Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
Spoiler: 23
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Rei, rookie mistake. Don't aim for where they are, aim for where they will be.

She catches on quick enough though.

If he's using his arm as ammo, then he can't shoot her without weakening himself. That's an exploitable flaw, let's see if Rei catches onto it.

Rei is a berserker trapped in a Mage's body. She needs to start lifting and get some Kung Fu lessons or something. Build up strength... Already an experienced boxer so the hardest part will be transitioning from sports fighting to real fighting.

Not only is he a more experienced Mancer, but he's also a more experienced fighter, too. It's gonna come down to force of will and raw power.

"I won't kill you" is the worst thing to say in a fight to the death.

Yess... Do it, Rei. The flesh is just crude matter, don't let something as petty as exhaustion stop you from kicking his ass. Your blood burns hotter than he'll ever realize! Draw out every last scrap of your latent power and then go beyond! PURASU... ULTURA!

...sorry about that. It was either that or a Super Saiyan joke... Or maybe Kaioken, since this is clearly damaging her body. Don't deny tha you were going for a Shonen anger/determination power up, with the prose and imagery you're using here.

FALCON PUNCH!. I'm not apologizing for that one.

Okay, I was wrong during the fight with the thugs. This is the Shoryuken.

So Lord Orochi wants her fire... But didn't prepare Kestral to fight a Pyromancer? So, good. He hasn't read the Evil Overlord List. I'm pretty sure there's a line about underestimating the hero on that.

Now, I have to imagine that Aria and Rei aren't the only pyromancers. We've got the photo of the fireman beating fire away with an Ax. So what's so special about Rei specifically. Or at least her bloodline. Gamma said that she wasn't like any Mancer he'd ever sensed before, so... God I'm gonna have to read the rest of the series just to answer that one question.

Kestral is just following orders. The emphasis on his dead eyes in this chapter and the hints from before makes me feel that he's probably dead o n the inside after his Aves training. I'd feel bad for him if we'd seen what he was like before this, but right now he's just a threat that needs to be put down. Rei doesn't have the means to help him even if she wanted to and he probably wouldn't let her help him if she could.

The death of innocence. A life taken, in defense of one's own, but still. The flower wilts and the rest is silence.

Okay, let's talk about science! A cremation furnace burns at 760 to 1150 °C (1400 to 2100 °F) and takes between 90 minutes to two hours to completely disintegrate a corpse down to shards of chard bone, which was then ground down into a fine powder to create the "ashes" (more accurately cremains) that are either scattered, interred, or kept in an urn by the family.

But a corpse burns much more easily than living flesh, as livingflesh is much more resilient and still has all of it's fluids in it: You can't burn water, and moister makes things decay faster, so draining out the blood and lymph is one of the first steps for preparing a cadaver for funeral rights and/or cremation.

In order for Rei to completely destroy his body so that not even ash's remained in just a few seconds, she would have to make fire that burned as hot as the surface of the sun. At least.

The sun burns at roughly 5505 degrees celsius. Or 9,941 °F

This means that Rei, in a pinch, has enough power... Well, I'll let the expert say it.

I'm not apologizing for that one, either.

(Almost 10000 would be more accurate, but that's not a meme.)


And now to confuse the hell out of anyone following along without reading.
Spoiler: Chapter 24
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Did she burn herself out?

This will end in kisses.

Verde gets it from her mom?

Yep, death of innocence.

Didn't end in kisses.

Oh... Verde needed surgery and her mother was the one to do it? Ow... I don't think that's allowed outside of emergencies for exactly that reason.

Jesus Christ Dancing on Sunday! Verde is the Vegeta! Sweetheart, constantly training even when badly hurt only works for him becuase his Saiyan Power means he can't permenanlty break and gets stronger every time he gets exhausted or badl injured. It won't have comperable gains for you.It's just gonna mess you up.

I have no idea how to pronounce her last name.

Knife will be important later.

18 isn't a little girl dumbass.

Kite seems like a ****.

Luna Crescent and Orochi Yamata are the kind of names that can only exist in this kind of story. That's not a bad thing, but...

And Luna's particular skills made me think of Taken.


I do'nt have very many complete final thoughts at this time, I'll need to take a moment to gather them so that'll be a later post... If I don't forget, but...

It's good. Really good. This is professional "I write for a living and can support myself solely on book profits and related merchandise" quality writing.

I'm hooked. I'll be picking up the sequel once it's done, or ASAP if I can't get it immediately.
Spoiler: Chapter 23
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Yeah, I tend to wear my inspirations on my sleeve. I'm doing my own thing with it of course, but Rei breaking through her limits and getting hot enough to even burn herself is definitely inspired by stuff like that. And yeah, this shoryuken moment directly ties back into the first one, and even a bit further to Rei wondering what it might be like to fly through the air. I'm also just a fan of otherwise grounded fights showing that something Substantial has happened by dipping further into the anime well. If your entire story has been realistic sword fighting, the instant a dude shows up who can hit you backwards ten feet with a glancing blow becomes A Big Deal.

Aah, I love setting hooks and seeing people get drawn in by them. Hehehe~

Ooh, powerful science! Rei can get pretty damn hot huh!


Spoiler: Chapter 24
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Absolutely burned out. After all that, Rei extremely needs the rest. Going by the time, I'm pretty sure she slept nearly twenty four hours.

Here it is, the one sin of Initial Sparks: the girls don't kiss at the end! They obviously kinda want to, and are going to be going on a date as soon as Rei is out of the hospital, but they do not kiss at the end! It's shocking, especially for me, but! The reason for that is simply that the actual "first kiss" scene in my head is... absolutely beautiful, and will be taking place within the first four chapters of Hidden Embers, because the first real event of that book is Rei and Chloe's date.

Yeah the hospital did just get attacked by an assassin who killed two nurses and injured a fair amount of others. Verde's mom has had to do a lot of awful things today; operating on both her daughter and her best friend's daughter. It's a lot!

Verde and her mom's last name is Guérisseuse. If you want to know how to pronounce it. And yeah, Verde's... intensity towards getting stronger and staying fit is a red flag. Girl, you need to rest a bit.

Luna at least has an excuse, which we'll learn... some day. Orochi's dad was just a ****.


I'm excited to hear what your complete thoughts are after you've let it all settle. I'm also... completely overjoyed that you (and so many others!) enjoyed my book as much as you have.

Once Fury posts his last review of the final chapter, and things have settled a bit, I'm going to drop a teaser from what I've written of Hidden Embers so far, in thanks.