When the kiss ended, Veyra was red to the tip of her ears. She didn’t shy away like usual, and her gaze was locked on me. I heard her breath through her mouth.
Her body suddenly slid down on the seat. She yelped, grabbed onto the right handrest of her wheelchair, and said, “Help…”
I sprung up right away, lifting her from her shoulders, back onto her seat. The push-ups I’d done gave me the strength to lift her easily enough. “Is that good?”
She nodded. “Thanks...
2025-12-16 08:00:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
At the very back of the forest, the grassy landscape turned to a small mountainscape. The sky was low, perhaps a hundred feet in the air, and the mountains were more like clumps of rocks. Vivi sensed a lot of ambient ether inside the mountains, and in the spots where ether was most concentrated, the rocks were shiny and reflective.
Metals. This was a natural respawn zone for nature’s resources, just like Shivenar’s levelstone mine. Ether concentrated within, and over the sp...
2025-12-15 08:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Author note:
The Sunday double chapters will be paused for December. I don't have enough chapters, and my writing speed is slow right now. So until next year, Sunday will be a break day.
Books fell from shelves by the force of the sudden earthquake. Queen Adalene of Norfolm channeled ether to her feet for balance. The forecaster’s ball trembled on its holster, its details going dark. Samira, the young girl behind the seat, knelt down under the tab...
2025-12-14 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
Author note:
The Sunday double chapters will be paused for December. I don't have enough chapters, and my writing speed is slow right now. So until next year, Sunday will be a break day.
“He’s winning, right?” Mom asked.
Anna didn’t have time to respond before the male caster’s confident voice echoed through the speakers. He’d introduced himself as Artonis before the match.
“Team Solo Mage loads into the final match of the ...
2025-12-14 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
I held Veyra’s hand and walked at the same pace as her assistant pushed her. We passed the curtains, and bright stage lights lit our entrance.
The stage wasn’t a hockey arena with stands all around. It was closer to a concert platform, though over a thousand seats still extended well into the hall ahead. Above us, two huge displays would show the matches. The ambient light from the displays provided just as much brightness as the stage lights themselves.
And this was only the ...
2025-12-13 14:14:34 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Right now?” Drean asked. “You wish to venture to the entrance immediately?”
“Humans have shorter lifespans,” Vivi said. “We need to get home. The sooner we’re all free, the better.”
The slingshot launcher on her shoulder took the spirits’ attention. Everyone eyed it suspiciously, as if she’d arrived with some foreign curse. Vivi didn’t blame them. They’d spent five thousand years in a cave, after all.
“And that tube is what you ...
2025-12-12 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
Veyra: “Sorry, I saw you but I got nervous and chickened out D;”
I stared at my phone blankly, while sitting in the corner of warm-up room three amongst a few other top players. The clock was past 11am, and the group stage for our tournament was starting in an hour. At noon, we’d have our first matches, and they’d continue all throughout the day.
Assassin: “I don’t bite :(”
Veyra: “I kno...
2025-12-11 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
The crystal spirits’ village resided in the forest a fifteen minutes walk from the camp. The ten spirits encircled Vivi and her friends as they followed pathed grass through the forest. The first log-houses came to view.
It was a depressing sight.
The village did not have gates or a protective fence. Vivi wasn’t welcomed in by pretty architecture or comfy huts. Instead, the village’s perimeter started with six unconscious crystal spirits sprawled lifelessly on the grass. The...
2025-12-10 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
5 minutes earlier…
“Do I need to wear a mask or something…” Veyra complained with a nervous breath, while Aree slowly pushed her through the crowds and the dark LEDs.
She couldn’t believe she’d already been recognized, even through her freckles, her different hair color, and her glasses. Was her face really that similar? Greenwitch must have seen the competitor’s pass on her clothes, identifying her from that. He’d followed her for minutes, until he finall...
2025-12-09 08:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Friendly?” Vivi asked.
The blue crystal-skinned creatures surrounded them. Wisps coated the arrows and the strings of their wooden crossbows. The arrows had steel tips, but the spirits’ auras extruded to their weapons, enhancing the arrows. The coating stuck to the steel and stayed there, with very little ether wasted. Their arrows were much stronger than outside-carved weapons, and the same applied to their spears.
The creatures themselves all faced Vivi upon her ...
2025-12-08 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
“You’re not horrible, Aolinn,” Vivi found herself saying. “I’ve met far worse people.”
“That has to be a lie,” Aolinn said under her breath.
“No, you really aren’t,” Vivi said. “At least not right now. You’ve been easy to take care of. You’re only annoying when you act like a princess. You tried to kick us out of the ball only for being loud. You yelled at a boy on the streets because he inconvenienced you for seconds.”
To Vivi’s surprise, Aol...
2025-12-07 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
The first thing I noticed in Gothenburg was that this country was cold as fuck.
I got out of the cab in the city center. The evening wind under the cloudy sky ate straight through my jacket. It wasn’t quite snowing in October yet, but it sure felt like I’d traveled to the heart of winter. Even the snowiest mountaintops weren’t this cold in-game.
The locals seemed to be immune. Some didn’t even have their hands in their pockets while they calmly waited for their street cars...
2025-12-07 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ethersmith Book 2 commissioned by Timeless Wind (My Publisher)
Assassinate Wonderwind made by iBoobee
2025-12-06 14:28:59 +0000 UTC
View Post
“No, you can’t wear that frog shirt on the Worlds stage!” Anna pouted at me.
The clothes store was empty and quiet, having just opened at seven in the morning. I had half an hour spared for last minute shopping with Anna, who insisted that someone had to validate my wardrobe before I flew to Sweden, and that someone should preferably be her. I agreed. New clothes wouldn't hurt. The frog shirt was nice, but I wouldn’t want to be seen only wearing that.
“...
2025-12-06 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
“We’re apparently stuck in some ‘Gauntlet Of The Gods,’” Alda said.
“It’s a quote from the Age Of Typhoons,” Cael said. “From literally five thousand years ago. I’ve seen it a few times, and only in the most obscure historical papers. Mostly in lists of influential quotes. It’s one from Noxbryn, the Demon God, that says, ‘When ether returns, find me in the Gauntlet Of The Gods, at the bottom of the world.’”
“The human translation seems to be incorrect...
2025-12-05 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
[You have received: Scale Of A Goddess x5 (Legendary Crafting Material), Soul Particle Of Embridge x27 (Epic Ingredient), Dragon Mace (Epic Mace), Raycaster (Epic Staff), Fire Rift Band (Epic Unique Ring), The Godripper (Mythic Sword), Emerald Aurora (Mythic Robe).]
A mythic sword and a mythic robe. Neither were for my build, but they were very popular ...
2025-12-04 08:00:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
“A spirit?” Vivi asked, squinting at the piece of rusty armor. Nothing about it looked spirit-like to her. No translucent colors or even an aura of ether around it. That was just a stack of old plate armor sitting upright.
“It’s not Ythar’s spirit,” Lucius said, floating next to her, eyes warily fixated on the armor. “It might be Noxbryn’s spirit. The demon god’s.”
That probably wasn’t a good thing. Aolinn listened, horrified by the rotten forest. Vivi added ...
2025-12-03 08:00:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
I saw the wooden walls of the guild hall and closed my eyes right away. For added measure, I blocked my eyes with my hands. Veyra had told me the guild hall was off limits. This was her safe space. And even though we were much closer now, I didn’t want to snoop around without permission.
“Sorry, I chose this as a mistake,” I said. “I picked the first teleport location in a hurry. It was this one. I didn’t look.”
Veyra stayed silent. I heard her soft footsteps, as if so...
2025-12-02 08:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Vivi, is that light?” Lucius suddenly asked, nudging her attention to the left.
A long time had passed. Probably around a full day, with enough empty dark caverns for Vivi to doubt her sanity. Aolinn had collapsed some hours ago, now traveling on Vivi’s back. The noblewoman had survived for surprisingly long, though she seemed to have fallen unconscious now. Vivi had to extend her aura to make Aolinn stick to her back. The technique was a bit awkward, but with Lucius’s help, an...
2025-12-01 08:00:15 +0000 UTC
View Post
Death Sense still threatened to turn Vivi into a monster as she allowed void ether into her body. The void realm was how monsters viewed the world. Not with the five senses humans usually had; everything in her surroundings registered from the ambient ether in the air. In her head was a perfect map of every object and every little detail of the cavern, at the cost of losing her other senses.
Most importantly, Death Sense could judge ethereal auras by the danger they threatened her with....
2025-11-30 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
The boss’s first phase alternated between five attacks, all insanely damaging, but just barely doable with the right strategies.
The basic quarterstaff swing hit like a truck, dealing enough damage to one-shot tank players, but it was still relatively easy to dodge. The evolved basic swings were much harder: the frost slam that spread [Absolute Zero] on the ground at the point of impact, and the time slam variant that did the same thing but spread a rift of time magic instead. Both wo...
2025-11-30 08:00:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
Heywin joined our party, and his character card became visible to us.
NPC Name: Great Dragon Heywin
NPC Level: 461
Class: Time Mage
Species: Dragon (Young)
Health: 3,800,000/3,800,000
Class skills: Hidden
Veyra saw it too. We m...
2025-11-29 08:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Vivi woke up in the dark, disoriented and head spinning. Lucius hadn’t taken her to Paradise. The cave came to her with dizzying perspectives. The ground was hard, yet it felt unstable at the same time, as if she was on top of some solid smoke.
She requested ether, but Lucius didn’t provide. He was awake, though, eyes wide in fear as he hid perfectly still in her core, as if trying to hide from something.
Lucius? Vivi asked in her head. Where are we?
...
2025-11-28 08:00:24 +0000 UTC
View Post
Embridge’s health bar exploded well under half. The dragon shrieked, and blasts of dark magic and fire followed with so many particles that all I could see was colors. Something hit me right in the chest, and I found myself at a freefall, back into the city below.
Thanks to my absurd defence stat from whatever hit me, I only took 5% damage. I reoriented myself and identified my landing spot. I was aimed at a tiled rooftop. The fall was long enough to let [Shadow Dash]’s cooldown run...
2025-11-27 08:00:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Aolinn’s stance wasn’t all too imposing. She was a small girl, and her pout-like frown was irritating to look at more than threatening. She looked like she expected to be followed regardless, standing there with her arms crossed and feet wide, while every table around them watched and listened in.
“Nothing to say for yourselves?” Aolinn asked. “Then please leave. None of you are fit for a royal ballroom. Especially not you.” She walked directly beside Vivi’s seat,...
2025-11-26 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
We teleported to Rayshire and were immediately met with two system messages.
[You are in a semi-safe Zone. Player combat disabled. This area might become a hostile zone in the future.]
[For the duration of the red moon, the death time-out has been reduced to thirty minutes]
The mist itself felt thicker under the light of the red moon, obstructing the view more. The streetside NPCs weren’t smiling. Their postures were anxious, as if they’d heard the news of a disaster hap...
2025-11-25 08:00:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
Who’s this? Vivi asked in her head, caught off guard by the sudden question.
Orange wine glass in hand, the man seemed to be an ether hunter on the younger side, perhaps the same age as Essi. He wore a black woolen coat over a knitted dark grey vest. The coat had embroidery, depicting a thicket of leaves and vegetation, though the embroidery wasn’t gold or silver like with most others, just plain white. Around his neck was a scarf, which fit surprisingly well with his sharp...
2025-11-24 08:00:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
The red moon glared at the world from the northwestern corner of the Ray Dragon event, overlooking the rainbow-hot mountainscape. The area with an average monster level of 390, too difficult for me to sneak into even with my monster avoidance build. It seemed the final fight of the Ray Dragon would happen there.
I teleported us to the closest village, since the Wizard’s Tower teleport got destroyed alongside the tower itself. We had a ten minute walk through calm misty mountains, with...
2025-11-23 08:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Vivi decided to accept Helegar’s invitation.
She’d heard a lot about royal parties, both good and bad. She doubted she would enjoy the experience, considering a royal ball was full of, well, royals, but visiting a ball still interested her, if only to see what they were truly like. Helegar had also promised a reward.
There was some downtime before the ball, which Vivi used to practice vein-shaping with vine roots. With Grandpa gone, she was probably the best ...
2025-11-23 08:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
The next day, we met early in the blighted mountain city on a cleared platform, poisonous water dripping down to the ravine below us.
“No way, why?” Veyra asked. She studied the item stats, then blinked at me. “You sold Lichfang for this?”
Sablethorn
Item Type: Legendary (Unique Event Item)
Required Character Level: 239
Stats:
