Rise of the Living Forge - Chapter 8: Journeyman

Keeley, a simple plain Jane, hits the jackpot. [No, she did not win the lottery!] At least that's what she thinks when she marries the most eligible bachelor in New York City: Aaron, a wealthy cold-hearted heartthrob and Tycoon.

He was a loser in his past life, useless, but at least he never truly lacked anything. He had money, food, a roof over his head, and everything he thought he needed.He had never fought a day in his life, he didn't need to struggle for his life.Then he got hit by a bus… and woke up in another world.A world where destruction and bloodshed were the norm. A world shattered by apocalypse, where people lived on floating islands and sailed across the skies in airborne ships. A world where the weak had no place to survive.Now, he inhabits the body of a Dragon, the weakest of the royal bloodline. A cursed runt abandoned by his siblings, carrying their curse.He is now known as Kaedros, the Dragon of the Sun.He was banished and thrown into the human territory, to fend for himself in the midst of the enemies that wanted him dead.But now as a Dragon, given a second chance, he didn't want to waste it by being a loser a second time. This time, there's inheritance to claim, territories to conquer and galactic, dimensional enemies to fight._________________So I'm going to add this. The pacing is going to be in the middle, not fast or slow. And the MC won't just get insanely overpowered at the start.He's not going to be a weakling either, after all from the title, you already know how things are going to end.I value character developments, so you'll see a lot of that as well.Things are going to develop in a reasonable way.Ps— you're already adding this to your library, so just start reading now!!

I died in my world… and woke up in someone else’s story.But not as the hero. Not as the villain. Not even as a side character who mattered. I’m… an NPC—a nobody, a background observer, invisible to everyone.At first, I thought I was powerless. But then I discovered something strange: I could leave notes, whisper hints, move objects… small nudges that subtly changed the story. Every tiny action rippled through the plot, shaping outcomes, saving lives, and altering the fate of heroines, heroes, and even villains.The catch? The story is alive. It resists interference. Push too hard, and accidents happen. Plot twists turn against me. Minor disasters loom. The more I try to influence, the more the story fights back.So I play carefully. I study. I manipulate quietly. I watch the heroines, heroes, and overlooked side characters, weaving invisible threads that guide them. I don’t fight. I don’t cheat. I survive—and maybe, just maybe, I can change the story from the shadows.From an unnoticed NPC to the hidden hand behind the world, I’ll prove that even a nobody can rewrite the story.

When Li Fan transmigrated into a new world, his life seemed unremarkable. He was moderately well-off, with a wife and children, but nothing extraordinary. Everything changed upon his death, when he awakened the ability Return to Truth: the power to virtualize an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences, run it as a simulation, and return to the age of twenty armed with that knowledge.With this ability in hand, Li Fan finally saw a chance to pursue the dream he had always harbored: eternal life. In other words, the path of immortal cultivation.But the world of cultivation was nothing like the paradise he imagined. After countless generations of cultivators plundering heaven and earth, the heavens had struck back. Mortals now carried the Immortal-Mortal Miasma within their blood, a disease that, when encountered by cultivators, led to cultivation decline and death. No technique could be practiced by more than a single person. Calamities descended from the Heavenly Dao without warning.In such a hostile world, where even the heavens themselves resist immortal cultivation, can Li Fan truly seize eternal life? Or will he meet his final end, his Dao dispersing back to heaven?