59th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The deinonychus had tried everything. It flew up and slammed Newt to the ground half a dozen times, it slashed, bit, and even slapped him with its tail. Newt endured. He poured all his spiritual energy into the effort, the earthen half protecting him, the fire half cooking the ...
2025-01-02 07:07:37 +0000 UTC View PostDay 1, 7:30 PM
I gasp for breath, my lungs filling with scalding, acrid fumes.
Smoke.
My head swims, but I have enough presence of mind to scan my body and find my chest hurts, my left arm is numb, and my feet are burning. My new body is bound to a stake, its previous owner had died of a heart attack just as...
2025-01-01 08:15:41 +0000 UTC View Post59th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Am I cursed? Newt almost started muttering obscenities as he searched his ninth fourth realm spirit beast and found its core had shattered. Both Dandelion and the books said it’s one in ten, one in five if you kill the spirit beast before it uses significan...
2025-01-01 07:58:23 +0000 UTC View Post58th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
I think I got it. Newt stood after spending days in meditation, considering what the Valley of the Lost was doing, and how to counter it. In the end, he decided that resisting it was not the way. Defying a natural phenomenon potent enough to overpower and c...
2024-12-31 09:17:45 +0000 UTC View Post55th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt had taken another page from the book of Dandelion. After he closed the distance to fifteen feet, the stegosaurus turned sideways to greet the unseen opponent with its tail. Newt seized the chance and exploded with speed, his glaive stabbing straight for the base of the spi...
2024-12-29 05:28:07 +0000 UTC View Post55th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Obsidian was a lot more nervous than he revealed to Rose and Jas. Newt was strong, there was no doubt about that, but he was still merely at the third realm; he needed to sleep once a week. He would have to sleep alone, with nobody keeping watch. Alone inside the Valley of the ...
2024-12-28 04:47:52 +0000 UTC View Post55th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Rose’s heart galloped. Something was stuck in her throat as she stared at her empty hands. A mountain-sized rock, based on how she was feeling. The young woman opened her mouth, but failed to utter a word.
“Are there any spirit beast ambushers in the geysers?” Jas...
2024-12-26 04:35:30 +0000 UTC View Post55th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The fourth geyser field came with a realization. It was over. From that point on, the Valley of the Lost would continue to grate at Newt’s nerves. Things had reached their peak, and the only way forward was downhill.
We have about three to four days left before we l...
2024-12-24 20:58:48 +0000 UTC View Post54th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The group was wrapping up their third geyser field with over two hundred pieces of misterium in their bags, their main goal long since completed. His companions’ greed annoyed Newt, but he kept his mouth shut. His irritability was growing by the hour, and deep down he knew th...
2024-12-24 11:43:11 +0000 UTC View Post52nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt was about to leave the geyser with his twelfth piece of misterium when the inevitable happened. He slipped. His foot slid across the smooth stone, but instead of falling down, pulled by the earth, he went up, lifted by the torrent. Newt’s body careened, he spun head over...
2024-12-22 06:13:20 +0000 UTC View Post52nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The night was drawing to an end, and the campfire was slowly fluttering out, flames dying and only embers glowing in the dark. Obsidian had grilled the fattail kebabs over the spell formation Newt had scribed onto the ground, and once they finished preparing the meal, they scra...
2024-12-21 08:29:23 +0000 UTC View Post51st of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
If Newt had to describe the previous day, he could summarize it in two words - surprisingly smooth. While fighting the hadrosaurus he realized how much tougher his body had gotten compared to the time he fought the frostworms. Even without relying on techniques, he could physic...
2024-12-20 05:39:39 +0000 UTC View Post50th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The beast was unlike anything Newt had ever seen. Hadrosaurus were large, docile herbivores; wild beasts beyond doubt, too massive for common folk to tame, but sometimes used by first realm cultivators as beasts of burden.
The monster that appeared before the group was ma...
2024-12-18 08:32:11 +0000 UTC View Post50th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The mountains were much closer to the port than they seemed, mere thirty miles away, and third realm cultivators covered such short distances in half an hour of relaxed jog.
Hazel was still with Newt’s team when they reached the mountain’s peak. And as Newt ascended t...
2024-12-17 10:36:11 +0000 UTC View Post50th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Things were in such rapid motion, Newt thought he was dreaming. He was standing on a ship’s deck, rushing towards a chain of distant mountains standing proudly beyond the vast expanse of water. All three of his roommates were there with him, along with Roselilly’s second si...
2024-12-15 05:35:26 +0000 UTC View Post49th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt placed his hand on Obsidian’s trembling shoulder. The big man’s nervousness grew more and more palpable with each step they took up the stairs. Obsidian turned around and gave him an appreciative nod before opening the door with a quivering hand.
The five-o-four...
2024-12-14 09:07:56 +0000 UTC View Post49th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt enjoyed the two training sessions which followed his short spar. He was slowly learning how to use his spiritual energy outside himself, how to shape the terrain and how to keep his fire forms stable longer. While he was certainly not at the level of the third realm cultiv...
2024-12-12 06:20:55 +0000 UTC View Post49th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Obsidian was nervous. It was almost impossible for something world-shaking to happen again during his and Newt’s spar, but a part of his hind brain kept asking, ‘What if?’
It was a foolish notion, and yet the wary gazes of countless elders focused on them reinforced...
2024-12-11 06:56:20 +0000 UTC View Post48th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Finally alone in his room, Newt stood from his bed and sensed something off. He stopped and examined himself, but failed to find the source of his discomfort. Newt made a careful step, but his leg jerked too fast, too far. He panicked and froze, one leg up, just about to touch ...
2024-12-10 05:16:30 +0000 UTC View Post48th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Pillar of light? What the hell happened? Why me?
“Pillar of light?” Newt clamped his mouth shut when he realized he was stuttering the words aloud.
“Yup.” His sixth sister nodded vigorously, beaming with joy. “I wasn’t there, but I saw it from a...
2024-12-08 14:55:12 +0000 UTC View Post45th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Sect master Greenthorn nodded. “I see.”
He made a dramatic pause before steepling his fingers and looking Alabaster in the eye. The weight of his gaze was like that of a mountain, and Alabaster did all she could not to buckle under the pressure.
“Your approach...
2024-12-07 09:44:33 +0000 UTC View Post45th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Obsidian was waiting for his teammate. He did not want to admit it, but he was excited. He had heard of geniuses who reached the second or even the third realm before hitting twenty, he had even seen some of them, and Roselilly was close to that category, but he never expected ...
2024-12-05 07:20:31 +0000 UTC View Post45th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Thank you for helping me pick the glaive, Master.” Newt had spent the first part of the day’s training with Elder Alabaster picking a heavy weapon for his spar with Obsidian.
On Newt’s insistence, his roommate agreed to a duel at noon. Newt believed it was dramat...
2024-12-04 10:53:08 +0000 UTC View Post30th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“He is a rare gem,” spiritual energy danced in Alabaster’s ear, carrying Flameax’s whispered words. “Are you sure you’re not being too hard on him? Maybe he needs a bit of acknowledgement, encouragement? Someone telling him he’s special. That he’s good.”
16th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Standing at the training area, Newt brimmed with satisfaction at making something practical, something which would help another person do their job more comfortably. Better yet, he got some tasty food out of it.
“Let’s recap. What are you going to do from now on?” E...
2024-12-01 09:06:38 +0000 UTC View Post15th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt felt like banging his head against a rock. Elder Woodhopper may have appeared like she was enjoying the spring of her youth, but she was his master’s generation. The whole situation felt absurd. He had a crush on a woman who was at least a thousand years his senior.
<... 2024-11-30 13:55:24 +0000 UTC View Post7th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Obsidian left behind one confused Newt as he closed the door to the recovery room. Newt gazed at the pale-blue ceiling, considering the implications of everything he had heard. Average third realm inner disciples of major sects were between fifty and two hundred years old. Obsid...
2024-11-28 08:16:09 +0000 UTC View Post7th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt spent his first day at the Chamber of Healing in quiet cultivation. Within his realm, he arranged fire-attributed runic arrays along the lava flows, often thinking about the two nearly identical energy capturing spell formations Dandelion had shared with him.
They wou...
2024-11-27 13:06:46 +0000 UTC View Post6th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Stupid kid, you were practicing tracing without supervision.” Elder Alabaster said the instant Newt regained consciousness. She knew her disciple was awake even before he opened his eyes. “You were in an induced coma for a day and a half. You fried your heart, your lung, ...
2024-11-26 00:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post