Character List
North: Our protagonist. A mage with a light attunement who decided to lead a revolt to save Sera. From Marlisle, a village erased from the maps of Corith and grew up as a candlemaker.
Elm: The MC's grumpy mentor. Has a stone attunement, and is one of the most experienced battle mages out there. Was a major in the Arlin army and a magic researcher who created the slave cuffs.
Sera: Our protagonist's friend and the closest thing they have to family. Attunement currently unknown. Daughter of a village elder from Marlisle, the village erased from the maps of Corith. Her assault is what leads to the eventual Revolt.
Elric: North's other friend who helped with the revolt who died in the event. Had a water attunement. Son of a famous Craftsmen family from Rolith who was grabbed in a raid searching for people with aptitude.
Alex: Boisterous Ex-Military who helps North recruit people in the revolt. An affable guy with a fire attunement. Raised and fought for Nacilia against Arlin as part of a mage battalion.
Elina: Combat addict and slightly insane ex-military who helps North in the revolt. An energetic and extremely confident woman with a fire attunement. Raised in Irebor as a warrior and fought as a rebel against the Empire before being enslaved.
Nicole: A corrupt noble who assists North to further her own goals. Attunement currently unknown. A sly aristocrat who wants to use favors and any tools necessary to keep control of power. Born into a high ranking family in Pluma and continued their business until she was found embezzling money off of an Empire's mining operation in the area.
Twig: A Penal laborer who assists Sera and North in the revolt and dies during the battle. No aptitude for magic. Was arrested for nearly murdering her husband, a corrupt noble who got frustrated due to change in policy under the fourth emperor.
Karla: Young child who got dragged into the camp as a replacement for Sera. Attunement currently unknown. Was taken from her family in Corith during a raid, and is hoping to get back to them with the assistance of North and his crew.
Galen: Our first antagonist, and the captain of the guard. Had a lightning attunement. A fanboy for Arlin and Elm who hoped to get him to work with the empire in the production of slave cuffs. Was killed by North during the revolt.
Author's Note 1
Hi there! This is the author, Cobalt. This is just a simple author's note about the story, myself, and my process on it. Think of it as an afterword for the first volume. So Edge of Freedom is a story I didn’t expect I’d actually be able to write, especially to this degree. The basic concept for EoF came out of frustration with certain tropes in light novels, of which I like reading. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but needless to say I wrote out the basic concept out of spite. After a while, I decided to settle on it and actually turn it into a full story and actually build on it, which ended up creating Edge of Freedom. My initial concept for it was just this first arc which I never could have imagined myself finishing, yet here we are.
As of my plans right now, EoF is probably going to be around 7 arcs, each with a chapter amount comparable to or larger than the first arc. That means this is going to be well over 150 chapters, and the chapters I’ve been writing as of recently have only been getting longer than the first arc. Basically all of them are over 2000 words at this point since I’m covering more broad scenarios and situations, and a good portion are over 3000. Some chapters are going to be really big. There’s one really big chapter which is coming up in the future which I’m really proud of, and hope that people enjoy. “The Revolt” was definitely the easiest arc for me to write and was the one which allowed me to finally get into the world and these characters. The Sol Continent is a unique place and one that I’m loving building every step of the way.
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However, we are no longer on the simple story. Lucky for you, the world is about to get a whole lot bigger as we start to explore even more facets of it. It’s going to be an interesting ride as we get to learn more about magic, the world and its culture as well as get a few new perspectives. However, that scale does require me to slow down a bit to better build the world and make it more functional. I am a tad more on the discovery writer side than the planner, which I think can sometimes show in the work, but EoF is the first story I’ve written where I really want to plan it out in full to make it as good as possible. The next arc is well planned out and will be coming out consistently as long as I feel confident in my work (which I do) and want to share it, but I want to know that I can keep going past where I’m at right now in a way that makes sense and doesn’t feel like too much of a struggle for anyone reading my story. Once I have the third and fourth arcs planned as well as my lore bible well built up in preparation, I think I’ll be able to chug along at a strong pace and keep it going up until the end. This does mean that you might not get the same pace, but the chapters will probably be of higher quality. I think my writing style has gotten more concrete as I have gone along, and that makes me happy. I do have other things going on in my life at the same time as I write this, so that may also affect my writing speed
Why don’t I go away from the sad stuff about reality and talk about the fun stuff? North’s story is definitely one of progression, which I think will become more apparent as the plot goes forward. That goes for both his magical knowledge and general competency. I mean, it’s not a literal progression thing. I’m not writing a litRPG where North has a stat screen… even though it would make my job way easier.
Note to self- Write a litRPG instead of trying to be a contrarian.
I kid. A litRPG is hard in a different way. I guess the same also applies to isekai, something which I was adverse to doing with this story. I had thought about writing an Isekai early on, but I realized that I’d sort of hate it? I wanted to make my protagonist a more tangible person in this world and have a grounded amount of knowledge. North is an idiot, but he’s my idiot. One that I really love making suffer.
It’s also going to grow further beyond him, which should be clear. I like the first person perspective for this story, but as shown from the end of the first arc, I am going to be messing around with other perspectives outside of him. One of them I hope people will really enjoy, as I enjoyed writing them a lot myself. It’s a big world, and I really want to explore it and share it with other people. I do want to expand more on the cast as a whole and give them more personality. The first arc places a good portion of its focus on Elm because he’s the most important character in the camp. Plus, he was one of my favorite characters to write and characterize while slowly revealing more and more about his backstory. Now that we don’t have Galen breathing down our character’s necks, we can start to mess around with the others more. However, one thing that we’re going to be losing are the tip sections.
I’m sorry about that one. I loved writing them, I truly did, but I think it’s better to not have them. It’s way more fun to have lore given organically rather than through the artificial means of the tips. Fun fact- the tips were even longer than they are now. I used to have full pages written about specific aspects of the world which allowed me to get into all sorts of fun prose. Sadly, they fucked with the pacing and I had to kill off a darling. I have a lot of lore to share, and I will share it as it feels natural. The tone of the rest of the story is somewhat incompatible with these tip sections. The first arc had enough chill periods to allow me to do tip sections and having them during the big action stuff or the super emotional stuff just didn’t feel right with me as an author. We’ve got a lot more conflict from here on out, so be prepared for that. The dangers of the revolt are only the start of North’s perils.
At the time of writing this, I have around 16 chapters written for the second arc of the story, so while the updates will slow down significantly, there will be constant uploads unless something else comes up in my life. I think I like this type of stuff? I might do them in the middle of arcs, but I think it’s nice to have them at the end of arcs to separate them with each other. Either way, that was the end of the revolt.
Now, onto the next leg of North’s journey for freedom…
ARC 2: THE ROAD TO CORITH