Skip the passage below if you only want the announcements

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Hey guys, its Karma. I'm really happy about the positive reception to the ending of the last arc. I was worried that I'd fumble it massively in the end, but I managed to mostly not. Now, you may remember that roughly a month ago I talked about suffering burnout, and multiple circumstantial things between then and here. In retrospect, I've come to understand that it was less burnout and more me running so hot under the hood to keep everything moving that I was actually literally burning myself out. After a talk with my doctor we came to the conclusion is was me stressing so hard over this story.

I want to say this, I'm not quitting, but the schedule will be changing. I won't be resuming the original schedule of "when it was done", nor will I be continuing with weekly chapters. I'm gonna meet in the middle.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will have a new chapter, with Wednesday being optionally skipped should something come up. The chapters will also not be as long as the most recent chapters have been, being closer to how they were from chapter 0-80. That means we'll be getting shorter chapters hopefully more consistently.

There will also be a style change. Don't worry, the story isn't going to shift genre or theme or anything, rather I'm going to deliver a more low stakes, interpersonal plot. With slower development and higher quality. There will be little globe trotting, no world shaking developments, and I swear on my honor that I won't give Andromeda another mental housemate, blow anything up, or overhaul her entire existence. I've learned my lessons on that.

Speaking of learning lessons, I wanted to talk about the last arc. You can probably tell that there were many points were the story seemed like it was going somewhere, only to pivot violently into a new plotline. That is on me. One thing I've learned since starting this series is that its not a good idea to throw a wild wrench in the status quo because you have no idea what to do. That bit me so hard in the ass that my cheeks look like ground beef, and very nearly ruined the story. Frankly its a miracle at all that I salvaged it into a serviceable state.

I can think of at least four seperate occasions where I basically just threw my hands up and went in a different direction. The first time was during the meeting chapter with Gram, the second was after Whisper's dinner with Eren, the third was just after the chapter with Orden and Valotia fighting, and the last was more or less the finale. I originally planned on having the Arbiter transform into a massive flesh monster and rampage through the city, but you can imagine that would have been jumping the shark.

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Throughout this arc, and to a lesser extent the story before it, I was very indecisive on what I wanted, and my wishes for the story would change just as quickly. With the next chapter I am going to be more reserved, controlled, and focused. I want to further develop the cast I have, and expand on the world in a more controlled way.

This comes back to the style change. I won't call it "Monster of the week" because thats not quite right. But my aim will be to have more self contained stories. The kind of thing that you could selectively come back to and read to enjoy. They can and WILL have an affect on the overall plot, but they won't be so interwoven that missing a chapter here or there will lose you the entire plot line.

Because I'm still building a backlog for self-interested reasons, there won't be a chapter this wednesday. Only monday and friday. (I am also being a tiny bit selfish here because I just got a PC upgrade and I want to have some fun with that).

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For those who only care about the announcement of, here we go:

Announcement 1 - Name Change: The story will be changed from "White Mage in Another World" to "The World of Dust & Sunlight - White Mage in Another World".

Announcement 2 - First Official Spin-off: I'm announcing the official reveal of the first spin-off series "The World of Dust & Sunlight - Dark Presence in a Radiant World". This story will follow the exploits of a young woman named "Maria Neverosa", a woman out of time with a terrible curse. Her journey will take place thirty years before the events of White Mage, and this story will be entirely self contained, being one you could entirely read without any context from the main story to enjoy, but will have easter eggs and references to the main series for existing readers. Also, hopefully, I plan on releasing it on amazon and elsewhere digitally. If you worry I'm paywalling lore, then you'll be happy to hear that I'm releasing it here on royal road for free for anyone to read. (We'll see about the timeline of that release in the future)

Announcement 3 - White Mage in Another World: Volume 2 - The Heartland: We find Andromeda in changing times, as the world is recovering from the "Betellian Vague". Andromeda has been (forcefully) given a vacation in King's Grove, but her new job in The Emerald Mountains is not just to rest and relax, but stand charge of collecting rare "Artifacts". She will meet new friends, rekindle old friendships, and grow as a person, and as an Arch Mage.

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So, that's it. Hopefully I can continue to deliver a story all of you will enjoy reading, and hopefully some of you will feel obliged to raise my rating from 4.15. I don't like to beg, but that just feels unfair. Honestly though, the fact that this story has grown as large as it has means a lot to me. The shitty little wannabe writer that started the original version of White Mage two years ago would be screaming to hear that their story was read over 120,000 times.

Finally, thank you all again for sticking with me, I know the beginning is rough, but god do I hope I've made up for it in time and effort.