Glad you're having a good enough time reading this far into the story!
Before reading the next chapter of Die Trying (which will be posted up after this announcement) - there's some sweeping changes I'm implementing.
I'm doing a rewrite of the System (Slightly-ish) for the eventual upgrade between rough draft web-novel to KU polished up final version.
The changes are there to add more fun and plannable progression to it. The edits are not live because it all has to get swapped in one giant blob all at once. So I've been slowly editing on a word doc book 1 and so forth.
It was supposed to be simple changes, and boy do I regret everything. Because for every goddamn chapter I edit, the release pace is twice as fast. (Writing current chapter is higher priority than editing past chapters and I only have so much caffine to work with here.)
This leads to one very predictable problem: The longer I keep writing current chapters with the old version of the System, the more work I'll have to do to re-edit everything here as I get to it.
So I need to rectify this little hiccup before I go insane, I figured the end of round 3 is a good spot!
Thus: Please calmly look deeply into this image and pretend all the below changes have already been implemented.
Die Trying Major Patch Notes:
1. The storefront started completely empty of choices.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
All the purchase options it offers are something Wade personally unlocked bit by bit by completing quests. (Usually offered in 'pick one of two options to add to the storefront' rewards.)
Wade's been the one building up the storefront choice after choice.
The storefront's starter gear shop unlock now offered a few different basic 'Adventure bundles.' And it does not do 'ask for anything' type offer anymore.
Wade gained a single-use commission request option from a copper lootbox, which he used to get his smartphone back and at system quality. (The 'make any request you want' always felt a little off to me, and in hindsight, it should always have been a lootbox reward option.)
2. The system offers a lot more mini quests and also actually mentions there's leveling experience offered for completing them.
System starts by offering him "Insignificant leveling experience" but Wade discovers it's 25% of a level at level 1. So not so insignificant. Although it goes down 5% for each level.
By level 5, it has lowered to 5%, but a later (new) copper lootbox he gets in book 1's run gives him an upgrade that allows the System to now award 'Negligible' leveling experience that's the next bump upwards. He's been on the search for the next quest experience upgrade ever since.
3. Challenge Gauntlets trigger automatically on any level 50 or above. It also had a full on multi-part questline to upgrade it after Wade completed the first one.
3a. First quest in the chain required 3 more wins, and granted a +10% health restoration on winning all gauntlets in the future.
3b. The following quest was also for 3 more kills. It gave a storefront unlock for a new modifier: 'Augmented Hunter: For the next five challenge gauntlets, gain +1 random stat increase on full completion of each gauntlet.' - and it also came with a free application of it for this round.
3c. The third questline requires 6 more kills but unlocks a storefront option that lets him buy a single-use trophy-collection knife. (When used on the body of a dead challenge gauntlet mob, will cut off a permanent trophy part that offers round modifiers, and Wade can bring one per round.)
Might be more small changes again in the future as I fine tune the story with feedback from everyone here as it goes from rough draft to something I can send to an audiobook narrator and feel like it's final!
(Good luck to the audiobook narrator when it comes to the emoji spam from Play though. I'm not telling them where I live because I'm 99% sure I'm getting a pipe bomb mailed directly to me if I did.)