Monster Breeder - 62. Under the Mountain, Part 8: Imp

Hadica was built around one of five Towers, an infinite structure filled with floors of monsters, magic, and treasures that the city plunders like clockwork. Most of the city, at least. Growing up in Westhill, Micah's family abstained from all of their Tower's bounties. He became an [Alchemist] at an age younger than most and just wanted to level in peace, but soon ran out of mundane ingredients to brew into potions. Ryan is a budding [Fighter] with the strange ability to mimic beasts, including monsters, but he doesn't understand it or even himself. After a Tower climb goes horribly wrong, their lives and the world around them begin to change as they try to figure out who they want to be.The Salamanders is a slow-paced story about characters growing up in and exploring a fantasy setting. It updates sporadically. Please mind the tags.

“Is Fate the excuse of the forsaken, is Free Will the delusion of the chosen?”Such was a question that Xavier, the Demon King, never had the chance to ask himself. As he lay defeated, awaiting his death, he wondered about the wretched life he lived.'The hero who killed me, the one who held the same ambitions as me. We both wanted good for the people, for the world. We are both two sides of the same coin, yet, fate decided that he will be the one the light will shine on.Perhaps it was me too, perhaps it was my karma for flowing the rivers of blood with my sword. But still... It was fate that squashed the humanity in me first!Damn fate, if I had one more chance, I would've lived for myself more, I wouldn't have taken this arbitrary role of being a necessary evil... This world, this game of destiny... It can burn to ashes for all I care.'As he sunk into the cold embrace of death, a certain [REDACTED] heard his dying wish with amusement and cast their die, reversing the wheel of time one last time and going all in on him on a risky gamble with the stakes of their world.

After blacking out at a class reunion, Li Yuan awakens in a brutal world reminiscent of ancient China. Famines rage, human life is cheap, and the specter of war looms at every corner. Worse still, the eerie rumors of monsters lurking deep in the forests and things that go bump in the night prove all too real.Now scraping by as a humble hunter in a remote village, Li Yuan must also watch over a woman entrusted to his care. Although he’s blessed with a mysterious status window, he’s still just a leaf on the wind—easily blown astray by the sweeping storms of change. Join him as he struggles to navigate political upheavals and unforeseen perils, striving to forge his own destiny as history unfolds around him.Official: Li Yuan crosses over into a martial world where demons and ghosts lie dormant, becoming an ordinary hunter struggling to survive. It’s only after he takes a wife that he discovers a status window. As the stars shift and ages pass, though seas dry and lands change, he remains steadfast and unchanging.

Yun Ran, the successor of Qingfeng View, accidentally got transmigrated into a book due to a blunder.Even more speechlessly, she ended up as a character destined to die early.As the heiress of a wealthy family, not only was her luck and destiny stolen, despised by the heavens, but she was also backstabbed by her own mother, who is the female protagonist, becoming a stepping stone for the male and female leads' happily ever after - absolutely used as a tool.Faced with a disastrous start: No panic, she could simply revert to her old job, setting up a stall for fortune-telling - first three fortunes free, don't miss out as you pass by~Facing injustice and evil: Little ones, take this, descend heavenly thunder! Open the gates of hell! No petty person shall overpower me, all retreat!!!Facing random strikes of heavenly thunder: Hehe, can’t touch me; ancestors, someone is bullying me, come save me~~~Merely running a fortune-telling stall, casually saving people, occasionally undertaking tasks for some hard-earned money, she caused evil cultivators to flee, broke her peers’ defenses, and made wealthy families wary.Everyone heard that Yun Ran had a backing, the Xie family's notorious young master who 'kills people and is short-lived'.Some resentful and envious people kept waiting and waiting, not only did they fail to see Yun Ran meet her demise, nor the young master Xie pass away, but they witnessed Yun Ran amassing boundless merits, firmly sitting on the throne as the number one person in the mystic sect.And that Mr. Xie, unknowingly picked up the habit of making fortune bursts, remarkably living a long life through sheer spending.