I will never forget the first moment I walked past those walls. Those walls that climbed higher than the sky itself. Those walls that cast shadows so long they could drown mountains. Those walls grander than any fortress and greater than anything I could have dreamed…
To thin...
2025-10-16 18:31:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe most important thing when it comes to duels of words and rhetoric is control. If you can control someone's emotions or the flow of the topic, you can win. For ultimately, it's not about a debate of truth, but more often, who can make the other betray themselves, to debase themselves in pu...
2025-10-15 18:07:48 +0000 UTC View PostTo be a recruiter for Phoenix Academy is to dedicate oneself to hunting for golden needles in a grand haystack. The students are remarkable individuals. Though young of age, many of them have already demonstrated their virtues and potential. After all, though life is harsh, and the consequenc...
2025-10-15 15:22:28 +0000 UTC View PostPhoenix Academy is not the only academy on Earth. It is also not the greatest academy, despite how often I boast of its great achievements and magnificent alumni.
If you want to seek the oldest academy on Integrated Earth, then you're heading far east to Moonwall. You will asce...
2025-10-14 18:44:24 +0000 UTC View PostHm? Oh, yes. Headmaster, I'm aware that Master-Instructor Heresine is a spy. And a spy of Aviary, no less. One of their so-called Sparrows. Long-term, deep cover. Not meant for active combat.
I commend you for noticing, but the Inquisition has the matter well in control. As suc...
2025-10-13 18:34:40 +0000 UTC View PostStudents of the Phoenix, my job here, as headmaster, is not to get you to adapt by the time you graduate. It is not to ensure that you become Masters in ten years, five years, or whatever ridiculous sum of time you imagine. It is not to make sure you eventually become Heroes. It is not to mak...
2025-10-12 19:10:42 +0000 UTC View PostIt is a double-edged thing, being a non-martial. You can see this in the name itself. You are not martial, not someone capable of fighting, or at least not as capable as someone dedicated to the art of combat. And in a world ruled by strife, that makes you less than.
It doesn't...
2025-10-11 20:06:15 +0000 UTC View PostSome judge a nation by how many legends it possesses under its banner. Others by how vast its territories are. A few even use esoteric means, writing theorems to guess at mana variabilities. But I reject all those metrics in exchange for just one: How much does a nation give a shit about its ...
2025-10-10 19:08:44 +0000 UTC View PostIt always starts the same way: desperation.
Desperation for revenge, desperation for money, for a new lease on life, to break free from who you were—be that because of a mistake or because you can't quite get out of that stink that clings to you. You know the stink. The...
2025-10-10 15:29:17 +0000 UTC View PostShells and false semblances are one of the most illegal, but also most valuable commodities offered by the Neath. When one seeks to establish their position in life, they usually arrive at one of a few following places: What is your tier? How wealthy are you? How connected are you? And what c...
2025-10-09 18:02:24 +0000 UTC View PostNeath is shorthand for beneath; it is also the name attributed to the greater criminal underworld of Integrated Earth. Though there are cutthroats, thieves, smugglers, and more within every major nation or empire, the true underbelly of crime is organized and governed by the Dragon Brokers, a...
2025-10-08 19:30:49 +0000 UTC View PostFaith is a thing of grave importance, acolytes. Faith allows us to maintain security in our great cities. Ask yourself, what do we have that most other nations don't? Why don't we suffer the indignities of constant brutality and the miseries of meaningless mass death?
Practical...
2025-10-08 13:15:14 +0000 UTC View PostAcross Integrated Earth, there are many cities that boast grand claims regarding their opulence, safety, and power. In the eastern hemisphere of the world alone, there is High Harbor, ruled by the Dragon Brokers. It operates in tandem with its sister city of Hong Kong to serve as a perfect ne...
2025-10-07 18:57:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe system has a plan, and it is one of statistically maximized chaos. Never is this plan more evident than when someone gets an equipment reward from a successful quest. To put things plainly, the system remembers everything that you do, but more than your successes, it remembers your failur...
2025-10-07 12:06:55 +0000 UTC View PostAttention, citizens. An unexpected disaster has occurred at the Yellowstone Rubix Well. Please seek immediate shelter and prepare arms. Repeat, please return to your house or nearby shelter and prepare arms.
Wait for the alarms to subside before emerging. This is not a drill. F...
2025-10-06 18:43:48 +0000 UTC View PostI don't know why so many people curse the system. If you have any knowledge of history at all, you would have noticed that the world, and all of existence for that matter, was cruel, cruel, and indifferent long before the system's arrival. Yes, it demands that we strive, fight, and shed our b...
2025-10-06 13:22:40 +0000 UTC View PostHello. We're moving into V5.
As we do, we will probably return to a more two 5k chapter format like the earlier volumes. They will be delivered at two points across the day. No major changes aside from that.
Also, with my recovery going better on break, I'm going to get ahead of the m...
2025-10-06 04:49:11 +0000 UTC View Post"It could have worked, Veronica. You have to believe me. It could have worked. The ritual, so much of it, was going well. But, but..."
"Enough, dearest Ascendant. Let's just say that you are creating a building, and one of the structural supports gives out at the end, causing t...
2025-10-05 20:17:45 +0000 UTC View PostEuthanasia. Mercy killing. The hardest goodbye.
It's got a lot of names, but functionally, there's gonna be a time on the battlefield where you're going to have to put your knife in your friend's heart.
It could be because you don't want them to be captured...
2025-10-04 19:34:51 +0000 UTC View PostThere's really no way for me to hurt you more than your life already did. I know about what you did to your brother, his family. I know it was because of jealousy. I know that you hate him, but you remain jealous of him still. And I know you regret killing him, despite hating him so much. Des...
2025-10-03 19:03:53 +0000 UTC View PostTrust is both complicated and simple at the same time. The thing about trust is that it is an immeasurable quality. Sometimes people simply trust you. Whether it's because of foolishness, honor, or some other reason, it is hard to tell. All people are different. All people are shaped by speci...
2025-10-02 18:54:19 +0000 UTC View PostListen, kids, the easiest way to claim a high-tier Pathbearer as a prisoner is to blackmail them or to bribe them into surrendering through asymmetrical means. Trying to overpower them usually requires you to be much stronger than they are, have a lot more resources than they have, or be will...
2025-10-01 20:42:22 +0000 UTC View PostInconsistency is the greatest wound a soul can sustain. Beyond just damage, beyond losing parts of your own history, there is the danger of being seeded by someone else’s Legend—for your soul will see to right the scales by destroying the inaccurate. If the progress of your feats, challen...
2025-09-30 19:43:17 +0000 UTC View PostAnimancy might just be the single most complicated art form anyone can learn. On top of being an art form, it is also a science, for it has to do with every magical lore in existence and every natural law in existence. In summation, it is a collision between the mutable and the historical, co...
2025-09-28 19:22:49 +0000 UTC View Post"Father, why are other people so... pathetic?"
"Pathetic? What do you mean, Udraal? Expand your statement. Tell me what you're really thinking."
"We just met with the Priests of Noor. You said they were powerful Pathbearers, credible mages, men of wisdom, and wom...
2025-09-27 19:39:54 +0000 UTC View PostLike all learned Pathbearers, I love the divine and hate the gods. The separation is quite simple.
Divine is about the shaping of rules and the setting of one's own laws. They are edicts that you decide, that you compel to be. To be divine means to be the lawmaker, the sword ho...
2025-09-26 20:10:29 +0000 UTC View PostIt is a mistake to think that social skills belong to an entirely separate category as their martial counterparts. Everything is interconnected. All skills build on each other. All skills influence how you use other skills, though they are as if silos within our soul. The experiences you have...
2025-09-25 18:46:35 +0000 UTC View PostTo my esteemed adversaries at Aviary:
I have recently come across a few of your agents. Please don't blame them for being discovered. These things happen sometimes, especially when you train your little birds a little too well. Hence, I think I would like to offer some construc...
2025-09-24 18:37:33 +0000 UTC View PostHarlock the Midnight claims to be a God of Darkness and Stealth. I would believe him if it weren't so easy for me to slip unnoticed through his domain as a shortcut between worlds.
Darkness is not stealth. Darkness at its simplest is an absence of light. It makes things hard to...
2025-09-23 18:23:09 +0000 UTC View PostI despise those who dub themselves god after claiming a paltry pittance of power. “God” should mean something more than just being a Pathbearer. Some argue that ascending to Legendary ascends you to a sort of demigodhood. I would retort that some are simple-minded creatures who are easily...
2025-09-22 18:12:56 +0000 UTC View Post