Story 10 Synopsis, Cover and Initial Art (Patreon)

Thank you all for your patience! You are the most wonderful patrons a writer could ever ask for!!!

I promised that I would tell you all a bit of a synopsis of Story 10 - The Spy That Rocked Too Hard. I wasn’t able to do that last week because the chapter ended up being full-size and taking just as much time as a normal chapter.

This is as spoiler-free as I can make it.

Synopsis:

Lin and Little Spring want to get home to the Indomitable Will Sect as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is to go through the Alchemists’ Guild. But the person in charge of the only branch for weeks in any direction is an eccentric with a grudge against a certain sect that has a particular item they refused to sell him but are, allegedly, willing to exchange with the Demonic Sect.

After striking up an agreement, Lin and Little Spring hide their identity and join the sect to uncover its hidden secrets. After all, every good Xianxia needs a good sect infiltration mission.

While she’s there, Lin figures it would be a good time to introduce some cultivators to the Dao of Rock. Which may come to play a larger part than she suspected in helping her uncover the truth to this whole situation.

I also promised to reveal Story 10’s cover. This is the one I’ll go with:

But I had so many cool designs come up that I had to share them. Like this cool one.

Or this one that reminds me a bit of the art style in His Majesty’s Secret Heroine.

This happy one was requested by a writing friend of mine, Erios, who works on Ship Core.

Now for some art. As you can see from the covers, Lin’s undercover identity is older and her hair is red. Since Little Spring needs a secret identity, I had to figure out what the kid might do for it. And, of course, there were only a few options. But I decided to go with him choosing to look a little older (by a year or two) and choose a hair color that would contrast with Lin’s (which should help to tell them apart). It also helps that this is a universe that had a manhua, so having strange hair colors is rare but not abnormal. So here is a sneak peek at Little Spring’s undercover persona...

He is obviously having too much fun with this whole undercover thing.

Here is a sketch I commissioned from the artist Ysa Se, of Xiao Bai looking adorably innocent. I should really commission more work because this came out too cute.

And lastly, this is a little comic I quickly sketched of Little Spring trying to get Lin’s attention while she’s thinking of something crazy again. Also suggested by Erios.

He also put it through an AI which colored it for me. I edited it a bit.

Thank you so much for supporting me!