Volume 6 has ended, but first, let me say a few words off-topic:
If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. If you're afraid to write this or that, you'll end up not daring to write anything. Playing it safe and staying within a comfort zone means a story is slowly dying.
So, before I started writing this book, I made up my mind very clearly: I will only please myself. I will write in the way that I believe is reasonable and right. During this process, I will encounter and find others who are enjoying what I wrote, who are willing to share this journey together with me.
As for those cannot accept the direction of my book, they are free to disagree with it. Perhaps I've grown older and been too gentle for too long, making many people forget what kind of writer I am.
So, let me repeat: "Clouds may obscure the moon, but they cannot blind my eyes; To seek The Way, even in death, my heart will remain steadfast as iron!"
[TL note: segment of a Chinese poem that means to express one’s determination in walking their own path, regardless of disturbances (clouds)]
Alright, for those who are enjoying my direction, or those who have disagreements but still accepts my direction, let's move forward. This volume, among all volumes written so far, has been the one I’ve enjoyed writing the most and has flowed the most smoothly:
Firstly, the reverse isekai theme is something I haven’t written much about, so it feels fresh. That made the earlier parts of the volume really fun and interesting to write.
Secondly, while Circle of Inevitability did inherit and continues from the grand worldview established in Lord of the Mysteries, there are so many factions and loose threads to take care of, and not to mention I have to consider the pacing of the story. As such, except for the very first volume, I’ve often felt like I was scrambling, having to write here and there. Not only did it leave me mentally exhausted, but the character development and growth details also ended up feeling shallow and diluted. It is a case of “having more ambition than one’s capacity”.
Once the story progressed to the point where they entered Klein’s dreamscape city, things became much less mentally exhausting for me. Because not only different factions are confined to specific areas of the city, but also power levels are suppressed to Sequence 7. The story’s focus shifts back to mainly deduction and unraveling mysteries. This allowed me to finally breathe a sigh of relief, giving me the energy and enthusiasm to delve into deeper, more detailed descriptions, explorations, and character development. For example, Luo Shan [Rozanne], the mirror version of Emperor Roselle, Bernadette, Franca’s emotions and decisions, Jenna’s “self”, Anthony’s conditions in private, and what I personally consider most important: Lumian’s transformation — from initially seeing only one person [Aurore], to Volume 2 where he starts to empathize with others in similar situations as himself, then midway into the book being able to see even more people because of his emotions, and finally to the dreamscape city, showing the effect that Rozanne and Klein's words had on him.
Thirdly, I’ve always wanted to write a novel in the urban supernatural/superpower genre, and this volume somewhat fulfills that wish. All the symbolism within the dreamscape city itself also allowed for a lot of creative space, adding layers and richness to the story.
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Now, let me answer a few questions that I find difficult to address directly in the main story, or feel inappropriate to just give out answers plainly in the main story from a literature perspective.
Question One: why does the Celestial Worthy feel despair?
There are two reasons.
First, the fusion process between Celestial Worthy and Klein didn’t just start recently. It has been ongoing for several years, and most of the time, the Celestial Worthy has been living as an ordinary human, Zhou Mingrui. So inevitably, the Celestial Worthy has picked up some “humanity”. Likewise, Klein has gained more “divinity”. This is why I repeatedly described Klein’s demeanor as “gentle” and “calm” during the final conversation with Lumian. Some things lose their meaning if I just spell them out directly — they need to be revealed through details.
As for Lumian in that conversation, his emotions were far from as calm and composed as he appeared. After learning about the hope for his sister’s resurrection and the origin of the Fool’s aura within himself, he was deeply shaken, which is why he couldn’t pay as much attention to his wording and the way he’s talking to Klein. From there, his emotions transitioned to feelings of closeness, sentimentality, understanding, and acceptance.
The second reason is related to why, before writing Lord of the Mysteries, I chose the Cthulhu/Lovecraft theme and made such a world setting. One reason is that I wanted to portray that even higher existences such as “The Way”, “The Dao”, and “Heavenly Principles” can experience anger and violence, that they can exhibit extreme and maddening tendencies and emotions [Translation Note: Hence he wrote about Outer Deities]
I had already written once about the theme of "The Will of the Heavenly Principle is emotionless and difficult be fathomed" in my past cultivation/martial art novel, and I didn’t want to write the same thing again. [Translation note: Usually the “Heavenly Principle” in cultivation novels are unfeeling, mechanical, and represents absolute neutrality of natural order. IT is the antithesis of the chaotic/extreme natures of the Outer Deities that Cuttlefish wants to write this time around.]
With emotions, hatred, and obsessions, many stories gain more tension, and conflicts become more natural-to-occur and engaging.
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Question Two: Where was the Celestial Worthy's backup plan, and why did HE admit defeat so easily?
The Celestial Worth’s backup plan was in the Western Continent, in Penglai Island. At the time, I laid out three reasons, three threads of story developments, behind the Celestial Worthy’s defeat:
The first thread was the collective effort of many generations of humans in both the main story’s continent and Western Continent. The idea of “even if I fail, my successor will inherit my efforts”. Eventually bearing fruit through generations of accumulation.
Another thread was God Almighty’s arrangements and interventions, spanning across multiple epochs.
And the third thread was the Celestial Worthy’s own "self-inflicted downfall," or rather, "what raises you up can also bring you down."
The great Lamp Genie [Note: Son of Chaos] once said that even for beings of their level of existence, “fate” remains a wondrous and amusing thing.
This statement holds true for the Celestial Worthy as well. HIS three major preparations for his revival ended up becoming the nails sealing HIS coffin. First, the "transmigrators" hanging within the Sefirah Castle, who, after facing many obstacles and receiving many assistance, ultimately awakened Klein. Second, the Error Uniqueness [TL Note: Amon] used to stop the God Almighty’s first resurrection, would eventually be opposing HIM and deciphered HIS true condition and revealed this information to Lumian. Third, HIS decision to seal the other Sefirah on the Western Continent.
This act of sealing Sefirah forced the gods outside of Western Continent to make a choice. [They cannot ascend to Above The Sequence themselves to face the coming apocalypse], so they eventually decided to focus on bringing about the birth of a friendly "Lord of the Mysteries" in order to deal with the apocalypse. As for the Celestial Worthy, the gods would probably all say “HE can just quietly wait in a corner for HIS resurrection.”
In addition to all that, Celestial Worthy left the main chunk of HIS followers on the Western Continent to guard those Sefirah. HE sealed only a small portion of the world’s Beyonder Characteristics in that land so that the people of the Western Continent could never ascend to higher sequences and would be eternally enslaved. As mere ants, they naturally wouldn’t be able to affect HIS plans either positively or negatively.
However, remember fate is still wondrous even for a pillar. Through the relentless sacrifice of generations after generations of Taoists, Monks, and Confucian Scribes of the Western Continent. The people there gradually found ways to utilize the other sealed Sefirah — Their method of “sequence” advancement evolved from crude and dangerous in the early days to increasingly precise and relatively reliable ones as generations go on. As a result, "Heavenly Master" and "Underworld Daoist" emerged, and are being taught and inherited by successive generations.
How could the people of the Western Continent, who now wield such powerful forces, not try to stop Penglai Island and not try to push the Celestial Worthy back into his coffin?
So, as you can see, I wasn’t lying when I said that I have Western Continent’s story in my mind. I had already thought very clearly about the historical background and plot outline of the Western Continent. Of course, the plot isn’t just a plain & direct showcase of the sacrifices and attempts of the Western Continent’s people over generations. I would touch on the theme of generational effort through the lens of the protagonist’s own eyes and experience. [TL Note: No, he is NOT talking about writing a Book 3. He’s just talking about the ideas for it. Now, here’s some copium for you and me.]
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Back to the main point: Since I’ve already established this setting, why didn’t I focus on and write about the backup plan on Penglai Island and the Western Continent’s resistance? Having the Celestial Worthy turn the tables first, and then be defeated? Wouldn’t that have created more dramatic tension and given a greater sense of satisfaction in defeating such a powerful character?
There are two reasons for this as well.
First, after carefully considering the emotions for the later part of volume 6, I felt that it shouldn’t be an atmosphere of celebration, joy, and excitement. It should instead be filled with a bittersweet mixture of sorrow, pain, despair, and hope — capturing that melancholic sense of a journey that can never return to the carefree days of youth.
This is where the opening quote of volume 6 comes in. Despair and hope, in this context, mainly refer to the inevitable despair of the merging process between Klein and Celestial Worthy, and the hope that stems from the strongest emotions of Klein and the humanity that remains within.
It’s the dawn that appears at the beginning of the apocalypse. As long as Klein is alive, there’s still hope, and who is to say, perhaps in the future, there might be a better solution for Klein’s condition.
The opening quote of this volume is a summary of the above sentiment, as well as a message to all of you.
In this emotional state, if I had written a grand and detailed account of Penglai’s backup plan, of the Celestial Worthy turning the tables, and then gone on to depict the climactic victory. How could I follow this victory up by the final conversation between Klein and Lumian, and disclosing the final condition of Klein as the Lord of the Mysteries, and then talk about whether it was “worth it”. Emotionally, I think it would have been even harder to accept by the readers than the current direction.
Klein’s words, his choices, this process fusing while resisting — I’ve actually hinted at them nearing the end of Book 1. I’ve also repeatedly mentioned them in interviews over the past few years. So, there was no deception, nor did I make any changes to just accommodate Book 2. From beginning to end, nothing has changed.
This was already decided when I wrote the first letter of the first word of Lord of the Mysteries Book 1:
"Everyone will die, including me."
"We are the guardians, but also the pitiful wretches struggling against madness and danger."
This is the tone of the entire series, and it has never changed.
The second reason [for not writing fights at Penglai Island], well, is a technical issue. I haven't fully fleshed out the power system for the Western Continent yet. I only have the historical background and the story outline. Power system is a very complex thing to create and flesh out. At the current stage and workload I simply don't have the energy to fully refine it for the Western Continent, so I can only handle the very few instances of its appearance in a very vague and conceptual way for now.
What I’ve shared above showed both my experience gained from writing this volume as well as the flaws and problems that are exposed. While it is true that sometimes you can't have things both ways, it is no excuse to not improve. Knowing where the problems lie allows me to think more and ponder, and may help me find a solution down the road when writing other things.
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The third question: Why was the "World" card the first one drawn by Lumian?
If it weren’t for the fact that the word “world” doesn’t exist in any of the Sequences, not only do I want Lumian to first draw the world card and then asked to switch, I would even have liked to name the next volume as "Volume 7 - World."
The Tarot Card “World” points to the Mother, as well as the inevitable completion and end. Having Lumian draw it holds strong symbolic meaning and represents the theme of volume 7. [TL Note: To help you make sense of the transition to the next paragraph, I will add this: Cuttlefish is saying that Lumian drawing the World card first, not only is about what he said above, but this is also Klein symbolically passing the torch to Lumian]
Similarly, why did I limit the power level in the dreamscape? And why I choose to write about higher powers that are not just emotionless and neutral, but are chaotic, extreme and have emotions? While it’s true that the godliness of conceptual authorities and higher power levels can be exciting, some themes simply just can’t be expressed through that abstract and transcendent of an existence. By keeping the power levels lower and making the gods and outer deities less like machines, I can more easily write about things that matters mostly to humanity, such as passing the torch, the continuation of civilization, the efforts of one generation after another, and the inheritance of spirit and will, and ties them to those higher existences.
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The fourth question: Rozanne and her conversation with her child.
This came from when I was telling my daughter the story of the Dog Man series a few days ago. [Note: Dog man book series, by American cartoonist David Murray "Dav" Pilkey Jr.; It probably has Chinese localization.]
She kept asking me what it means “to protect”, why we need to protect, why, why, why... Yeah, kids at that age are like a walking "100,000 Whys." I feel like her questions were fate's arrangement, so I incorporated it into the story.
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Now, after talking so much, let’s go back to interpreting the Volume name “Dreamweaver”.
Klein and the Celestial Worthy, who wove this dream, The God Almighty and Adam behind the scenes, “Justice” and the members of the Tarot Club who shaped the image of Gerhman Sparrow — all three of these together form the theme of “Dreamweaver”.
I’ve already talked about the opening Quote of this volume so no need for repeating most of the things. Just that - The idea “a moment can point to eternity” can be regarded as one of the themes of both Lord of the Mysteries and Circle of Inevitability. The brief, intense bursts of will and emotion represent one of the many sides of humanity’s ode of courage, as well as the meaning of existence.
Lastly, the title of the next volume is “Second Law”. [Note: Volume 7]
Originally, I wanted to call next volume “Mother”, but it didn’t quite fit with the opening quote I had in mind, so I settled on “Second Law”.
The opening quote is: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." [Note: Murphy’s Law]
Finally, as you’ve probably guessed, now that this volume has ended, I’ll take a short break to organize the story going forward. Updates will resume on Friday at 7 p.m.
Thank you, everyone!
