Okay, so quite a few comments arrived under the last chapter and the arguments behind them are pretty solid. I’m very new to this author business and made three major mistakes already in only about 60 chapters including the one that’s about to be quite long.

So I arrived at a major question to rewrite or not to rewrite.

MY MISTAKES:

Hear me out, I’m not too fond of the start of the story, it’s way too slow and tells very little about what to expect. Then there is Bennett’s whole kidnapping of Eli and Martha’s unfair bet in Team Building I. Both of those are just heavy-handed punishments for a character who experiences very few victories. And now the latest one… I tried to use the whole slavery situation to create a greater peril forges stronger bonds setup but it seems like it was dumb of me. I’m Eastern European, next to no history of slavery, treated the topic very lightly. I’ve learned this lesson. The slavery arc isn’t as harsh or cruel as some of you might think and is more about comradery and combat with a picture of what a dangerous world Aelion is.

Eli is supposed to be a smart MC but I wanted her to make the young and dumb mistakes from time to time. I overdid it.

I made Savant so we’d have a native character to this world without our own modern mindset and still have fun scientific elements to magic. This does happen, albeit a bit too late in the story.

The side characters are a bit dry with the exception of Valka, who in turn feels almost like a second MC.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The progress is far too slow. From the start, I knew the story would be quite long so I decided to take the slow and steady approach, however it became slow more than anything.

The balance of good and bad events is not ideal. Eli suffers too many setbacks and despite all her efforts is constantly punished because I was a bit too heavyhanded. Again, I tried to make things realistic instead of enjoyable maybe because I focused too little on what I as a reader would find a good read.

Lastly, I failed a bit when it comes to communication. Many readers here have read far more stories than I did and have a better grasp on what makes or breaks a story. I know I said I'm mostly writing as a hobby and for myself but I'm still swayed by ratings, comments, and reactions to my work.

To be fair, I’m also leaning toward a rewrite because I think I’ve improved quite a bit, both my English and my story-writing skills but there are a lot and I mean a lot of things I would’ve done differently in hindsight.

Planned changes include a little System revamp, plenty of small but significant plot changes and a greater focus on the major events in the background instead of Eli's own little world.

Don’t get me wrong, I like writing and I truly believe the world and events I hope to show you are something worth writing about. So if you saw any potential in me or the story or Eli then stick around and see what the future holds whether I continue with things as they are or waiting for notice to appear here about the work completed overhaul of the story. (It might take a month or two so I expect people to move on since RR is home to many great adventures.)

Please do vote, it's important and I sincerely thank you all for following me until now.

Typhon.

PS: RR should really add a way to make announcements like this without posting a chapter. And I'm not disheartened just prefer to do things to the best of my abilities.

Oh and for anyone reading on Patreon; don't worry I'll keep uploading my backlog, I don't want to scam anybody.