adblood 18
Added 2024-10-26 18:37:34 +0000 UTC14,4k words this week!
Thanks for being here, and thanks for reading!
This chapter might start some conversations, so head on over to discord if you want to do more than leave a comment! (I love the comments anyway, though, jsyk)
Comments
The point of this is fine but 0 reason to preach about 2 months of no fights, allow this to happen, and act like it’s Marks fault that the mage kid used secret means to knock him out and they allow them to keep the adamantium after Mark went out of his way to give her some
Ben Heggem
2025-02-04 04:33:01 +0000 UTCSo before giving my take on this chapter I read some of the other comments and the longer ones I agree with. My main gripe is the fact that those resources the "hero" spent seem to powerful to be obtainable on such short notice and the know how to perfectly counter the villan out of his reach.
werotan
2024-11-11 07:59:54 +0000 UTCOkay, so: I’m not unhappy that Mark got this lesson now, and the reminder that the world is large was a timely one. However, I’m going to be dissatisfied until and unless he gets a fantastic revenge for this particular cruelty.
Robert H.
2024-10-29 11:12:43 +0000 UTCI like it! TFTC!
Robbs
2024-10-29 03:29:37 +0000 UTCI finally picked up this story when I found it on royal road. It was just easier to read rather than downloading stuff. I thought it was a bit dark at first with demons controlling magic and fucking with people. But it’s gotten better. Really good power and magic ideas. Feels true to life. The breathing stuff has helped me. As for this chapter in particular, Mark probably needed to learn this particular lesson. Although I thought wagering adamantium was illegal or something. They just looted his shit and there were no repercussions. I hope mark comes back from this stronger than ever
RedInkQuill
2024-10-27 20:45:52 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter! Good writing, I really got mad because of it (invokes emotion=good writing) Still, as other people have said, it feels wierd. Main points: HVP shouldn't have been active yet and this 'battle' wasn't scheduled so it's wierd they weren't punished for attacking another settler. Then it's wierd that Mark isn't going to do anything about getting his adamantium back because of that and just seems content 'giving it to the settlement' without even getting points, when in part 16/17 he was so exited about being able to outfit his friends and he was drooling over all the stuff he could buy at the start of this chapter. Now, these decision coud be influenced because of the luck power girl, but I feel like they will at some point soon look back on these 'mistakes' and rectify them. I'm also convinced that the luck power is the main reason Mark even 'accepted' the battle in first place, because usually he's pretty obedient. The luck power also made the fight a 2v1 so the 'nepo-baby' (as aptly named by others) even tricked him in that aspect. That thing about Mark being obedient is something that I hope will change in the future. Or at least him being less naïve. Death to all monster is a very good motto, but, even after the encounter with Thrastalon cultists, it still feels like he hasn't internalised that not all humans are as honorable as he is/ wants to be. I hope this encounter will go a long way in teaching him that lesson. Besides, this naïvity is also something that will be bad when dealing with demons. Mark wants to avoid demons, but it's already proven he can't so best be prepared and study up on them as much as possible. Sadly he has been in denial about this till now. Lastly: Where can I join the discord😁
Mojr
2024-10-27 20:16:07 +0000 UTCIf the "Hero" is allowed to use dirty tricks, Mark could too. I hope the nepo baby gets his feet cut off at the fist possible opportunity in 3 months time and Mark takes his adamantium back.
Uroš
2024-10-27 08:07:13 +0000 UTCSeems a bit like Aurora is already playing favorites considering she told them explicitly that no hero/villain stuff was allowed for 2 months and then is letting this nepo baby get away with a premeditated attack on mark at his own house. Then allowing him to keep any of the adamantine at all on top of that feels way too lenient.
Ellija
2024-10-27 04:48:11 +0000 UTCI don’t know how Tarto gets to be a hero after that performance. From the descriptions of the fights in the program it has seemed to have a pretty campy/golden age comic book hero tone. Kicking in the head of a defenseless guy while monologueing, then stealing from him for the greater good doesn’t seem like it will fit.
Eddie
2024-10-27 04:36:48 +0000 UTCTotally see the necessity of these events for character/ plot development. I do have an issue with how aurora shut down any reaction/ revenge though and really the entire response from the leadership. Back and forth is like the basis of the villian hero program. Not to mention that she explicitly stated there were to be no villian/hero "events" period for the first couple months. This is days after touchdown from what I can tell and on top of that a expressly forbidden scenario (stealing the adamantium). Just clashes with what we're told in previous chapters.
Driftward
2024-10-27 04:10:26 +0000 UTCI think we need chapters like this to remember Daihoon and actual mages are really fucking powerful. We’ve been around casual power that Mark has compared to normies for so long we’ve forgotten there’s a steep climb above him. He’s also very specialized. So specialized counter attacks will work… him learning this lesson now is important. Which is probably why Aurora was willing to let this happen. To have Mark learn in a “safe” environment.
Cameron C
2024-10-27 01:22:01 +0000 UTC(Ugh, this was a pain to write, I really hate the "enter posts" thing on Patreon. This isn't Discord, UI team! What are you doing.) I just feel like this doesn't make much sense, coming from the people in power. The incentives just don't seem to align. Like, the first problem: letting this happen incentivizes people to do it again. If even one more person runs the "find an out-of-context problem and mug Mark Careed for 5% of his adamantium" racket, that's 5% more Adamantium not going to the settlement, and that's Mark out of commission as a combat asset for another couple of weeks. And that's assuming that it doesn't do any damage to his opinion of the settlement authorities, with him or the other basically-children he's befriended. If this has even a 10% chance of him leaving early in the next few years, then that's basically catastrophic, right? A massive loss of money for the settlement, to say nothing of anything else. And they have to come down hard on "openly calling Mark a secret dragon" or else it looks like they agree, and this kind of looks like bullying a fresh-faced villain kid who thought they were playing so that's also a problem for the Hero program (this is the literal first thing that happened in the program in their settlement!), and if this pisses off Addavein that that's also a disaster, and... Man. Like, this kid just rolled up and managed to shit in the cornflakes of basically EVERYONE in power there. He's caused them half a dozen problems on as many fronts. Unless this is some giant ploy to cow their would-be "hero" and get him under control as a settlement asset (or to put leverage on his important dad), I don't feel like I understand what they're thinking.
Einander
2024-10-27 00:20:42 +0000 UTCMan that was a sucky way to start my morning 😞 You successfully made me hate a lot of people in this chapter though.
josh mitchell
2024-10-26 23:43:54 +0000 UTCI'm thinking Mark's best move is to ask the Archimage about the poison and release all the secret info about it publicly. Make clear that he's willing to participate in the HVP if there's fair play but any dirty tricks will backfire hard, not just on the person that used them. A proportional response, as it were.
Bloodorange17
2024-10-26 23:07:37 +0000 UTCWow... what a downer for the week.
Truck69kun
2024-10-26 23:00:31 +0000 UTCI know this chapter is prolly necessary in the whole story, but it's quite unsatisfying to leave it like this till next week or prolly even later. Looking forward to more.
s476
2024-10-26 21:41:26 +0000 UTCDid not enjoy that but of course we weren't supposed to. Interested to see how things progress from here, expecting more nasty consequences for Mark after his poor showing here.
Grumble
2024-10-26 19:25:46 +0000 UTCAwe, poor Mark. Not how I figured his first fight would go at all! Thank you for the chapter!
FeelingsandFoibles
2024-10-26 19:12:48 +0000 UTC
