An_Ineloquent_Pen

Hehe, there's still a lot of sweeping in Di Tou's future... - Pen

Certainly! But the folks at the Academy are also people who had pretty much given up everything they had to make a 'pilgrimage' over, which can be pretty risky in a more feudal/medieval type setting. And in the end, not all of them can cultivate. The ones we met were the lucky ones! - Pen

I'm glad you're liking it! I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to do this arc, or if I wanted to do it at all, but ultimately decided to do it because of two things. First, I think action should have consequences. Seeing how much I've harped about opportunity and tribulation, I think it would be beyond wrong if Di Tou got away scot-free. Second, as a reader and an author, I don't really like time-skips. They're certainly necessary, as people don't become Gods and Immortals overnight, but jumping so far, it's wrong if the character is still the same, and it's also wrong if the character is too different. Letting time flow a little is rather interesting to me. After all, even a memory loss patient has a history while they're confused, and a reincarnation has a period where they don't have their memories, right? Are those stories any less meaningful? - Pen

He did! I think I might have written it and deleted it so it is no longer included, but after using it for a while, although it certainly 'worked' it was as a whole another item he purchased that was 'useful' but useless. Basically two main issues. 1) The technical issues, the gourd spat out way too much dirt at once, making it a bit of a hassle to refill/control. 2) For practicing sweeping, although he uses Void Qi and some of the contents are removed, as a whole he's not trying to 'empty' so much as he is trying to 'restore' so adding contents then removing it is somewhat poor practice. - Pen

It's certainly hard to keep track of, and I'm sure there's some inconstancy as I made mistakes in tracking, but as a whole, I think the timeline at this point looks roughly like this: After leaving the Academy, he adventured around various villages. This process was ~ half a month. Time with Wu Kong & Bei Dou ~ 4 months Wu Ya City/Following Exploration ~ 1 Month Qian Jian Shan (first time) ~ 1-2 Months Haunted Village ~ 1 & 1/2 Months Northern Continent/Escape ~ 2 Months Passing through Wu Ya City/Qian Jian Shan again ~ 1 Month Contemplations/travels in the Central Continent ~ 2-3 Months Stay outside of the Academy ~ 2 Months Do feel free to note if any of this seems incorrect, I'm basing it on notes/backreading, and a lot of it was a long time ago for me in terms of writing, haha. - Pen

Oh my, I just went back. I'm so sorry! I think I know what the issue was... Sleep deprived pen + trying to use grammerly that seems to have an issue with duplicating words sometimes when taking their suggestions. I think it has something to do with highlighting? I can't say I've loved the service so far, but I'm locked in for at least a year... Sorry again! - Pen

Ah... - Pen

That's true! Good catch! - Pen

o_o Will do! Had no internet for a few days due to travels and had to rush quite a few chapters, so sorry if some of the quality is lacking. I'm a very sleepy pen... - Pen

That was something I had to think about for a while when I was writing. I didn't want the Void Qi to be 'darkness' because I don't think that's what it represents in this story. Neither is it the absence of light. It's nothing. And I think for humans it is intuitive to think that the absence of everything is darkness, but I don't think so. Plus, for the sake of how things follow... the Void Qi can't be seen/perceived easily. So... yep. - Pen