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Unintended Cultivator V9: Chapter 58 – Take That Up with the Heavens

🕑 Added 2024-06-28 12:55:03 +0000 UTC

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Gardor

Awww, it's true, Sen is the real victim here. He feels SO bad about all the murder. Figured he woulda asked Mu about her spooky technique.

Angela Roberts

Hunh. I'm always amazed at people who intentionally read a book set in a violent world and are then upset at the violence portrayed. I thought you did an amazing job at showing Sen's struggle and determination. (I may have complained at the amount of mental back and forth though but for this I can see how mentally grueling it would be.) I think my only real regret is that poor resource gatherer who didn't get chance to swear to the heavens. Pretty sure she'd have qualified. Again, as grim as this arc is, it's real. All of it. Down to Kho knowing how hard it is and knowing that it's necessary for Sen. Thank you. Oh, and, someone on Reddit recommended this series, I've been bingeing ever since. LOVE YOUR WRITING. Isekai Terry is also great!

Albadia

Eric, just wanted to take a moment to thank you not just for the colossal amount of commitment you have to us putting our chapters (like a gd machine) but to the story. I picked up UC from a recommendation and instantly loved the light hearted positive sen. But i ALSO loved the Sen that struggled to find a way to survive in the world of cultivation, AND the Sen who struggled to be himself in that world, and all the Sen’s since. You’ve told an incredible story of someone struggling to stay human in an inhuman world and coping with the realizations that our desires don’t always comport with reality. If this arc had been dark, it’s because the world can be dark. but it’s always been with thoughtfulness and purpose by you (in how the story is told) and by Sen (in his decision making) with much less of the “too good to function” MC or the totally amoral MC trope we see so often. So thanks for putting so much of your effort into what has been one of my favorite stories to read. also fuck the haters ❤️

Asad haider

I said this at some earlier point, but I was probably too roundabout. This was good writing, good storytelling. It makes me sick to my stomach stomach, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So, well done. That said, I wouldn’t mind some Grandpa Ming/Ai cuteness or Lo Meifeng humor or Lai Dongmei steam soon. Never can get enough of those.

Asad haider

If I might suggest, perhaps make clear what happens to Wu Gang in the previous volume once you’ve decided? He just kinda stops being mentioned like he was forgotten. And more Wu Gang would be great. Lifen was kinda cringe, but I thought that was the point?

Paperfox

It's heartbreaking to see where Sen has come to - from the kid who was like 'I'm not going to be like other violent cultivators!' to this. I've really loved this arc despite how dark it's been.

Eric Dontigney

I'm glad you're enjoying it. How much did I have planned? That is complicated. I'm not a hardcore plotter like Jim Butcher, who literally maps out every scene in every chapter using index cards. And I'm not a true pantser like Stephen King, who trusts his intuition to guide him from initial idea to complete draft. I'm somewhere in the middle. I have a kind of mental list of story checkpoints that form the backbone of the narrative. They're events that I need to work into the story to get Sen from where he was at the beginning of book one to where I want him to be at the point of ascension. (I think of that as the first arc in Sen's story.) To that end, I started sowing certain seeds as far back as book 1 that would play into these "middle books." For example I always knew that there was going to be a war between the mortal humans/human cultivators and the spirit beasts. You can find references to the spirit beasts behaving oddly in book one. I always knew that Sen was going to end up in the capital, have a conflict with some kind of cultivator organization, and befriend a royal. So, I had Sen say something ironic about never going to the capital because, you know, flags. I always knew that Sen would end up in a sect war. There are seeds for that conflict littering the books. Beyond those checkpoint events, though, I'm not planning out every detail and relationship. It's too inorganic for me. I've tried it before. I literally plotted out an entire novel, detailed outline, the whole nine yards. I wrote three or four chapters and quit because I was bored. I was bored because I already knew everything about the story. Maybe not a great trait for a writer, but there it is. I also find that, frequently, the things people like best are things that grew organically. For example, having Sen adopt Ai was not one of those checkpoint events, but having her in the story added so much opportunity for enriching character development that I kept her. Her existence also doesn't conflict with any of the checkpoint events. Righteous Wu Gang was almost a throwaway line, but referencing him and bringing him back occasionally is a nice contrast to Sen's much harder cultivation path. So, I kept him. By the time I'm sitting down to write one of these books, I usually have a fair idea of at least 50% of what will happen based on checkpoint events and what happened in the last book or three. Sometimes, it's less. Sometimes, it's more.

Spud

I’ve spent the last week reading the series and staying up way too late for “just a few more chapters” and I have finally caught up to here. It has been one of the best weeks of the year for me. Thank you so much for all the effort you have put in to writing the series. I think my favorite moment is still when Sen ends the battle in Inferno Vale. Now I really need to go take a nap. PS- I am curious about how much of the recent volumes you had planned when you first started writing the series.

Niklas Høj

This arc was so heavy, yet so good! I feel like this really cemented Sen's character and growth, and paves the way for him to stand strong and believably protect what's dear to him, all while minimising pain and suffering going forward. Really, really well executed. Kudos! :))

OldCase

Thank you

Corac

As much as I am liking this arc for the showmanship on character growth....I am interested in tge impact this has in the wider world and if all this death and war had his secondary effect of warning off other sects.

Jeremy Patrick

One of the things I dont think most people who had negative things to say realize is... Sen doesnt WANT to have to do this. He doesnt start it. He just finishes it. It hurts him. He would be a wandering healer who fought noone if the world would just let him.

Kody Perrine

I think it needed the time to breathe and let Sen work through all the issues. Also it only felt a little slower to me because I absolutely binged everything from book 1 to the end of what was on RR. Subscribed here and binged all the way to the first few chapters of 9 and have waited patiently for updates lol

Nathan V

It's a rough chapter to read. That's not to say I didn't love it, I absolutely did. I'm glad that it's not a happy victory in a situation that has no real winner. The real definition of "A necessary evil." Lends it a lot more impact than if he just walked into the woods like nothing happened.

HunterIV4

This arc was amazing. It perfectly balances the moral ambiguities and challenges. So many stories either just make their MC a murder-hobo without it ever affecting them or a total pacifist who befriends everyone and has perfect shonen-protagonist ethical purity. Sen is neither...he isn't evil, he isn't good, he's driven and human. This arc makes perfect sense for his character and lets him understand his uncles in a way he never truly could before. It sucks that you've gotten so many negative comments in the past as this book is, in my opinion, probably the best so far. Thanks!

Kourtney Viles

I would actually find your book boring if it didn't have the growth and development you create, I really admire novel series that show case these elements. So, I appreciate the good read that your book series is.

Kourtney Viles

I like reading about personal growth and development, so dark ark or not it's all about the process/the journey of a character so I love this book just as much as the 8 books that came before...

GreenB

I personally think she was important to his growth. I'm sorry peoples comments pushed you away from doing more with her. I hope there might be some resolution between her and Sen in the future, even if its not soon.

Den

I loved every single chapter of this arc!

Ward Yorgason

I think I might understand why this arc exists. Sen used to need others to do his dirty work (like that one guy whose name I can't remember). It seems like this is the part of his character growth where he starts solving his own problems and doesn't need others to clean it up outside of where he can see.

Abdulaziz ALRumaih

Thanks for the great arc it was a wonderful read

IndyBart

The moment he created the sec and allowed himself to care for others he was going to cry at some point. Either at the realization that he did what he did, or standing among the ashes of his own sect over the corpses of his family and friends. He’s only human after all.

Magisch

Might be a Falling Leaf Angle tbh. They have good chemistry. I don't really think Sen having a romance arc would feel fitting if it's not with Falling Leaf in the current state either.

Eric Dontigney

My goal with Sen has always been to keep him functionally human in his reactions. And that meant that he got to be at least a little frivolous and shallow for the first six books. Bad things were happening, but he was a teenager and early twenty-something for most of that. Being kind of shallow and frivolous is part and parcel with being that age. Starting around book 7, he's rolling up on 30, he's rolling up on the nascent soul stage and the frankly terrifying power that goes with it, he's got a kid and all the responsibilities that go with that, he's building a sect, and the world is getting darker by the day around him. Age, circumstance, and his own power simply won't allow for that same kind of shallowness and frivolousness. If he hung on to that, he'd be a perpetual man-child, which is admittedly pretty common in cultivation novels, but would also run contrary to keeping his reactions functionally human. I saw this book as where all of that came to a head for him. If he obliterated a sect and then shrugged it off like, "Hey, no big deal," he'd be a sociopath. If he did nothing, he'd be an unbelievably shitty father and sect patriarch. But being a good father who protects his kid and a good sect patriarch who protects his sect meant doing something objectively terrible. Since Sen is a good father who would do damn near anything and suffer anything to protect Ai, he did the terrible thing. But it had to have weight and consequence for him. He had to recognize what he did and feel it.

CentaureHeart

Yeah that arc was brutal. It's probably the arc where Sen acts like a "normal" cultivator the most. And it sucks for him. But the thing is, unless he had cut himself off the Jianghu there were very little options. Thanks for that volume !

Valderan

It was good right? I think it felt like it dragged a bit at times but I think that was due to release schedule more than the number of words used. There needed to be time for the process to breathe or we wouldn't have had the time to process what Sen was going through. I did half expect a tribulation at the end. Revelation and understanding don't necessarily come from good or wholesome places. Understanding evil, selfishness, paranoia, etc is also part of understanding how the world works. It would be an irony for Sen to be forced to ascend because he was trying to protect his people.

Eric Dontigney

I hate to discourage anyone from reading my work, but if that's the case, it might be time to look for another series to read. If you're skipping entire blocks of chapters out of... Boredom? Disinterest? Loathing for the darkness of the arc? You're not really getting your money's worth from a subscription here.

Santiago Gil de Loño

How can i put it easy to say...this book is one of my favourite ones. You mix hard to swallow decisions, charachter development, Sen being Sen the way i love. And i feel the grouth of him like mine. You have a wonderful way of twisting scenarios and stories. Thanks for all your work. I'm going to be here since all this adventure ends!

Elijah Overland

That was a really, really ugly arc. Which was clearly the intention, and you pulled it off very well. I'm guessing a lot of readers used to the typically less serious tone of cultivation stories are probably not going to like this because of how seriously the topic is handled but that's the price you pay for genuine, weighty art, I guess, some people simply won't be able to handle it.

ehsan haron

You created such connections between the characters that fitting the arc of these chapters. Nicely done!

BelligerentGnu

There were a ton of moments in this arc where I cursed the lack of comments that prevented me from complimenting the writing. I hope that the old monsters can give Sen some counseling, though. He's gotten to the point where he's at nascent soul levels of influence and consequence with only a fraction of their experience and self-harmony . He needs some help buffing his mental resilience.

Eric Dontigney

That was the plan, but the way Sen's character developed outside of my original conception makes it problematic. He is so conscious of the threats he attracts that, on some level, he thinks any serious romantic entanglement would just be hideously irresponsible of him. He thinks he would just be making them into targets, and he's right. He adopted Ai almost against his will, and he'd never giver her up now. But he's absolutely terrified that something bad is going to happen to her. He's so afraid of that he's basically building a sect to train an army of cultivators. An army whose main purpose in life is going to be defending her like the continued existence of the universe depends on keeping her alive.

Eric Dontigney

You're right that I've never really tried to stack feelgood moments. I try to work them in because (I choose to believe) good things do happen even in a might makes right world. Plus, not having them in a series this long would have turned it into some kind of nihilistic slog for everyone. I do try to make these characters feel like people with entrenched flaws, virtues, and biases. I try to give them complicated personal histories because, in my experience, almost everyone has a complicated personal history that colors their view of the world. I even tried to do that a bit with the villains this time because a valid criticism of these books is that the villains come off as a bit one-dimensional. Granted, that's largely a flaw with the basic structure of having Sen as the primary viewpoint character, but it is a flaw.

Viktor

Eric in one of the earlier tomes(books 2-3, don't remember exactly) you said to me(I count that as a promise) that we will have a strong romantic line, but after book 6. FYI I'm still waiting :)

Dane

Great arc. Had to be done Sen, don’t cry bro. Maybe Falling Leaf can give him some perspective. Looking forward to maybe some outside POVs hearing about what Sen did here, and how all the sects thinking about attacking him need new pants. Also looking forward to the spirit beast war, maybe Sen finds something in this sect loot that’ll help Falling Leaf advance at a similar rate to him along with that shadow deer core

Andrew Jones

ngl i skipped most of these chapters till the past two.

Eric Dontigney

I don't think I'm going to talk about Wu Gang because I may do something interesting with him, but I haven't decided yet. If I do, having him off-screen and unaccounted for is useful. If I don't, having him off-screen and unaccounted for is easily explained away if and/or when he next appears. So, I'm totally hedging my bets right now. As for Lifen, there was so much vocal hatred for her that I decided that I never wanted to deal with it again and functionally wrote her out of the series. I had originally planned for them to meet again down the road after she had grown up a bit. I even did some setup for it, but just the thought of resurrecting all of that angst makes me tired. Therefore, my plan with her right now is to never, ever mention her in-text again and treat it like a shallow fling that Sen has mostly forgotten about. Yup, one-armed guy is still out there.

Kody Perrine

I've really enjoyed this arc. The character development has been really good and seeing Sens struggles how he gets through the problems has been really good.

Magisch

I don't like what Sen had to do, in that you've crafted this well enough that I feel some of Sen's pain and self loathing over what he had to do here. I do however think this is excellent writing and you've probably nailed the effect you've been going for. To me, your story has never been about stacking feelgood moments, even though there are plenty of those. You've never shied away from showing the less glamorous side of your world, and I like that. It feels like these are people, with ups and downs that people tend to have.

Gb

Good chapter. I do have a questions over? What happened to Wu Gang? Did he stay in the capital? Did he decide to wander? Also did Lifen go home or end up in another sect? Is the angry 1 arm man still out there? The story is great and there are still some fun characters we could get updates about.

Sean Elliott

Amazing 👏

Rhysal

I have throughly enjoyed this arc, the last few chapters have been great in my humble opinion.

Jeremy Young

Woot

Ben Heggem

You’re on a fucking roll 🤣 I love it man thanks for the chapters!!


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