Introduction and Acknowledgements
Hey guys, I am DaoOfTheWeb, the reader of many Eastern Fantasy novels both translated and Original.
I also happen to be the Author of this story.
Now I am here to just give a quick address to people before the story and also give out my acknowledgements to the novels that have influenced this book in some way.
I will leave the name of the novel, its author, links to it and also a rough reason as to what was influenced by it.
Do note that nothing is directly copied and if I unknowingly do so, please let me know because that is disrespectful to the author of the story inadvertently copied and I would instantly change that part of the story if it is an accidentally or unknowingly copied.
This is my respect to other authors of any kind.
Just as a note, when I get influences from other books, not on this list, I will add them if they influence the book in anything more than a minuscule way.
Ok, now to the influences and inspirations.
"The Storm King" by Warden1207
(RRL Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16476/the-storm-king
Link to Warden's official site: https://wardenreading.com/ )
This book was the first original book that I read of a professional standard.
This one, unlike the rest of the list, is actually more of a pure Fantasy rather than an Eastern Fantasy.
It was also responsible for a large number of original books becoming unreadable due to raising the bar on the English of original books so high.
The level of English in this book is top tier and I personally try to use this author's level of English as my guideline for what I think my original book should have.
"Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies" by KevinAscending
(link: https://m.webnovel.com/book/10490308205045905)
This story is an Original which in my own opinion, is honestly among the top 5 eastern fantasy stories I have ever read and rates up there with Martial World and God of Slaughter in my heart.
Influences:
> Different Paths of Cultivation. I have had a similar thing in one of my other stories on RRL but not to the degree of which KA has done it on CEDS.
No names are copied and all the paths in my story are unique to a degree (I mean, it is Eastern Fantasy so we gotta have the basic bitch qi path lol), but the idea of different paths and restrictions of certain paths due to race and such is used later on in the story.
"The Wheel of Samsara" by Liron
(link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/10360051305017705/The-Wheel-of-Samsara)
This book was a joy to read and was quite different from what you would expect from an Eastern Fantasy novel.
The focus on character's motivations and goals for cultivating through various means were refreshing.
This book overall just helped me see that character development doesn't just mean to define a character's personality and how they change; it also relates to their motivations and beliefs.
Overall, this book influenced me a fair amount, though the introduction of psychological aspects within my story was primarily triggered by the next book on the list.
"Legend of the Empyrean Blacksmith" by beddedOtaku (link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/10509131105051205/Legend-of-the-Empyrean-Blacksmith)
Out of all the books on this list, this one was by far the darkest.
However, the darker psychological themes of this book were what made it so inspirational for me.
The way the mental states, personalities, goals, beliefs and the development of the aforementioned aspects of the various characters due to events within the book is so thoroughly revealed renders me absolutely speechless.
It shows just how much the psychological aspects of a book can truly impact the story and has inspired me to pay attention to such things as I am writing my story.
"The Demon's Gate", "Against the Heavens" and "Monarch of Heaven's Wrath" by ShiranuiShukumei (all of them lol, links are in order the titles are btw).
(link-1: https://www.webnovel.com/book/11660828406460305/The-Demon's-Gate. | link-2: https://www.webnovel.com/book/11615813506442505/Against-The-Heavens | link-3: https://www.webnovel.com/book/11615715305453205/Monarch-of-Heaven's-Wrath)
These books are here for a very specific reason, how fucking creative this author is at using qi.
I will be one of the first to admit that, while the author tends to use the less common attributes of qi for (most) of his main characters and (some) of the prominent characters in his stories he does tend to use the same 5-10 attributes.
However, why the fuck does this matter when each character uses their qi-attributes differently and uniquely (differently compared to other people with similar attributes in other works of the author. Uniquely compared to any other story I have ever read by any author not this guy, no joke here btw).
This guy is a literal god at these kinds of twists on the common Eastern Fantasy basics and it means that even if he had generic characters (which he doesn't btw) I would still love his works.
It also helps that every work by this author all takes place in the same world (Multiverse based, introduced in chapter ~65 of MoHW) and that he is connecting them seamlessly while also making it clear on the chronological order the stories take place in.
(Note: I was able to work out the chronological order of the 4 current works of the author just through what is referenced in what books. e.g. certain books will only reference certain characters and groups from other stories, so you can infer what stories came first chronologically in the multiverse setup).
Also, there is a 4th work by the author on RRL called "The Godless One, but it is on hiatus until the author finishes one of the currently written ones.
Mainly the inspiration for me by this author is simply to be creative and don't be afraid to be out there with aspects of the story.
It taught me to think of the attributes used in my story, what they embody, look at them from many different perspectives and then invent ways of using them that are interesting in the lesson/inspiration/influence I received from this author's works.
"Spirit Immortal" by Linodo (link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/11023868206235005/Spirit-Immortal)
Probably the most unique book of the list in terms of the basic cultivation method. Unlike any other mentioned book, Spirit Immortal uses a martial spirit system.
However, this book taught me a very valuable lesson; always have an underlying theme to each arc.
This one gave me more subtle influences and simply gave me the boost I needed to keep writing.
The author himself of this book admitted that he sacrificed early enjoyment of the book (by focusing on character development and world building) to gain what is now an incredibly immersive story that is my favourite martial spirit book of all time and ranks in my top 10 Eastern Fantasy books (surprisingly few translated books actually make this list. There is only Martial World, Stellar Transformations and a maybe on Coiling Dragon which I would have to atleast get 1/3 of the way through before ranking).
"Legends of Gods: Tale of Vjaira" by Caladbolg (link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/5457/legends-of-gods-tale-of-vjaira)
Another rather unique book, this book is what happens when you take a simple cultivation system and go absolutely wild on it.
This book has almost half a dozen small things that each do different things and interact in unique ways with each other that is it amazing how seamlessly the author managed to connect them all.
It is also one of the few books I have seen truly utilising emotions as a major aspect of cultivation via what is called the Aspects of Humanity.
However, this book also has an amazing utilisation of the Water attribute in particular (Main Character's attribute if the banner of the story won't give it away) that absolutely blows me away. The fact that the main character uses an alternative method for getting Ice and Mist/Steam (depends on heat of course) than the norm in the books world that is far more effective and powerful is just another thing that proves how powerful the 3 prominent characters are (although 1 of them, the girl on the banner to be specific, won't be mentioned for a while and was quite weaker than the other two when she last appeared).
What this book has taught me is actually long-range planning. I had only started to mentally plan the links and such between each book that is going to be in my series after I started re-reading this book.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
WorstNameEver
WorstNameEver In case you haven't noticed, most of the books in the acknowledgements list are Original works.
This is because during the period of about 2 months before the conception of this story until now Original works were and still are my main source of reading on the various sites I use.
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