It's the end of Volume 1. Cheers!

This story has been through it all during the most turbulent portion of my life to date. Honestly, the odds were stacked against me completing it.

To put it into perspective, imagine finishing the book as Beerus, Lord of Destruction. I am Yamcha in this situation.

But I finished it. Here I am, proud to say that I have finished my first book and one of my most important goals in life.

What's that? You want me to ramble on about my life and how it connects with the story? Of course! Just because you asked.

My whole life, literature has been a big portion of it. I was an introvert without access to the same video games my friends had, so I was kind of isolated during the better part of my childhood. A shut-in neet, except I, didn't get bullied. Canadian schools are chill like that, I suppose.

When you're a broke, socially-underdeveloped teenager without any goals in life, what was something I could do to keep busy during my endless amounts of free time?

Reading. That's the answer.

I read everything. I started with novels. Then I branched out to manga. Once I exhausted my library's supply, I turned to fanfiction. It was like a multiverse of all my favorite series, with an 'endless' amount of content. That was until I ran out of good fanfictions to read as well. Do you know how many that is? How many words I've read in several years? I combed through Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Naruto, Dragon Ball, Bleach, One Piece, and god knows how many other fandoms to find entertaining works of fiction. The good. The great. The bad. The ugly. It got to the point where I legitimately couldn't find any more to read.

Then I came across light novels. And with it, RoyalRoad and the genres of litRPG and Isekai. I was blown away by the works on this site. The quality and quantity are something to behold. I got inspired. For a moment, I thought that I could be just like them as well.

So I tried writing my very first story. It had no name. At the age of thirteen, I began to write on my little IPad.

It was the WORST possible combination of letters and words possible to have graced my eyeballs. Honestly? I scrubbed out the memory of it from my mind, and the only lingering trace is the cringe from revisiting it after a month of letting it fester on my tablet.

I was discouraged from writing for a couple of years or so, with only a few practice runs appearing here and there on Wattpad or creative writing assignments until I got the balls to do it again in my sophomore year of high school. This time, I tried to approach it with more structure, reading up on guides and tutorials to better prepare myself. But I was young. A rookie with naive dreams of being the next big hit on this site.

I titled it, Cheaters Always Win.

You may ask, isn't this the same story? Yes, but also no.

I wrote that story with little understanding of how just how much work and effort it took to create a novel. With the worldbuilding, and fleshing out characters, I had trouble prioritizing and I just went with my gut. Building an awesome MC.

That is where Chester Everheart is born. A curly-haired conman from Earth that carves a legend in the mysterious world of magic land. I had poured an entire summer into this book, with nothing better to do. Enthusiasm and motivation were at an all-time high, I felt a sense of purpose. Something I lacked for most of my life.

With bated breath, I began publishing.

That story blew to the moon (relative to this one) and I was elated. A sophomore in high school, experiencing success with his first dive into the world of writing? I was on the moon, and I presented it to my mom. I had 500 followers at one point, and I had made it into the Rising Stars page within three or so months of publishing. For a chronic underachiever, that had been a redemption arc for me.

But as things rise, they always fall as well.

Life is not perfect. I had to begin taking my studies seriously (Yes, even though it's high school I had to keep the bare minimum.) and I was feeling the pressure for a part-time job. More importantly, the reviews and criticisms began taking hold of me. I pride myself on being very creative-minded, but my fundamentals and writing skills weren't the cream of the crop. I received a lot of genuine criticisms which are perfectly valid, about story direction, grammar, etc. As an impressionable kid, it was easy for me to fall into the biggest trap an author could fall into.

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Catering to the readers and veering off my vision of the story.

The more I did it, the more convoluted the plot became. Instead of reducing the criticisms, they increased. It didn't feel like it was my story anymore. I even tried to rewrite it, but my passion and motivation had dwindled to near zero by that point. I had gotten a part-time job, the pandemic was in its early stages, and I began developing more social relationships and it cut into my writing.

I lost my love for writing. I resented it for a while, and before I knew it I dropped the story. I deleted it as well, along with my old account. It felt so embarrassing to fail like that. I was always afraid of mistakes and failure, and it got to the point where I didn't do much of anything with my life. It messed with my sense of self-worth.

Skip to senior year. I had long forgotten about the story, and I spent my days doing whatever a teen did. I had some spending money from my job, which was really cool. I could afford everything I couldn't get as a child. Literature and fiction kind of took a backseat for me.

Until I took a class called Creative Writing.

The course itself was simple, but something about it just made me want to pay attention. Mind you, this was an online class. I'd sleep through everything unless it was a graded test. It always had my attention, and I enjoyed it more than any other class. That left an impression on me I wouldn't forget so easily.

I began transitioning into the next stage of my life, but I didn't really feel quite right. I always had this sense I was a failure, and I was very listless. I got into university and I didn't even know what the hell I was doing in my major. I was prone to mental breakdowns due to several factors including anxiety and depression, and I abused substances to keep me going. It was a dark point in my life and I knew it.

I felt like I had let everybody down. My family, my friends. It felt like I was getting left behind. Even with the support of all my friends and family, I had a dark cloud hanging over my head.

Searching for a way to get out of this slump, I found an old folder in my cabinet. It was papers consisting of character sheets/sketches, story subplots, and a world map from Cheaters Always Win. I even scrolled through my computer and found my old drafts. For a moment, I debated deleting it all and throwing them away. They were a reminder of my failures. The 'what-if' of my life that haunted me for a long time.

But I decided to keep them. More than that, I started expanding upon the information I had written. To me, those sheets of paper were like a lifeline. A chance of redemption and a way of changing for the better. If nothing in life made me happy or fulfilled, I would take my chance and finish what I once started. I got a lot of encouragement from my close friends and my family as well.

At eighteen years old, I picked up the pen and began to write Cheaters Always Win.

I toyed with a lot of ideas to keep things fresh. One of them was telling the story through Damien's POV and him piecing together clues and info that would reveal Chester as a person from another world. In my last rendition of CAW, I started from the very beginning when Chester woke up in the Arcadian Forest. I didn't want to rehash it all over again, considering I had done it twice already.

So I began things at Elway. With an established character and newly-formed dynamic between Chester and Damien. A lot of the beginning came naturally to me. Especially Chester's actions and dialogue. I greatly enjoy writing him. Everything I did or learned, I always wondered how I could incorporate it into the story. I felt a lot more earnest and enthusiastic about learning in general. I think writing helped a lot.

I wrote drafts, revised, and prepared all I could. I had all the tools and experience to give it a shot. It felt so much like those time-travel stories or isekais. It felt like I was given a second chance. And I was not keen on wasting it.

But I knew endlessly preparing wasn't the way to go. At some point, you had to dive in headfirst. So I set a deadline. In January 2022, I would begin publishing my story with one goal in mind; to finish it at all costs.

It was manageable at the start. I had built a stash of chapters for me to keep ahead, but I quickly ran out after a bout of procrastination. For a good chunk of the story, I was uploading as the weeks went by. University was a different animal from high school. Compared to then when you could fall asleep in class and walk away with an A, it required a consistent effort to succeed.

The attention I received was smaller than my first attempt, but all my lovely readers were encouraging and enthusiastic for more, and I aimed to deliver. This time, I was completely focused on telling the story I want to tell. I was a changed person from my high school days.

I got a new job after being unemployed for months, physically demanding but a much more pleasant experience than I anticipated.

I started going to the gym, working out consistently to keep my mind and body sharp through discipline.

Throughout all this, I kept writing. I kept doing research, finding new ideas and inspiration. This past year has been the busiest and most challenging of my life.

And I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Everything kind of fell into place. My friends are incredibly productive and I'm always admiring just how dedicated they are to their respective hustles and goals. I've made my family proud of what I do. And most importantly, I feel content with who I am as a person now. I always strive for improvement, but those horrible days of self-loathing are mostly behind me now.

In a way, my path reflected the journey my characters took. A listless journey with no real end goal, especially for Chester. He's an endless wanderer. But throughout it all, he forged new bonds. Together with Damien, he impacted others and found a clue on who or what he wants to be in life. Maybe he didn't come to a satisfying conclusion in this volume, but I know he will. I am the writer, after all.

I believe that literature can have a profound effect on anybody. For those without the financial ability to enjoy the things people take for granted, libraries and web novel sites like these are an important source of entertainment.

So to all the readers of my story, thank you.

I hope that there's someone who'll be inspired. Either by this afterword or the story itself. It's a cliche, I know. But books have changed my life. I hope that this work and future ones of mine would do the same for others. To those who find solace with their noses in a book, I hope that it gives them the courage to pursue something they love. Literature is the gift that keeps on giving.

Please look forward to my next book! I will see you all next time.

Until then, take care.

😎