Chapter 1384: End-of-Volume Summary and Rest Period
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End-of-Volume Summary and Rest Period
My body can’t keep up anymore, so I need to take a short break to recover, about a week.
Writing a long volume and wrapping up major storylines requires far more mental and emotional energy than usual.
When writing normal plot segments, it’s usually like running a single thread in the brain, at most two or three threads.
But when writing the ending of a major volume, there are a large number of characters appearing, key plot twists, and considerations about worldbuilding logic, foreshadowing, climaxes, emotional buildup, and more. It feels like there are more than a dozen threads running in my mind at the same time, and my Divine-Sense computing power gets completely overdrawn.
When I finally finished writing this volume, my whole body felt numb, and my mind was completely blank.
The previous volume was roughly the same situation. As the story develops, the framework grows larger and larger, involving more and more factions and characters. That makes writing the ending of a major volume extremely exhausting.
I thought I had learned my lesson from last time. For this volume, I originally planned to change the writing style and make it more relaxed.
But it was like I was cursed… this volume ended up with an even larger framework and even more characters. On top of that, because it involves crucial figures and plots such as the turmoil in the Great Wilderness and the descent of the Strange Dao, tying everything together became even harder.
Still, I managed to push through and finish it in the end. Now I can finally breathe a long sigh of relief.
This book has been written continuously for three years. Writing every single day, while also getting criticized, both my body and mind have become very tired.
So I’m taking a short break to recuperate, just to preserve my life for now.
My apologies to all you honorable readers.
As for the book’s performance, it’s currently close to six million characters, with an average of around 17,000 subscriptions, which seems to have hit a plateau.
At the end of the previous volume, the number of active readers was around ten thousand.
At the start of this volume, it was also about ten thousand, but the middle portion of the plot slowed down and it dropped to around five or six thousand.
Now that we’ve reached the end of the volume, it has risen again to around 9,500.
Since it’s a slow-burn novel, that’s not easy, and I’m very grateful for everyone’s support.
I’d also like to thank Xu Ri for the Alliance Leader reward, as well as the other friends who sent tips.
Because writing every day easily breaks my mental defenses, I can’t really read comments. Many rewards slipped past me and I didn’t thank people in time, I’m truly sorry.
When I see them later, I’ll make up for the thanks.
As for the extra chapters I owe to the other Alliance Leaders, I’ll find ways to slowly repay them later. (๑•.•๑)
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Now let me talk a bit about some less important things, mainly about writing.
Originally, the idea for this volume was to write about cultivation warfare.
From the perspective of a small character, it would depict the war to suppress the rebellion in the Great Wilderness, and show how formations are applied in cultivation battles.
But when I started writing, I realized something: Mo Hua is already very strong.
He’s actually no longer a small character.
In lower-level cultivation warfare, with Mo Hua’s formation mastery, he could basically do whatever he wanted.
In the real world, technology is the primary productive force. In the cultivation world, formations are the equivalent.
Within the Foundation Establishment level, Mo Hua is basically a formation-stat monster. There’s almost no room for tactics anymore, just crushing weaker opponents, sweeping everything flat, and bombing enemies with formations.
That might feel satisfying at first, but after a while it becomes very boring.
There’s also no room for growth, he wouldn’t be able to learn anything more advanced.
So I could only use the “black hand of fate” to adjust the storyline, sending Mo Hua to the rear of the Great Wilderness to build things and turning him into something like a Taotie devouring resources.
As for real “cultivation warfare,” maybe I’ll write about it later at a higher level.
For example:
Lightning-magnetic flying swords using higher-dimensional formations, void teleportation, spiritual-mechanical warfare, Spiritual-Pivot puppets, and so on.
Of course, those ideas are also very mentally demanding, so whether they appear depends on future plot opportunities.
Then there’s another somewhat controversial issue.
In this book, Golden Core was reached at 5.9 million characters. In other words, the Qi-Refining and Foundation Establishment stages alone took nearly six million characters.
When I looked back at it myself, I was also quite puzzled.
Later, after thinking carefully, I realized where the issue lies.
When this book was first conceived, it actually wasn’t meant to be a traditional “level-up novel.”
Structurally speaking, realm progression isn’t the goal. Instead, the cultivation realms serve as prerequisites for unlocking new story arcs.
When a certain realm is reached, certain storylines become available. Only after finishing those storylines can the character advance to the next realm.
Foundation Establishment worked like this.
The entire nine years at Qianxue Academy had to be fully written, the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice Grand Formation had to be triggered, and the central conflict had to be resolved before Mo Hua could leave.
Golden Core is the same.
The Great Wilderness storyline must advance into its later stages, the Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Formation must be completed, and Mo Hua must enter the Great Wilderness Dragon Pool before forming the Golden Core.
This forced me, during the long main storyline, to step away from simple realm progression and instead create satisfying moments through daily life, formation design, plot development, and character relationships.
Many emotional beats and plot details had to be written very carefully.
But the excitement of realm breakthroughs also couldn’t be absent, after all, this is still a cultivation novel. So during plot progression and daily-life storytelling, I also had to lay groundwork for satisfying breakthrough moments.
Writing like this naturally leads to a very long length and very slow progression.
This approach isn’t mainstream.
This book also isn’t a typical “genre web novel.” It’s not the kind where the theme and selling points are immediately obvious, letting readers instantly know where the excitement comes from.
In fact, it’s more like a niche xianxia novel.
Child protagonist + slow growth + formations + divine path + slightly innovative worldbuilding + many characters + extremely long story.
The audience is relatively limited. Those who like it may like it a lot.
Those who don’t will strongly dislike it.
Most people, when they hear “Foundation Establishment after over a million characters (565 Chapters), Golden Core after five million(1362 Chapters),” will simply call it padding.
After all, it’s a niche xianxia. In the current environment, most people criticizing me is actually normal.
But even when criticized, sometimes there’s nothing I can do.
Because once the worldbuilding and tone of the story are set, the story itself begins to move forward on its own.
Sometimes I feel like what I really did was incubate a xianxia world made entirely of formations inside my mind.
This world continuously evolves by devouring my mental energy, knowledge, and understanding.
The characters within it also devour my Divine-Sense computing power in order to “come alive” and perform their actions.
I don’t actually have that much control.
Through outlines and “fate,” I can alter the trajectory of a character’s life.
But I still have to obey certain laws of cause and effect.
Likewise, while the characters follow the destinies I assign them, they are also constantly resisting me.
Some characters, I originally didn’t want them to die.
But as causality progressed, they suddenly walked onto a path of no return, and I couldn’t save them.
Other characters, I truly intended to kill them.
But as the plot developed, they suddenly became clever and escaped from the dead end I had designed, making it impossible for them to die…
The unwritten future storylines will probably be the same.
All I can do is assign each character a “destiny.”
But as the world evolves and causality advances, whether those characters can reach the end of their fate, die halfway, or even change their Dao Heart and alter their destinies themselves… that’s impossible to know.
Many things are beyond my control.
The only thing I can do is allow this world to keep evolving, record the “stories” of many characters, and earn some writing income to get by.
Of course, I’ll also keep improving my storytelling techniques and the way I construct satisfying moments, trying to make the story more interesting to read.
Sometimes I even feel like I’m actually just a “Strange Slave.”
The world in my mind is like a Strange Dao Grand formation.
That formation constantly draws on my mental power to sustain its strange evolution and the operation of its formation patterns.
Now, after being drained of my Divine-Sense for three full years, this Strange Slave is somewhat worn out.
Let me rest for a while before continuing to deduce and write the next parts.
I’ll try to make the next volume let Mo Hua live a slightly better life.
This kid has suffered too much.
Finally, thank you all again for your support.
(๑•.•๑)
…
Translator Note:
The ‘Volume 5: Fire’ has finally come to an end.
Join the Discord server to discuss with fellow readers: https://discord.gg/4sgyHdpm
Enjoy the final chapter of this volume, and we’ll meet again in a week.
Thank you to all our members, and a special thanks to the paid members for your support!