Chapter 101: Subscription Message

Important notice first: Tomorrow’s subscription launch! This is my second book—I suppose I’m technically an experienced author by now, but honestly, I’m still a bit lost during the new-book phase.

After all, my last novel about sword cultivators had a rough journey: direct submission, one-round elimination, and I wrote blindly for four months before finally launching. This mage novel is the first time I’ve properly gone through the new-book process.

Overall, I have many feelings—and plenty to say.

Authors—even just web novel authors—tend to have strong urges to express themselves.

But I know my readers are here for the story, not my rambling nonsense, so I usually keep a low profile.

The subscription message is one of the few legitimate occasions for an author to ramble freely, so I’ll take this chance to say a few more things:

1. *Mage Above!* will be an excellent story.

My stats are terrible, my writing’s garbage—how dare you say that?

No other reason.

Because I really love this story.

So to me, it’s an excellent story.

Nothing more, nothing less—just love.

Likewise, because I love it, I’ll do my best to finish this story well.

2. The title.

The original title had no exclamation mark—it was just *Mage Above*.

But *Mage Above* was already taken, so I had to add the “!”

At first, it annoyed me—but then I realized: without it, I couldn’t use this title at all.

So over time, I stopped caring.

3. About the book’s style: First, though the setting is Western fantasy, that’s because mages and Western fantasy are a natural pair—any other setting would feel mismatched.

But when writing, I didn’t deliberately tailor my diction to fit Western fantasy, nor did I deliberately avoid Chinese terms.

The reason is simple: it’s written for Chinese readers; no need to raise the reading barrier.

Besides, this world is mine—I hold the final authority on its interpretation.

Even more, I’ve gone out of my way to lower the reading barrier under the Western fantasy setting—for example, I cleverly used “Chinese-style” foreign names: Gao De, Amy, Pierre, and future major characters will follow suit.

To be honest: the setting is Western fantasy, but the foundation is still “xuanhuan.”

After all, I categorized it as xuanhuan · otherworld continent, not fantasy.

But that doesn’t prevent it from being a pure mage novel—no martial qi warriors or anything like that.

Hmm, and it’ll still be a “clichéd” story, like the sword cultivator novel—full of clichéd plots and an utterly clichéd ending.

Of course, it’s very different from the sword cultivator novel.

After all, sword cultivators and mages are fundamentally different.

4. Prices and economic system.

You’ve probably noticed that prices are a crucial component of this book.

I stitched together medieval European and 19th-century European price systems.

Why stitch them together?

Because this is a world of the extraordinary—wealth disparity is extreme; the lower classes still live medieval lives, while the elite enjoy alchemical artifacts resembling modern technology.

Also, the prices of ordinary items mostly come from scattered historical records, so they should closely match real-world values.

For example, rye bread at 4 pounds and 6 copper coins.

But for some items, even after searching databases and Baidu, I found only rough estimates, so I had to deduce prices based on common sense and known item values.

For example, wheat bread: I found this note: “Historical records show wheat bread prices ranged from several times to over ten times that of rye bread.”

Blind spots are inevitable—if any reader spots a pricing issue, please comment and let me know.

If there’s a problem, I’ll fix it—but don’t just say “I think it’s wrong”; show me your evidence!

Ordinary items’ prices can be traced, but extraordinary items’ prices must be set entirely by me.

For price increases between ranks, I used a rank-increase formula with a multiplier of 4.64.

For pricing different types of extraordinary items, I generally follow this principle: the price of a repairable item at the same rank is roughly ten times that of a consumable item; repair costs follow the same ratio.

Following these two principles, most prices should be reasonable.

But inevitably, some oversights exist—if any reader finds a bug, feel free to point it out.

A more coherent worldbuilding requires collective effort.

5. About D&D: Most spells in this book are taken from D&D.

Because in spell design, D&D’s system is unquestionably the most comprehensive and rigorous.

But I didn’t copy everything—I made some modifications, so don’t treat this as pure D&D, and don’t criticize me based on D&D rules.

Also, only the spell entries come from D&D; all other worldbuilding elements are my own creation.

Before writing this book, I had never touched D&D; my knowledge came entirely from studying and memorizing materials.

So if any reader knows interesting spell applications I’m unaware of as a half-baked fan, please share them in the comments—thank you!

—Lastly, if you have interesting ideas about spell “skill point” builds, feel free to post them—I’ll consider using them!

6. Updates: To most readers—and even many authors—the mage novel’s current performance is mediocre.

In plain terms: this is a performance that could make any author quit anytime.

But honestly, I’m fairly satisfied with it.

After all, my last novel, the sword cultivator, took four full months to launch, and its total collection count at launch was under 1,500.

Yet that 1,500-collection sword cultivator eventually reached over three million words and finished with an average subscription of 5,000+.

Meanwhile, this mage novel surpassed 1,500 collections within fifteen days—it’s now at 11,500.

What more could I ask for? A beginning and an end are an author’s conscience—I’ll keep my conscience intact.

So don’t worry I’ll quit—I’ll still strive to shine later on.

If any reader followed me from the sword cultivator novel, you know my biggest flaw isn’t my prose or plot (disclaimer: I’m not saying those are good), it’s my update speed.

My updates are indeed terrible—I admit it.

So updates come down to “one effort, one guarantee.”

I’ll do my best to maintain steady updates.

I guarantee completion.

7. About the protagonist: My protagonists are lawful neutral leaning good—I won’t write one with heavy aggression.

—I can’t write one anyway.

So in some plotlines, the protagonist’s decisions may not please some readers.

Again, as I said with the sword cultivator novel: this is just a difference in perspective—you may dislike or disagree, but don’t rant or claim the choice is wrong (with righteous indignation).

I gave Gao De the identity of a Peking University math major because I feel “spells” and “mathematics” share a similar temperament and common ground.

And in my view, a protagonist becomes a protagonist not just because of a cheat system, but also due to personal ability.

Gao De’s Peking University math major background is his “personal ability.”

Also, I did graduate from a math department in undergrad and now work in statistics—but I’m not a Peking University prodigy, and I’ve been out of school for three or four years.

So any math-related content in the book is mostly researched on the spot—if I embarrass myself, please forgive me and don’t take it too seriously.

After all, I’m writing a novel, not an academic paper.

7. Miscellaneous thoughts.

Misc. 1: If any reader followed my previous novel, you might remember I said if I wrote another book, I’d never use a system.

I always keep my word—so “Wind Spirit Moon Shadow” is not a system! Really not! Misc. 2: During the new book’s first round, I begged for follow-reads for two days and found it incredibly annoying, and most readers clearly didn’t care, so I gave up and left it to fate.

Same after launch: unless it’s a chapter summary, I’ll Jinliang avoid any content outside the story itself, minimizing my own presence.

Misc. 3: Today I saw a reader comment in the comments section questioning why spell model construction requires potion consumption.

I understand readers’ confusion—I haven’t written that part yet.

Even if I did write it, I’d still understand if you didn’t get it—after all, everyone thinks differently.

And if you’re confused and just vent a bit, I don’t mind.

If a web novel author can’t handle this kind of pressure, they shouldn’t be writing web novels.

But then I found someone else commenting: “He copied the ‘Girlfriend Master’ setting!”

When I saw that, I sighed deeply.

This is reality being more novel-like than fiction: small authors have no rights—they get crushed by random passersby.

For example, with my last novel, many readers accused me of riding the “Steady Master Brother” trend—but it wasn’t steady flow at all; I couldn’t even imitate it properly, and they dinged me for it while my stress resistance was still weak.

The truth is, when I finalized the title and created the book, I’d never even heard of “steady flow,” wasn’t writing for it, and “Steady Master Brother” hadn’t even launched yet—his popularity hadn’t risen—how could I have copied him? To avoid suspicion, I still haven’t read “Steady Master Brother,” afraid I might accidentally replicate a scene and be accused of riding his coattails again.

And now, for this book, I haven’t even written what a potion is yet, and I’m already accused of copying “Girlfriend Master” just because of the word “potion” (sigh again).

Misc. 4: To those who dislike it, *Mage Above!* might seem clichéd, dull, even toxic—but at least one thing I can boldly claim: it’s a unique story.

Because I didn’t follow any book or trend—I simply wrote the story I wanted to tell.

Old topic: about “padding.”

Since you’ve reached the subscription message, you’ve probably sensed the book’s style—detailed, with lots of minutiae.

Of course, that’s my description; many readers bluntly label it “padding.”

But either way, we spent hours researching and building the world—we must slowly paint it in to give the world texture.

The simplest example: prices. Without enough daily-life details, readers see 300 gold coins and 30,000 gold coins as just different numbers—no real sense of value.

Another reason: web novel plots need logic, and logic requires buildup.

For example.

For example, in real life I need five hundred thousand, and I, who never buy scratch cards, happen to buy one on a whim today and win five hundred thousand—is that logical? No, but such things still happen.

But can web novels write like this?

No, if I wrote it like this, my brothers would roast me alive.

So how should I write it? I must first establish that “I” have a habit of buying scratch cards before the need for five hundred thousand arises.

Better yet, add a small subplot: because scratch cards are selling poorly, the vendor decides to increase the number of winning tickets to boost public purchasing motivation by raising the odds.

Only after these two layers of setup can the plot of “I” buying a scratch card and winning five hundred thousand to solve the immediate problem feel reasonably logical.

That’s the point.

8. My first goal in writing this novel, whether it succeeds or fails, is to finish it honestly—the story I want to tell, the one I love. If I can make money too, that’s a huge bonus.

My job is decent, stable enough to barely cover my meals, so I won’t play the victim.

Also, I’ve noticed many good brothers who followed me from my previous sword cultivator novel—honestly, it moves me.

But I still must say: mage and sword cultivator stories are completely different styles. If you like it, of course, welcome.

But if you don’t like it, that’s fine—you can wait for the next one.

Maybe next time I’ll return to xianxia.

Don’t subscribe to the mage novel just because you loved the sword cultivator one—even if you don’t like this one. I’d feel ashamed! After all, earning money isn’t easy for anyone.

I hope the good brothers who subscribe to the mage novel do so because they truly love this story, not for any other reason.

Finally, working part-time and writing extremely slowly, producing four to five thousand characters a day truly requires effort, sacrificing most of my personal time.

So I’m pushing myself to write.

If you good brothers enjoy it, please support the official subscription.

What’s wrong with that!?

(End of chapter)