which broke the squid out of its panicked state.
The timing was infuriating. But at least his mana was back to full thanks to the squid’s prodigious reserves.
The whole shoal shuddered as their conductor finally moved, roused up from their click-induced trance but even though the giant under him half-heartedly swatted at him a couple of tim...
2024-11-01 19:34:43 +0000 UTC
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The bright blue lights of the second layer came into view as Ethan assigned all of his three free points to Mana, bringing it up to 18. It was still the lowest of his stats but to be fair, he just started feeling its limitation so he probably wasn’t too far behind.
Well, he hoped, at least.
Ethan slowly climbed down and this time, he was careful but he couldn’t help but notice the change since the last time he’d been around; the space seemed to be a lot
2024-10-31 17:27:16 +0000 UTC
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Henry decided to consume both shrimp cores, and use the squid and everything he had remaining for upgrade. With the decision made, he confirmed his choice and basked into the intense magic released by the shrimp cores as it sunk into his powerful body.
This will get me closer to bringing a B-rank down. I just need one of them, and I’ll be able to afford all of my upgrades.
As the magic sunk through him, Henry couldn’t help but feel how insignificant a rank’s tokens ...
2024-10-31 17:27:04 +0000 UTC
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A/N: As always, I'm super grateful for the support. Hope you enjoy and see you tomorrow!
EDIT: In case you missed it (and thanks to Kanashii for reminding me), I added more clarity to the choice of the dagger in the last chapter. Hopefully it flows better and it makes more sense. Here's the section, but you can revisit the chapter as well for the context:
START OF EDIT:
[...]
As he thought it through, he started to lean toward the Harvester’s Dagger, bu...
2024-10-30 19:43:03 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Thank you so much for your support! See you tomorrow for the next one :)
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A concept empowered discharge of electric current lit up the cavern with a flashing and unsettling red. It arced out of Henry’s arms and onto the crustaceans like a bolt of thunder, making their legs and arms twitch violently while Henry pulled deeper from Fury of the Trickster.
The aspected mana was like liquid rage into his veins. It urged him to use it. To crush this in...
2024-10-30 19:42:53 +0000 UTC
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A/N: New week! A somewhat relaxed chapter but it'll be picking up speed very soon. Also, please check the note at the bottom after.
Cheers!
EDIT: Added more clarity to the choice of the dagger. Hopefully it flows better and makes more sense
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Ethan gently moved his injured arm and cursed under his breath as he felt something move in his swelled forearm.
Yeah, I’m going to need some help for this or it might take a while...
2024-10-29 17:46:54 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Big thanks to the new and old subscribers! I hope you enjoyed this week's chapters, and I'll see you next week for the next batch (or in the comments)
Enjoy the weekend!
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Fire exploded out of the monitor lizard’s jaw, but Ethan didn’t have a lot of time to consider the impact of his attack as his body was wrenched to the side and slammed into the ground like an uncoordinated chew-toy.
As soon as he’d begun pouring his flames into the lizard throat,...
2024-10-25 19:46:23 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Big thanks to the new and old subscribers! I hope you enjoyed this week's chapters, and I'll see you next week for the next batch (or in the comments)
Enjoy the weekend!
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The crab disappeared into his Maw while Henry dove into a wide crevice, hoping nothing was hiding within. If there was anything hidden down here, his telepathic sense didn’t pick it up.
Should have done that before I rushed into the cave. Then again, we we...
2024-10-25 19:46:13 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Thank you so much to the new subscribers (and old, always)! I'm sure not everyone reads both stories but if you do, you get thanked twice. There's nothing you can do about it.
See you tomorrow!
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Henry woke up from his nap with a mild headache and took in the cave ahead of him.
Maurice was staring at a pile of discarded claws and bone-shells. Unmoving. It had been two days since Stormsong’s breakthrough with mana condensing, an...
2024-10-24 22:03:44 +0000 UTC
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A/N: More subscribers! Thank you all so much!
Also sorry for the later chapter. It should be ready faster tomorrow, and this weekend should allow me to get ahead a bit. We'll see! I'm definitely looking forward for the RisingStars stress to be over.
See you tomorrow!
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Wind whistled in Ethan's ears, ruffling his hair as he flinched from a blue ray of concentrated water that barely missed him. Water droplets hit his bare chest as he descended upon ...
2024-10-24 22:01:21 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Huge thanks to all the new subscribers!
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The sounds of muffled steps echoed in the sloping tunnel as Ethan made his way down. His claws were out, but they weren’t ignited yet.
The tunnel was bright enough thanks to the blue and purple fungi lining the walls, and there were no monsters to fight just yet.
He was looking forward to that. His new and improved claws had not gotten a real test just yet. Meeting Liz and her people had b...
2024-10-23 15:39:50 +0000 UTC
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