“What was it you were saying about convergent development?” Ling Qi redirected the conversation. “I’m not very familiar with the more advanced fields of formations.”
“Fortress formations are a different school from vehicle formations,” Xuan Shi explained, turning his gaze away from the Jin disciple.
“They’ve got some common points,” Wang Chao said, nodding sagely...
2022-03-26 18:26:22 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi sat quietly on the far left side of the slowly filling seats in the testing hall, the picture of a proper young lady getting some soft meditation in while waiting for the qualifying tests of the crafting competition to begin. In reality, she was peering into the contents of her storage ring at everything she had just received, and in her mind’s eye, she turned over page after neatly w...
2022-03-24 23:55:29 +0000 UTC View Post“I would like to know more of the Meng,” Ling Qi decided. “I have made my contacts, and maybe even an ally, but they are just too opaque to me.”
“Unsurprising. They are an old clan by any measure save for that of the Bai,” Hou Zhuang said.
“Naturally,” Ling Qi agreed.
“One key to hold to with the Meng clan is that even those you might perceive as open to chan...
2022-03-21 23:17:23 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi looked down at the rings filling up for the second round of the preliminaries with mild interest. In this set, there were even fewer people who she knew by name.
Han Fang and Ma Jun were both acquaintances from last year. Looking at Han Fang caused her to pause, staring at the squat young man beside him. Recognition flickered. That was Fan Yu, Xiulan’s former fiancé. She had ne...
2022-03-19 22:46:36 +0000 UTC View PostIt felt strange to be among the audience rather than down on the field, Ling Qi thought, moving to take her seat in the Duchess’ observation box. It was set high in the stands, overhanging the lower seats. Its thick walls were constructed to dampen sound and qi from the outside as well as contain the power within from flowing out.
The older cultivators took the largest and most comforta...
2022-03-17 22:43:59 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi listened as Cai Renxiang and the ambassador continued to trade pleasantries and small talk with Xia Lushen and Meizhen sometimes cutting in. She did wish she could just chat with her friend, but that would come later when they weren’t in such a formal situation.
She watched the servers set out the refreshments. They did smell good. Ling Qi only recognized a few of the dishes. Fi...
2022-03-14 23:44:38 +0000 UTC View Post
What it says in the title folks, the first edited and novelized section of Threads of Destiny is now available!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VCXQ83Q
2022-03-12 20:34:32 +0000 UTC View PostThe Bai delegation’s arrival point was less attention catching than the grand pavilion being set up by the Cai but no less ostentatious. A coach house worth of carriages and black furred horses tended to by a small army of servants was set out to one side of a literal mansion that had certainly not been there the previous day.
The mansion was three stories high with tiered, elegantly cu...
2022-03-12 20:33:01 +0000 UTC View Post“Our itinerary is set then,” Cai Renxiang said. Ling Qi was familiar enough with her liege to detect the satisfaction in her cool voice.
“Well and truly organized, my lady,” Ling Qi said agreeably, leaning back in the seat across from her. On the desk between them lay a meticulously written document. Thin, straight lines divided clean white paper into a grid, and in each section, ...
2022-03-11 00:23:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe first strike would be with the blade of the ninth sword law, striking at the intersection of Discipline and Pride where untempered ego rotted the roots of the General’s Sovereignty. Piercing this defense, her heart pearl would be wounded, allowing unleashed passions to degrade all further decisions.
“On this matter, my authority supersedes yours, sister,” Bai Suzhen said calmly....
2022-03-08 01:17:15 +0000 UTC View PostHer conception of power was too small. Flashing light and shattering cold were obvious, but in the end, power was the ability to change the world around her. And while violence was the easiest and simplest way to achieve that, it wasn’t the only one.
Ling Qi paused for a moment, standing still in the middle of a ring of raised stones which sat at the center of the flowerbeds The bright ...
2022-03-05 23:32:47 +0000 UTC View PostAs she left in the afternoon, she found herself standing outside the gates, looking up at the sky. They’d positioned and inscribed the sculptures Zhengui had already made and twisted the flows of qi to thicken the mist about them, cloaking their simple details, but there was still quite a lot to do, especially since they were planning to accommodate twenty odd mortals instead of only a few. 2022-03-04 01:38:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The garden had turned out well, Ling Qi thought. Thankfully, the rest of Hanyi’s tour had been much less stressful. Traveling a circuit of the valley viscounty, she had the opportunity to speak with many more minor nobles, cementing an overall good impression. More importantly though, she was able to see Hanyi’s smaller performances.
Out in the countryside, the rites she took part in ...
2022-03-01 02:41:17 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi and the spirit stood there for a moment as the faint strains of music echoed through the dream. She gave a terse nod. The spirit’s liquid avatar spasmed in a way resembling a bow. With a flex of her legs, Ling Qi shot back into the sky, catching a current of wind to drift her way toward a spinning leaf as they fell from the hills and cliffs of Seven Stream’s domain.
Sixiang ma...
2022-02-27 02:46:25 +0000 UTC View PostChao Yanlin stared at her, and Ling Qi squared her shoulders, meeting the older woman’s gaze. Finally, the priestess said, “You cannot be serious. I have heard of your expertise. Surely, you could simply take up the missing part?”
“I am very serious,” Ling Qi said. “While I do not have your support, Priestess, I have experience wrangling upset spirits. I am certain the Seven H...
2022-02-24 23:04:18 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 1
The Argent Pea
2022-02-23 21:11:18 +0000 UTC View PostPhoenix Home stretched out before Gu Xiulan.
Once, before the cataclysm, it had been the summer palace of the Lu. A great sprawling complex built upon an artificial hill, overlooking some of the richest farmland in the province. Now, dunes stretched as far as the eye could see, and only the faint scent of salt in the northern wind hinted that they ever ended.
But they were clean dun...
2022-02-23 21:04:13 +0000 UTC View Post“Baroness Ling.” Her target, Baron Suo, turned to her as she approached. Her initial impression held; he had a genial sort of air. His robes were well embroidered but not gaudy, and his unexpressed domain had a placid feel. He was of the seventh stage of the green realm. If she assumed his father, the patriarch, was fourth realm, it seemed that the Suo family were quite stable ...
2022-02-21 21:00:44 +0000 UTC View PostShe continued her descent, keeping her eye on the flicker of green that she had spotted. It helped to focus on a goal, rather than descending without purpose. It kept her thoughts running in the correct direction and her body reacting to her own commands rather than those of fragmented signals from fleeting alternate selves.
Forward. No turning. No retreating. That was the key.
When...
2022-02-20 01:14:47 +0000 UTC View PostIn her hands, the compass was aglow, casting light on her face, but Ling Qi didn’t notice at first because there, at the end of an long open hall that descended into the face of the debris mountain, she saw the dream idol floating in the air, casting a faint golden glow in the darkness. Light now glowed in slim crescents from beneath still closed eyelids. Ling Qi felt a sudden urge to begin w...
2022-02-14 22:47:43 +0000 UTC View PostThey landed without a sound on the crumbling courtyard in front of it, and Ling Qi found her eyes wandering to the withered trees and gardens. There was a deep melancholy here beyond the association of bare branches and dead flowers. Yet, in the corner of her eye, she could catch the shimmer of dreams, of people and life in what she knew instinctively to be the modern Sect. This was no abandone...
2022-02-12 20:08:29 +0000 UTC View PostThere will be no update this Thursday or Friday due to a medical appointment updates will resume Saturday.
2022-02-11 02:25:18 +0000 UTC View PostLing Qi looked out over crumbling foundations and a single standing cherry tree. Here was the place where the three moons, or their avatars at least, had come to her nearly a year ago now to take her forth on a quest to examine her own past.
It was here that she would start her own explorations of the Dream.
“Done moping around?” Sixiang asked, looking up from where they crouche...
2022-02-11 02:18:47 +0000 UTC View Post“What were the dream cults anyway?” Ling Qi asked, considering the idol. “I keep hearing about them in passing but never any mention of what they actually did.”
“My own education on the subject isn’t exactly extensive. They first appeared a short time after the disappearance of the Horned Lord as a sort of mystery cult among the Weilu.”
“They didn’t di...
2022-02-08 03:02:35 +0000 UTC View PostIts been some time so as a reminder, new writing comissios go up on Discord in the Interlude Spoilers channel almost every weekend. You can check out the newest, the latest in the romance Sidestory Snake and Spider today. Discord Link below
2022-02-07 01:23:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe hidden doorway led into a crumbling escape tunnel supported by wooden beams. Formation arrays designed to hide the space from outside search marked the tunnel’s arches. Sending her wisps flitting down the shadowed narrow path, Ling Qi felt the echoes of fear and anger that had long soaked into the dirt and wood, staining the passage. Here and there, she saw signs of flight: a golden hairp...
2022-02-06 05:17:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe old manor lay deeper in the forested hills, whatever ground which may have once surrounded it long reclaimed by nature. Her first glimpse of the building itself had come through one of the winking wisps which she had sent out to survey as they entered the woods.Through it, she had spotted a crumbling stone wall at the top of the ridge.
They had left the wagon behind and followed the p...
2022-02-04 01:24:25 +0000 UTC View Post“Little enough, he has a message for my father from his clan’s…leadership. Other than that I only know what all know,” Gu Xiulan replied carefully. Of course that was the trouble with the Zheng and why few dealt with them officially. Their leadership was a liquid thing, even their duke was a temporary, serving for a handful of decades, perhaps a century before growing bored and tossing ...
2022-02-02 22:39:05 +0000 UTC View PostCultivation consumed Ling Qi’s days in the wake of her work with Zhengui. After the expedition and the flurry of activity that followed, it felt good to take some time to herself and simply grow stronger. Ling Qi focused on her physical cultivation and found herself reflecting on how much her routines had changed.
The exercises the late Elder Zhou had taught her were a thing of the past...
2022-01-31 22:32:36 +0000 UTC View PostLeaning back against Zhengui’s side, Ling Qi listened to the beat of his hearts. It was a strange sound, a subaudible rumble that belied his shrunken mass. If Ling Qi closed her physical senses and listened and felt with spirit alone, the rumble was that of the towering beast he was and was becoming.
Two heartbeats, reverberating over each other, vied for attention. Fire and Destruction...
2022-01-29 19:36:26 +0000 UTC View Post