The following two days, Qian Yu and everybody didn’t encounter anything exceptional as they continued to hunt. Qian Yu still had the same schedule as waking up in the morning to scout ahead.
However, the second night was different.
Qian Yu was prepared to go to bed early when Zhao Xieren stopped him and said, “Mm, don’t go scouting tomorrow, we are going to head into the deeper area of the forest so it can be dangerous.”
Currently, they were still in 9th place at 100 points. Two days ago, they had extraordinary luck and managed to find another wolf pack. However, yesterday, they had started to notice that it became harder to find spiritual beasts. As such, Zhao Xieren had decided that it was time to start heading deeper into the forest.
Doing so however, was considerably more dangerous as it meant they would encounter more beasts and stronger beasts as well. Still, over the last few days, everyone could feel that they grew a lot. Along with the tiring exercise, they were able to train their battle techniques and experience while growing stronger as they continuously feasted on spiritual beast meat the last few days.
As their leader, Zhao Xieren had seen their growth and now, she felt confident enough to go deeper into the forest at this moment.
“Hmm, ok that’s fine, it’s about time,” Qian Yu thought for a bit before saying. While he would like to find more flowers and make more money, he could tell that Zhao Xieren was worried about him and didn’t want to risk it.
“Alright, good night then,” she said.
“Yea, you too,” Qian Yu smiled.
The following day, Qian Yu immediately joined the others as they started cooking some breakfast from spiritual beast meat they had farmed yesterday.
“Alright everybody, we’ll start heading deeper into the forest circle today and enter the inner areas!” Zhao Xieren announced while everyone was eating.
A few hours passed as they delved deeper into the forest. On the way, they managed to find many spiritual beasts putting everyone in a good mood. As they continued forward, they stopped seeing Zhao Xieren raise her hand.
She said silently, “Qian Yu come forward, what do you think?”
As Qian Yu walked up to her, he soon saw what she was referring to. In front of him, he saw broken trees and claw marks everywhere. There were hints of blood as well and by looking at the remnants of the battle it was very chaotic.
After looking at the claw marks, he soon thought of something and turned to Zhao Xieren saying, “This could be another Ice Mountain Tiger like the one we saw in the previous mission. However, it doesn’t look like it was running but was hunting its prey instead?”
Nodding her head, Zhao Xieren replied, “Mhm, I agree with your first point. For the second one, I’m not completely sure.”
Turning to the rest of the disciples she explained everything before deciding to follow the trails of blood. If it really was an uncommon ranked spiritual beast tiger, it would give them 10 points for killing it. Although it seemed risky, one couldn’t hide in their comfort zone forever and it was good to push your potential which would allow you to grow the fastest.
*Clang!* After 10 minutes, battles noises could be heard as they reached their destination. In front of them, they saw disciples with swords fighting a gigantic Ice Mountain Tiger the size of the one they saw about two weeks ago.
Currently, the inner disciple leader of the Fire Sword Sect was looking around at the injured disciples who were fighting the tiger. “God damn it, how does this tiger have so much energy?” he said.
“It can’t have much energy left, stay strong everyone,” he rallied as the outer disciples continued attacking the tiger raid boss. They had already spent the last hour fighting with this tiger and he refused to believe that it would outlast them with all the injuries they had given it.
‘If only we weren’t ambushed, I wouldn’t be hurt this badly,’ he continued cursing inwardly.
He was so focused on the fight that he didn’t notice anything else and as such, the next moment, he felt something cold at his neck before a delicate voice sounded out, “Surrender now.”
His heart suddenly stopped as his brain tried to comprehend what was happening. After a few seconds, he didn’t even turn as he took a talisman out of his robes and activated it. Even though he was focusing mainly on the battle in front of him, a normal person wasn’t able to sneak up on him so easily.
*Floo!* the flare shot upwards, attracting the attention of the disciples. Immediately, they stopped and ran back to their leader and injured or unconscious disciples. They didn’t know what happened but they knew that they needed to stay together otherwise they would only suffer more injuries from the spiritual beast. They could ask the questions later but they needed to minimize the damage first.
On the other hand, Zhao Xieren had swiftly come back to the hiding spot safely after she had threatened the leader from the Fire Sword Sect.
After watching the Fire Sword Sect struggle with the Ice Mountain Tiger for another 10 minutes, a red robed elder finally arrived before leaving with them.
The tiger was confused, seeing its enemy disappearing. However, it didn’t have long to think as a new group of 9 disciples quickly arrived and surrounded it from nowhere.
“Attack!” they yelled as they started a barrage of attacks on the tiger. Although it was exceptionally strong, it was already weakened over the last hour with the previous disciples. Now, the advent of 9 new fighters would be extremely extaushing.
Qian Yu charged up with his spear as he pondered and waited for an opening to attack the tiger. While watching the previous disciples fight the tiger, he saw that most of their attacks didn’t really do much damage.
After all, they were a bunch of body refinement fighters that were trying to kill a beast that was similar in power to a soul foundation human. While these beasts were still unable to use any martial skills at this level unlike humans, they had strong bodies to compensate for it.
However, while he noticed that the sword attacks weren’t able to damage the tiger that much, he knew that it was different for him. What a spear excelled at was penetrating and he was fully confident that the spear would easily be more dangerous than the sword.
Qian Yu waited as the tiger finally left his side exposed to Qian Yu while his teammates were attacking it. With a lunge, Qian Yu jumped forward with the spear in both his hands as he impaled the tiger.
*Sphhhl!* a sound rang out as the spear penetrated the hide of the tiger.
“ROARR!!!” the tiger yelled out in agony as blood gushed from its wound. Enraged, it tried to rebel against Qian Yu which was to no avail as the other disciples continued to rain attacks on it.
After a few minutes, its eyes grew more tired as it decided to escape as it looked around for a way to run through. Luckily, it saw that there was an open spot that it could easily run through and it immediately made its decision as it sprinted away from the disciples.
Seeing this, all the disciples smiled inside as their plan work. They started to chase after the tiger making it seem more natural and less wary of the executing attack.
As the tiger ran into the forest, it looked back at the slow disciples chasing after it felt a sense of pride. However, 3 spears of ice randomly appeared from the depths of the forest. Unprepared for the sudden attack, it collided directly into the spears.
*Boom!* a massive sound rang out as the tiger was impaled by the spears.
Yet before the tiger could recover and get back up, it saw a few sword slashes before its vision turned dark.
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Hello I would like to report a case of animal abuse!
Thank you for the chapter!
I found an error:
Seeing this, all the disciples smiled inside as their
plan worked.
Thank you for the chapter
I wasn't going to say anything, but... I mean... we're now at four different groups meeting after like, what, 20 total were scattered across thousands of miles? And it's been like three days? Just how many miles are they covering a day here?
Meant to say diameter of 100 instead of radius.
Diameter of 100, area of couple thousands with 30 groups.
Normal humans walk 3-4 mph, say they easily move 4 mph for 12 hours ~ 50 miles per day
30 groups are each moving at least 50 miles individually and they are all will be converging towards the center? 30*50 = 1500 miles. Did you even do the math? If anything, complain why they are not meeting at a faster rate.
I don't see what you're not getting here and that you had to ramble about it three times. I'm trying to see what you're saying in your past comments but something like this really makes me question how much I should respect you.
Regarding your early statements, I simply only want to focus on the main leads. Why would I bother to put in an extra few chapters on grandpa when the start was slow af already and who would die by the end of the few chapters?
Why would you even give a crap about any of the side characters anyways? I have to put a name on them but it doesn't mean you should care too much about them? Isn't it obvious that since I don't give them much screen time, it already means I don't want you to feel attached to them since they are side characters?
And no, you will not learn multiple weapons at the same time. I don't know where you got this idea. Even though it's been a while since I've read other wuxia novels, I don't remember a character who uses multiple weapons.
@takeaseat
I don't think that math checks out at all, but whatever. It's not that big of a deal. You also have to consider that people can only be in one place at one time, and how limited their ability to actually see each other is in the mountains. I mean if you really want it wouldn't even be that hard to simulate roughly, but seriously, I think that's taking it a little overboard yeah?
I only mentioned it so many times because I thought it was kind of funny. I already was a little tempted to say something about the first meeting, but decided I should probably try to avoid it because of exactly the response I just got from you. However when that was immediately followed up with even more meetings, I just kind had to laugh and make a little comment about it. I really thought that was going to be it for awhile. And then it wasn't. And wasn't again. Violated expectations are funny. Really, it's not a big deal. Don't waste too much time thinking about it - it's not worth it.
You put emphasis on the grandpa that won't last too long because his relevance to the MC lasts long beyond his death. He's the guy that raised the MC. You'll have scenes like the one recently with him remembering his grandpa's advise. You'll have other similar situations in the future, or other times where the MC is simply reminded of his roots. If we never cared about the grandpa, these moments don't have any weight for us. You can tell us the MC is feeling some emotional impact from them, but we the readers can't feel it too. Those moments have the most power when we can identify with the MC and really feel what he's feeling. That's only possible if you took the time to get us to care about an old man that's not long for this novel. By putting emphasis on the grandpa for a little bit, you gain a shitload of ability to put later emphasis on the MC. That's why you do it.
The side characters are potentially somewhat similar. If the MC cares about them, it's a way for us to feel the same. Right now, I'd expect the MC to be somewhat distraught if one of the kids from his village died in front of him. It could even be a pretty significant moment of growth or whatever for the MC. I wouldn't give a crap though. These kinds of divergences make it difficult to connect with the MC and to have scenes with a strong emotional impact. All you can really do with them is tell us the MC feels something, but we won't have any response of our own to it.
As for the weapons, I got it from real life. Again not a massive deal, it's enough of an in-genre trope to be fine, but it is a pet peeve of mine. I only really mentioned it because you're one of the few authors I've really seen talk much about the pros and cons of swords and spears which I thought was pretty cool. I thought you might be trying to do the weapon stuff a little more realistically so it caught me a little off guard, which is why I mentioned it.
@46rtyrty44 Well from my perspective as a creator and with the knowledge of how troll the internet can be, it's difficult to gauge a random person.
From what I felt, your tone felt insulting rather than funny. I did run the numbers and while I wasn't completely sure if the rates and meetings were adequately realistic enough, they weren't numbers I picked randomly.
Regarding the grandpa, my stockpile is only so large and at the time of writing the first few chapters, I wouldn't have planned for something like this 20+ chapters later as the thought only appeared when I was writing in the moment. Would some chapters about the grandpa be good in the long run? Prob but I just wanted to get to the sect life asap. The other spectrum of this was when some just said why not just skip the first few chapters and say he was an orphan and then his grandpa died. What can you do?
Along with the side characters, it wasn't a large focus of mine like I said previously. The start was very slow and the faster the story gets rolling, the more the general audience would enjoy it. I did showcase few scenes of them training together, eating, etc. and I felt like that was enough. If I had intentions for one of them to be in an accident or die or something, then yea, I would have given them more prior screen time but since I didn't intend to, I just didn't focus on the side characters.
@takeaseat I think we have very different ideas on speed. I'd call this novel extremely fast. I'd say that's a big source of my issues with it so far. I think if you slowed down a lot I'd be way more invested in this story by now. I don't know how you could go any faster without just timeskipping it. We're just blowing through scenes so quickly it's almost like we're getting a summary of events rather than actually seeing any of them. That's probably a large reason I'm having a hard time really connecting to this novel. I like a lot of the ideas you have here, and even the characters. But I feel... so distant from them. I don't think we've even seen the MC have a full conversation with anybody. It's just a few words and then a very brief summary of the gist of what they talked about, even with the obvious love interests.
As for the grandpa... I didn't mean it so much as a pre-planned event you'd setup far in advance and plot out in detail. I meant it more to illustrate that that kind of thing is basically an investment. You spend a little time building up somebody the MC is close to and get the reader invested in that character to, and you can tap on that connection later to align the MC and the reader's feelings and perspectives. You don't need to explicitly plan the entire payoff in advance, but each time you do it, it puts a tool in your toolbox you can draw on later. That's what I meant when I said I thought you were bypassing a lot of opportunities at one point. Which is fine - you don't need to make every investment ever. But it's wise to make some. And some are more obviously important than others - like the grandpa.
This might be a little nitpicky, but to say you "showcased" them training and stuff together... I'd have to strongly disagree. You kinda mentioned it twice, I think, but that's about it. A brief mention is not exactly a "showcase" when it comes to a novel. Maybe (probably, now that I think about it?) this is related to our different views on speed.
@46rtyrty44 I guess it's a matter of opinion. Your has been the only one expressing this novel moving too fast. Others are fine with it and some thought it was too slow. Personally this pacing is just how I naturally write and felt most comfortable with. My own experience as a reader also played a role and reading as a way to past time, I enjoyed more the surface level aspects rather than deeper factors such as connecting with the character as it would be too similar to what I have to do in school already.
@takeaseat I wasn't the only one, though I may have been the only one to say it exactly that way. I saw one other comment mentioning things were a bit disconnected (not sure if they used that exact word) and summary-like. Essentially - too fast. I have seen the comments about it being slow too, which I have to say confused me.
As for the rest, well, I guess we just have very different ideas on what we want out of a novel. This style feels a bit like a combination of a very abbreviated history book and a bunch of teasers to me. I really like a lot of the ideas you've shown here and some of the characters seem pretty interesting too, so I'm a bit sad that it seems your goals with it are so fundamentally different from what I'd hoped. Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. I am pretty intrigued by the fact this is so intentional and the desired effect. It had just never occurred to me before that that might be possible. It explains... some things. So, thanks, serious!
This is pure curiosity, but how do you see this as being slow? I'm struggling to think how it could be seen that way. Is it just like time until he starts dominating people in fights or something?
@46rtyrty44 Pretty much. Essentially how long until he really starts cultivating, exploring, fighting others, grow stronger, the more exciting stuff, etc. This was also a big factor in why I wanted him to leave the sect. Sect life can be pretty linear. Going to lecture and then training, with the occasional events.
Also, my rate being 3 chapters a week does also somewhat have an effect right? Binging it may feel completely different than what readers may feel like while they have to wait for the next chapter and if its an uneventful chapter, it'll just cause readers to be less interested. Of course, some like you may appreciate more relationships related things. Others want to know more about the world. Some like the action stuff, and then there are those who only care about harem related stuff. Every reader just has their own preferences.
That said, its not like I did not plan for emotional events in the second volume. With your expectations, the first event would be something that I could probably improve. I held back at the time because I didn't really see a reason to make it emotional and dramatic. Won't say to much since but I did watch a bunch of dramas and shows while writing the end of the 2nd volume and start of 3rd one so it does have more of what you appreciate. In fact, I really was questioning myself with whether I should make it like that with more emphasis on interactions between the MC and female leads back in the sect.
@takeaseat Yeah, the difference between binging and caught-up readers is one of the major challenges a serial writer faces. There's almost two separate ways to interact with the work, and the majority of your readers will transition from one to the other at some point in time, and they can do so at literally any chapter. Bingers will catch up, caught-up folks will stockpile, etc.
Yeah, I can see how that difference could contribute to exaggerating these differences. While I might be happy to have a whole chapter of a museum date with Bai Jia regardless of if I'm binging or caught up because I enjoy it for it's own sake, if somebody is just itching for the hunting and doesn't care about Bai Jia beyond the fact the MC likes her, I can see why they might view it as a wasted update. It's probably the same feeling I get when I see a new chapter for a novel and end up with a chapter-long fight.
It's funny, all those things you mentioned as the more exciting stuff are the things I often end up suffering through. Not because I dislike them inherently, but because some novels get stuck doing them for their own sake. They can be really enjoyable for me, but I view them as existing to do other things - like push the plot forward, show skill/progress, demonstrate or change a relationship, etc. Sometimes - okay more than sometimes with wuxia - novels end up prolonging those things well beyond the point at which they need to in order to serve some other purpose. I get it more with a visual medium where they can at least provide a visual spectacle, but I really don't get it with a novel.
This is actually why I enjoyed your fights so far. They've been nice and tight, serve their purpose, and then stop. It's great. Now after the fights I think you've missed some chances - not just with relationships (aka rehash of before) but also to demonstrate the MC's medical skills. I think you could have had some of those "MC so cool" moments you felt were being delayed if you'd spent some more time there to let him show off his abilities... buuut maybe that's just opening a whole 'nother can of worms.