Random Reader: Why are you posting your author note as a separate chapter?

Val: Because I wanted this prologue to be how I like my snow: untouched.

Hello readers! Welcome to EtB! Where we shamelessly rip of popular youtuber's intros just for the heck of it. I'm your host Valquist! The king of overly-long author notes!

I know that a lot of people aren't interested in author notes and just want to get to the book, but as the author I like having contact with you all and hearing feedback. So, please allow me this selfishness. For those of you who just want the book, don't worry! You will get chapter one soon. If I got everything squared away yesterday (and RRL's scheduled releases doesn't have a problem, again), then it should come out in about 20 minutes. So take that as some small measure of comfort.

So, I'd like to thank you all for your support. After just the prologue is up we have over 200 followers! That is honestly more than I was expecting, and it's almost the same amount of views on the prologue, which means that most of you who read it bookmarked it! I hope that means I did a good job. I gotta ask: how was it? Do you like this one more than the original? For those of you who didn't read the original, this prologue combined chapter one, two, and three together in one package. A lot more efficient, am I right?

So, the current update schedule I have is every monday (because only one person sent me a messege with a suggestion of a time) and I kinda like that. Their suggestion for monday was so that "people would have something to look forward to". Gotta say, I'm flattered. If my book could help your mondays be more bearable then I'm happy to supply! So it'll stay like that for a few weeks until I decide if I like it or not. I'm kinda thinking of adding thursday as another update day.

Here's a fun little story: the original idea for EtB was that someone from our world went to another one and discoverd that he was super talented in magic. The 'One Punch Man of Magic' if you will, but he decides that he didn't want to learn magic, and wanted to use a sword instead. The story grew from that idea. I needed a justification for him to not want to use magic, so I made him crippled. I ended up not making him 'The One Punch Man of Magic' because I was kinda sick of reading books with OP MCs (a lot of them get boring fast) or MCs that get insanely strong outta nowhere (same problem). Anyway, thought you guys might be interested in that.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

So, I have a request for you guys: Could you give me game recommendations? I use other video games I play to help give me inspiration for my own system, and ideas for how I could improve it or make it more balanced. It's more or less completely fleshed out at this point, but having more ideas always helps. Two big inspirations for me as of late are Nioh, and Persona. I played (and loved to death) Persona 5 back in June, and I got Persona 4 recently that one has been helping me with some 'sneaky sneaky' ideas I have for the system (see if you can spot them), and Nioh has helped me work out the kinks with my 'Talismancer' and 'Ancient Calligraphist' classes. So, if you have any recommendations you think could help, please send them my way. I would greatly appreciate it.

So, a few things about the new EtB. The plot line, and characters are VERY different. I don't plan on putting our MC in the castle (so early) like last time, and there will be characters that we don't meet this time around, and characters that we won't meet till much later. The time frame is also over a year before when I dumped our MC in the original plot line. I just want to make that clear for people who just think that this will be exacly the same with a few changes. It will be kinda the same with A TON of changes. Just as an FYI.

Oh, and I want to put this out there to solve a mystery I left in the original: the MC woke up in a prision because the Overseer wasn't paying close enough attention to where he put him, and dumped him in the middle of a bandit camp. The bandits took everything from him, and beat the snot outta him before dumping him infront of the castle. He didn't remember any of it because his mind hadn't finished settling in his body before they knocked it unconcious. Okay, Mystery solved. It was gonna be a funny reveal in the original plot line.

Have a good day! Look forward to chapter one!

My song recommendations for this update are:

Hope (One Piece) cover by Amanda Lee

Dead Silence by Nathan Sharp

The Triumph by Jeff Williams