Hey guys, it's been a while.
Over the past few days, during which I didn't upload any new chapters, I started to have some doubts. I thought deeply about the future of this novel and came to several concerns and realizations. After taking the time to reflect, I've now decided how I want to move forward and address these issues.
First, let me explain what I mean by concerns and realizations. My main concern was the numbers I've been seeing. Over the last few weeks, the novel gathered around 6k views on webnovel, while on royalroad only 800. From my perspective and based on my experience with my previous novel, that's quite low. Some might say it's because I don't upload daily, and that may be part of it, but even so, the engagement has only been around 100–200 views per chapter.
While I know numbers can grow over time with more chapters and consistency, it still felt too low for me and, honestly, it started to demotivate me.
Because of this, I spent quite a while thinking about what to do. In the end, I made a difficult decision, I will cut the entire beginning of the story and restart it from a much higher point in the plot.
This means that everything I've written so far will become background story. The events will still be part of the world and the MC's past, but they will be mentioned later through short dialogues and reflections rather than full chapters.
With that said, I will stop updating this version of the novel and create a new one with the same story and the same MC, just starting at a more advanced point in the timeline.
The new novel will have the same name, and I hope you can understand my decision. If you'd like to continue reading The Sword Fanatic, I hope I'll see you again in the comments there.
The first chapters of the new version will be released in about a week, around 2 PM CST.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I'll answer them as soon as I find the time.