Hey folks, I wanted to provide an update on this book as things stand with the re-release.
1) Revisions are complete. This took a lot longer than you might think. In the end, formatting and restructuring means that the Webnovel version of this story reaches the same point as Chapter 145 at Chapter 246. There are a few reasons why that's true but the biggest one is that I'm working really hard to make it reasonable to follow the book as a free reader and that means keeping chapters below a certain word count. So, did anything get cut? No, absolutely not. That's part of why revisions took so long.
2) New content. There are a few components of Volume 1 that are completely new. Chapters 25 and 26 (A Duet) feature Wu Ling and Yao Meifeng's first real date (originally referenced in the chapter "Expensive Art Supplies" but now actually in the text.) Also, entirely new, Chapters 54 - 56 (Eclipse's Aftermath: The Battle of Soft Grass) gives some time to our boy Liang Xiong and the campaign he led against mutated beasts in the wake of the eclipse before he first meets Wu Ling.
3) Expanded Content. Overall, Volume 1 is 15,000 words longer in the WN version than it is on RR, and there are a ton of places where a few extra paragraphs add some details or clarify things that y'all have commented on over the course of the book here. They're too numerous to list, but I think they help clear up things like 'is Wu Ling's mom crippled or secretly powerful?' At the same time, the Banquet arc got a lot of attention because I think some of the lads got a rougher introduction than they really deserved. Xiong Dahuo is a bit less creepy and more clearly focused on fighting Su Xiang as opposed to looking for women and Zhang Buyan's character is more consistent with how he shows up later as well. The original Banquet arc read a bit too much like 'all men are scum' and now reads like 'a few of these guys are scum, and they're the loudest voices in the room at times.'
On the note of expanded content, while Volume 1 gets 5 new chapters included in the 15,000 words of new and expanded content, there's only one really 'new' chapter in Volume 2... which is still 20,000 words longer than it was before. All told, spread across the complete book, there's enough 'extra content' to have formed twelve to eighteen additional Royal Road sized chapters, and that's just the revisions and the few added chapters.
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4) Moving forward. I'm finally continuing forward from where this book stopped for the move. I'd say that Yu Jinqi shouldn't be allowed to wander around Bufa City by himself but honestly, is Xiong Dahuo really the kind of person who will keep him out of trouble? Look forward to that and more once things finally catch up there around the end of August.
5) Last thing is personal. I mentioned in the comments a while ago that I was falling behind because my wife was ill. At this point, she's been in the hospital for almost two weeks and we're waiting for her to get transferred to a rehab facility which should be another week or two before she can come home. Things are going to be rough for the foreseeable future, so, as much as I'd like to accelerate the release of chapters on WN to get caught up, for now, I'm holding it to 70-80 chapters a month. That means that the last chapter for July will be Chapter 116, and the last chapter for August will be something like Chapter 210 (I'll be releasing a lot on August 1.) September 1 will get another large release to get things caught up (at least 20 chapters on Sept 1), but I'm worried that if I go too fast, I won't have enough of a backlog to handle days where I can't write while we adjust to a new normal at home.
6) Didn't I say the other bit was the 'last thing'? Yeah, but this one is practical. If you want to keep reading (and keep reading for free), consider hopping over to WebNovel early and taking the free daily unlocks to unlock chapters as they release. You can get at least two unlocks a day for free and that'll cover keeping up in general so when we do get to the point that we're continuing from here, you have everything unlocked to go back and reread with all the bonus edits.
If you want to do something nice, I'd love to hear from any of ya'll in the comments on the new chapters, if you like them, if you think they add much, or really anything (it's quiet over there and I miss y'all!)
Thank you everyone who's sticking with it through the change and I hope to see y'all around in the months to come as the story continues. Life might be rough but I'm not planning on dropping this any time soon and the outline ahead is looking more complete all the time!