So in the end, this entire volume was over 430 pages. It will probably be the longest volume of this entire story for now.
I originally wanted Yao Ying to get a bit more development this volume; but didn't really get much of a chance to do so. Next volume for sure.
Some thoughts below:
Yun You was also introduced in the third volume. I guess that leaves Xiao Jun for last? It will probably be a while before he gets a chance to do anything though.
The gender-bent, yes, I'm personally not a fan of gender-bent as a genre because it's awkward to read for me. But I already said that Long Hua as his original self is a genderless existence, so I felt like I needed to owe up to that. Plus, there's a few scenes that would only make sense if he was a female—due to the settings of the specific scenario.
Wen Qing and Yu Ji, I'm glad I finally got more of their back story together. Hmm, I don't think it's possible for me to really do a full back story of them—to talk about their past together. It will probably be a side story sort of thing.
The hunting grounds created by the unpleasant individual, I wasn't planning on introducing that in this volume, but then I figured that I might as well get it out of the way fast.
Shen Le and the idea of dreamers, and Ye Chen and the idea of a hero—making the world more interesting. I wanted to—I guess give Long Hua a chance to talk about his early notions of what a "god" is? If a god is meant to side with dreamers, and to select the hero, while interfering with the mortal world as little as possible, I suppose, it really is a lonelier path to take than being a practitioner—who watches their non-practitioner acquaintances die from old age, and eventually be left on their own in this world, if all their fellow practitioner acquaintances fell during battle.
Long Hua and the Tai Xuan Emperor, I feel like their relationship is going to take a real interesting turn in the future. For the time being, I'm going to refer to the Tian Cheng inside of the dreamscape as the Tai Xuan Emperor, since it's just easier. Her real name has always been a point of contention for me, and it wasn't until I started writing certain intermissions that I started to finalize her name.
Dao He Tian Xue and Long Hua's shared past, I do not think it's possible to talk about their past together in this story. That's probably also side story content, but I'm not willing to write too much about their relationship as mentor and disciple because that's a story worth over—I don't know, a hundred chapters? And it would derail the main story hard.
Zhang Yong, Hui'er, these two characters, they kind of serve as a way to put closure on "Long Hua" the native's story.
Funny thing, when I was writing out the scene with Qing Ming Yang getting his crotched smashed, the cooking video I was watching on my second monitor showed eggs being cracked, so I was like: "yeah, why not?"
Wu Xiao's spontaneous marriage, so what caused these scenes to be written out—it's mainly because the inside of my head just had all the materials for it. Also, some of the future events related to her have been finalized.
The intermission that talked about the Imprisoning Heaven. The design of this entity was inspired by Outer God existences. The name itself was what kicked off the writing for the intermission itself. The Chinese name that came to mind initially was Jìn Tiān Zhě, which translates more to "Sealer of Heaven" or "Entity/One Who Seals the Heaven" than Imprisoning Heaven itself. In the end I felt like Imprisoning Heaven was the better English name, and was less of a mouthful. There's a total of two intermissions that talk about this entity, and both were written in a single day. I was originally going to have both intermissions be a part of the sixth volume, but decided it was best to just put one of the two intermissions into this volume instead. As for why these two intermissions exist, they're also meant to be a setup for later, and I just felt like writing something different on that day after I finished my first edit of volume 12, chapter 52.
The White Flute intermission, I don't think it's difficult to guess what the mini-story of this intermission will be about. This was actually the last intermission to be added into this volume, and I even asked myself if I should add this intermission in with how long the volume already is. But then, I decided I might as well just use this volume to kick off all the mini-stories.
The Sui Yan intermissions, it's basically a preview or setup of what might occur in the Earthborn Elementals' Realm in the future. It takes place way before the main story though. I do not want to spend over- I don't know, over 5 or so chapters of the main story in flashbacks. And this is why this mini-story will be slipped into fitting areas of the main story chapters as intermissions. Originally this was just going to be one intermission, but I felt like with how fast the events occurred between the first intermission and this one, it's better to just slip the second in as well. Currently, this intermission mini-story is over 200 pages—making it the longest mini-story. The mini-story that is second in length will probably start next volume.
Some people might be asking how important these mini-stories in intermission form are, because it might seem very disruptive to insert them between the main-story chapters. My answer to that, they are actually very important. Personally, I felt like the way Long Hua changes as a character in the next volume to be somewhat unnatural, and these intermissions as they go on in the future—they will serve to explain why his changes are somewhat abrupt. Also, I try my best to insert them into periods of the main story, where there is a bit of pause or time passage, so that they don't feel too abrupt when the main-story is being written along.