Power Stone Goals from now on: I always post a minimum of 5 chapters. Henceforth the following are the goals:
Every 150 powerstones, I upload an extra chapter.
If we hit top 30 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we hit top 10 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we are top 5...well lets get to that first. Happy readings!
Chapter 15: First EP earned
Telling Sam might've been the worst mistake I made in my entire life.
Because the moment we got home—sweaty, breathless, and still mildly panicked—he couldn't stop laughing. I mean really laughing. The kind where your stomach cramps up and you wheeze for air between fits.
For the next half hour, every time he looked at me, he would burst into a fresh round of laughter like he had just remembered the funniest joke in the world.
"You should've seen your face," he said between gasps, practically doubling over on the couch. "You ran like it was the Olympics and embarrassment had a gold medal."
I groaned and dropped my face into my hands. "I look like an absolute idiot."
He held up the phone. "But an idiot with the most entertaining footage I've ever recorded. You've given me eternal blackmail material. I'm framing it."
That being said, we had managed to escape from those guys without any lasting damage. We hoped the girls got away safely too—though part of me still felt a pang of guilt for not checking. But we figured there was no real need to escalate the situation further. If one of the guys decided to go to the police and somehow paint himself as the victim, I had the full video as proof that I was acting in self-defense. So legally, I was fine.
The next day, it was back to shooting, and I was dreading a particular scene.
Anyone who knew the show well might've been able to guess exactly which one I meant. And to that person, I joked internally—I'll give you $10,000 if you guess it. Just kidding. I barely had that kind of money.
Thankfully, that particular scene was scheduled for the last thing this week. I had time to mentally prepare for it.
But in the meantime, I had a different issue entirely.
Colten Haynes.
Sure, there were my intense emotions for Crystal—which had begun bleeding over from Scott into my actual self—but now there was also this overwhelming frustration with Jackson. Or more accurately, the actor who played him.
It was the weirdest thing.
As the season progressed, Jackson's character was becoming more and more antagonistic. Scott grew to dislike him.
And like with the other issue, that same animosity was starting to worm its way into my real-world perception.
Every time I looked at the actor who played Jackson—who, by the way, was supposed to be my gym buddy—I just felt irrationally annoyed.
The only solution I found that worked was this: humanize him.
I made an effort to spend time with him outside of filming. To treat him like a person and not a character.
And slowly, that weird emotional entanglement began to untangle. I could separate the actor from the character again. That worked.
So I figured I'd try the same thing with Crystal.
That day, instead of just packing up and leaving right after the shoot to continue writing to distract myself, I decided to hang back with the main cast. We weren't doing anything wild—just chilling. Dylan was there, Crystal was there, so was Holland, who played Lydia.
We cracked open a board game. Monopoly, of all things.
And there I was, sitting around the table with some of the most iconic faces from the show, playing Monopoly and eating cheap takeout food. It was so…normal.
And in that moment, it felt like the world stopped being so confusing.
…
Nope.
I take it back.
I officially retract every calm, thought I've had over the past few days.
The world is, once again, completely confusing.
It was supposed to be a fairly standard promotional shoot for the show—a routine thing, really. I'd imagined a room full of cast members, all posing for a series of ensemble shots that would later be edited into banners, posters, and digital ads.
That's what made sense.
That's what they said. But what I walked into was a brightly lit soundstage, a wind machine humming in the corner, and exactly two people scheduled to be in the frame.
Me and Crystal.
That's it. Just the two of us. Apparently, the rest of the cast would be digitally added in later. Or maybe they'd show up for solo shots at a different time.
I didn't ask. I had more immediate concerns.
Crystal, dressed in one of those carefully styled wardrobe pieces that looks effortless but probably cost more than my rent, leaned in toward me as directed.
Her head tilted slightly to the left, angled just so for the camera, and a perfectly placed breeze caught her hair and sent it floating behind her like she'd stepped straight out of a shampoo commercial.
Meanwhile, I had one arm carefully placed just above her waist—close enough to give the impression of intimacy, but not so close as to raise eyebrows.
The exact kind of pose that PR teams dream of.
And then, to add to the surreal quality of the moment, she leaned in a little further.
It wasn't dramatic, really. It wasn't a swoon or anything scripted. It was just a gentle press—her chest against mine, soft, natural, and very much within the realm of appropriate staging. But I felt it.
More than I should have.
'This supernatural thing really is the worst,' I thought, staring just slightly past the camera while trying not to visibly panic.
Ever since whatever started happening to my body—the strength, the speed, the absurdly efficient muscle growth—there had been these strange sensory enhancements creeping in too.
Just barely noticeable, just subtle enough to ignore when I wanted to. But moments like this? Yeah, no ignoring it now.
I could smell her shampoo. Not in a creepy way, just... I could. The wind machine wasn't just a breeze—I could hear the way its internal fan blades spun at slightly uneven intervals.
My pulse wasn't just beating—it was thudding, like an actual drumroll announcing my imminent breakdown.
'This is a problem,' I reminded myself, standing perfectly still and doing my best impersonation of someone relaxed.
"Beautiful. Just hold that pose for a few more seconds," the photographer called, clearly thrilled with what he was getting.
Bro probably just wanted to see me suffer…
Crystal didn't say anything. She just shifted slightly, curling one hand against the fabric on the back of my shoulder—just for balance, probably.
My brain, however, was playing an entirely different movie.
'Focus. You're Scott right now. Just Scott. Nothing weird is happening. This is fine.'
I nodded slightly, too late to be natural, but early enough not to look like I was malfunctioning. The photographer didn't seem to notice.
Then, the command came: "Okay, perfect. That's a wrap on this setup."
And just like that, Crystal pulled away, the moment ending with the same subtlety it began. She gave me a polite smile—genuine, even warm—but casual, as though we had just been standing beside each other waiting for an Uber instead of posing like a teen romance novel cover.
"Good job," she said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear before turning to speak to the stylist.
"Yeah. You too," I replied, though my voice sounded like it belonged to someone else entirely.
She was already halfway across the room when I realized I hadn't moved yet.
'Yep. That's definitely going to live rent-free in my head for a while.'
I turned back to the crew, now adjusting lighting and prepping the next setup, and finally took a breath I didn't realize I had been holding.
'Well, so much for keeping my cool.'
…
After the photo shoot and a few more scenes for the movie, I headed back to my trailer. It had been a busy couple of weeks, but I'd managed to stick to a side project that had been on my mind for a while—writing "Lord of the Mysteries."
At first, it was just something I worked on during downtime, but it quickly became more than that.
The more I wrote, the more I found myself thinking about the characters and the world even when I wasn't at my laptop. I realized I didn't want to stop writing.
The story felt solid. And maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe it would take time to catch on, but it deserved to be out there. Leaving it to sit on my hard drive felt wrong.
I knew the kind of novel it was—slow to pick up steam but built to last. There wasn't a flashy hook in the first two chapters, but for readers who gave it time, the payoff would be worth it.
And right now, the online fiction space felt pretty dry.
Most trending titles looked the same, and originality was hard to come by. That's what pushed me to make the call to publish.
There was just one big issue: webnovel.com didn't exist yet. It's funny now, thinking about how that platform would go on to dominate the entire online serialized fiction scene, but at this point in time, it wasn't even on the radar.
What I had to work with was FictionPress and Wordpress. They were both limited in features, kind of clunky, and definitely didn't have the kind of reader base I was aiming for—but they were something.
Still, my goal wasn't to go viral or make money from this. Not yet, anyway. It was more of a test. I wanted to see if the story could stand on its own, and more importantly, I wanted to know if uploading it would trigger anything in the System.
I was thinking about entertainment points, or maybe something else. Whatever it was, I figured it was worth trying.
The last couple of weeks had been hectic. Filming meant long hours, erratic schedules, and not a lot of downtime.
But I carved out time each day—usually about four hours—and during those windows, I wrote.
The Advance Writing skill really made a difference. I didn't need to second-guess myself or spend time brainstorming.
Everything I needed to write was already outlined in my head. It was more a matter of sitting down and letting my fingers do the work.
And that was another thing: my typing speed had gotten ridiculously fast. It was like the writing skill had a side effect. I could easily hit 90 to 100 words per minute without thinking about it. That alone cut down my writing time by a lot.
A full chapter only took around thirty minutes to write, and they came out clean—no editing required beyond a quick skim.
So, over the past fifteen days, I ended up with a small stockpile of chapters. Sixty, to be exact. I was actually a bit surprised at how quickly it added up.
That gave me the flexibility to plan a steady release.
I settled on two chapters a day, which felt manageable. Enough to keep new readers interested, but not so much that I'd burn through the buffer too quickly.
For the launch, though, I wanted to make a bit more of an impression. I decided to release the first fifteen chapters all at once.
That way, anyone who stumbled across the story would have a good amount to read upfront—enough to get hooked, hopefully.
I spent a bit of time doing a final review. Everything looked good.
The pacing was where I wanted it, the characters were introduced clearly, and the formatting worked on FictionPress. It wasn't the prettiest site, but it functioned.
Once I uploaded the chapters and scheduled the releases, I leaned back and waited.
After uploading the chapters and making sure everything was in order, I thought it might be good to get a second opinion.
Sam and Dylan had both said they'd be interested in reading it when I mentioned it earlier, so I figured I might as well send them the link.
I messaged Dylan first: "Hey, finally got around to uploading that story I told you about. Take a look if you've got time."
Then I sent a similar message to Sam: "Wrote something. It's called 'Lord of the Mysteries.' Let me know what you think."
Sam was the first to check it out. He was lounging on his bed, aimlessly scrolling through his phone when my message popped up.
He tapped the link and was taken to the story's first chapter. The title was "Crimson," and the opening word caught him off guard.
"Painful," it read.
He raised an eyebrow. "Alright, let's see what this is."
He kept reading, not expecting much. Sam wasn't someone who usually read fiction, especially not online stories.
But a few paragraphs in, he noticed that the writing didn't feel clunky or forced. It was actually kind of smooth. The pacing was steady, and it didn't overload him with information.
He found himself reading through to the end of the chapter without meaning to. When he reached the last line, he gave a small nod and texted back: "Just finished the first one. Pretty solid start. Kinda curious to see where it's going."
Dylan, meanwhile, had just come back from the gym and was halfway through a protein bar when he opened his phone.
He saw the message, tapped the link, and started skimming through the page.
Unlike Sam, Dylan was more used to reading stuff online, so he had a bit more context going in. He recognized the structure—chapter format, clear headings, no weird fonts or broken layout.
He read while finishing his snack. The first few paragraphs caught his attention, mostly because it wasn't what he expected.
He assumed Jay was just dabbling in writing, but the story actually had flow. The phrasing wasn't awkward, and the dialogue felt natural.
By the time he got to the end of the chapter, he was already scrolling to see what came next. He sent back a quick reply: "Not bad at all. I didn't expect it to be this well put together. How many chapters are up?"
When I saw their replies, I felt a bit better. I hadn't really planned on doing anything major with the story yet, but it was nice to know it wasn't a mess.
So after uploading it, I went to sleep.
...
Authors note:
You can read some chapters ahead if you want to on my p#treon.com/Fat_Cultivator