With her parents murdered and her brother abducted, a trainee Monk of the Gun pursues the one responsible, the Bull Demon King, undefeated Warlord of the Crimson Army. Struggling to track down her enemy while braving the dangers of the wilds, she enlists the help of Sun Wukong, but 500 years under a mountain have taken its toll. Unstable and weakened, will he be more hindrance than help? Can he become the warrior he once was? A Monk and a Monkey journey across a world...... where the remnants of technology are seen as magic, while pockets of humanity strive to drag themselves out of ignorance.... where the descendants of animal-human hybrids, once created as instruments of war, now seek to dominate the world as demons.... where beings who call themselves Immortals and Gods preoccupy themselves with selfish pastimes, ignoring everything else.    Among other things, a story about growth, grit, and being better than the person you were yesterday.   Here's my rambling on why I'm writing Journey West 5000. Journey West 5000 is my crazy ambitious writing project to adapt a classic epic called "Journey to the West" for a global, modern audience. It's a sci-fi story disguised as fantasy, and has some road trip + monster of the week elements (as does the original Journey to the West). No system, definitely no harem, gradual power progression. Hmm, what else can I put here so potential readers know what to expect? My writing style for now is mostly "show don't tell", because I believe that readers don't need to have everything pointed out to them, and that they should be allowed to make up their own minds about characters based on the actions of those characters. I'm also trying to be less long-winded (a weakness pointed out by some friends) in order to write according to something Neil Gaiman said, which is to write as though I'm the one who has to pay for every word, not the reader. This will bring down my chapter word counts, and might drive away potential readers, but I believe there's value in learning to compress and be concise. All chapters posted here will have been edited. Constructive criticism, comments, and feedback would be very much welcome and appreciated. Please, please help point out any typos or grammatical mistakes, I'm striving to minimize those as much as possible. Above all, I hope you enjoy my story.