Boys, It's finally, finally done. God this was exhausting. I've read over the story easily five times since starting, and boy do I have some complaints about the author. I'll keep those to myself though, lol.
Most of the changes are grammatical and minor, and I tried to keep everything mostly the same, but there were some more significant story edits. If you'd like, you can reread and find them yourself, but I won't make you do that.
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Here's how this is going to go, I'll go ahead and give a light overview of each chapter that doesn't have any spoilers, and if you feel the need to reread, go ahead. If you don't want to, click the spoilers and it will describe the changes. Absolutely none of the chapters will require a reread. If I say a chapter needs to be reread in one of the descriptions, that is assuming you don't want to read the spoilers.
Note: At one point while I was editing some of the chapters, instead of using the de-color tool, I used the white color to turn the colored text back to normal. Now, this is an issue because I forgot light mode existed, and I have no idea where I did this. If you see a suspiciously blank section of text, or a nonsensical sentence, hover over it and see if there is extra text there please. I'll be trying to see if I can find it, but if I can't I'm sorry. If you do see nonsensical text that doesn't have any white text in front of it, feel free to suggests edits to that too, lol.
Story Changes:
For those that don't want to bother with going through the chapter by chapter changes down below, this is a list of everything you will need to know for the story to make sense. I'm sure you could gather it through context if you really don't want to interact with this chapter at all for some reason, though.
IMPORTANT CHANGES FOR THOSE THAT DON'T WANT TO REREAD:
Burken is not an unreasonable asshole, and has a good reason for believing Vorn can't be a mage. See [*1] in lore changes at the bottom if you want to know why.
Dungeoneering Guild was changed to Delver's Guild.
They were given a very illegal class disguising neckless by the Guildmaster.
They were recommended to find a mentor by the assessment guard at the training dungeon.
They discuss analyzing their weaknesses after every dungeon run.
Rowan was serving an unethical government without really thinking about it... somehow. (Granted, most governments are unethical, but just imagine this being shocking please)
Rowan's nation, before they were the somewhat unethical mess they are 'now', were a very unethical mess a few decades ago. And they were ruled by AI. Current nation: UCA. Old AI Nation: NIAF.
Universal Changes: Grammar, prose, and dialogue were tweaked or downright fully revised on many/most/all chapters. I'm adding this because I wanted to take out the "Grammar edits and dialogue changes" out of the change log.
Chapter 1: I'm not changing chapter one. It's simple and short enough that it doesn't really require any edits. This is the only chapter with absolutely no changes.
Chapter 2: only one story change, but a whole bunch of reworked grammar and internal dialogue. Probably the most significantly edited chapter without having many story changes. Reread not necessary.
Minor spoiler for the chapter:
Rowan's Cause of death is no longer a vague 'missile'. He was killed when facility collapsed on him. The killing one thousand people with a grenade and a knife thing stayed the same, though.
Chapter 3: Again, only minor edits besides making Vorn's uncles motivations actually make sense. Rowan is also less of a 'pushover' for lack of a better word. I recommend just clicking on the spoiler, because the chapter isn't much more interesting. If you don't want to, though, then a reread is necessary.
Burken, Vorn's Uncle, now as an actual reason for believing Vorn would be a terrible mage[*1] (See lore editions).
Battle Sync has been renamed to Synchronized Mind.
Rowan is much clearer with what he expects Vorn to do as is 'handler'
Added a new Status detail, now it gives a you a moniker based on your stats and capabilities. Rowan's is warrior, but later on it will change to
Spellblade
Made the Transcendent Class they skip even more ridiculous.
Chapter 4: Thankfully, not many changes were needed for this chapter. Reread not necessary.
Foreshadowing for the later reveal that Vorn kept mental energy a secret
Rowan reveals the name of the military he worked for in his private thoughts: The United Continental Americas Army, or UCAA
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Interlude: It will be moved between chapter four and five.
Chapter 5: Quite a few changes on this bad boy, along with a fair amount of new lore and detail. Most of it isn't super significant, and most of the details will probably be regurgitated later on. Reread absolutely necessary.
Changed the Dungeoneering Guild to Delvers Guild. It's a little basic, but I think the fact that it's both, 1. a real word, and 2. easy to spell, make up for that.
Minor Descriptive changes to the city of Bern
Idalin, the god of asexuals (Only kind of a joke), platonic love, and companionship is also revealed to reign over less wholesome domains as well. What they are is not said.
Businesses almost never close. I realized it was pretty dumb that in a society where almost everyone needs less sleep that it running on a normal business cycle made no sense. Now things are just more expensive during very late hours as a sort of 'high level' tax.
The Guild Master gives them a very illegal necklace that hides their attributes and class. Their species is not a secret, though.
They are told to go to a Trial Dungeon before their Guild Card can be fully activated. This is alluded to in the original, but not in any detail.
The Cradle's various militaries are expanded on a bit [*2].
Chapter 6: There is a new scene in this one, and it is actually a little important to the overall story even if it is very short. A reread may be needed if you don't want to read the spoilers on this one.
Some exposition about the nature of Danger Sense skills[*3].
The new interaction is vaguely along the lines of, "Hey, are you sure you know what you're doing?" and Rowan going, "Pssh, sure, absolutely!" When he absolutely does not. Introduces some doubts into Vorn's mind about Rowan's confidence and competence. This is really the only "major" difference you need to reread for.
Chapter 7: Besides the lore additions, not much is all that different. I recommend just reading the spoilers.
Some foreboding mysteriousness from Rowan about why digital 'credits' became common in his world.
A minor change to how currency is valued, with dims now being work a penny, not a dollar.
The dagger they gained was described more accurately. Basically just imagine a twelve inch dagger that tapers to a point. It has a center groove that's a little rusty. Idk if you need to know this, but maybe I'll bring it up later? Probably not.
Added an bit of lore about System Enchantments and System Created Items[*4].
Rowan corrects Vorn that he wasn't actually in the army, but a new division that worked closely with them.
Chapter 8: Quite a few changes on this one, I recommend a reread.
The 'Desync' scene has a little more detail.
Some changes to the time system. Hyal'bern works on a twenty-six hour day, with five days in a week, five weeks in a month, and fifteen months in a year. You really don't need to remember this, as even I didn't until I was going through my worldbuilding page. I may have just straight up forgot to add it to the original version. My bad.
An extra bit of dialogue where they discuss... discussing. For real though, they basically just state that they need to go over what they did wrong after every delve so they can improve.
They immediately forget, lol.
An extra scene where the guard shadowing them yells at them not to take a weapon skill as to not waste there potential. He also says they need to find a mentor if they can.
Rockwood cave was changed to crystalwood cavern.
Chapter 9: I'm not going to lie to you, I'm starting to get to the point where I've read and reread everything so many times that everything is starting to blend together. I'm pretty certain everything is mostly the same, besides a few dialogue additions on this one and a few lore changes, so I don't recommend a reread on this one.
Like I said, a few dialogue changes, mostly to be humorous, but nothing serious was changed.
They use one of the 'Repair Whetstones' on their dagger. It's a cool, if very minor, scene.
Them being a unique being is not a secret, but for some reason they treated it like it was in the original of this, so I changed that to make more sense.
Chapter 10: A few dialogue changes.
Chapter 11: Nothing significant to reread for.
Chapter 12: Again, mostly the same. The boss fight chapters weren't really changed all that much.
Chapter 13: There are actually some changes, but most of them are just descriptive. Nothing important.
Chapter 14: Not many changes in this one either. The Orc dungeon Arc was when I started thinking about what changes I would want to implement, so that's probably why I didn't feel the need to change much. That, or I'm forgetting what I changed and some shit is actually different. You can be assured that it's nothing terribly important, even if I am forgetting some minor changes. I have all the major changes listed in my docs.
Chapter 15: This one is a doozy. I made up for the last five chapters not having many changes with this fucking bad boy. Like holy shit, almost half of it is lore changes. I got a little carried away. Reread heavily recommended.
To surmise the lore changes around the history of his world: Rowan's Nation, the UCA, was formally known as the NIAF, or New Intelligence Allied Forces. They were one of the puppet states controlled by AI, and were the 'big bad' of their time. It took the combined brutal efforts of the world to bring them down. By the time Rowan was recruited and joined, they were nearly fully free of AI, but in need of new soldiers to replace the automatons that they used to use on the battlefield.
He was recruited at fifteen, with him being towards the middle of the pack in age. The youngest was thirteen. They were given immunosuppressants for their extensive biological and mechanical implants and shoved into suits as to not get sick. Somehow, only now is Rowan realizing this is not okay.
Rowan, being built different, was able to handle more implants than everyone else, becoming the most super of the super soldiers.
Side note: This is what we in the biz call cryptomnesia. I watched edgerunners like a year before writing this, and completely forgot that that was a major plot point. Oops. Well, it was either that, or I just had a very similar idea out of the blue, which does happen. I honestly don't know which happened in this case.
Chapter 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20: Very few changes besides prose and grammar! I'm finally done! THANK GOD!
Lore Changes // Additions:
[*1]: Talent with magic is paternal. Vorn's father is heavily implied to be a warrior, so you can see why Burken doesn't think he can a mage.
[*2]: Basically, Danger Sense skills work in shades of "Dangerous" to "Very Dangerous". Since most guards are very high level, all people are labeled "Not Dangerous". This becomes a problem when they need to determine who is allowed in, say, a dungeon. This is one of the many reasons the Dungeon Identity card was made.
[*3]: Hyal'hiem (The nation they start in) has a military very heavily focused on training elites, and they have the best mages and magitech in the Cradle. Hysperion (The Axelite nation) is said to have the best infantry and craftsman, making there general forces much stronger. The elven military is not mentioned.
[*4]: The System uses the mana in the bodies of monsters to create items and enchantements, and the quality of that mana (what mana quality is and how it works is not mentioned) determines the item you will get. Vorn says that you need to kill a monster of at least level sixty to get an enchanted item, but seems unsure about that. He also mentions that the System sometimes rewards people by giving them enchanted items when they do something sufficiently impressive, using it's own mana to make the enchantments.
General Changes:
Added quotation marks to all internal dialogue between Vorn and Rowan.