Thank you for sticking till the end, that is if you’re not one of those people who skipped to the last chapter in order to see how the things were wrapped up ;)

Ok, so:

The novel.

This is my fourth novel that I wrote as a birthday gift for my little brother Tom (who is big fan of xianxia) and finally I finished it on time, and not a half year late like always.

For the longest time I wanted to write about a clueless boy and the road of cultivation that a talentless person could have. Obviously most talentless people would die off early, but even Leo, who kind of scraped his way to the top, didn’t only have a stroke of luck to thank for that. All of his life he worked really hard, according to his understanding, of course, and while luck mattered (it matters in the life of every living being), his persistence and hard work mattered even more.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I’m not sure if one can feel it through the novel that no matter what, he always kept practicing and, as they say, the Heavens are just – Leo had his moments ;)

Yes, one could say the guy had a cheat, but it only played the decisive role on few specific occasions and, in fact, most of the time hung like a butcher’s knife over his neck. Any talented person, like his friends from the Golden city, for example, would’ve been able to repeat what he did and even do it many times better (maybe except for the Dreadlands part ;) ), but this story was not about them. It might’ve been much easier to write about Kevin or even Harold, but there are so many books about talented youths from various backgrounds, I couldn’t bring myself to write another one, at least not at the moment.

The future.

I can finally continue to work on the second novel I began back in 2022 (it was actually requested by my youngest sibling). The war is still ongoing and there is a sh*tload of work, but if everything goes well, I’ll finish it till the beginning of the next year, we’ll see. And if I finish early – I will still have a whole year free – after all Tom has only one birthday a year!

… sigh, I wish there was a technique to write novels in ‘one thrust’!