1. Selfwork Arc
1. Getting Stronger
2. Finding Team Members
3. Partial Training of Team Members
4. Win City Tournament
2. Teamwork Arc
1. Complete Training of Team Members
2. Emotional Development of Team Members
3. Repel Beast Invasion
3. Travelogue Arc[1]
1. Travelogue Along the Bonsacon River
2. Port City; Training Therein
4. Spirit Arc
1. To the Woodland Folk[2]
2. Crisis[3]
5. Legendary Weapon Arc
1. Acquire the legendary sword of Saint Michael
2. Travel to the Great Forgers in the Mountain to acquire other weapons; Saint Michael’s sword is broken, and a lesson learned.[4]
3. Spend a few years forging your soul into a sword.[5]
6. Learning to Use the Legendary Weapon Arc
1. Dragon beast[6]—the rebellious guardian of the dark lord teaches how to use the sword and important information re: the dark lord[7]
7. Attack the Eastern Guardian & the Dark Lord
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[1] AN: In an early draft, all of Evert’s adventures in Dorflich would occur in Book 1, with Book 2 being a traveling/adventure arc, with the first year city tournament being just an early high point in the story. Ultimately, I realized that a lot more of Evert’s attention would shift to training his team and, accordingly, more of the reader’s attention should be on the team as well. And while we had a fair bit of interaction with 2 (maybe 1.5) team members in Book 1, ultimately we would need a lot more before they left. And after a great deal more mulling over the plot, I decided the basic structure was preparation in five steps (self-training, team training, spirit training, super weapon acquisition, and super weapon training) followed by the climactic battle(s). Then because they were working too hard and their characters were so fun, I slipped in the travel arc into a thematically appropriate point.
[2] Woodland folk; in OTL; they only train to the 2nd with hints to the 3rd. In NTL, they see that Evert has already reached the 3rd and help him reach the 4th.
Reveal to him the nature between adversity and spiritualism on a more fundamental level and note that the difficulties with reaching the 4th stage are primarily due to humanity’s short lifespan and that great adversity is typically needed. They discuss the history of the great empires, nature of ritualized conflict between them meant their study of spiritualism was far more advanced. While still uncommon, it was believed that there may have been over 100 spiritualists on each side who had reached the Fourth Stage, though as far as could be known, they only maintained their peak power for 20 years at most, due to the limitations on human life.
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“Even the herbivores developed a taste for human flesh.”
Compare a pig and a Boar (see above).
Woodland Folk though wise in some ways; foolish in others; mistakenly live an edenic lifestyle in hopes of appeasing dark lord
[3] NTL Personal crisis just for this when major character is killed; acknowledgement that NTL is very different from OTL and his knowledge and experience do not make him invincible
[4] Mountain city is attacked, the legendary sword is destroyed. Personal crisis.
[5] Eventually forges his own sword with the guidance of the short mountain men, master smiths. This takes a few years.
“Ya see, you’re missing the point. It’s a legendary sword. Yes, it was high quality, but the point was it was a part of someone else’s legend, not yours. And just because it was used by a legend doesn’t somehow make it better. If you want the better sword, some things you just have to do yourself.”
Wasn’t that the story of his life?
“I know my way around the forge.”
“Bah! You know how to smack hot metal with a hammer. Any toddler round here can do that. You must learn to forge.”
“Let’s start at the beginning.”
“Swinging the hammer?”
“Before that.”
“Heating the metal?”
“Before that.”
“Starting the forge.”
“No, no no. First you have to learn how to walk into a forge correctly.”
“With purpose. And if one day you can’t walk into the forge correctly, then your mind is in the wrong place. That’s the day to take the day off and go for a hike, or f*** your wife.”
“I’m not married.”
“No? Hmm. You carry yourself like you do. No, like a widower. Hmm… How old are you?”
“Thirty ____”
“No, no, you can’t be that young. It’s in your spine, and wrists: You’re at least 70.”
[6] Lives up the mountain from a local tribe
[7] Greed. Take. When bound to obey another, you are less; I took that back and ran away. Former Guardian of the dark lord.
Loves Trinkets.
“Quite the party we have here. All A-ranked. And so young for humans. Possible but rare for individual humans to properly discover their way forward. The false starts each of you goes through is wasteful. Except… you. There is a strange touch to your soul. Like one of the Elder.”
“We have come for your blessing.”
“Blessing implies giving. That is not what I do. I nurture and then reap.” (For value in humans is in their great acts).
“Collecting humans. Cage uninteresting. Interesting ones were only interesting until the stories ran out. Then I had an idea. I had taken the knowledge of the sword and made it my own, and a knew a bit about inscribing. And so with those in hand, and my mark upon their soul, I sent out disciples to do great works in my name. And those became mine.”