“I swear,” said Aiwë. “That's the first time I've passed out from exhaustion.”
He seemed exhilarated by this.
“That just means you weren't trying hard enough before,” Zane informed him.
Aiwë considered this. “…I suppose I wasn’t.”
Zane was pleased to see he'd made a difference.
***
The months passed like this, and slowly Zane’s Infusion rose. From 1% to 5% to 10%…. The essence he ‘primed’ gained a certain shimmer; more and more...
2025-03-05 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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He did another four hundred.
“You’re a machine.” Aiwë was speechless.
He wheeled up to study Zane, who was busy chugging down some of the Barbarian Sage’s recovery drinks between sets. He started inspecting Zane’s heaving chest the way he’d done the Interspatial Ring, eyes glowing.
“It’s tempered just like Primordial Steel…” he muttered. “And the shape of it…just exquisite craftsmanship.”
“…Thanks?”
“No, thank you,” said Aiwë...
2025-03-04 02:30:00 +0000 UTC
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Zane blinked.
He felt the heat passing by his face—an incredible outpouring of energy packed into a pure, clean-cut pillar.
Then it struck flush and vanished.
The steel shone like a rising sun.
Aiwë took a deep breath and grinned.
Zane gave him another look.
He felt the fellow’s aura in that moment—his soul.
He got an impression of a night sky, stretching horizon to horizon, endlessly deep…
It might’ve been as big as his own, to his s...
2025-03-03 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“Hey there,” said Zane, stepping casually out of the key-portal.
“You’re back!” said Aiwe.
He sat by the forge, heaving a hammer, with a copper welding mask pulled up. He sounded delighted, if tinny.
“Just one moment.”
He set down his hammer, donned some heavy gloves, picked up some tongs, and began straightening out a white-hot notification box.
The notification box was not having it.
“…A few more moments…” gasped Aiwe.
It wasn...
2025-03-02 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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That name rang a bell.
He’d definitely heard it before, but he wasn’t quite sure where…
Eh. He figured it’d come to him.
In the meantime—“I’m Zane.”
“Well, Zane, let me welcome you to my home for the foreseeable future.”
It was a well-made place. All the shelves and workbenches looked hand-carved, thoughtfully arranged. There wasn’t anything that might suggest it was a home—no rugs, no leathers, no lamps or paintings—really it was just s...
2025-02-28 21:22:57 +0000 UTC
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The Imperial Mark 10 was a castle with a hull. Its smokestacks rose like towers, and above them lay a field of billowing masts. Up on the ropes, wind mages pulled on Spirit Weapon gloves, ready to throw up a current. Below decks, fire mages stoked the forges.
It looked to be half shipping vessel, half passenger vessel. There were so manymasts it seemed a bit excessive, but the ticket guy—a little old fellow with a train conductor’s mustache—was convinced every one was necessary. U...
2025-02-27 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N Really appreciate the kind words folks!
//
He unlocked strand after strand, falling into a rhythm. Before he knew it, another year had gone by.
One day—"Senior Zane, Senior Zane!”
He knew that voice.
Zane turned, and sure enough, there Jin was, looking all spiffy in imperial white-and-gold robes. The kid splashed over and tackled him in a hug.
The kid had gotten to the top of his chest. But everything else about hi...
2025-02-26 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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After the Temple, King Four Winds wanted to invite the mysterious expert known as Zane to court and make him his Champion. But Zane vanished as quickly as he'd come.
A few weeks later, a traveler with a straw hat and an odd stick wandered the remote fishing villages and beachside towns in the far south of the continent—so far south, there wasn’t even an Imperial Outpost. There was no need for one. There was nothing down south but sea and mist. Some merchant ships would spot vast spi...
2025-02-25 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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Bang.
For the second time that decade, a rift blew through the Sealed Demon Continent and changed the very skies.
A rift that ruptured out from one clenched fist—a rift that ran straight through the Monster Prince.
Havoc looked down at his chest in puzzlement.
…Oh. he rasped. Oh.
Then he looked at Zane again. You’re…
2025-02-24 02:30:03 +0000 UTC
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The dunes blew open, and all man saw was horror.
Waxen skin draped on gigantic limbs, some on three legs, some on eight, some on none at all. Misshapen skulls, hollowed-out eyes, and rows after row of drooling, gleaming teeth…
That first wave almost broke them before the battle began.
They hadn't been ready,bowed inward, nearly at blows—there was a great deal of cursing and shouting as they whirled around, struggling to brace against the threat.
Then the Mons...
2025-02-23 02:30:04 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Bonus chapter x2! It's been a good week
//
“Horseshit!” said Skyhammer Kang.
“The signs were there,” said the Wandering Monk. His face, normally as blank as a placid pond, grew dark.
Tatsuo screamed and punched the ground, searing white claws into the sand.
“That prize was mine,” said Princess Saori tightly. All the playfulness had gone from her face.
“Whoever he is,” mused Li Zhang, “when he comes out, he’ll ...
2025-02-22 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Bonus chapter!
//
Almost as soon as they went in, folk started getting spat right back out.
“Ho!” said Old Rao, the bookie. “And there goes the first exits—at point-five seconds!”
The great majority of them couldn't even last the full minute. Clumps were ejected at the ten-second mark, and still more at the twenty, all with the same shell-shocked look.
“How’s any man meant to get through that?!”
By the minute m...
2025-02-20 19:15:03 +0000 UTC
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He’d thought Burnwater was just saying things when he said there was a special charm to these little worlds. But he kind of got it. The place was fragile, sure, but the more time he spent here, the neater he found it.
He trekked across peaks of seven-colored greenery and across peaks belching fire. He crossed a bare red-sand desert where the stars gleamed in the naked sky and winds surging with spirits carved murals in the dunes—the memories of those ghosts washed away by sundown.
2025-02-20 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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In the years since the mysterious Zane’s disappearance, much had changed in the Sealed Demon continent.
On the frontier, in the never-ending wars between man and monster, the Four Winds army had produced a new hero—the dashing Li Zhang. As valiant a warlord as they came—it was said he’d never lost a battle, even outnumbered nine to one. He’d set a new record for the heads of monster beast-lords.
In the far east, a foreign expert introduced the ‘pill furnace,’ which p...
2025-02-19 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Not long after, Jin Wei became the first in his family’s history to ace the Silverwind Sect’s entrance examination. It qualified him to be a Chosen and go off to the main Sect in the Imperial capital.
He would soon be off to the big city.
Zane would be here for some seasons yet. He was making good progress, but he still had a ways to go.
From then on, he seldom ever left the Valley. If he did, it was to leave Astra entirely and teleport back for a brief date night and le...
2025-02-18 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The folk of the town watched as plumes of dust avalanched down the mountain, rising to make new dark clouds.
Then a man walked out of the murk.
By now everyone there knew what kind of man they were looking at. They saw five of the Yi Family’s best go up that mountain.
One man came back down.
“It’s him! It really is Zane!”
“Hells…”
“What even is he?”
“He’s got to be a Saint—Saint-level!”
“Dragon-level?!...
2025-02-17 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The hunchback looked up and saw a great deal of chest. And higher, he saw a thick neck and jaw. And higher still.
Hunchback Lang had never cried, even as a child. He had never known fear in his life. How could you fear when you could not hurt?
So when he met Zane’s eyes, he felt something very strange, something he’d never known, stab at his chest. His mouth went dry.
This man…
“You were looking for me,” said Zane, a hard edge to his voice. “Right?”
2025-02-16 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Bonus chapter!
//
Zane sat cross-legged and weathered the storm.
Collisions ran through his mind. Waves crashing and crossing, and in their violent wakes, making new and dangerous energies.
Energies he mastered, line by line.
He saw flares screaming out of newly-born stars, spiraling into deep space.
Brow furrowed, he put himself in that trance-like state. Field after field took shape…
Hours passed like this.
2025-02-14 19:47:40 +0000 UTC
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He came upon a cavern ringed with steel pillars. Faceless pillars, perfectly smooth, making a pentagram—as though meant to summon some deep-earth demon.
The bulk of their power wasn’t shown. To the eye, they were dormant. But to the soul, they were a vast angry sea, a sea of raw force scouring the craggy steel-stone walls.
Those pillars hid something profound.
He felt the forces acting on his body the moment he stepped foot there.
He was surprised to realize he kne...
2025-02-13 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“I’m gonna be just fine,” said Jin, putting up a brave smile. “Don’t you worry about me, senior!”
“Sure,” said Zane.
They trudged up the winding, mossy path.
A few minutes passed like this.
Something was unusual. It took a moment for him to place it.
The little fellow was quiet.
“Um. Senior?”
“What’s up?”
“Have you ever had anything like that happen?”
“Like what?”
“Fei-Fei saw me get beat up…”<...
2025-02-12 02:30:21 +0000 UTC
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The goon looked up.
A Zane-sized shadow fell across him.
He wondered what he should do about this guy. He was a bit worried he might break a little too much. The world, that was. He still hadn’t figured out how much this place could handle.
If letting out a bit of aura was like setting off a nuclear bomb here…
Maybe it was just a matter of being careful. Taking it one bone at a time.
As he considered things, the goons stared at him, then at each other, and se...
2025-02-11 02:30:54 +0000 UTC
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“Sure! My uncle runs the township’s store. This way.”
Uncle Wei was quite an old fellow. He looked over tiny wire spectacles with cloudy eyes. It took him a moment to recognize Jin. He snorted at Jin’s bloody knuckles.
“Back for more salves, you little rascal?”
“Yup,” said Jin.
He turned to Zane. “Hardest working assistant I ever had, this one. But he always had this hare-brained idea he’d be a cultivator, ever since he was a kid. Then he ran off to...
2025-02-10 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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There was a sound like a thousand reams of dry paper tearing at once.
Birds screeched into flight. Trees toppled in a circle, shattering like burnt-out coals as they hit the ground.
The Wraithcrow gagged. It turned tail so fast a puff of feathers came loose; as it flapped away, it made a sorry sight.
Zane grinned.
He’d never get tired of spooking birds.
Then he looked around and blinked.
Jagged voids tore through the realm halfway up the sky, slowly mendi...
2025-02-09 02:30:02 +0000 UTC
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“It means you shouldn't have to worry about them,” said Noughtfire. “Seek out the anomalies in those worlds—the places where Law is strong where it has no right to be. And there, you will find what you need.
Zane nodded. Seemed clear enough.
“In Astra you’ll have all you need to clear the last three Concepts. I imagine if if you make good time… it should take a little more than a decade, in there.”
“That should translate to something like five y...
2025-02-06 03:05:23 +0000 UTC
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EDIT:
Wednesday's chapter will be up to an hour late again, sorry about that! Pulling late hours yesterday wiped me out for today--will get it done, though, and next week things should be on-time as normal!
//
Before long it was his last day back.
Evan had made little bandanas for their rescue team, embroidered with a new logo—a little sun peeking through the clouds. He and Avery planned on heading all over the Galaxy, helping folks who’d b...
2025-02-05 04:13:12 +0000 UTC
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He and Reina greeted them there, and were treated to a big hug and two little gift-baskets of cookies from Evan.
Evan could hardly sit still. It felt like every time they came back, he had something new for show-and-tell.
A few minutes later they were out on an empty bough—a field of leaves the elves used for training.
“Constellation Slash!” cried Evan.
A starscape scattered across the battlefield, his own little night sky. Evan showed the...
2025-02-04 02:30:34 +0000 UTC
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A/N:
Forgot to schedule this chapter sorry about that!
//
It felt like it’d only been a few weeks since he’d last been in the World Tree. But somehow Reina had transformed the place again.
The main thoroughfare, snaking up the main branch, was packed with carts. Carts stacked full of Interspatial Rings marked for The Deep Earth Hall, or Mount Thundercrest—sigil after sigil went by. Each was marked bottles of essence or healing, shipped out in nea...
2025-02-03 03:04:16 +0000 UTC
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A/N
Added a brief description of what his new Bone looks like to chapter 382!
He let out his Chains, and now they shared the presence of his Bone—that aura of natural grandeur, like he stood before an ancient mountain-peak shrouded in distant clouds. The Titan’s dark silver made the base colors. Asura red bloodied it down its length.
//
Zane found himself being carried on the back of a Rhino stampede.
It was a victory parade...
2025-02-02 02:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Not far off, Goloog the Living Bog kept up heavy fire.
Waves of acid waste battered the Barbarian Sage.
The Hydra froze it over. The Hydra was in poor shape, but it was still an Empyrean. It only had one head left—but it had essence to spare.
Bleak ice stacked heavy over the wastes.
It was a fortunate thing it was bleak ice. That was the best element to hold a man down. Goloog was a careful beast; he knew this old man had once been fearsome.
P...
2025-01-30 02:28:41 +0000 UTC
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Zane felt the exact moment he broke the lion. Felt the force ripple through the Monster, felt the muscles of the heart take the worst of it—and explode. First in force, then in flame. Felt that force charge through, shattering bone after bone…
Its huge mouth fell wide open, wider than its jaw should’ve allowed as it croaked. Its flesh swelled.
It might’ve been a half-step True God. But when he got his hands on it, and his explosions rippled through, it blew like any other ...
2025-01-29 02:30:03 +0000 UTC
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