Hi all,

It's been a little while. I've been extremely busy with lots of stuff happening in life (mostly good, but still I've been very busy). I hope you've all kept well :D

I come bearing an update on Draconic Transcendence's rewrite!

Being completely upfront, this is gonna take a while. I'm writing the first book out as a traditional novel, and I've settled on uploading chapters every month or so when I get to uploading the story. I would love to upload more often, but it seems like it's taking me a month or so to write a chapter that I feel is solid enough to stand on its own. Each time I write a new chapter, I go back and add stuff to the other chapters I've written too (whether it be trimming or adding content), which adds to the process. For some insight into the chapters themselves, I try to make each chapter its own sort of mini-arc (unless it's directly following another chapter's story flow) that fits in the overall flow of the story. The first book will provide much more content for characters like Jin, Reiki, Elira, Kallad, Lilly, and Naam compared to the previous version of the story (still all subject to change). I've actually already written a chapter entirely focused on Jin, and it's so fucking cool. That's chapter 3, not including the prologues.

So far, I'm about 5-6 chapters in to the first book. There's 2 prologues, and 4 main chapters so far.

What I'm about to share with you is the current iteration of the first prologue (about 1k words). This is what I would consider the cold open for the book. Literally any and all of this could change, but I couldn't leave you all with absolutely nothing. So please, as always, let me know what you think in the comments :) Without further adieu, please enjoy!

P.S. THIS IS GOING TO BE WITHIN A SPOILER, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW THE BOOK OPENS THEN DON'T OPEN IT.

*CRACK!*

“Just how far are you willing to go?” Jin asked.

“...”

Rai hesitated.

Quiet, he stood in the rain.

Rai’s adoptive grandfather stood before him. With sheathed blades at his side, Jin was ready to see what his grandson was truly capable of.

“Come. Prove yourself!” Jin called out.

*Whooo* Rai exhaled.

All of the worries that had built up until now had finally left Rai’s body. Now... he was ready.

Rai’s voice crackled and popped with the fury of the lightning within him.

“I hope you’re ready, grandad.”

*BANG!*

An instant.

Rai’d called forth twin blades from thin air and flew at Jin. The impact of his swords against Jin’s scabbards caused a reverberating shockwave in the rainy field they stood upon.

In Jin’s expression lived nothing but a mark of surprise. Before even teaching him how to reach that level, Rai had already arrived there. He’d grown to need to dual-wield. A smirk crept across Jin’s lips.

A black dragon wing extended out of the right side of Rai’s back. He flapped his wing forward, dashing backwards and creating distance between them.

Jin stared in awe at his grandson’s beauty.

Rai closed his eyes.

“Grandad...” He crackled.

Jin had no time to respond.

The rain stopped.

Rai looked back up at Jin, with glowing blue tattoos on his face. They were very different to the ones that Jin had seen on his face before.

The tattoos extended down Rai’s arms and exposed torso. His wing began shimmering with arcane etchings. Where there were once obsidian black seals on Rai’s wrists, were now arcane tattoos with some kind of symbol within them.

Jin expected lightning to spew off of Rai’s body like it normally would when he was in Stormflow, but this time... there was none of that.

“Ah... ahaha... finally...” Jin muttered.

“I got it now... Balance.”

“Then come.” Jin said. Slowly, he drew his blades. The grinding of metal against the scabbard satisfied Rai’s ears.

Jin pointed one up at Rai. “Show me your Balance, prove to me that you’re worth teaching.” He declared.

It was suddenly during that very moment that Jin’s subconscious questioned why the rain had stopped. With his eyes laid upon Rai, the answer was obvious.

Rai’s manifestation of Balance was more than just the start of the process, as Jin had wanted for the boy all those years ago.

He commanded the world around him.

Rai’s eyes were clear. There was no inversion in colour, as Jin was used to seeing whenever Rai had previously used Stormflow in their spars.

But Jin had no time to think about it. In that instance of realisation, Rai had already Danced through the field and struck at Jin thrice. Jin parried all three strikes.

Rai flew past Jin, and floated in the air, with the moon shining bright behind him. His blades looked immaculate... as if they were newly created. One was black, the other was white. Jin couldn’t take in more detail than that, as he was on the back foot and had to actually focus on this fight.

Rai called forth Hellfire in his left, black, blade. Elegant purple flames encapsulated the sword. He swung towards Jin from high up in the sky, firing a Hellfire arc at his grandfather.

To reinforce the Hellfire arc, Rai infused his other, white, blade with black lightning. He flew, following the Hellfire arc. As Rai reached Jin behind the arc, he swung the white blade straight down, aiming at Jin’s head.

Jin grinned wide as he admired the arrangement that Rai had come up with. Jin twirled in a beautiful motion that left Rai dizzy. He dodged the arc, parried the strike, and also managed to cut Rai’s arm at the same time.

The wound healed almost instantly. Jin stared at Rai’s arm as it happened. Rai did the same.

“Rai... that’s a little bullshit.”

“I... didn’t expect that.”

More than anything, Jin was surprised that Rai was able to command this much strength so soon after Transcendence. Welling up deep within Jin’s core was a kind of pride he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Very well... then... I suppose you’ve earned this...”

Rai felt nothing but serenity as Jin finished speaking.

Pink flower petals filled his vision.

Then the rain fell on Rai’s face. As if nothing had ever even happened.

“Your Dragon Dance was beautiful. But you still have a lot to learn, Rai.” Jin said, looking down at his grandson.

Rai was lying flat on the ground. His wing had withdrawn itself, and Stormflow was gone. The blades had also disappeared. Rai couldn’t move his arms, as he’d put far too much stress on them than they were ever used to.

“Yeah...” He croaked. “You’re too much of a fucking monster.”

Jin smirked at him.

“You did well on your travels.” He said. Jin took a deep breath, then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Sin!” He shouted out.

“YEAH?” the girl in the distance shouted back. She was sat on the grass at the top of a small hill, watching the fight. The rain refused to hit her, and in fact bent around her unnaturally.

“What say you?” Jin asked.

Sin floated up from where she sat and quickly flew towards them. The marks on her wrists were glowing bright.

She gently landed next to Rai and sat beside him.

“I say he deserves to be taught. But I’d always say that, and you know just as much.” She answered truthfully.

“Hmm...” Jin hummed. He pondered for a moment. Then he made up his mind. “Good. It’s a good start. Now that you’re finally at the starting line, it’s time to learn about Transcendence.”

Rai and Sin’s expressions softened. The news seemed to land gently with them, almost in the form of relief. It wasn’t the reaction Jin was expecting.

“You can rest for now. We’ll talk more about that later.” Jin said, as Rai was fading in and out of consciousness. His newfound power was more than Rai was ever used to. That meant there was a lot of work to be done.

Just as Jin predicted, Rai fell unconscious.

Jin and Sin glanced at each other, then smiled.

Jin then held up Rai’s arm and pointed at the tattoo on Rai’s wrists where his seals should’ve been.

“You wanna explain this then?” He asked Sin, holding his smile.

Sin laughed nervously.

I hope you all enjoyed the sneak peak at the rewrite!

Admittedly, there's not much in terms of volume, but I do hope this cold open does what it's supposed to. I hope it's given you questions that you want answered. That's my goal with it, at least.

Also please bear in mind that the prologue shows a snapshot of these characters on their journeys at some point in the story. As for where it is in the story:

It's not near the end, but also not near the beginning.

My goal is to write about these characters throughout a large portion of their lives. So in terms of time, there's a lot to go through.

As I always say, please let me know what you think. As much as I want you all to enjoy the story, I'm gonna need as much feedback as possible early on. If you notice anything wrong with the writing, or maybe the style is a bit jarring, PLEASE let me know now as it'll be easier to fix any glaring problems earlier in the writing process. Of course, I understand that there's not a lot to be gleaned by a snippet this small, so also don't feel too pressured to find something to feedback on :D

With that, I'll leave you guys for a few more months. If you really like this preview, I might drop the second prologue shortly after, who knows ;) On the other hand if you all don't like this preview then that means I've got more to work on :P

If you do provide feedback on specific parts, please spoiler your comments for anyone who didn't read the prologue!

Thank you all for enjoying Draconic Transcendence, and if you've read all the way down here, then thank you for being invested in Draconic Transcendence's return!

I wish the best for all of you