#dragon raja theory

[starburstchoir]

i know dragon raja is based on the book and the mc in the mmo is made up for it but....suspiciously similar backstory for both the dragon raja mc and life makeover's mc if some of these theories are true

[nsk96]

I posted 6,445 times in 2022

That's 1,256 more posts than 2021!

252 posts created (4%)

6,193 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@rurifangirl

@a-chaotic-dumbass

@spoopy-fish-writes

@yorunokatana

@anonymousgeekhere

I tagged 1,955 of my posts in 2022

#dishonored - 286 posts

#dragon raja - 229 posts

#dragonraja - 144 posts

#the outsider - 133 posts

#outsider my beloved - 109 posts

#dragon raja fan fiction - 105 posts

#corvo attano - 90 posts

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#dishonored 2 - 61 posts

Longest Tag: 99 characters

#here’s some gold stars for you too ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Starting a game cuz I feel like procrastinating. The most recent 5 characters in your camera roll are your new roommates:

Mine: Todoroki, “Walmart” Chime Gen, Bondarev, Yasha, and Johann Chu

See the full post

61 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

#4

Art Help

I redid this list because broken links 💀

General Tips

Stretch your fingers and hands

Art is for fun

Never too late to start/improve

Using a tablet

Editing software: pictures & video

Moodboard resources

Comic pacing

Watercolor

Coloring

Color Theory (not children's hospital)

Gold

Dark Skin undertones

Dark Skin in pastel art

POC Blush tones

Eyes colors

Human Anatomy

POSE REFERENCES

Wizard Battle poses

Shoulders

Tips for practicing anatomy

Proportional Limbs

Skeletons

Hair Directions

Afro, 4C hair

Clothing

Long skirts

Traditional Chinese Hanfu (clothing reference)

See the full post

67 notes - Posted December 9, 2022

#3

It’s always: “gasp! The Outsider” this and “show yourself” and “black-eyed bastard” that.

It’s never: “hey Outsider, how ya been? You look great. Taking care of your health these days? Did you see what happened in Dunwall? I know you did but I thought we’d talk about it anyway.”

The guy obviously loves talking, like please, someone sit down and have a conversation with the precious void boi.

73 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

#2

So I was watching this show called “Motherland Fort Salem” and these three girls reminded me of some other group and I couldn’t quite figure out which group

Until the other day when I saw a post about some of my favorite childhood cartoons and realized…

See the full post

80 notes - Posted April 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay why didn’t anyone warn me of the drastic changes WEBTOON made to their app?

What the heck is this shit??? Coins?!!

I left the app alone for one year and this shit happens? I barely have time to read so I’d binge when I get time!

I’m just trying to pick up where I left off and now I have to wait a whole day just to read another chapter? 😩😭

Like damn bro, I was always happy with just the ads😭

102 notes - Posted March 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[watanabes-cum-dump]

Ok so Soul Dancers...

If you really think about it from a more anime based perspective, Soul Dancers are pretty overpowered. I mean, they’re Powerful magicians who can bend time and the fabric in between worlds. In the game, sure, they’re nothing more than Support, but, imagine a Soul Dancer in an anime adaptation of Dragon Raja. 

Think about that for a moment. 

They can speed up time, use powerful magic to heal themselves and others, and holy shit they have a GEMINI who NEVER leaves they’re side and can DOUBLE their attack power. Can you imagine what an S ranked Soul Dancer with little control over their powers could do? Imagine the damage of unharnessed magic that can BEND time and space. 

Now, first of all, let’s take a look at each class and how much magic they output. 

Most of the melee Classes output very little magic. I mean, it’s a lot, but, compare it to most of the ranged classes and you really start to wonder. Gunslingers and Blade Masters both output the least, maybe throw fighter class in with them. Gunslingers and Fighters rely on technology rather than magic. Fighter have their gauntlet thingies and their robots, Gunslingers use high tech weaponry like satellites, walking land mines, and machine guns.

Now, the other classes. 

Blade Masters and fighters both rely on physical strength. From what I know and have observed, Blade Masters lean more on physical damage. Fighter classes too since they use martial arts.  

Assasins and Reapers use a combination of both physical and magical damage, with the sacrifices being extremely fragile. They both output tons of magic and they have melee skills too. Sure, in game Reapers aren’t shown to use it, but, Reapers clearly swing their scythe as if to attack someone close to them, sure sickles offer more range than say a sword, but they aren’t purely ranged either. The official game description says that they’re magicians, so their scythe could channel their power like a wand or staff, that could also be used for combat. 

And the two classes with the most use of magic are I think the Puppeteer class that’s coming out soon, and Soul dancers. They carry no weapons and use raw magic to deal damage. 

So, this begs the question: where in the FUCK did Soul dancers come from? 

I have two possible answers, but before I get into those, I feel the need to bring this up. 

Gender and their rarity.

I think that Soul dancers are rather uncommon, but not completely un heard of. Philosophers know about them, so they probably have the same ratio to blind and deaf people. You can go your entire life without meeting someone like that, but they’re not incredibly rare either. But, they could have dwindled over the years, maybe once it was like that, but at one point they disappeared completely and were so rare and so hard to find that most people who claim to be Soul dancers are hoaxes. 

The second thing is Gender. 

I have a reason to believe that Soul Dancers are probably more common in females than males. Why? Well, if you look at all the classes, the Soul dancer shows you the female option. It’s small, but, I also believe that it might be true. Soul dancers are delicate, and even if a Soul Dancer were to be a male, they wouldn’t have much physical prowess. Girls are naturally built smaller, of course, they can be stronger than average guys too, but, girls are usually smaller and usually don’t have the brute strength that men do. This is just my opinion, and with the twirling and everything, I have a reason to think so. 

Male Soul dancers would do great at femboy hooters lol

Now, the two possibilities of the class that I mentioned:

The first that during MC’s time, Soul dancers were in the ‘uncommon, but not completely unheard off’ ratio. Herzog knows this and plucks MC off the streets or whatever, hoping to combine their Soul Dander abilities with dragon blood. And maybe after the bombing, Soul Dancers disappear and are a distant thing of the past. Anjou and the older characters would know about them, but since they aren’t Soul Dancers themselves and probably don’t know anything about them, they can’t offer any information to MC. 

The second, is that Soul Dancers are supper fucking rare and Herzog manages to get his filthy hands on MC, probably hearing through the grape vine that a Soul Dancer had a child somewhere. I personally believe that Herzog killed MC’s parents when they were too young to remember so yeah. Anyways, he brings the little one to Siberia to multiply their potential with dragon blood. 

Side note, I think that Dragon Blood enhances any and all abilities, and since MC was forcibly injected as opposed to being born with it, their talent is unstable. But that’s probably not true so NEXT.

But that really makes me wonder, where did MC learn how to use their powers if it’s so rare? Maybe the Gemeni taught them? They do double the damage so they must know about it. Idk, Soul dancers are just weird in the sense that considering the setting, they wouldn’t even know how to use their powers. I mean, all the classes are like this, so, I’m gonna make more theories on it I guess. 

I’m probably just over any living this but lol that that’s what theorists do. 

[decemberspeech]

dragon raja theory time babes !!SPOILERS!!

so if you played through the prologue and didn't just skip past it, you probably know what happened, and you likely know Renata, but more importantly, Z.

we know nothing about Z. he's available as a 5 star ally, but his gallery info barely gives anything about him. we don't know his birthday or star sign, and his only aspiration is to protect Renata. at the end of the prologue, Z picks up her dead body, and says that he promised her that he'd give a "gift." he then makes a promise to her: that he will take her with him, no matter where he goes, until the end of their lives.

now, we're going into spoiler territory. if you care about Dragon Raja's plot, turn away.

everyone gone? good. now, Renata is not actually dead. if you obtain the ally Zero, or Party Zero, you may notice something: Zero has Renata's prologue voicelines. and if you get to chapter 10, level 87 and do the story quest for it, she enters the story. and our suspicions are confirmed: it is Renata, back from the dead. how? this is where Z comes into play. i have him as an ally, and if we look at his exclusive belonging...

it's a Pact. the description says it's "A pact that brings life back from the dead and makes the withered bloom again." many times, Renata is referred to as a flower, an Arctic bloom. the pact Z has brought Renata back from the dead, and made her bloom. okay, he can bring people back to life, cool. now, let's look at his Ally Bonds.

looks pretty good. Zero, Herzog, Bondarev and... Ming-Z-Lu?

that seems strange. why would he have a bond with Ming-Z-Lu? unless that pact was with him, to bring back Renata, much like how Luminous made a deal with Ming to save NoNo, the price being 1/4th of Luminous' soul. but we know who Luminous is, he's a bumbling coward with an S ranked Extra Skill. we don't know who Z is.

we know a few things about Z: he likes Renata, is constantly tired, doesn't like Christmas, knew that Herzog was evil, and he seems to be sick in the prologue. Herzog mentions giving him medicine when Renata makes up an excuse for him to not be at training. maybe this is because of him giving up part of his life? did he do this before?

let's look back at Z's gallery info... height of 155cm, his blood type is AB, and his VA is someone named Akie Kotabe. alright, neat! wait... let's look at the gallery info for Ming-Z-Lu.

AB blood type, height is 155cm, VA is Akie Kotabe... the exact same as Z. that's strange, but not really proof of anything. i mean, sure, his name is also Ming-Z-Lu, but that can just be a coincidence... except for one Anecdote.

if you go to Black Swan Bay again and sleep in your old bed, there's a chance for you to get a message from Z, in your dreams. of course, you question where the hell he's been, but instead he just says this:

that sounds a lot like something Ming-Z-Lu would say, doesn't it? trying to get you into some sort of deal. it also implies he has some sort of wish making ability, if he can make you powerful and wealthy with the snap of his fingers. i accepted, but if don't agree, he says this:

if you can't read it, the player says "Sounds boring." in response, Z says "Go to sleep. Have a nice nightmare." pretty rude. that's also the same way Ming-Z-Lu responds to Luminous not wanting to make another deal; he gets upset.

there's also the fact he says that he'll see you soon. now, you can do this anecdote at any level, as long as you've cleared the prologue. currently he doesn't show up besides the prologue, but the global server isn't the first Dragon Raja game.

Dragon Raja is originally a Chinese game (like Love Nikki!) and our server is actually behind them. the Chinese server has been around since summer of 2019, and if you use QooApp, you can get access to it. they have about 4 more chapters to the story than the global server, so it's possible Z shows up again. (i don't have Z on the Chinese server so I can't confirm.)

so what does all this mean?

i believe that Z didn't make a deal with Ming-Z-Lu. i think that Ming-Z-Lu and Z are the same person in different forms.

let's look at two other allies that we know are also the same person: Ruri Kazama, and Chime Gen. Ruri is Chime's "demon form," since Chime seems to be a part of the Devil Clan. the game also attributes things Chime says to Ruri. there's a gossip question asking which person said that Luminous has a lion hidden in his eyes. in the story it's Chime that says this, but the correct answer is Ruri Kazama. the game spoils itself so often it's ridiculous, like how another gossip question asks which character Renata is, to which the answer is Zero.

let's look at Ruri and Chime's gallery info to compare.

they're identical, except for their blood type. this might be a translation error, or a side effect of the demon form. this is like how Ming-Z-Lu and Z's entries are identical, except for their interests.

Z being another form of Ming-Z-Lu would explain why Z is so tired. it must take up a lot of energy to keep up being another person, especially if it's for a long period of time. after all, Z seems to be known and trusted in the orphanage. others can see the people Ming-Z-Lu comes up with, like how he made hair stylist and fashion designers exist for Erii and Luminous during Tokyo Love Story.

given all of this, it seems likely that Z is really another form of Ming-Z-Lu, or at the very least, he's a creation of Ming-Z-Lu's making. we'll just have to wait for the story to continue to see what happens.

but that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY

(special thanks to my club, GodTier of S9-Ice Throne for being real OGs, for telling me about the dream Anecdote, and for enduring my insane infodump nonsense.)

[hueneon]

My Interests

If You’re interested in….

Chernobyl

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Then let’s be friends <3.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Genji Heavy Industries (End) Turning Point

After all this way, we finally see the MC reach the turning point in her life.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you very much. I hope this has made you love the world of Dragon Raja

You could no longer see Caesar or Chu Zihang, but at this point, you weren’t looking. Your eyes were locked on Chisei Gen. Caesar’s final orders rang in your head like a command from Heaven. Your hands were caked in dried black blood. You were trembling with pain and fatigue, but that last brief surge of Blood Rage had revived your senses enough to stare at him, much like a cat would, eyes dilated and your body flexed. If he moved a muscle, you would draw your weapon.

Chisei watched the flames with resigned calmness however. He was tied firmly and his life was in Caesar and Chu Zihang’s hands just as much as yours was. “MC.” He said. “Where did you learn how to fight like that?”

He’s looking at you now, with the fire reflected in his eyes. His stare was confident. Even though he was asking a question, there was no question in those eyes. No curiosity. It was as if he were asking a question he already knew the answer to.

But how could he know the answer? The hairs on the back of your neck stood up. You’d learned how to shoot and hand-to-hand combat from your training in Black Swan Bay. Your training in Black Swan Bay was mostly centered however on your Yanling, focusing your spiritual energy into the ground, learning the limits of your power, how much you could manipulate the earth without suffering physical effects… This was all ingrained into you in a way that bordered on lab experiments with each result meticulously recorded and logged. It was just constant testing and while you were being tested, you learned your power and how to control it.

But Chisei hadn’t seen you use any of that. What he had seen from his vantage point in the mural hall rafters was you, walking out after Caesar and Chu Zihang armed with nothing but the laser sight of a Soviet era rifle and a pistol which you used to bait a member of the Deadpool into attacking their own kind. He observed how closely you could read the actions of the deadpool and how you picked her targets to attack. He heard your giddy laughter echoing on the mural hall walls.

After that, he would have seen clearly how you fearlessly approached that deadpool after she was exhausted, shot her in the head and then used her severed claw as a knife. How you used the non-lethal bullets from your pistol like a fist. How you were using that claw as your only weapon to render these A-ranked super monsters as weak as worms. It was no wonder that he looked at you when he was using Majesty to subdue the deadly and left a few living ones in his trail of mass destruction for you to kill. He had wanted to observe you close up.

When you don’t answer immediately he turns back to observe the fire. “Among the Hydra we have a name for that fighting technique you’re using. It’s called “God’s Eyes”. The heart of God’s Eyes is to subdue the enemy by your understanding of their movements and by your complete control of the battlefield. According to those that describe it, it takes at least a decade to approach mastery of elements of this technique. But you have mastered all of it and you’re so young. I’ve never seen anyone use God’s Eyes like you. You had to have learned from a master… but there are no masters of this technique. Only a few books that reference it or reference other works that describe it. It’s a technique that’s lost to history.”

“There’s only one man I know who can use God’s Eye on your level. And that’s Hilbert Ron Anjou. But you two just met a few weeks ago. Right?”

His eyes watch your face, but you nod, completely innocent, and his eyes narrowed to slits. You just stare back at him. He finally sighs. Whatever theory he may have had about where you learned your technique collapsed.

“Anjou can clear a room with just his pocket knife. Just like you. I don’t know anyone else who can do that.”

You do, of course, but disclosing that involves your deepest secrets and given the huge deadpool tank you found at the bottom of Genji Heavy Industry, you can be excused for not exactly trusting this man with secrets about your past. “Perhaps after this is over, we can talk more. Over sake?” You ask, taking a page from Caesar’s book.

“I would like that.” He sighed again. “I would also like to know how someone like you ended up with these people from Cassell?”

“I ask myself that every day.” Your lips quirk upward.

This was the first time you actually had a moment to sit and talk with Chisei Gen one on one and it actually wasn’t that hard. It took your mind off your pain enough for you to crack a little joke. Chisei lowers his eyes and, much to your delight, he chuckles and your smile grows.

“For my last moments, if these are my last moments… I suppose I could have worse company then these weirdos. My only regret is that Lu Mingfei isn’t here. But knowing him…” You roll your eyes to the ceiling, imagining him flapping his arms and squawking about how much danger you were in. “...nah, I'll take that back. What I really regret is that if we don't make it out of here, he’ll have lost all his friends. I know how that feels. I don’t want him to feel that.” 

You rest your head against the wall of the elevator and gaze out into the flames. “Looking back, my life is very odd. Even if you ask me a thousand questions about myself, I wonder if I would even be able to answer a single one. Simple things like… where were you born… Who are your parents? Where did you go to school…?” Your voice trails off. After a moment's thought, you shrug.

Chisei looks at you, silent.

A burst of gunfire and a sudden sharp explosion made you squeak and flinch! This was it, you think, this was the end. Was it really going to end this way? Caesar’s last order was to make sure that Chisei Gen did not touch the elevator door, but he also told you to stop seeking death! You only had your miserable little peashooter pistols, your miserable little claw and your miserable little knife and your miserable laser pointer.

You were suddenly struck with a sudden and intense desperation like nothing you’d ever felt.

You force yourself up to your feet while Chisei Gen sits there astounded.  “What are you doing?” Chisei shouts. 

Your voice is choked off as you stagger toward the elevator door, groaning with intense pain, but this fierce determination drives you forward. Chisei can now see the full view of your ruined back, your skin-tight combat suit is torn to ribbons where the Deadpool’s claws sank deep into muscle tissue.

Caesar and Chu Zihang were visible again! Caesar held two Sten submachine guns with both hands and Chu Zihang had one. The two back to back were using the bullet screen to suppress the group of deadpool while moving slowly in the direction of the elevator shaft. The group of deadpool that had been overturned by the shockwave of the explosion regrouped, their hideous golden eyes surrounding Caesar and Chu Zihang, the bullets repeatedly knocking them to the ground as they repeatedly straightened up and charged forward. The only thing that protects them is the bullet screen in front of them, and once the screen disappears the group of deadpool will pounce and bite.

You stand in the door, a silhouette in the light of the flame, shoving a magazine into your pistol. Your black hair is being pulled by the intense flaming winds like you were standing right in the breath of a massive creature. You finally relent. You finally gave in. You finally believe the last words of your friend. You finally believe the words of Caesar and the eyes of Chu Zihang.

You have to live!

The pale red columns collapsed one by one. The hot wind and black smoke rampaged through the hall, the frescoes curled in the fire, and the painted dragons and snakes finally flew away in the black ash.

The two rival men were fighting back to back, and the group of deadpool were getting closer and closer, so close that Caesar once passed the barrel of his gun into the deadpool’s open mouth before shooting it out. Chu Zihang stuck his sword and Onimaru in front of him, so if a deadpool got too close he would draw his blade and force it back, and then pick up his gun and fire.  But sooner or later the bullets will run out, just like a man holding a torch to scare the wolves would eventually see that torch go out. 

So you wait, watching them, hand on your pistol, observing the battlefield with God’s Eyes! You knew how many pieces of ammunition you had and, from your observation of Caesar’s reloading, you could make an estimate of how much he had left. When you determined that they were close to being out of ammo, you raised your pistols and opened fire!

The staccato rhythm of your pistols is like the rhythmic hits of a boxer’s gloves. The bullets strike the sensitive areas of the beasts, their eyes, their open wounds, their burns. They hiss and flinch as though being stung by a sudden swarm of bees. You drop the empty magazine and reload and shoot again and again and again, cursing them with the deepest and blackest of words. 

Each bullet was precious, like a drop of life’s blood. You couldn’t waste a single one. You watched the behavior of these monsters. If they reached for your friends, your bullets stung them like the whip of a ringmaster before vicious tigers. If there was even a possibility that they might think twice about doing it again, your quick and painful punishment gave them pause. If they hesitated, you rewarded them by not shooting them. But if they looked ready to pounce you shot them where it hurt.

Your support is just enough to turn the tide. The resistance of the deadpool falters and this time it doesn’t recover. If they rise up they’re either hit by the two men and if they’re not hit by the two men, they’re hit by the pistol fire.

A strange noise like the pop and snap of firewood shifts your focus and your pistol swivels and points at Chisei. “Stay Down!” You roar.

Chisei’s face is a mask of pain. His body was writhing strangely, his joints were all dislocated, and the bones moved independently of each other. It was like his arms had turned into spaghetti!

“I said stay down!” You lower your pistol to his ankle and pull the trigger. 

Click. Your eyes widen.

Chisei smirks. “You’re out of bullets. It’s okay…” He grunts. “I’m not going to run. If they want blood…” He gasped. “I’ll give them blood.” Before you could comprehend what was happening, he suddenly freed himself from his restraints by wiggling out of his shirt. His bare chest looks like an ugly bag of broken bones! He cut himself across the wrist with Dojigiri, staining the white fabric of his shirt red. He stood up and walked to the elevator entrance and threw the shirt into the fire.

With that last act, Chisei Gen completely collapsed. You tried to catch him but the action pulled at your wounds and you both went down to the floor. Both you and he had given your all.  You let him fall to the floor and just tried to annoy them with your laser pointer while you grit your teeth, but the Deadpool had a far more tantalizing target in mind already. You realize what’s happening, but you can’t pull the unconscious Chisei back into the elevator. You’re so choked with smoke and exhaustion you can’t even call for help.

"What's going on?" Caesar couldn't believe his eyes, the smoking muzzle points to the ground. The guns in his right and left hands stopped firing, but still no monsters pounced on him. 

They were about to run out of bullets when the swarm of deadpool suddenly withdrew from them and scrambled to slither up to a corner of the hall. A minute ago they were still a seasoned suckling pig roasting in the fire, and now they suddenly turned into a disgusting slop, and the whole group just left.

"Hurry! Run!" Chu Zihang yelled. 

Caesar suddenly woke up. Tight now they do not have time to think about the rationality of this miracle. The fire burning C4 explosives may explode at any time. It was still too early to celebrate. They simultaneously took off running. They shed off every entangling weight, taking off their heavy windbreakers, which still had scattered firearms and bullets in them. There was a loud bang and a searing wind behind them. It was some piece of C4 explosive behind the shaded wall that had exploded. It was so powerful that it completely took the wall down.

The first thing he saw when he cleared the smoke was you struggling with Chisei in the elevator door. His fury spurred him faster. He was coming at you like a raging bull. You couldn’t even begin to explain! Caesar didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, and blood exploded from Chisei’s calf. 

“Caesar!” Your voice is a useless squeak. Caesar had grabbed Chisei and unceremoniously tossed him like luggage back into the car.

Chu Zihang picked you up and hit the door close button on his way in.

The pain woke up Chisei  and he was just about to struggle to sit up when Caesar rushed into the elevator and threw a straight punch at his face.

“Stop…” Your voice is just a hiss, and you realized that you’ve completely lost your voice. Perhaps the heat, the dry air, and your screaming in pain had ruined your vocal cords.

The chain of explosions had already begun. Blinding sun-like lights are lighting up the corners of the hall as waves of hot air swept through at speeds that exceeded those of a hurricane, setting other blocks of explosives ablaze. The old freight elevator squeaked and closed with difficulty, and with a few centimeters left in the doorway, a hot air stream a few centimeters wide burrowed into the elevator, a bright red that ignited the remaining files in the car. But the elevator door finally closed. 

It slowly sank into the elevator shaft, and a few seconds later there was a heavenly explosion from above, and a bright wave of air rushed into the elevator shaft, throwing the burning corpses of the deadpool into the void. The snake shadows burned in the fire, their fat dissolved, until gradually  the bronze skeletons were revealed. These tyrannical creatures finally were cut off from life, and as they died they gathered around a shirt and shredded it.. 

As the freight elevator rumbled down, Caesar stomped hard on the burning documents, and then lay down exhausted on the file box, and kicked at Chisei’s face.

“Stop it!” You hiss. But Chu Zihang held you tight and you were far worse off than he was. Turned out that weird period style armor had actually protected him quite a bit. You dug your nails into him but he didn’t even flinch.

Chisei said nothing, powerlessly wrapping a cloth band around the wrist wound. He had cut an artery, and soaked at least a fifth of the blood in his body into the shirt. He made his shirt irresistible to the monsters. The result was that he couldn't even stand up. Caesar wasted no time, tying him up even tighter.

You’re breathing a bit easier now. Instinctively, you take deeper breaths. As your adrenaline lowers, fatigue crashes again like a weighted blanket. Breathing now became agony, but with no voice, no one could hear you moaning. There’s just the strange whistling noise, like the soft whine of a little dog.

"What do we do with this guy?" Caesar pointed at Chisei with the Desert Eagle.

You don’t even lift your head.  

"It's naturally best if we can take him prisoner. But it's hard to leave Genji Heavy Industries by ourselves in this situation, and it's even harder to take him away." Chu Zihang said. He tilts his head down to look at you. “She doesn’t seem to want any harm to come to him.”

"How about using him as a hostage threat? There is no way the Yakuza would give up the precious Emperor, right?" 

"It's hard to make sure we're not followed, Tokyo is the Hydra Yakuza's home turf, and we won’t be able to escape it no matter how much we run.”

"It seems the best way is to shoot this guy. Sooner or later the Academy and the Hydra family will have to go to war, such a precious weapon can not be left in the hands of the other side. Anyway, his body is flowing with dragon blood, I have to kill him as a dragon slayer!" Caesar pulled the bolt and loaded the gun. 

No way! Caesar hadn’t killed anyone this whole time! And now that you’ve come this far and you had fought beside Chisei and he’d saved all your lives, he was going to kill him?

You jerk against Chu Zihang and try to sink your teeth into him. His strong arm tightens. He whispers so softly you can barely hear it. “It’s a bluff.”

In a moment of silence, you hear something else sigh.

There were only four people in the elevator, and you heard a fifth breath! 

The side wall of the elevator car suddenly caves in! Before Caesar had time to react, the monstrous bony claws penetrated the sidewall and plunged into Chisei’s ribs from behind! Blood rained down like a fountain on the sneak attacker's face as it let out an ear-piercing scream of joy! 

Even Caesar was stunned when he saw the Deadpool, even though they had just stepped out of the hordes of Deadpool that were trying to kill him. This Deadpool was so amazing. It was more than twice the size of the others! The longest of them  was over five meters, the shortest was only about three meters, and their upper bodies were about the same size as a human, gradually getting thinner and longer below the waist, before finally taking on the shape of a snake. But this monstrosity is more than eight meters long. Its abdomen is bloated, like a pregnant queen ant. It dragged this overly deformed lower body upward but fell down, so it had just arrived at the mural hall. It became the only survivor. It was attracted by the smell of Chisei's blood and recklessly tore through the elevator car.. 

This deadpool had the face of a middle-aged woman, and her face was not as pale as the other deadpool.  Instead, it was rosy and lustrous, like a woman who had become rounded in pregnancy. Caesar took a glance at its abdomen and suddenly understood. Its snow-white, scaleless abdomen had snake tail-like traces shining through. This was really a pregnant Deadpool  and a pregnant deadpool could only give birth to those more fearsome than itself, because the fetal dragon blood would be purer. The fetuses also seem to have felt the freshness of the blood of Chisei and are stirring in the mother's body. 

What had been suspected all along was confirmed, the Deadpool was capable of producing offspring, and this bloated, deformed mother's womb was breeding devils! 

The Deadpool clung to Chisei, licking the blood excitedly. Chisei clung on to the handrail to keep from being dragged into the elevator shaft. Deadpool's bloated body weighing hundreds of kilograms hangs below the elevator by that single grip.

Chu Zihang presses his hand firmly on your mouth. You wanted to scream in rage, pure frustration and despair. But the monster hadn’t noticed you at all yet. You were too weak to fight this thing. You all were. You said ‘no more sacrifices’ but now you really had no more to give but yourselves, and this monster wanted Chisei. You could get away scot free if you left him behind. 

Caesar tried to aim several times in the process of raising his gun, but he had no chance of hitting Deadpool, who was hiding behind Chisei. If he fired, he would first have to injure him, and it was unknown whether the force of the bullet could do that and injure the deadpool. He just fired a shot at Chisei but now he needs to shoot him again. But Chisei is extremely pale from blood loss. He originally had a feminine beauty, and now he looks like a dying girl. His soul is leaving his pale body. If he suffered another gunshot wound, Chisei could certainly die. 

This world was so black, so dark, that the minute you started to believe that perhaps Caesar could be right and you could live and you could live with all your friends, that scythe of death came to collect its taxes on your happiness. You hated this world, you hated this life!

Deadpool licked the back of Chisei’s neck with her long tongue. Her sharp teeth are seeking the veins in his neck as she begins to give birth to her babies.  The green and white snake-like fetuses fell one by one. 

At this time there was a "thump" sound above the elevator, and the speed of the elevator's descent suddenly increased. The elevator filled with boxes of documents was close to the upper limit of the load. The weight of the giant deadpool plus the four of you exceeded the limits of the elevator, not to mention that it was running in the fragile track after the earthquake. It was slamming into the depths of the elevator shaft at an accelerating rate, at which point the Deadpool would of course be smashed to death, and the four of you would invariably be buried with her. 

"Shoot!" Chisei yelled with his last strength. 

You watched Caesar look into the eyes of Chisei in surprise. 

"Shoot me! Hit me in the neck! Its head is right back there!" Chisei spurted out a mouthful of blood. 

Caesar gritted his teeth fiercely. He was ready to shoot. 

But his fingers were trembling, it was as if the blackness of the world had surrounded him and was pressing in on him, closing in and laughing, mocking him. You stood in that darkness and you could offer no answer. After all, what mercy had the world ever offered you?

A mere few days ago, you wouldn’t hesitate to reasonably make the judgment that sacrificing one person can save everyone, and it's worth doing. But now you stared at Caesar and shook your head. You didn’t want to live in a world without his justice.

You take your bronze claw dagger and stab it into Chu Zihang’s side! Caesar turns at his gasp of pain. You rise up like a lioness to seize Caesar’s wrist and push it upward, pointing the Desert Eagle in the air. You’re face to face with him and bare your teeth.

"’Never leave a friend’ is your justice.” You force the words through your dead vocal cords. Your eyes stare into his eyes and they’re cold and black as the ice sea. “I live for your justice and I will die for your justice!" 

Caesar stares for a moment and, for that moment, the cheeks on either side of his face grow gradually pink.

Chisei suddenly smiled. He rarely smiles. His smile is surprisingly beautiful. 

"Gattuso-kun, in fact, I have thought about being ...... friend of justice." Chisei let go of the handrail and was instantly sucked into the void outside the elevator car.

Caesar barely prevented you from plunging out there with him in your effort to stop him. He threw you back against the door of the elevator. Your vision exploded into sparks and for a moment you couldn’t move. 

“Chu Zihang!”

The elevator suddenly stopped, pressing you to the floor. You blink your eyes open. Caesar and Chu Zihang are gathered by the hole in the elevator wall, shoulder to shoulder. They weren't moving, in fact, they were grunting with great effort. They were backing up from the gap and in their hands was the rope. The rope that he’d tied Chisei up in was being pulled up back into the elevator and attached to that rope was Chisei!

You gasp and crawl forward. He was unconscious, pale like death. His sword was stuck through him, front to back, but he was alive. He was still alive. Caesar looks down at you, but oddly doesn’t meet your eyes. He looks shy, almost embarrassed?

“We need to find a way out of here.” Chu Zihang, ever practical, hands you the claw dagger back. You stare at it a moment and then tuck it in your belt to let Caesar carry you out.

Together, you climb out of the elevator and into the darkness of the shaft, until you take a rest on the beam. Caesar is puffing on a cigar. You’re sitting in Caesar’s lap like a child. Exhausted, you’re turning the bronze colored claw dagger over and over in your hands, watching the play of light on it.

You all sit in silence like this for an hour.

Your head was burning and you felt numb and yet, deep down, the arctic ice that had held onto your soul since waking up at Cassell was starting to fracture and the summer sun was beginning to rise. You rest your head against Caesar’s chest and look up into his eyes.

He lets out a puff of smoke. “You’re not going to fall for me, are you?”

Your eyes narrow and then you huff. “No. I was just thinking…You weren’t going to let me die from the moment we met, right? You stinker.”

Caesar tapped the ash over the edge of the beam. “So you finally get it.”

“Uh huh. I’ll always miss my friends.” Your lip trembles a bit but you once again control it. “But… I think… with you… That’s okay.”

Caesar bit his cigar and grinned. “Glad to hear it.” 

You lower your eyes to Chu Zihang who had been tending to his own injuries and was now working on Chisei’s many wounds, while he rested on the beam. “Sorry, I stabbed you.”

“It was impressive.”

You laugh, unsure of how to respond to that.

The building was chock full of Hydra operatives now. You couldn’t leave the elevator shaft yet. They were probably all looking for Chisei so you had to wait for him to wake up.

Chisei started to stir under Chu Zihang’s medical care. Caesar carefully settled you against the wall of the shaft and catwalked over to stare down into Chisei’s eyes. He pulled the last cigarette from his pocket, stuck it in Chisei’s mouth and lit it, the fire illuminating the man’s pupils. Chisei struggled for a moment but he was still in pain and tightly bound.

"The emperor hybrid is really different, huh. A serious wound like harakiri only took an hour to heal. I want to have such a good body.." Caesar moved the lighter closer to his face and illuminated it to Chisei, showing his healing injury. In the next moment, he’d kicked Chisei off the beam. The rope pulled taut where the end was tied and Chisei Gen hung from it.

"Won't you consider untying me?" Gen Chisei smiled bitterly, "It's a little inconvenient to smoke and hang from a rope." 

"Not quite.  With someone of your low integrity, I still can't believe you. The minute I untie you, you’ll assault us again.." Caesar gripped his cigar, "Let’s just have a good conversation." 

"Is the family style of the famous hybrid Gattuso family that shameless?" Chisei exhaled a puff of smoke. 

"You call this shameless?" Caesar shrugged, "If you think this is shameless, you haven't met my studly old man." After a few seconds of silence Caesar mumbled.  "Sorry." 

"There's nothing to apologize for. At the time I really wanted to escape and leave all you behind. I'm not a friend of justice. I've done a lot of bad things, I've killed people." 

"Ghosts?" Chu Zihang asked. 

"We call them Ghosts, but they are actually the same hybrid species as us, only more likely to become deadly." Chisei whispered, "To some extent all of us are ghosts." 

"The mural is ruined, but we took pictures. Although you do not want us to, we have to take these pictures. The Academy and the Hydra are now in a hostile relationship, and now that the Deadpool group is also finished, your cooperation with us is over, and we all revert to hostile relations." Caesar took a drag on his cigar.

You listen to the conversation and your heart is surprisingly calm when you hear that you won’t be seeing Chisei any time soon. Chisei looks up at you. “I guess we’ll have to make plans for sake later?”

Caesar gives you a look of sharp disbelief.

You stick your tongue out at him. “I meant it as a lady.” But you offer no further explanation. It wasn’t his business.

"Then you have to leave quickly, with my recovery speed, this rope won’t hold me for long.." Chisei smiled again. 

"You can’t fool me. This rope can tether an elephant. I also tied it with a sailor knot, so the more you struggle, the tighter it will get.  Your body is not as strong as we thought. You super hybrids are slightly stronger than us, but your bones and muscles can not be compared with a real dragon. You might be worse than those deadpool but the minute you release your Yanling you’re defenseless. In short, you're strong, but not necessarily without flaws." Caesar sneered. 

"Well, well you guys see through me. What do you want to do with me?" 

"It was too difficult to take you away, and, in the end, I decided to leave you here. Your men are looking all over the building for you, but they didn't expect you to be hanging in the middle of the elevator shaft just yet. Seriously, I think that Assistant Sakura likes you a lot, don't you?" Caesar waved his cigar. 

"I'm not getting a girlfriend until I leave Japan, and isn't it a bit much to ask a woman like her to give up her life to go to France with me to sell sunscreen?" 

"Isn’t that exactly like leaving behind your status as the head of the big family to go to France?" 

"I am a person who has done a lot of evil. My hands are stained with the blood of many ghosts, fleeing to France to settle down would be good, I am not going to France, I’m trying to escape." Chisei said leisurely. 

"You said you also want to be a friend of justice?" Caesar raised an eyebrow. 

"Everyone wants to be a friend of justice when they are children." Chisei said faintly. 

"Are you mocking me for still being stuck in a child's state?" Caesar gave Chisei a poke and sent him spinning. 

You giggle. It hurt but that struck you as funny.

“What are you laughing at?” Caesar smiles at you.

You reply "Friends of Justice are the words from Ultraman, a cartoon for kids." 

"Ultraman?" 

"Superman who came to Earth from the universe to help Earthlings fight alien monsters. The heir of the Gattuso family should not have seen that kind of thing. We all watched it when we were kids. In elementary school, kids could be seen discussing which Ultraman was more powerful and saving their lunch money to buy plastic models of Ultraman. Did you do this MC?”

“No,” you chuckle. “I was a Sailor Moon fan. And James Bond fan.”

“Ah…” Chisei sighs. “Ultraman said his fans are friends of justice. We are friends of Ultraman, so we are also friends of justice. The more powerful monsters will be defeated by the friends of justice. Every episode they say that, so as children, we are convinced." Chisei mumbled slyly, "One year school performance, I went on stage to sing the theme song of Ultraman, I still remember the tune ......" 

"Beep beep beep, 

lots of monsters. 

Look behind you, 

beasts through the street there, 

just to your left and right. 

Can't get enough, can't get enough. 

Fly one foot and hit three low, 

don't presume to fly away. 

Who comes from  the universe to fight for freedom? 

Who will be faithful to defend the world? 

It is you, the great friend of justice!" 

You clap your hands. “You have a good voice, Chisei.”

This scene is really weird. The big head of the Japanese yakuza and the only emperor hybrid hanging in mid-air singing the theme song of "Ultraman". The heir of the Gattuso family, Caesar Gattuso and A+ blood Chu Zihang, and you, the S-ranked young woman, are his audience. Everyone should have laughed, but no one did. All of you had childhoods that were long gone, and you paid respects to them the same as you would a long dead ancestor.

The song ended and Caesar clapped his hands. 

"But I didn't become a friend of justice, I became the bad guy." Chisei said softly, "My friends are bad people. Yasha turned out to be a street fighter. Crow is a loan shark organization's strong man. Sakura is a killer. And I have done a lot more bad things than you can imagine. You might think the Japanese executive bureau is here to maintain order. But more often, it all just ends in bloodshed.. The mob is like this. In this business only violence speaks. The ones who are the most violent are the loudest. We live by doing evil. We belong to a family. We must be loyal to it. For the benefit of the family, we may strike at the innocent. For the benefit of the family we can sacrifice our companions or ourselves. Everyone can be sacrificed so that more people can live a good life. This world is so cruel. I am not Hikari Ultraman.I can not save everyone. If doing evil can make my people live a better life, then I am willing to become a bad guy." 

"Bad people can become good, but bad things will never become right." Caesar said. 

Chisei made the effort to give Caesar a look, "At your age you can still say such things, Gattuso-kun. I envy you." 

"Is that another Japanese style taunt?" 

"No, people who strongly believe in justice are happy people." Chisei said softly. 

Caesar was silent for a long time and raised his eyebrows: "What a bitter thing to say. But there's no time for your bitterness, I hear footsteps approaching, it's your people looking for you, right?" 

"Goodbye then, have a good trip." Chisei said. 

"The next time we meet, we'll be enemies again. Can't we say some warm and fuzzy goodbyes?" 

"Don't get involved in this. Leave Japan if you can, this is not something you can get involved in." 

"That kind of bullshit might as well be Saying Sayonara.”

"Sayonara." Chisei said softly. 

"Sayonara." Caesar said, "People who could have been friends end up like this. The world isn't cruel. It’s Bullshit.”

You stare down at Chisei. You want to say something, but you feel like you and Chisei were strangely similar. You were both violent people and trained to be so from an early age. You both felt similarly when Caesar spouted on about justice and being right and good in a world that was cruel. 

“Chisei… please don’t give up…” You whisper, but your voice is still hoarse.

“Come on, girl, he’s not worth your time.” Caesar once again lifts you up on his shoulders like a child and starts to climb. But you look over his shoulder. You and Chisei lock eyes as he hangs there in the void and you keep looking at each other until you’re both out of sight.

[hectab]

Dragon Raja Illustrations and how much I love them (but they hate me).

I have to say it, this series’s art is just ridiculously hard to find.

Most of the stuff is in old Chinese webpages that I have to reach through search engines like Baidu or Sogou and the results are rarely pretty.  They’re either the size of a postage stamp or have a trillion watermarks on top of them. I mean...

Look at this thing! 

I can understand why they wanted to cover Herzog but come on!

This is a practical joke right? Is that the same watermark twice??

And so begins a laborious yet entertaining process of bringing these back to life. 

Without further ado, let’s pick one and fix it:

So this is kind of a simple one, to get rid of those watermarks, first I have to paint over the original painting (which doesn’t always look the same but well...)

Alright, now we have to compensate for the lost details, so here’s where a very nice program called Gigapixel comes to hand. It restores lost details using AI (future stuff, huh?)

Look at this miracle!

That stuff wasn’t even there! You can see the brush strokes and even the drivers:

Some color tweaking and Voila!

Second scenario:

There’s a pretty good looking image, and the resolution is good! 

What the hell are you looking at, Luminous?

Wait, It’s actually cropped? I found another version, the full version, but the resolution is bad.

No problem, I mean, Gigapixel should solve this like it solved the car picture, right?

Well... It has a funny effect on the faces sometimes. Here we have Voldemort Luminous.

The cropped version had decent looking faces, so in theory, all I have to do is take one face and paste it over the messed up one, right?

This should work.

Very Nice!  (and kinda sad).

There’s this other thing where I have to warp an image to hide the fact that it’s a photograph of a book and reverse the inclination. Killing those reflections was an actual pain. (Luminous has boobs in his back btw)

Let’s not forget about hiding the fact that this wasn’t scanned by warping the bent pages.

Some doves had to be erased, we’ll mourn them as well. What’s next?

Oh, hell no!  I’m not fixing that.

P.S. I found a bunch of new pictures so I’ll post them when I finish doing this Photoshop stuff to most of them. (See you next year I guess...)

Second P.S. Here’s my illustration collection. It already has some of those new ones I just mentioned.

[hectabdr]

Dragon Raja IV - Chapters 5 & 6 (Abridged)

Good evening (or morning, maybe?). Here are today's summarized chapters from the fourth novel.

Previous chapters (3 & 4)

For more source-material related stuff, check the new Index.

Chapter 5

Nono woke up in the backseat of a car. Initially she thought she was kidnapped, but by who?

Maybe the school infiltrated the Iris academy and took her prisoner, they must think she's a conspirator. She tried to remember her training, the first step was to stay calm, then, she had to analyze her surroundings. The bumps in the road and the speed indicated that she was probably in a highway. The weather belonged to a subtropical region and the strong tobacco smell was similar to...

-Your friend is a lazy-ass isn't she?

-Why would you say that?

-I gave her a sedative that should last at most 24 hours, but she's been sleeping for 30 hours!

...Finger!

She had managed to untie one of her hands already and now she wasn't afraid to reveal that she was awake. She used the rope to choke Finger and started beating both of them up out of anger. A police officer noticed their little exchange and ordered Finger to stop. Nono decided to play along, after all, this wasn't the right moment to put both of them in jail, despite how nice that sounded at the moment, deep down she wanted to believe Luminous.

The three were just entering to the city of Beijing and Nono agreed to help them begrudgingly. Finger's first idea was to search for Johann Chu's traces in the high school where he and Luminous studied years ago. Nono refused to get out of the car unless they bought her some clothes, since she was still wearing a night gown. Finger bought her a school uniform because there were no department stores nearby.

The place was heavily remodeled, now it had two statues in the entrance, one of which looked remarkably similar to Luminous. The school was holding an event that day and Luminous accidentally bumped into Chen Wenwen, his old crush. He thought he had erased her completely from his mind, but there she was again, and to his surprise, she was incredibly shy in his presence, blushing and stuttering, she even called him "Senior brother".

It wasn't only Wenwen, the rest of his literature club were acting the same way. Zhao Menghua and Wenwen were still dating in this new world, but he seemed extremely uncomfortable, it looked like he saw himself as second fiddle, he even stepped back to let the "old lovers" talk like some gentleman. Su-Xiaoyao, the school princess who used to compete with Wenwen for Menghua's attention before, now seemed to ignore the latter completely, she even called him "brother Mingfei". They were all there for a school anniversary event.

He found himself on the honorary lists as the highest ranking graduate and even as a basketball star, wearing the very same 'number 11' jersey that previously belonged to Johann. Luminous realized something, he had taken Johann's place in a world where he didn't exist. The statue in the school's entrance was actually built in his honor, it had his face indeed.

The principal asked him to give a speech to a crowd of admiring parents. It was raining, but people with umbrellas respectfully waited for him to finish reading the cards that the principal wrote for him. As the speech came to a close, he was surprised to see his uncle, happily applauding under the rain.

It had been two years since the last time he saw him, back then, he had an argument with his aunt and he never came back to Beijing after that. His uncle invited the principal and Luminous's classmates to attend a small celebration at the restaurant where he worked.

The party was a compliment fest for him, and as everyone got more and more drunk, Wenwen and Su Xiaoyao rested on both of his arms while Nono rolled her eyes. A little overwhelmed, he decided to leave momentarily and get some fresh air in the roof.

His drunk uncle reached him and tried to have a heart to heart conversation with him, with the occasional interruption to throw up in a corner. Most of the talk was centered around his future and the possibility of starting a career in China, the type of woman he'd marry and the life he hoped to have.

He turned back to say a few words but his uncle, along with the rest of the world, including the raindrops were standing still. In the middle of a paused environment, Ming·Z·Lu was siting in the shadows. In an illusion, he tossed Luminous a basketball, he realized he knew how to play the game, he was wearing Johann's Jersey and they had a brief match in the middle of the frozen rain.

Years ago, Nono made Luminous understand that, in life, choosing a door will always mean that another one is getting closed. When he chose to get on Johann's car instead of staying with Wenwen in the Aspasia restaurant, he chose Cassell over his previous life. Similarly, when Nono chose the Gattuso Family, she closed the door to Cassell. Ming·Z offered his brother to re-open this door.

For the last quarter of his life, Luminous could stay in his hometown and live the life of a local celebrity. He could date one of his former high school classmates, get a good job anywhere and drink with his uncle every week. However, Cassell would stay out of the picture forever.

Luminous asked if that meant leaving Johann behind. Ming·Z confirmed his theory, expressing that this world could only exist with his absence.

-He is my friend, if we die, we die together.

Angry, he caressed Mingze's hair right before pushing him from the top of the building, but the little devil paused his fall, floating in the air.

-I'm not a devil, brother. I'm a monster. We're all monsters and one day we'll be killed by the righteous Ultraman!

He resumed the flow of time and fell down.

Chapter 6

Finger and Luminous carried his uncle back to his house. Luminous really wanted to avoid meeting his aunt, but she opened the door before he could leave. It was awkward for a moment, so he hugged her without saying a word. She let them stay in his old room, Luminous wasn't expecting to find the place intact. His aunt kept all of his things right where he left them for the last two years.

Finger used some encryption and redirection techniques to contact his girlfriend in Cuba, asking Luminous to give him some privacy. He left his bedroom through the window, and he started walking on the streets of his hometown, the rain had only gotten worst. Suddenly, a red Ferrari stopped by.

-Get in the car, pretty boy!

It was just like three years ago, when Nono picked him up from the theater in the same car. While Luminous and Finger where drinking with his former classmates, Nono was looking for clues of what happened to Johann Chu and borrowed a car from Shao, an old contact of her family. Luminous suddenly remembered something.

Years ago, Johann's adoptive father organized him a birthday party. Since Johann didn't have any friends at school, he left an invitation in every club. Those were like golden tickets for the girls and Chen Wenwen decided to assist herself. Since every club had to bring a gift, she asked Luminous to collect some of the club's top literary works and deliver them to Johann's house during the party.

When Luminous arrived, he noticed everyone was socializing while the birthday boy grilled chicken in the corner. He looked lifeless, almost like a cooking robot. He passed the gift to Wenwen who thanked him and closed the door, leaving him outside. He walked back home and that was it. Thanks to that, Luminous knew where Johann and his mother, Su Xiaoyan used to live.

When they arrived, he recognized the house maid. Johann mentioned her a few times. He asked for his classmate, but the woman mentioned that there were no children in the house. He then asked for Su Xiaoyan, and the maid told him that she was in the hospital. After obtaining the name of the clinic from an envelope in the mailbox, Nono asked him to get in the car and they left the house.

The Sacred Heart Renai Hospital was surprisingly isolated. Since Nono was wearing a school uniform and it was the middle of the night, they made up a story: Luminous was her older brother and their car got broken on the road. They were proud of their little story but the guard was asleep when they arrived. Luminous almost woke him up to explain his made-up problem before Nono stopped him and they sneaked in.

She gave him a guard uniform that didn't fit very well and he searched for Su Xiaoyan. She was peacefully sleeping in her room and Luminous sat next to her. When she suddenly woke up and wondered why he was there, Luminous simply explained that he was covering up for a nurse, since the clinic was short on personnel and she surprisingly went along with it.

Without mentioning her son's name, he told her the story of Johann Chu, his missing friend, going through every detail, hoping that some of it would resonate with her.

The story successfully brought Xiaoyan to tears, but Luminous's sudden excitement was short lived, as said tears were not born from painful memories, but from deep felt sympathy. She said she was pregnant, hoping her future child would be as good as the guard's missing friend. Terribly disappointed, he thanked her, said goodbye and left the room.

Outside, Nono was waiting for him holding an umbrella. His eyes said everything, trying not to cry and to stay optimistic, he asked himself if anyone would look for him in case he disappeared as well.

-Finger loves you very much, he would look for you from every corner of the world.

If that Johann Chu is real, he would find you, you seem to care for each other very much.

Maybe Caesar would look for you too, he would take good care for his godson, no doubt about that.

...And if none of those useless guys managed to find you, even if you're deep in the gutter, I will bring you back.

Nono dropped the umbrella and gave her former sidekick a strong hug.

[yorunokatana]

When your brain just gives you this one conspiracy theory that you absolutely must scream out at the world or it’ll keep bugging you

Warning: Spoilers about Susie’s Soul Skill, which is mentioned only in Dragon Raja Novel 5, and also spoilers about Shavee’s identity, which I am sure many of you already know, but just to be safe, spoilers for Dragon Raja Novel 2 and game story Chapters 7 & 8.

Spoilers below this line.

So Susie’s Soul Skill in Novel 5 is written as 剑御, which is 御剑 reversed, which means “to control flying swords” like in the Xianxia novels (Mo Dao Zu Shi fans will know this). @dragonrajafanfiction uses Scissors Dance for the name, while personally I call it Swordsmaster. Anyway, the Soul Skill allows her to manipulate magnetic fields, which allows her to control magnetic metals, essentially making her a female Magneto.

So we know that all Hybrids are descended from the 4 Dragon Lords plus one White King. And in this one scene in Novel 2 where Shavee/Jormungandr tried to steal Constantine’s skeleton and so ended up battling Mai Sakatoku, she can somehow create giant weapons out of metal scraps in midair. Actual solid weapons. There were arcs of electricity when the weapons were created. I don’t know material sciences but do highly magnetised metals produce electric sparks? Someone please answer? If yes, then we can conclude that Shavee/Jormungandr can magnetise metal scraps so strongly to the point that they end up compressing each other into a solid weapon under their combined magnetic forces. Which means that magnetising metals is a Soul Skill of the bloodline of the Lord of Earth and Mountains. Which means that Susie is descended from the bloodline of the Lord of Earth and Mountains.

Johann killed Shavee/Jormungandr.

Johann killed Susie’s ancestor.

(Actually the more shocking takeaway should be that Susie is descended from Shavee, but whatever.)

[gta-5-cheats]

How Chessable's Scientific Teaching Methods Can Help You Improve at Chess

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How Chessable's Scientific Teaching Methods Can Help You Improve at Chess

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Chess is one of the world’s oldest board games with no shortage of players and coaches online and offline. There’s a wealth of chess books and computer programs that can help you learn the game and hone your skills. Chessable, a two-year-old startup believes that it offers something unique — a razor-sharp focus on teaching chess.

Chessable does not let you play against other players or the computer. It features interactive chess books — both free and paid — and tries to make sure that you improve at chess, no matter what level you’re at. Its approach to this is rooted in science and certain fundamentals of learning new skills. It aims at teaching chess via spaced repetition. Once you learn a set of moves, it prompts you to revise them after a few hours. If you remember the moves you won’t have to revise it for a relatively long time, but if you don’t, it’ll teach you those moves again and schedule a revision a short while after. This is similar to some of the methods Duolingo uses to teach people new languages and its efficacy has been established.

Five Websites to Learn and Play Chess Online

Chessable also has a fun points system to give you a sense of accomplishment for learning moves, a daily streak to keep you hooked to learning, and you can also earn rubies in game that let you preserve your streak for longer if you miss out a day or two, among other things. This gamification tactic is well-known in the free-to-play game industry and has even been used to great effect by apps such as Snapchat. When you combine this with chess books from experts that help you raise your game, you begin to see why Chessable is beginning to develop a significant following.

David Kramaley, the co-founder and CEO of Chessable, told Gadgets 360 over email that his friend (and later, co-founder) IM (International Master)) John Bartholomew really liked the idea of a chess education startup but the path was far from smooth. He told Gadgets 360: “At every point, if the feedback was completely negative (no one used it, I was ready to fold). However, I’m a fairly optimistic person so it’s quite possible quitting was never truly an option.”

Kramaley first came across Bartholomew’s YouTube channel when it had just 3,000 subscribers and he was impressed by Bartholomew’s ability to teach chess. He felt that the two could make a good team and the two agreed to meet for a demo of Chessable. “I honestly went to him with a self-critical point of view, wanting him to like it but at the same time wanting his honest opinion of my MVP. Fortunately, John loved my demo and my ability to recite some extremely complex Chess Theory, and we went from there,”

“I also had great difficulties improving my own chess, to the point I felt there must be some truth to the commonly held knowledge that adults are not able to improve at chess as well as kids. I’ve always found it a great joy to learn new things and I have always improved,” Kramaley said. “Failing to improve at chess time and time again, despite using the existing learning tools, indicated to me that there is a gap in the market for a site that would exclusively focus on learning and improving at chess. Concentrating on the learning would be our first and most important differentiator from the competition,” he added.

Dr. Tim McGrew, chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University in the US, has seen a big improvement in his game after he added Chessable to his training regimen. Dr. McGrew is one of the few chess players to actually improve their FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation) rating in their 50s, as he achieved an elusive 2200 rating in 2016 after he started using Chessable. “Conventional wisdom isn’t altogether wrong. Chess is a game that depends a great deal on mental flexibility, memory, and internal ‘clock speed,’ and these are factors that heavily favour younger minds,” Dr. McGrew told Gadgets 360 over email. “All else being equal, there is no way that someone at age 50 can learn and retain as much information as he could at half that age.”

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t improve your game once you are older. “Just because one’s mind isn’t as flexible or one’s memory as retentive as it used to be, it does not follow that one cannot improve in those departments. Memory, in particular, can be assisted by intelligent use of spaced repetition,” said Dr. McGrew, who’s been playing chess from a very young age, adding that Chessable provides just that. “…once you see it, the idea is so obvious that it’s rather shocking no one had done it before. The beauty of the idea is that the server keeps track of what you need to review for you, so that you’re reminded to review things you didn’t even realise you needed to review.”

Dr. McGrew, who came into the spotlight briefly in 1997 for spotting a move that would have allowed Garry Kasparov to draw a game that he resigned against IBM’s Deep Blue computer program, thinks that if you take Chessable’s review process seriously, you could “master an entire new opening system in a minimum time span and with maximum retention”. He said, “It isn’t going to give you a photographic memory. No system of review can do that. But I’ve found myself learning and retaining more patterns, more variations, here in my fifties than I ever did back when I was in my twenties and studying in an unsystematic way. And I’ve used what I’ve learned on Chessable to reach the National Master title.”

While Dr. McGrew was one of Chessable’s early adopters and remains one of its most dedicated users, the startup couldn’t have succeeded if beginners and intermediate players didn’t find it just as useful. Kramaley said Chessable has focused on offering something for chess players at every skill level. “Since we’ve been working with an incremental approach, we could not cater for everyone straight away. Initially the site was heavily oriented towards intermediate players and above (but not masters),” Kramaley explained. “Slowly, with the work we’ve been doing, we’ve been adding features and content that helps cater to more beginning players as well as masters… For instance, at the end of last year we launched 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners, a great book that is suitable for anyone who at least knows the rules of chess. If they go through this book I am confident they’d come out the other end as intermediate players.”

The site also has books for experts such as Hyper Accelerated Dragon by IM Raja Panjwani, one of Canada’s top chess players, and 100 Endgames You Must Know that’s geared towards advanced players such as Peter Newhall, a 37-year-old from Minnesota, USA. Newhall told Gadgets 360 via email that the book has helped him feel more comfortable going into endgames, something he wasn’t as good at as opening games.

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“Previously I had tried reviewing chess openings with my own Chessbase files and with Chess Position Trainer. Both should work in theory but in practice I simply wouldn’t do the studying. Neither interface was fun or felt that easy to use. However, with Chessable I’ve studied openings almost every day since they started and currently have a 530-day studying streak,” Newhall, who runs the day-to-day operations of a web design and development company, said. While earning points, rubies, and maintaining a daily streak might seem like something that experts may frown upon, Newhall is among those who’ve found it to be very useful.

Newhall’s rating has gone up from around 1800 to 1950 since the time he discovered Chessable thanks to John Bartholomew’s YouTube channel. He explained: “I would say my game has definitely improved. However, I’ve been studying in other ways too the past couple of years so it’s hard to say what’s made the biggest difference.” Chessable wasn’t the only method of study for him, but it remains one of the factors that helped him raise his game.

“I am never caught completely off guard in the opening any longer and at least have some idea what to do even in lines I’ve reviewed but haven’t played before. However, I do not play super sharp openings where one can be winning in the opening at my level very frequently. So I still need to play well the rest of the game — knowing my openings better is not an instant ‘magic bullet’ or anything like that,” Newhall added, describing his style of play and what has helped him improve his ranking. “I have definitely noticed that I probably get the type of position I want 90 percent of the long games I play. It is very nice to go into a game at any time and feel confident you will not be losing or much worse after 5-10 moves in the opening. It takes a lot of initial pressure off and I can ease into the game better without immediately feeling like I have no idea what’s going on,” he said.

Getting into a game and not feeling completely lost or being caught off-guard is something that many casual players strive for and Chessable does offer tools to help you avoid that. As Chessable’s co-founder Kramaley puts it, “I guess in short, Chessable is a tool suitable for all, what matters is what course you choose once you are inside. Our goal is to keep adding new courses so that there is something for everyone.”

It’s clear that the users are behind the product, but Chessable is committed to growing only at a sustainable pace. Kramaley said his previous startup Sharkius failed because he expanded it too soon, and a prominent US-based VC told him that “chess is a market where it pays to remain lean”. That is why Chessable, two years into its journey, only has a full-time team of four, with four more working part-time. While staying lean gives Chessable a longer runway, it comes with its own challenges as new features take longer to implement. However, with around 1,500 weekly active learners and 20,000 unique visitors per month, Chessable does appear to be on to something. At the moment, most of the people using Chessable are based in US, UK, and Germany, and around 3 percent of them are from India. Kramaley says the site still has some work to do before pushing for international growth but he expects that to happen sometime in 2019.

Chessable makes money from pro subscriptions at $10 (roughly Rs. 640) per month, or less if you pay yearly. Pro subscriptions offer the ability to find and focus on moves that are difficult for you, and removes lots of limitations on the free tier. The startup still makes about half of its revenue from subscriptions and the rest from selling interactive chess books. The startup also has an interesting “lifetime” subscription tier at $300 (roughly Rs. 19,000) that gives you access to all pro features for as long as the site’s around.

Chessable hasn’t yet become profitable but Kramaley says that at some point in 2018, he expects Chessable to cross over into the “default alive state” as Y Combinator’s Paul Graham puts it – “Assuming their expenses remain constant and their revenue growth is what it’s been over the last several months, do they make it to profitability on the money they have left? Or to put it more dramatically, by default do they live or die?” Chessable has raised two rounds of funding, “so we are completely ok for years to come”, Kramaley tells Gadgets 360.

Chessable does not have any apps but it works very well on desktop and mobile browsers that we’ve used. Kramaley, in his email, says, “Ironically this past month I’ve had some of the worst internet for a while… in the south of France. Chessable works pretty well still; if you can put up with the odd page not loading here and there. We’ve used current (non-app) technology as well as possible to allow for poor connections and if can find more ways to optimise it we will.”

The users whom we spoke with over email feel that Chessable does have some room for improvement. Newhall told Gadgets 360: “The one area I’ve always wanted Chessable to improve but it hasn’t yet is to have an export feature. I know it is coming but for a player like me, who mainly has my own opening lines on the site to review, it is tough to have to manually keep Chessable and my own .pgn files up-to-date and matching on my own.”

PGN files are widely used to record chess moves and you could think of them as the mp3 of the chess world (everyone uses them). “Especially strong players have their own routine figured out long ago and it always involves Chessbase and .pgn files. They are less likely to switch to something like Chessable since they already have a routine that works for them on openings,” Newhall added.

Dr. McGrew on the other hand said that there are more forms of study that the site could support. “I think there is room for the introduction of some new study methods – all founded on the same learning science that shapes everything they do at Chessable – that would increase the extent to which the system not only trains memory but also activates the more deliberate analytical section of one’s mind,” he added. He would also like the site to implement some more methods to create new training programs. “I’d tell you what those methods are, but I’m saving them to tell to David Kramaley in the hope that I can persuade him to implement them before someone else does.”

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[watanabes-cum-dump]

Blade Masters, right?

(yes I’m gonna do a theory on each class fite me) 

Yeah so, believe it or not, I found another class to be suspicious of! I mean, sure, they’re kind of common, as you see other NPCs with blade master equipment, but, of course, our MC, if they were a blade master, is different. 

So, the blade masters obviously use a more eastern sword technique, we see Johann and Chisei wielding similar blades, so Blade Masters use a Japanese sword technique. And MC isn’t a joke either, they’re fucking good. Johann is said to be the fastest swordsman at school, and by logic, we know that MC is S ranked and therefore probably even better, or on par with Johann. And this peach boi is no joke, he can SPLIT bullets. So, MC is good, very fucking good. 

Where did they learn this exactly? 

MC was raised in Black Swan bay, in SIBERIA. In Russia. (so do you think that MC can drink vodka like it’s water??) Where the hell would they learn it? Now, Siberia shares a border with China, and it’s near Japan. But, there are no traces of Japanese influence from what I know, and it’s mostly Chinese influence that makes it’s way into Siberia. Russia also shares a border with Mongolia, but, the swords aren’t what we’re looking for. 

You could argue that some Chinese people know how to use a katana, but, Black Swan bay is also isolated from the rest of the world. Johann is Chinese, but he studied Japanese sword play which is VERY different from Chinese sword play and the two are often mistaken for the other which is not at ALL true. 

Katana’s are meant to be wielded with two hands, seeing as they’re made from layers of metal and are very strong and sharp. Chinese swords are lighter and can be wielded with one hand, they’re also smaller and meant for lighter sword play. We can see that Blade Masters clearly carry two katana’s, once is big, the other one is smol a normal katana.

China and Japan get mixed up a lot, even I myself mix them up. I made a character in Chinese clothes with a Chinese first name, Japanese last name, wielding a Katana. Yeah. They get mixed up A LOT.

Even if some influence regarding Japanese culture made it’s way into Siberia, the Blade Masters have a very peculiar technique that we don’t see in the other characters. NPCs with swords only use the smaller one, a regular katana, and most of them don’t have the skill that Johann, Chisei, and Chimei have with the katana. 

MC switches in between the heavy duty meitou and the smaller katana. Blade masters also have a shit ton of skills that release different kinds of magic and really shows how good they are. Which is my next point. 

Blade masters clearly have a mastery of the blade, since they have a wide range of skills. They are also really good at manipulating elements. There are three ways a blade master can switch in between their blades, each regarding a specific element. 

One is the basic, smash the blade down and it sets your enemy on fire. A similar one but with a chance of freezing, yes FREEZING your enemy solid. I don’t mean in time with your EX, I mean with ICE. And the last one is where I think you throw down your blade and while you’re using the bigger one it channels electricity. 

I think that Anjou is a Blade Master. He’s my main battle partner (just to flex on you I also have Chimei lol) and I see him use a sword. I only see one, but, with his age, I think he’s a possible candidate for someone who can teach MC how to utilize their abilities and use the elements. 

Anjou is old, and another S rank. And he could probably teach MC a few things, I think that he actually DID.

The blade master class’ primary element is fire, but, they are the only class showing mastery of some of the others. Blade master attacks lean more on physical damage, they infuse their blade with whatever element they need instead of shooting out raw magic like the other classes. 

I think MC is supposed to be a male Blade Maser, since we see the official Dragon Raja poster where there’s a boy holding a sword. Idk, any thoughts? 

[nsk96]

Bonbon got a new outfit. The fashionista is at it again. We call this one

“Color Theory”

And yes, he is in a hospital

[watanabes-cum-dump]

Ok, so, I love the idea that MC can copy EXs and fighting styles, but what if the had shape shifting? Hear me out because what if MC in the past has unconsciously used this power to look like Herzog? Or maybe when they come to Cassel they shift in between looking a bit like the Black Swan Bay kids? It would be so cool because they could also have an identity crisis as a part of their development. MC never having their own face, never truly being themself. And when they finally got rid of the Kings Blade (if they ever do) it could cure all of MC's insecurities and they would finally have their own face. I guess it's a cool way to incorporate the character customization and changing gender and looks, but seriously, imagine the character development and plot lines it would allow.