Before I started with the materials, even the small trickle of Mana I was sending into my Authority Core was getting hard to hold in. I had to release my hold on my Authority.
I didn’t do anything special, I just let go.
The pressurized Authority that had been building up within me exploded outwards. I think the aura reached nearly fifty metres out, which seemed really far to me since it was also the range at which I could send Mana through a distribution array or maintain con...
2025-06-28 03:31:15 +0000 UTC
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There were so many overlapping voices that I couldn’t pick any particular one out of the crowd. This was mostly because they were speaking too loudly, which caused the microphone to peak.
The townsfolk were arguing about something, I just couldn’t tell exactly what. Maybe the sudden onset of winter spooked them.
A young woman in a flowing robe approached and yelled something. Everyone fell silent. She’d cocooned herself in Mana using a very precise structure. I don’t thi...
2025-06-26 03:09:46 +0000 UTC
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The votes for the Skill came out perfectly equally, so I just chose on my own. I did not expect that, I thought there would be some clear favourites.
The needle pulled itself out of my soul twenty minutes later, at the same moment that time unpaused. My shell just fell forward, face-planting into the dirt.
Why didn’t it freeze my mind?!
I added a new target to my list of people who needed to be sent to Hell. Whoever pushed the update. Because h...
2025-06-23 07:14:41 +0000 UTC
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First things first, I needed to finish the ritual.
I could deal with the fact that there was some kind of other monster living nearby and begin the process of sorting through all the memories later. Most of the sorting was already done by my other self, but I still had to sort through their sorted version.
I paused my thoughts for a moment just to make sure that made sense, and when I confirmed it did, I nodded to myself and continued.
I had established ownership of the olde...
2025-06-21 07:06:26 +0000 UTC
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Ellie — 1
“Bye now! Remember to return when the street lights come back on!” My main body called out. To which I looked towards the town and realized there weren’t any.
You know there aren’t any street lights, right?
She completely ignored my point. Typical. Letting out the best sigh that I could in this body, I turned with my other selves and began towards the town.
It took me a moment to adjust to my new insectoid form....
2025-06-20 05:10:41 +0000 UTC
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This is the start of a novel I started writing a while back. It had its issues, so I ended up scrapping the first draft, but I always loved the concept and wanted to revisit it eventually. I've started rewriting it and wanted to release the first chapter to see if my Patrons have thoughts on it. It won't be ready for a Royal Road release for a while, but if people enjoy it, I might drop chapters here occasionally.
Let me know what you think, would you read more? I'm writing mor...
2025-06-18 20:40:19 +0000 UTC
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The path weaved through the meadow, meandering up a hill in that way you would only see in fantasy media. It twisted lazily, doubling back on itself up and down in a completely nonsensical fashion from a design perspective. It’s not like there was foliage besides grass in the way.
As I crested the top of the hill, I looked out over an expansive meadow. My eyes strained as I tried to see anything in the distance from my new vantage point. But it almost seemed like the grasslands went ...
2025-06-18 01:15:21 +0000 UTC
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I massaged my temples while listening to Hazel explain how she absolutely required the materials from the boss to advance her profession. The fight was apparently causing damage to the creature's unique antlers.
Obviously, in a way, she was right. I had to keep in mind that different materials need to be preserved and used by individual professions. The cleaner the kill, the better the materials. I knew someone who had a leatherworking Profession who would definitely want to get the hid...
2025-06-15 17:28:03 +0000 UTC
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I looked over a two-dimensional scene in front of me. My depth perception was completely fucked. I genuinely couldn’t tell if something was really big and far away or really small and incredibly close. Trees were lightly blowing in the breeze at some point in the distance. Cherry blossoms were in bloom, suspicious. A notification had taken up a quarter of my vision.
[Zone Quest Obtained]
Name: [Follow your Story]
Tier: [Depends...
2025-06-08 23:29:02 +0000 UTC
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This time, there were no suicidal gardeners, so I figured that I had finally gotten the answer correct. Just give all the staff blinky rings. Oh, of course, it was horribly inefficient if I were to break it down and do a Mana cost analysis, but that wasn’t my goal. Right now was the time to see if the other parts of the plan came together properly, and then it was just a matter of refining the solution.
If my turrets killed bandits as well as they did gardeners, it might just do somet...
2025-06-07 23:00:44 +0000 UTC
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Autumn was right, the facility was completely fucked. With all the Mana drained out of the building, all of the lights were off, but I think even if I hadn’t done that, most of them wouldn’t be functional anyway.
Whatever seismic activity occurred had caused the ceiling to collapse in several places. Nothing a bit of Earth Mana couldn’t fix, but it made the trip take a little bit longer.
At some point, a notification flickered in my vision, closing itself before I had even p...
2025-06-05 22:15:49 +0000 UTC
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Okay, so the version written on Patreon is unfortunately slightly trimmed. I wanted to let you know so you can check out the PDF if you're concerned about potentially missing any details.
Nothing you missed won't be brought up later, though.
Also, would anyone like an EPUB version? Just leave a comment if you do, and I'll look into getting one for all previous chapters as well.
[Admin Message]
Header: [Recompense for damages caused ...
2025-06-04 09:31:03 +0000 UTC
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Before I wrote Afterlife 2.0 I had another novel that was basically my baby. But I ended up throwing it away after a poor review from a single beta reader.
Lately I've been thinking back to that novel and kind of want to rewrite it from the ground up.
Just want to see what people want though before I commit to anything.
Would you be interested in me investing time in writing a new novel or do you want me to stick with Afterlife 2.0?
Basically, the pitch for the oth...
2025-06-03 07:35:03 +0000 UTC
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You guys like these quick chapters? I feel like I'm in a flow state or something.
Don't expect it to always be like this, though. I'm not sure how long I can keep up a chapter a day.
For some reason, my notification tray was taking a while to open. I could feel something was happening, and that blinking light in the corner of my vision that indicated I had a notification wasn’t going away. So really this was just a waiting—
Something s...
2025-06-02 22:06:06 +0000 UTC
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Woo! The benefit of having no release schedule is that sometimes I can just sit down and write an entire chapter in two hours, then publish it. Hope you enjoy!
Standing in the centre of the ritual room as I looked over the five circles maintaining the rift in reality, only one thought was going through my mind.
We’re fucked aren’t we?
The thought that every person who had created this entire problem was burning in hell brought a smile t...
2025-06-01 20:58:38 +0000 UTC
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I tapped the keyplate against the door and waited a moment for it to register the tap. Then waited another moment because nothing was happening. I checked the map.
Yup, this is the right way to go. What’s with the doo—
My train of thought was interrupted when a loud, distorted buzzer echoed down the hallway. All of the lights flickered as the noise played. Something fucky is afoot.
I brought my hand up to connect to the circuit in the door, but hesita...
2025-06-01 00:02:11 +0000 UTC
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As I ran across the desiccated soil, buffeted by winds that would send any regular human into orbit, or at least tumbling towards the hole in reality, I only had one thing on my mind.
Holy shit, what the fuck is that. We’re all going to die, aren’t we?
“Ellie, it’s okay, that’s just how they dig a hole through the Planar barriers to establish a foothold. We still have time,” Autumn said, the connection sending their voice directly through my sound processing ...
2025-05-30 08:24:48 +0000 UTC
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As usual, the PDF is the properly formatted version. But I get if you want to read it here. Underlined text is her Core System readout.
As we climbed the ladder to the surface, I decided to try contacting Hazel. I hadn’t spoken with her in a little while. It felt like every time I wanted to chat over the past day or so, something more important would come up, and I’d be distracted, which, considering the circumstances, was probably to be expected.
“Hey...
2025-05-27 22:45:50 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks! I just wanted to thank anyone who chose to become a Patron. It really means a lot to me that people would give me money to look at my work. I plan to follow a release schedule where, for every two chapters that I release here, one will go up on RR until we're caught up to what I've promised for Patrons.
Then we'll just see what happens. I might do a four here, three RR sort of thing. Whatever happens, I want you guys to always be getting more! Since I don't actually...
2025-05-25 04:28:24 +0000 UTC
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After trying for a couple of seconds, I realized I couldn’t stand up from the chair. Apparently, this was an on-rails experience, whatever this ended up being. I then took a look around just to get a read of the place. My initial impression was that it was a workshop of some kind, and my second was that it was cozier than expected. It was clear that this place was designed for building and storing artifacts. There were hundreds of gizmos and whatsits just lying around. Unlike the display ro...
2025-05-22 02:56:18 +0000 UTC
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Okay, so either Patreon's text editor is missing a lot of standard features from editors like Google docs / The RR editor, or I have no idea how to access them.
I've tried to do what I can to accommodate users who want to read in the Patreon app. But if you want the version that actually looks like how I wrote it, check the attached PDF at the bottom of the post. Please answer the Poll down there as well!
I woke up, which was my first mistake. Letting out a groan, I tried t...
2025-05-20 23:13:28 +0000 UTC
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I've been writing this novel for around half a year as of the time of this post, and seeing it reach the top thirty listed on Rising Stars just this month was more than I'd ever dreamed of achieving. That alone made all the time and effort I put into the novel worth it.
This isn't going to stop any time soon! The story of Afterlife 2.0 isn't going to end, and I have so many plans for future novels that I want to try writing. So stay tuned, I'll be announcing everything as it happens he...
2025-05-20 22:58:08 +0000 UTC
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