The Epic Tale of Chaos vs Order - Chapter 14

“A Virtual Dream Device? What the heck is this?”“Is it used for daydreaming? Nope, not interested.”“What? It could simulate reality at a hundred percent? I could live out half a year in one night's time and bring in a replicate of a real person?Hmm, pretty sweet I must say.”“I'll be the only one left in the world while the others are all gone in the first dream?”“Uhm, I'll like to bring in a female celeb at the pinnacle of her glamor, could I?”

After years of exile, Marcus is coming back home. A powerful mage with few equals, Marcus lives in a world full of monsters and powerful adepts, many of which have bad histories with him. But he has not come back to pursue vengeance or start a fight. All Marcus wants to do is reconnect with old friends, build himself a house, and maybe train a successor or two.Alas, the world didn’t stop just because Marcus went into exile, and not everyone is content to let go of old grievances. Strange things are happening in the world at large, too, hinting at a looming disaster of unknown nature. Still, where there is a will, there is a way.If nothing else, Marcus has a lot of magical power to throw at problems.+++Zenith of Sorcery is set in its own original setting and isn’t related to Mother of Learning… beyond being written by the same person, of course. This is a more classical fantasy story than my previous one, with a lower level of technology and stuff like elves and dwarves, but it has a lot of worldbuilding effort put into it and its own complex magical system. The story has significant xianxia influences, but isn’t meant to be a xianxia story.For those of you not familiar with my previous work, I write relatively slowly. I intend to publish chapters at the rate of one chapter every three or four weeks, subject to further delays as life intervenes.

Son of the Senior Chancellor, Luo Wei, loved the wrong person in his past life. This mistake caused his entire family to be wiped out, and in the end, he was cast down as a pleasure slave, and died in the wilderness during the depths of winter.

Somehow, the heavens did not give up on him and gave him a second chance at life. He believed this rebirth was only meant for atonement, and not love. Yet, as he plotted his vengeance, Luo Wei quickly realized that passion would again be his fatal downfall.

The once emperor, the lover from his past life, his beloved in this life, and an opposing empire’s monarch who is doomed to love him, who is supposed to be good for whom?

And who is supposed to hurt whom? A hero chasing after a dream, an empire of a thousand years, a kingdom stretching across the known lands, all flashing before the eyes like a mirage. Is it worthwhile to trade a hundred years of my loneliness to give you a single lifetime of joy?

- Description from Novelupdates

By Xishui River, there lived a family with the surname Ruo, whose luck was so disastrously poor that it was as if misfortune was possessed by their very souls. When other families had bountiful harvests, the Ruo Family harvested not a single grain. Their planted vegetables were devoured by insects, their chickens got chicken plague, their pigs got swine fever…Despite the household being full of strong men, they were either mad, crippled, or blind…What would have been a family of great prospects became the poorest within ten miles.The only thing that others envied about the Ruo Family was its thriving male members! The old lady of the Ruo Family had given birth to six sons, who then gave her four grandsons. She dreamt day and night of having a granddaughter. When she finally got a grandchild, to her dismay, the child was mentally disabled: at over three years old, she still couldn’t speak or walk, couldn’t even eat or relieve herself without help.Everyone thought the Ruo Family would never turn their fortunes around in this lifetime! That was until the half-old three-year-old mentally disabled child suddenly called out, “Mom…”The heavens began to change.The world began to turn mysterious.In the Ruo Family’s courtyard, the persimmons ripened overnight. The vegetables in the fields, nearly nibbled bare by insects, turned lush and green. The old hen that had never laid eggs suddenly started laying…While others faced famine, the Ruo Family’s granary was full.The eldest son was no longer mad, the second son was no longer crippled, the third son was no longer blind…The old lady of the Ruo Family, with her hands on her hips, laughed heartily to the sky, “Who says my Xuanbao is a dimwit? She’s clearly a treasure of blessings!”(This is a farming novel with a hint of fairy charm, where the female protagonist in a previous life was a just-awakened daylily that has reincarnated as a human.)