Announcement: Rework and Rewrite:
I will begin by saying that I am sorry to those who came here looking for a new chapter. The next two chapters were technically finished, but then I began to reflect.
And reflect I did.
What was I writing? Am I happy with my work? Could I have done better?
When I finished, I realized that I was unsatisfied with my work. I believe it has great ideas, and a decent plot, but a poor development and portrayal. There are many things I see at which I look back at that need to be changed. Most of them because I simply was unsure and inexperienced with what I was writing.
I had the gist of the story down. And yet, there was too much info-dumping. Some logical errors and mistakes in the portrayal of the used spells. Poorly created characters. And little to no character development.
Don't get me even started on some of the dialogue.
These are the sort of things I myself hate to see when reading fanfiction. Power wanking may seem cool, but it is like a snort of cocaine. It feels good at the start, but when it ends you are left with a feeling of emptiness.
What did I even read? What was its point, and why did I spend my time on this?
Having looked back at this, there were two options to proceed forward. The first was to leave all as is and continue writing the next chapters, hoping that the ones that come next are better than the first. The second was to stop, look back, hit your head on the table, and start again.
In the end, I settled on option 2, as working with a crumbling base and exposition was not something I thought was a good idea. A rework was needed. Not small touches here and there. A major overhaul of the story or at least some of its main content.
So this is what I will be doing. The chapters will remain uploaded, simply because I don't want to deprive people of the content they once read. For the next several months, granted I find time to work on this story, I will be overhauling the story.
Most of the original content will remain the same. Kratch and other key events will still be there. What I will be doing however is changing this from an unrealistic power fantasy into a realistic power crawl.
No matter what people say, I always intended the MC to be OP as hell by the end. I guess I just need to work on making it more realistic and add some meat to the story to make it also enjoyable to read.
Characters will be fleshed out. Events will have more context and content. Timeskips will still be there, but probably not as often. Originally, I planned on compacting every pre-plot event in the first 40 chapters. I think I will have to make double that amount with the same word count for each.
This story needs some work, and I will be undertaking to include it. I for one will not allow it to devolve into an obvious power jerk. My reasoning for making it a power gain in the first part and interaction based in the second (plot time) was obviously flawed.
This will take some time. I am currently quite swamped with other work, including studies that take a lot of time from my hands.
What I want to make clear is that I do not plan on abandoning this story.
I have done a lot of research for ideas, concepts, and interesting plot events. So for the next few months, I will be working on overhauling past chapters, fleshing out characters, their motivations, and story events.
After I am done, I will progressively delete old and upload the new versions for each chapter. Most likely there will be completely new ones mixed in between.
Thank you for spending your time writing your reviews and reading this story. It is not perfect and will never be. But your critiques push me to apply myself and improve myself as a writer.
For that, I am thankful. Do keep up with the criticism. I want to hear all that I did wrong so that I know all to improve in the next version.
Your support and praise also do not fall on deaf ears. As an author, and as a reader myself, I will push myself to do my best.
Thank you for everything. See you again sometime. The sooner the better.
I myself cannot wait to show you what I have cooked up.
Author over and out.