Q: Why haven't you told us sooner?

A: I just found out that I can post 500 character chapters, whereas I previously thought I needed 500 words.

Q: Coffee or tea?

A: It's a tricky question. I like both, but I love them in different ways. Here in Italy coffee is everywhere, so when I'm at a bar I take coffee and not tea. I also put it in the milk for breakfast, and only AFTER do I put in the cereal. Call me a madman. I enjoy my tea occasionally, however.

Q: Who is your favorite non-LitRPG author?

A: One author I liked a lot was (let me google his name) Adrian Tchaikovsky. His books Children of Time and the sequel really hit home for me. Never got to reading his last one, though. Another author I enjoy is, of course, the great Asimov. I know, it's all science fiction. I'm slowly getting into fantasy as well, by reading Lord of the Rings at the moment, and then probably The Wheel of Time.

Q: Pineapple on pizza?

A: No.

Q: Pizza on pineapple?

A: Seems dangerous, if the pineapple is still whole.

Spoiler: Old chapter content, back when it was an announcement

Now, let me explain what I am doing. I have just finished updating chapter 13, and will keep re-reading and updating the chapters all the way to the 18th before I even begin writing a new one. This happened because, after my novel went on Trending, the new influx of people brought also many comments and new insights on the story. At the same time I was having a sort of 'copernican revolution' in terms of the story, as I came up with new interesting storylines and a better backstory to encompass it all.

I wanted to leave the already published chapters as close to the original as possible, but some changes had to be done. In short, I can summarize them as follows:

1: more show, less tell.

This one is pretty self explanatory. While it was difficult to do in the first few chapters, as I got better at it and as the story gained traction and more characters in it, it became easier.

2: better dialogues.

I overhauled the dialogue passages, with less adverbs and more actual conversation. Less exposition about the inner thoughts of Charles and the others.

3: new overarching plot.

There are a couple new paragraphs here and there, mostly at the beginning, that will serve towards a new storyline that will span several story arcs. A few charaters went from clichè 2-dimensional to fully developed people with a life and a story to tell.

Overhauled magical system. Overhauled system origin story. Improved [REDACTED] origin story. Introduced new extraneous elements. Improved interaction with Immense Space story.

Reworked Giona's backstory. Reworked Eereen's backstory. Improved Charles' backstory. Improved general worldbuilding. Improved Metalmancer arc, improved [REDACTED] arc, built new multi-phase Metalmancer arcs, built three new arcs. Planned flashback short story. Removed Herobrine.

4: plot holes.

Most, if not all of the plot holes that have been pointed out to me have been fixed. Many that only look like plot holes actually have a resolution planned for them, which will come after the Factory arc ends.

5: better Charles.

Too much deduction from scant data? Creepy scenes that made no sense? Why is Charles the way he is? Why is Eereen the way she is? Can't he recover the bullets? Is the narrator unreliable? Fuch the empire, we don't care.

The empire has almost completely been removed, in accordance with the other changes to Charles' backstory.

Now, all that's Charles POV is narrated through his eyes and mind. Remember that people, even highly logical ones, often act in a way that is not logical. Especially when under the influence of [REDACTED, that's a spoiler baby!]. Incidentally, I have reworked all the other POVs, and made them into almost omniscient narrator style. This will remove our insights about what they think, but will give us a way to know things that even they should not know right away.

(Example: Eereen should not know about concrete. Saying 'strange stone structure' sounds silly, however, and so I call it concrete in accordance with my omniscience as a narrator. Because we're not watching from inside her head, but from high up like the gods we are.)

(Example 2: Most of the story is Charles' POV; and here we're not gods. We're him. If he does not know something, or does not see something, so won't we. Even if I don't say things like 'he saw', or 'he noticed', you will be able to know that what I write there is only what Charles knows himself.)

In any case, most of the stupid, rookie mistakes that I personally made when writing Charles have been resolved now. In a way that should be fine and good. If you feel that there are odd points that have not been explained yet, that's because they serve a purpose for the future.

What now? Simple, I will finish up with what I'm doing. As soon as I hit the last chapter, then I will resume with the story proper. Worry not, because now I have a script spanning several hundred pages at the ready, and thus will avoid most of the issues that have been plaguing the story so far!