100 chapters… That’s a pretty significant amount of chapters isn’t it?

In case people don't have the title cause they used a zapper to erase it (I did it for some novels who spoiled their whole chapters with their chapter’s title, which I by principle don’t do), and also because there’s a 150 characters limit for title, here is the COMPLETE title for this… Things.

Yes, things with an s, and this before it.

This Things.

Author’s Journey 1: Gintama is the best anime ever, anyone who says it’s not true, you never watched Gintama, or never understood its essence. Fight Me. (Gintama Electronic Title Music Playing). If you have never watched it, watch it. The chapter is not about Gintama, it’s not even a chapter. Did I correctly capture the essence of Gintama’s titles? Oh dear, just writing this title made me want to go watch the whole anime again. Maybe I can continue and never end the tit-

If only you knew how impactful my decision to hold back on posting them as I wrote was.

If only you saw how weird my first chapters felt when compared with my current style.

Is writing difficult? Well, first, let me tell you how I came to write, after that I’ll give you all some behind the screen intel.

I wouldn’t call it a predisposition but I think there’s 2 factors that played into me ending up writing here, first is more than a decade of uninterrupted web-novels reading frenzy.

I hope some of you are like me, my social life was equally strange with a very restricted group of friends I still have to this day (Thank god the internet exists), at every opportunity I would unsheathe my phone and continue to read novels.

It all started when I was around 14 years old? Not sure, I did the transition from anime to scan with one piece, then the transition from scan to novel with something that was recently adapted to anime, the story about a student class (japanese of course, did you ever hear about a chinese class being portalled?) who got transmigrated and the MC is betrayed and ends up in the absolute depth of a dungeon and creates a gun to fight.

After that I became “addicted” to web-novels the same way I did previously with anime and scans, but it’s only years later, maybe 17 or 18 years old? That I started to do amateur writing, unfortunately they vanished from existence.

They were too cringey anyway!

Only after I finished high school and started university did I truly start something, a google doc named “Ideas”.

Between teenage dreams of entrepreneurship and sh*tty philosophy, half of it was composed of random thoughts I had about…

Novels!

When reading a novel, if I had the thought ‘It would be crazy if that happened…’ I wrote it down.

That’s what makes up more than 80% of my “Ideas” google doc, so many crazy ideas I wouldn’t be able to create a novel for each of them even if I tried.

2 years ago however, some of those “ideas” of novels I had took up so much space in my only google doc, that I felt forced to create a lone google doc just for it.

Compared to what I’m doing now, it’s so badly organized, I have to browse through ultra compact gibberish to understand what my past-self thought about when writing this or that.

And then less than a year ago, I already knew by that time I would one day come to write things, maybe never share them but still… I had too much imagination?

The craziest thing I thought of doing was FUSING my different imaginary worlds, fusing the Clockwork Mega Mothership setting with my Catastrophia Apocalypse world, adding the Team Leader sub-story and peppering it with the intrigue of Friend of Heaven…

It’ll never happen.

So I decided to do a complete rework of my different google docs, using title, sub-title and creating new files in my favorite. I first separated my worlds into 2, “Cultivation” and “LitRPG”.

The 2 greatest genres ever created.

Fight me.

Mixing the two is possible, but for me they can’t be equal, it’s asking for trouble to try and use the two genres in perfect harmony.

With this base, I then decided to focus on one genre, which is…

Yes…

Cultivation!

Of course!

My dream baby is in the cultivation genre, but something happened around 1 and a half years ago (I don’t really remember the date), and it was then that I felt inspired to create a new google doc called “LitRPG clicker foundation”.

Can you guess what happened?

“Azarinth Healer” happened.

That’s what happened, before that I was a novelupdate user for years and years, then I transited to webnovel (qidian for those who really know), and then miraculously I got to know royal road.

Azarinth healer was… Late. I ignored it for a good period of time, like ‘Nope I don’t want to read it’, ‘There’s something better’, like The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound.

And then I read it.

Looks like a very shonen life story right? I’m not going to keep giving it endless praises, just gonna toss that it changed my perception of what I wanted to have in my stories and how I now wanted to read better things like it.

And there aren’t a lot like it.

That’s it.

This doc called “LitRPG clicker foundation” is the future “Etherial Adventurer”, and oh god, how the hell did I create this world so fast, the first part of this novel, the awakening of the Ether law was created piece by piece, and like a puzzle I just had to write.

Writing…

So, how difficult is it to write things?

It’s… Finger-intensive! That’s for sure! 3 000 words per chapter???

How was I supposed to know 3 000 words were that short?!

How was I supposed to know 3 000 words were that long?!

When I started to write the first chapters maybe 4 or 3, well, depending on when I post this… 99 months ago, I did around 1 300 words per chapter, then from chapter 10 I did beyond 3 000 words effortlessly.

I had so much to write, so many things! Too many!

I’m not the type to prepare everything, even during my school exam, when the teachers teach us to prepare a plan and some content, I was the guy who directly started to redact, so everything you read is pure instinct!

Except the major direction, nothing is planned, and do you think writing is fast? Does being a writer make writing 8 hours a day easy?

Yup.

That’s the problem my brothers and sisters.

Even when everything is planned (like, Rune starts his journey home, nothing happens because he’s such an unimportant character in my adventure story), sometimes you can’t find how to link things, how to breach an interesting world building subject, how to interrupt the character, in what order…

That's an inside story for you: Do you know the moment Rune had too much training, and so he’s bored and blabla? I wrote that sub-intrigue cuz I was like “Why is Rune here?” and I didn’t know what to make of it. The gravity anomaly is interesting, I have further development planned for it later, but that’s it.

I don’t believe in “Writer’s Block”, it’s a web novel for f*ck-sake, you don’t expect a lord of the ring odyssey! It has highs and lows! You adapt to your inspiration and all the world building and rules you prepared until now to develop the story.

I got some important lessons that I try to apply, but my short-term memory is so freaking bad guys! And it’s LitRPG… So do you know what I didn’t talk about?

What does LitRPG imply?

Stats!

SO…???

Google Spreadsheet!!!

Oh god I felt so stupid when I first made it, I was like “I can do it by instinct no worry bro…”

Oh god bis, now the spreadsheet is permanently open whenever I write, there’s so much sh*t on it you wouldn’t believe!

It could be disguised as a video-game alpha if I really tried!

Ok, ok, let me finish with that last behind the screen intel, it’s a very personal chapter if you didn’t realize, but I didn’t say anything about why I would release this chapter “Author’s Journey” here.

Rune is based on someone, that someone is me, that’s obvious? With all the life story and friends and family interactions… One of the rules I abide by is “What would I do in that situation?”, and as a first novel, I had to do what’s necessary to ground some realism into it.

That’s why if a review ever says something like “Blank and lifeless character” or “Social interactions are weiiiiiird!”, I just hope they read till here, because you’re insulting my personality. (I’ll not take it personally so you can continue insulting me, no worry)

100 chapters is, I think, the correct amount needed to establish all the necessary premises and world-building.

100% coherence, 100% lots of chapters to read, 0% plot-hole, and let’s say… 0.00001% writing confusion, I’m exaggerating a bit, I know.

It made me think of something, do you know how I separate my categories in my foundation google doc? The one where I write all the ideas?

For the plots there’s 4 categories: Forgotten Plots, Minor Plots, Major Plots and Story Plots.

Forgotten Plots are those you’ll only see when an occasion arrive, #What Rune missed in the Void dimensions, things I didn’t exploit, things I’ll probably conclude with a random sentence in a news report chapter.

Minor Plots are invisible, even if I don’t look for them (wtf does this sentence mean…). They are some elements of the universe that are relevant over very-long periods of time or are short but intense events. They only make a few hundred words in general, so yeah…

Major Plots, what makes the butter of the milk, or the milk of the butter, maybe the bread of the butter? The geography, the anomalies, the regions, the IGS, the friends, the important events, but they will only be talked about without much consequence except more worldbuilding and story development now, in the past, and in the future…

Story Plots, the commandements! Always here! Rune’s personality and character development! Events that will change the story forever or are too big! It’s the category with the least number of sub-category, with currently 2 true plots and 3 weird things!

Is an adventure a story? Is a story an adventure? I meditated on this question for 10 years at the top of mont blanc, only to lose myself and end up saying “fuck it”, forgetting the initial question I asked myself.

I think the best way to define if something is a “story”, is if it has an end.

I watched “Release The Spice” recently, an anime, and believe it or not, the end was so fucking cool and emotional that if one day one of my story plot can accomplish something similar, I’ll be able to die in peace.

As for an “adventure”, well… One piece? It’s an adventure. Naruto? It’s a story.

Rune’s journey… Well...

Well…

Adventure-ish right?

If you arrived here, it means that or you jumped here, in which case you’re a weirdo, or you “read” my story, in which case…

I entertained you, right? *Smile Innocently*

I don’t want to write anymore behind the screen.

Bye.

<3

Here’s my favourite song: The Riddle - Gigi d’Agostino

Here’s my favourite anime: Gintama (if you exclude the serious arc) (Who can really say “My favourite anime is THIS”? If you ask me tomorrow my answer will probably change, I think I’ll prepare a top 10 anime list for my chapter 150)

<3

PS:

Random thoughts I had: (Replace the ending song of an anime by this part)

Why would anyone copy the last sentence of their latest chapter and paste it at the start of the next? I know humans don’t have high specs for short-term memory but it’s very frustrating!

What happens when you leave a novel for 5 months and come back after that much time? Of course you forgot some details right? That’s why repetitions and remembrance paragraphs are a good way to not only help those who read by interval, but also to introduce more coherence, like everything was planned from the beginning!

The gentlemen author’s rules:

Short sentences

More . than ,

Lighten the overall appearance by spacing everything, it’s the essence of a webnovel (=it’s on the web)

Keep a chapter word count consistent (+ or - 500 words of the initial) (Yeah… Let’s just ignore the first 20 chapters)

Re-read your entire chapter to make sure those rules are applied and then copy-paste it in the Grammarly app (the free version, not premium because… Well, wtf bro)

The gentlemen story writer's unique rule:

Think before writing a cliche, I would hate it if I suddenly gave Rune a companion beast, and so would you, it’s uninteresting and serves no other purpose than… Freak you!

Editing is worse than writing. When I edit, I feel lethargic. When I write, I have this jump of adrenaline coming from putting all my ideas to words.

Google docs is the deity I worship, take all my personal data if you want google-sama, if you want to know my p**n research, if you need my list of favorites, anything, I allow you to do as you want with me. (This sentence was written on google doc)

All the jokes and comedic dialogues or monologues are improvised on the fly, maybe I’m the only one who laughs at them…

It's certainly a non-zero probability.

And what comes after the ending?

The teaser part!

Don’t worry, I’ll not do it.

The next note will be on chapter 150.

The next Author’s Journey will be after chapter 200.

If you want to laugh, use my first tier on patreon to get my amazing welcome note.

Ok, maybe I’ll do a little.

*Clear Throat*

“Hum hum!”

“On the next episode! On his journey back towards civilization, a race of aliens hit the IGS, ending all life and invading their native dimension!”

“Why? To do alien-things there!”

“A passing tier 42 entity decides to help them! But it was without counting on Rune coming back!”

“What will Rune do against this event that will not happen?!”

“Will he go back to living a savage life?! Will he play the hero with a tsundere hero complex that every author uses to make their protagonist an unsuspected hero, even when they promised a realistic one?!”

To Be Continued

(Reality: Rune is soon going to sip cocktails chill in a bar)

*Sorry for this spoiler*

Ask away in the commentary section. To catch my attention, you can insult me by calling me “Author-Sama”. If you didn’t know, adding “-sama” at the end of your name is a grave insult in more than 900 countries.

I’m also a compulsive liar.

I swear I’m being honest.

*Reader’s confused noises*

*Me nodding repeatedly like a good boy*

*Random Cat Meow* So cute!

Now I can make some advertisements for my Patreon right? I hope this not chapter was entertaining <3

If you really loved Etherial Adventurer, then I would love it if you took the tier 1. It gives you access to 5 additional chapters, without forgetting you’ll get my awesome welcome note full of funny things.

But more than a way to get chapters, I’d like you to think of this tier 1 as more of a way for you to show you like/love this adventure.

As for the other tiers? Who cares, just letting you know about tier 1 is enough.

And here’s a few screenshots of screens that are available only to me, but maybe some of you want to see them? Anyway, take it.