Hello dear readers, I have been informed that the release will be tomorrow at noon, which is 12 PM on Friday, June 7th.

I would like to thank the readers who have always supported me, thank Canaan, my editor, for her guidance and encouragement, thank my family for their support, thank Metal Raindrops and Xixi for their chapter promotions, and thank the fellow readers in the book friends' group for their discussions. The order of thanks is not prioritized.

I ask everyone for first-order support to let the author know how many friends are looking forward to the story of this book, inspiring me to write faster, thank you in advance.

Since the notice was received suddenly, there's not much pre-written content, but I will try to have explosive updates, and future updates will be as frequent as possible.

This I can guarantee. Because during the new book period earlier, updates were restricted, but for the sake of complete content, there were still instances of 8000 words in a single day—of course, all based on maintaining quality as much as possible.

Hereafter, let's chat about the feelings of creating this book.

The author is neither some extraordinary devil nor a veteran; I'm a fresh newcomer at Qidian. Previously, I had a book with an average subscription of 20. After summarizing experiences and lessons and preparing for a new journey, a series of changes happened in reality. I abandoned some ideas that I liked and intricately set up, but estimated only the greats could write them; I stumbled and finally published the book at the end of April this year.

The writing in this book is not even as good as the last one; one reason being the mental exhaustion caused by various real-life issues, another being that I even underwent a full anesthesia surgery before opening the book, slowing down thought processes.

Of course, it doesn't mean the book was created whimsically; this book is a Japanese fantasy familiar to me, and I am concentrating on shaping each character well.

The publishing time missed the subsistence allowance of the first month, but it couldn't be delayed anymore, otherwise, it might be hard to make ends meet.

Writing about withdrawal from the team serves as a prelude, the main essence is actually the latter part of the title "Then". It tells the story of the protagonist who, despite intending to form a stable and efficient team, only encounters problematic young girls, traveling to the edge of the sky and the end of the world amidst wits and bravery struggles with them.

Before publishing, I didn't realize that this kind of light novel on the island in the east had left a bad impression on readers; this was my oversight.

The reason for using withdrawal as a prelude is due to the author's personal experience, being more familiar with it, thinking that this way can more accurately depict how events arouse the protagonist's fighting spirit.

When I used to play WOW, I indeed encountered a team leader who would only distribute equipment privately after "borrowing money". Since it was a team with some progress on epic difficulty raiding, in the gaming environment back then, this was the precious resource he could provide, which became his fearless capital.

I didn't play in that team, but I was very close, witnessing it firsthand. Eventually, that team leader was reported by unbearable team members, chased by Brother Jing, not sure if he was caught later.

The protagonist left the team due to profession from my experience playing a Warlock in WOW, the team raid requiring you to both deal DPS and provide necessary functionalities, doing the dirty and hard work, but leaving the team raid, being in another major segment of the game like the 5-man dungeon Great Secret Realm, was detested.

Back to this book, the setting background references Granblue Fantasy quite a bit (abbreviated as gbf), the author is a veteran player of this game, currently at RANK 375, hourglass graduate, ten days away from 150, all ten wise men have reached the final breakthrough with 64 techniques, six old kings, all magic and weapon are overlimit, three 250 weapons, except for the Water Square Array, all are above level 230, nearly the fifth weapon with 150 gold moons, ancient battlefield heroes grinded twice, scarlet gold is around 50, but have been slacking off a lot for writing.

Although the early stage unfolds like a replica of gbf, both characters and settings have been reconstructed, the reference is for emotional reasons, not to deliberately ride on its coattails, if so, why choose our niche game.

Readers who have played or are familiar with gbf might see more déjà vu in the following, but from some angles, they might be entirely different; this is my guarantee for the reading experience.

And readers unfamiliar with gbf can also read without barriers. Besides gbf, some other games also have influenced, mainly Baldur's Gate 3 and the Monster Hunter Series, other miscellaneous things are too many to list.

Let's talk about the title.

Previously, many readers asked me to change the title, it's not ignoring this part of readers' opinions, but I'm somewhat hesitant to change due to the current smart recommendation mechanism at Qidian.

Since storage, the rising data has always been quite good, ranking at the forefront, I fear that after changing it will instead trigger a series of changes or cause some algorithm bugs leading to less traffic.

And the book itself starts with withdrawal, even if changed, the beginning will still let people know it's about withdrawal, and most stories are built on this foundation, making it difficult to make substantial changes. So temporarily keeping this straightforward title.

If the results really explode, I might learn from others to change it to some high-class title like "Cloud Poem" (laughs).

Thanks to readers for showing grace, the early reading data has always been quite encouraging, if it weren't for my poor timing in publishing, only jumping the promotional line after Tuesday each week, it might have reached recommendations faster.

Lastly, maybe because this book eyes the long haul, some readers clearly changed to keeping the book for now, last chaser stopped at the doorstep of Sanjiang, though a bit regrettable, this has far exceeded my expectations, inseparable from readers' support, deeply moved.

The so-called slow pace issue, when I planned, I didn't intend to write slowly, just my plot design still follows a set of rules, some deviation in length estimation, originally intended to be out of the island in 20 chapters, another 5-10 chapters for Dorothy to join the team, then foreshadow the Empire follow-up, would continue development and upgrades.

But once I started writing, the length increased while portraying atmosphere and emotions.

These will later be distilled to be more concise, the setting likewise, of course, these are certainly on the basis of ensuring character building.

The subsequent story will progress as Li Ang trains the unreliable problematic young girls, combats the Asura field, unravels the truth of the worldview, while watching the gradual downfall of The Soul Apex.

The part about slamming old teammates won't take up much proportion, but it will exist. It doesn't take up much because it is not the book's true purpose, Li Ang and his team members have greater ambitions, but retained because it's the story's prelude, needing a beginning and end.

Now Zoe and Dorothy have gathered, and there's also Elaphia's mom who is concerned about the protagonist, the author personally is looking forward to seeing what sort of chemical reactions the subsequent problematic young girls might trigger.

Finally, asking for first-order support once again.

Let's set sail together towards the other side of the clouds.

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