Tower of Cards 1: Spell Thief [A Progression Fantasy] - What do you want to read next?

As a lot of you know, I intend to end ToC(or do a soft ending at least) with this book. In all honesty, the Amazon performance wasn’t as great as I hoped. Even though I’m super attached to ToC and Diya(He and the characters are based on people in my life. Gwyneth is modeled after my wife and Baba my father.), I write for a living and need to treat it as a business. Don’t worry, though. I’ve planned the book out in detail. It’s going to be a long one. Book 1 was just short of 500 pages, and Book 2 will be close to 600. We’ll save Alexander, get Diya the answers he wants regarding Neer, and give him the happy ending he deserves. The ending will leave room for sequels in case book 2 proves to be a financial success.

I’m done writing the first half of the book and hope to finish it after I return from holiday on the 17th of June. I aim to finish it by 30th June and then schedule daily updates. Meanwhile, my breaks between chapters are filled with plans on what I want to write next. I’ve successfully cooked up two ideas that appeal to me and I’d like to present the readers with the two concepts so you can help me decide.

1. Department of Dungeon Studies (Academy Fantasy)

Setting: I’m considering the early renaissance era when magic and technology are starting to merge. Imagine floating islands with airships docking on them and smaller bird-like flying vehicles fluttering around them. Cannons and muskets are still experimental techNOLOGY and highly inefficient. Mages don’t just nurture their own strength but are also working to make magic accessible to the common man. The story will be set mostly around a child of Yggdrassil’. It’s a focus of magic on the continent and a giant city thrives under its canopy. At its center is the University which our protagonist will attend. It is a time not long after the gods have fallen and humanity is on the rise. The divine are scattered around the world and struggling to hold on to their power. Places they’ve visited or where they reside are now the gods’ domains and exist as dungeons full of valuable resources, boss monsters, and angry dungeon lords, desperately trying to reclaim their strength from the mortals.

Protagonist: Nox is the Merchant Queen’s first son. She resides on an island that floats around the continent. It serves as her headquarters, from where she commands and controls several trade routes and convoys that transport goods all over the world. Few mercantile companies can challenge her influence and might, making her well-respected among the royals and nobles of most kingdoms. Nox and his late father snuck away from the island once to visit passing ruins. Unfortunately, their visit coincided with a ‘god fall’. The ensuing calamity scarred Nox’s magic circuits and killed his father. His mother blamed him for the incident. He was disinherited and now works as an alchemist for his uncle. Despite his limitations, Nox is desperately working towards the goals of standing independent of his mother’s influence and taking down the dungeon and god that ruined his life. His fighting style will involve alchemy, arcane archery, and a unique take on crystal sorcery. I have a fun magic system in mind that’ll make it interesting.

Plot: The story starts with an incident where Nox humiliates his step-sibling in a duel. Before he can do the same with his half-brother and the new heir, his mother intervenes. After some deliberation, Nox is exiled. However, this gives him freedom from his mother’s influence and lets him attend a magic university. Since he has a hatred of gods and dungeons, he enrolls in the Department of Dungeon Studies. It won’t be an easy journey though. Nox is financially cut off. He needs to fund his education himself by dungeon diving and selling alchemical creations. The magic scarring limited his ability to use ranged magic, so he has to rely on arcane archery to get by. Worst of all, his step brother and half brother are also students in the department. So, Nox also needs to deal with them and the nobility’s politics. Fortunately, he has a best friend who attends the University with him. They survived the godfall together and their relationship is strictly platonic. The pair work together to survive and pay their way. We’re also going to have factions that still worship the gods and are trying to sabotage humanity’s progress so they can return to power.

2. They Say I’m MAD Lucky (Luck-focused LitRPG comedy)

Setting: If you’ve read my ‘They Called Me MAD’ series you’ll be familiar with the setting already. It’s a post apocalypse world where aliens masquerading as space elves came to Earth seeking help to continue their species’ existence after all the men were slaughtered. They offer humanity a link to the ‘system’ so they can prepare for the approaching threats. Only the strongest and best men will get to mate with the alvans and the women will enjoy a life of luxury. In reality, it’s all a hoax. The aliens turn the earth into a giant reality TV show and at the end of the trilogy the protagonist exposed them. MAD Lucky will take place 50 years after the events of the books and will have a few overlapping characters. However, prior knowledge of them or events of the old story won’t be necessary. The story will be set in the apocalypse’s aftermath where small human settlements struggle to survive in a world full of monsters and alien profiteers.

Protagonist: Kopi will be a clone of the most powerful and influential human on earth. Several like him were made to become a new body for Matt. After all, an army can’t survive without the mind that trumped the aliens and gave humanity a fighting chance. A misplaced strike awakened the clone. All the copies were destroyed while he survived. He finds himself with a game-like stat menu and a unique power akin to the predatory gacha games currently plaguing our world. His powers will revolve around sacrificing valuable resources to the system to activate the gacha power and summon tools, weapons, minions and more. It being a gacha, the chances of getting anything useful is, of course super low. So, he has no choice but to dump everything in Luck.

Plot: Even though Kopi is a unique entity with his own mind and personality, he has the same genetic and mental signature as Matt, the leader of humanity. As a result, the aliens and everything that serves him are pursuing him. He must rely on his new powers and the viewers of the TV show to survive. You can expect a fun blend of sci-fi, fantasy, and comedy as Kopi harnesses the elements of chaos and probability through his power. It will be a character-driven of the protagonist’s survival and relationships with his many summons. You can expect characters like Shield Granny, Angsty Milk Maid, Village Idiot, Stoic Huntsman, Spoilt Young Master etc.