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Twinned Destinies 41. The Ritual

no mantis by popular vote!

leopard was a little too subtle and sneaky, so

//

Ruyi woke to a slow boiling of pain, under the skin, searing her inside-...

Twinned Destinies 40. On Guard (II)

AN: think I will try devoting Sundays to doing 1x a week of a more conventional litRPG cultivation story and try a 6x Twinned, 1x other thing schedule. Or possibly a 5x Twinned 2x other thing (weekdays/weekends split) once I get T...

Twinned Destinies 39. On Guard (I)

They held a funeral for Mei in the Bakery’s front yard. Jin said it’s where she would’ve liked to be buried.

Mei didn’t have paintings of just herself hanging in the Bakery—she wasn’t that kind of person—but she did have a pain...

Twinned Destinies 38. Neutralize (II)

She didn’t make it ten strides out the door before Jin landed in her path.

“Sis,” he said, voice low. “Slow down.”

“Get out of my way.”

“You have that look on your face,” he said.

“What look?”

�...

Twinned Destinies 37. Neutralize

Weeks later…

The Middle Wall split the round lands of Jade Dragon City in two, curved like the line between dark and light in a yin-yang. It split the Upper and Lower Cities. Dynasties rose and fell but the wall remained, ...

Twinned Destinies 36. More Growing (II)

The Villa of Swords, which housed Li Family’s Jade Dragon branch, sat outside the city walls amid an artificial lake which drew its waters from the White River. Fingers of mist spread over the lake’s surface, veiling the Villa, but Ruyi could ...

Twinned Destinies 35. More Growing

Ruyi’s usual training clearing had been subject to a hostile takeover by a family of wild ferrets. They’d gnawed through half her ‘KEEP OUT!’ signpost. After a brief skirmish and a screaming match—which she won—she drove them off.

Twinned Destinies 34. Necessary Evil (II)

Note:

Added this section to chapter 20, just after her demonification, to (hopefully) make her hiding seem a little more plausible—

‘She ordered body dyes from the Alchemist’s Guild. She found she had to paint he...

Twinned Destinies 33. Necessary Evil

Days later, there was still no reply from Sen.

Ruyi told herself not to panic. It’d come she told herself—she’d wrung herself dry worrying over Tingting’s letters, for nothing. She wasn’t playing this game anymore.

Sen had se...

Twinned Destinies 32. Distance

She woke to a whiff of iron and salt. She cracked an eye. Her hunger was a low-pitched scream; she felt she could swallow an elephant and still be famished.

“Gluh?”

By the bed, piled high, a plate of bloodied raw steaks. There was ...

Twinned Destinies 31. Attempt

Added to Ch. 27: “I would say,” he said at last. “The king of poisons. A poison so potent, so possessive, it even consumes other lesser poisons. Moon Serpent venom.”

Basilisk is too western, so swapped it out. Idea i...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 30. Dragonspire Mountains (VII)

Sen was heavier than she looked, and she looked quite heavy. As she loaded the girl up on her back, Ruyi nearly fell over. Did she have lead for bones? The training boulders at home were much heavier, but they were smooth stable things with steel ...

Twinned Destinies 29. Dragonspire Mountains (VI)

Ruyi couldn’t move. She couldn’t think to move. She was stuck at the bottom of a vast sea of feeling, drowning, slowly crushed. She couldn’t breathe. She tried and tried but there was no space in her chest.

“Incredible,” said the d...

Twinned Destinies Chapter 28. Dragonspire Mountains (V)

Zhilei led them to the kind of cave you’d expect silly children to wander into and never come out; the kind of cave where bones crunched beneath your feet with every step. It looked like it housed a basilisk.

He had a wood torch i...

Twinned Destinies 27. Dragonspire Mountains (IV)

When they entered, Sen didn’t follow.

“Would you like to come in, Miss Li? I have some wonderful Oolong brewing,” said Zhilei.

“No,” said Sen. “I’ll stand guard. I’m to keep Ruyi safe—I promised the Mistress.” She s...

Twinned Destinies 26. Dragonspire Mountains (III)

The carriage climbed up a winding rocky path. As they went higher the trees got thicker, bigger, their leaves narrower and narrower, until they looked like thousands of needles hanging off branches thick as human trunks. It rained much less up her...

Twinned Destinies 25. Dragonspire Mountains (II)

A/N: power levels: (human)

Qi Condensation

Foundation

Core Formation

Nascent Soul

power levels (demon):

• Larval: equivalent to condensation
• Feral: equivalent to Foundation
2023-08-20 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View Post

Twinned Destinies 24. Dragonspire Mountains (I)

After Ruyi became a demon, her research output shot up.

She found she tired much less easily. When her mind was distracted, seized by an urge, she couldn’t think. But when it was quiet she could turn her mind to nearly any task, even borin...

Twinned Destinies 23. Growing

When she got home, the first thing she did was pull Jin out of his evening spear practice.

“We need to talk.”

He was drilling the Nine Sun Rises, one of the signature Yang spear arts which Father had pioneered as a youth. ...

Twinned Destinies 22. Arrangements (II)

Ruyi was right. Behind a grand wood desk sat the footman, smiling as genially as when he helped her off the carriage at the Banquet.

His smile froze on his face.

“It is you!” she exclaimed.

For a moment every muscle ...

Twinned Destinies 21. Arrangements (I)

A/N: changing the story's name to either "twin destinies" or "twinned destinies" -- lmk which you think sounds better!

//

Mei scrubbed the residue off the rest of her oven racks, wiped down the tables, and shut off the...

The Unknown Arts 20. Testing

The ground ruptured under her feet; vines of stone lashed at her ankles. She yelped, stumbling over herself.

A Foundation aura bloomed behind her—that freckly little twig was at Foundation?!

She was so screwed.

She das...

The Unknown Arts 19. ...And Alters Her Nature

Note: removed teeth mutations.

in chapter 10, when talking about the demon cult, Jin says, “I don’t agree with the idea of summoning demons to gain quick power” rather than “eating demons to gain quick power”

The Unknown Arts 18. Second Banquet (II)

By the time dinner finished and the dancing began, she wasn’t shocked anymore.

Just furious.

Tingting wouldn’t meet her eyes. Not once did Tingting acknowledge her. Didn’t she deserve that, at least?

Apparently not.

S...

The Unknown Arts 17. Second Banquet (I)

So the trip did not go as planned.

She had fallen flat on her face. Physically, once. Metaphorically, the whole trip.

But she had it! Stored away and triple-locked in her fridge.

That night she tried sleeping, but she just couldn...

The Unknown Arts 16: The Underground (III)

The Underground was every bit as boorish and disgusting as Ruyi had imagined it.

On one side were tables of huddled gamblers, throwing up cards and coins, smoking so heavily they were shrouded in their own atmosphere of noxious fumes. On the...

The Unknown Arts 15. The Underground (II)

They arrived in the Lower City late in the darkening evening.

The main street looked like a battlefield. The charming little shops had closed up early and wedged boards over their windows. The grounds were worse than she remembered—rucked-...

The Unknown Arts 14: The Underground (I)

Ruyi led her to the lab. It had started off as this little dungeon in the ground, but over the years Ruyi had tacked centrifuges, smoke vents, and a tiny garden to the top for quick-and-dirty ingredients. The insides were strung up with pipes, hum...

Chapter 13. The Codex (II)

A/N: edited the start of chapter 1

It's cleaner now I feel :)

//

Two months before the Midsummer Banquet, Father gathered them at the dinner table.

“Marcus has slain his second,” he announced, drawing a...

The Unknown Arts 12: The Codex

The Codex felt like a bomb sitting in her satchel. Yet each time she tried to read it the letters slipped through her head. It was clear no work was getting done that night.

She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. She couldn’t understand how ...