Thank you for being patient these past few months. This was a very important thing to me as I decided to remake/ fix some grammar mistakes, and bad dialogues (some still are) and close some plot holes that I missed on my first and second proofreading.

This series started due to my memorable experiences in playing Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (the last AC and Ubisoft game that I bought and played), X4 as a pirate, Cyberpunk 2077, Eve Online, Sins of Solar Empire, and also the experience after watching Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell anime, Jormungand, Black Lagoon, Appleseed, Blame! and Knights of Sidonia.

Adding also my personal frustration with how pirates were being portrayed as good guys in most adaptations in the media. It’s like they are afraid of portraying what most pirates truly do in their careers as outlaws.

So yeah, this series is basically a “FINE! I’LL DO IT MYSELF!”

I love reading the comments asking about the main character, Ubel.

Actually, his character and personality were inspired by both Pariston and Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter and the inevitable end of bored overpowered late-game players who completed the game in an open-world single-player RPG.

I found Pariston and Hisoka to be very interesting as main characters in their own stories and I hoped the mangaka would write a spin-off about them. Thus, when I was writing the background and details of Ubel in my storyboard, I found Hisoka’s great lust for strong opponents and challenges and how he doesn’t care about consequences (except when it would kill the growing ‘fruits’ he was diligently waiting to grow which were Gon and Killua) as long as he could fight powerful opponents.

Pariston’s tendencies to welcome and even invite scenarios or situations that anyone thinks would make him lose only makes the game interesting for him as he doesn’t want to win or lose, he just wants to play and enjoy the game.

But I still think Togashi-sensei did his characters better than I did, obviously of course.

Both Hisoka’s and Rat’s behaviors, quirks, and traits were also what I deemed to be the mindset of a player who is too far gone in the game. Who got bored after completing everything and are already over-leveled that the game doesn’t interest them anymore so they try to spice things up by burning all around them. Like in Elder Scrolls Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077 after you become too OP that you decide to kill everyone, increase your bounty just to ease your boredom.

And thanks to your support, I found myself thinking and inspired that I couldn’t just make or write this story halfheartedly. I had to stop for almost three to four months just to research and review the realism of my story and how I should insert real science. I also had to add deeper lore and flavor to make this universe more dynamic, and seemingly living.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Very tough months but it was worth it.

And for those asking, no, this is not the end of the series. We are still in the middle of the first arc. And no, I am not stopping this series.

My original plan was to have each arc to be written in one book.

So, Book 1 was planned to have 87 chapters, which was the ENTIRE FIRST arc. My storyboard for Blacklist was basically like these:

Book 1 – Arc 1 (Half were now released)

Book 2 – Arc 2 (-still being edited and proofread)

…

And Book 9 – Arc 9 (--currently being written--)

Each arcs have 80-100 chapters so yeah, it made each book much longer so I decided to divide each arc into two books to give a meaningful break and cut off as we continue with the other half of each arc.

The great reception that I received from the first half of book 1 made me realize that I could not just give an ‘its good enough’ release but instead strive to make and write the ‘best version’. I am using your time to read my work so I will also pay for that time with quality story. I may not always deliver good grammar and good choice of words in my narrations and writing but I will do my best to release my best versions in each release.

As thanks, I will be uploading the Prologue, Chapters 1-3 of Book 2 after this. Then I will return to resume my other series which were Dragonborn, Ironclad, Goldbrand, and Incarnation of Ice and Fire. And upload 1-3 chapters per week for this series.

I will also be releasing a post-apocalyptic World War-era story. Reading the book Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius and playing the game Valkryia Chronicles made me start writing that series. (Yeah, I just fucking love writing stories despite my low writing skills)

My three jobs are also eating much of my time in writing so I opened up a Paypal and Kofi for those who wanted to support me.

https://ko-fi.com/blacksilverking

And please help me reach my goals there which I will then be able to focus on writing and increase my pace from 1 chapter per week to 5 chapters per week (which I found at first to be impossible until I wrote five whole chapters in one day on a weekend which is my only break day from my jobs.)

And about the uploaded pictures, I am still working on creating a better version of those so I am holding it for now. Some of the 'sample' arts, concepts, and lore will be uploaded first in my Kofi. (I don't know why Royalroad breaks or corrupts the attached pictures. It may be from the way I am uploading it, so I am still investigating how to correctly do it.)

I will also clean up the mess that I did in Patreon (Messy archive), so there’s that.

Thank you for all of the criticisms, suggestions, and corrections. It truly helped me see what was wrong or what was needed to fix.

Once again, thank you very much for waiting. See you again in Book 2 as we continue with the story.