Chrysalis and Book of the Dead w/RinoZ

Welcome And Spoiler Light Setup

Welcome everyone to In Other Worlds, the LitRPG Gamlet and Fantasy Podcast. I am your host, Jess, and today we have Rhino Z. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

Fantastic. I'm not doing too bad. Not doing too bad. A little tired, but I'm good. So you currently have two series out. You have Chrysalis and then you have The Book of the Dead. That's right. I try to keep it fairly spoiler light. So we probably will only talk about uh the goings on in book one. That way we don't give away too much for people who have not read uh farther along in the series.

I know I'm ready. I can I can un I can lay it all out on the line. Anyway, yeah.

Why An Isekai Ant Hero

I will ask a few questions though that might be a little spoilerlight. So we'll see. We'll start with Chrysalis, since that is the series that you are farther along in. Give us kind of a a basic overview of Chrysalis.

Uh so for those familiar with the terminology, Chrysalis is uh is an Isekai series uh where the main character is reborn as a monster rather than a human. So something along the lines of uh so I was reincarnated as a spider, so I'm a spider, so what? Or I was reincarnated as a slime. Something along those lines. So in my character's case, Anthony is reborn as a monstrous ant. I love the fun. He eventually finds his colony, meets up with his people, his new people, and uh shenanigans ensue.

And so, how did you come up with the idea for this book? Like, why ants?

Uh there's a couple of interesting reasons why. Sort of a few, there was a confluence of a few ideas at the same time. I really liked Summer Spider-So Whats, great little series, anime on Netflix, check it out. But my favorite part by far was like the early part where it was just the main character as a spider running around and doing crazy stuff in the dungeon, and you know, eventually they evolve into a humanoid form and the story sort of goes above ground. And I was like, well, what if you had a series which was just all the first bit, which was just all the monster character running around doing crazy things, you know, below ground. But I thought to myself, well, if you were gonna do that, what kind of monster would be appropriate? They would need they would need someone to hang out with, right? You need other characters, yeah, someone for them to interact with, it can't just be them by themselves for the entire time. It'd be very boring. I woke up, I hunted, I ate some stuff, I went back to sleep.

Yeah.

Repeat 1,000 times. So I thought a social insect would be great. And I knew a bit, I knew a bit about ants, so it was not hard to uh to make that call.

Did you have any difficulty writing from like an ant's perspective?

Because it's just so vastly different from Well, I mean, he's a he's a human in an ant body.

But yeah.

This is a light and fun series. Ants that he spends about five minutes feeling upset that he's now an ant, and then he just moves on with life.

Yeah, well, and it is a very light series, but the first the first little bit of it is pretty dark because he wakes up and another ant is getting eaten.

I didn't want him to be reborn in the nest. I wanted that to have that like survival on your own uh moment so he would be able to learn about the world on his own.

Yeah.

Or at least approach it on his own without the complexity of having to worry about the colony. So I essentially set it up so that his egg was like stolen out of the nest. Which is a common thing that happens in nature, and eggs apparently delicious. I don't know. Ants rate each other all the time.

From other ants? I did not know that.

Oh, yeah.

You already had like a good knowledge on ants, or did you have to do a ton of research?

I had a pretty good knowledge already because of because of weird brain things that you do when you go down various rabbit holes. I just think they're interesting.

They are pretty interesting. He's not normal ant, like normal earth ant size.

Oh no, no, no, no.

He's like the size of a small dog, isn't he?

Yeah, he's basically um bit larger than a terrier. I would say he's maybe like a border collie.

That's pretty big.

Pretty big, right? He's about knee high. He's about knee high.

Dungeon Scale And Kaiju Growth

Yeah, and so he I I think at this somewhere near the beginning of the book, he tries to leave the cave that he has woken up in. And uh people freak out, and that doesn't last very long. He hightails it back inside.

So yeah, he's in the he's in a globe-spanning dungeon. So it's the entire planet is a dungeon, and he's in the very, very top layer.

So the the I did not realize that it spanned the entire planet. That's massive.

So it's the whole way around and all the way to the middle.

Ooh, that's that's big. And so in the series, you talk about how the deeper down in the dungeon, uh, in the different levels of the dungeon they go, the larger and stronger the monsters get. Is there like a cap on how big the monsters and the ants, like, is there a cap on how big Anthony can get?

Not really. I mean, one of the things if you look at the cover of the book, um the cover for book eight has uh sort of a very large version of Anthony on it. He's I don't know, he's like 10 meters, 15 meters tall. That's giant. He's big, man. Because that was the other thing. That was the other thing that I really didn't like about a lot of those Easter series that I was reading. It's like the ultimate purpose of you know evolving as a monster was basically to become more and more human. And I think Slider, I was reincarnated as a slime, is especially guilty for this. Every time a monster evolves, they just become a sexier version of a person.

You didn't want to do a sexy ant.

No. Who I don't understand who wants that. People out there who want that. No, this is not your series. Every time he evolves, he gets bigger and more monstrous.

There's something for everyone, really.

Well, this didn't seem to exist. There didn't seem to be a series where the where the monster main character just became a bigger and badder monster. And I was very adamant that that was going to be because I got asked a lot when I started, is he ever going to evolve into a human? No, not never. Absolutely not. He would be a kaiju by the end of the series.

Yeah, I like that he didn't, and and each of the upgrades that he got did make him kind of more and more monstrous. You know, it was his carapace and his uh pincers and his legs and his antenna.

His mandibles, thank you very much.

I don't know enough about Ant.

Inses come on.

It's you know, it's little things.

Um the face hands.

Yeah, the face hands. There we go. Uh, but I just like that they kept getting bigger and stronger and just more monstrous. There was no he's like a cute cuddly thing, or or more human-like. You didn't know. This might sound horrible.

This may sound all scary and stuff to the listener. This is a comedy series.

It is. It is full of anthropology. This is a comedy. It is full of ant puns, which I absolutely adored.

Oh, they never end.

I mean, it's in the name, Anthony. Fantastic. Did you uh did you pick the name because it started with ant?

Oh, yeah, definitely. Actually, I remember when I was like in the early stages, I remember sending a message to a friend being like, Do you reckon I can get away with calling the main character Anthony? Oh, yeah, go for it, man.

100%.

Just lean into it.

Intelligence Changes The Ant Threat

And so so because it because they get larger at the the deeper they go down in the dungeon. Why, if the dungeon is the entire planet, there are like surges, and they there is a concern from the people living on the surface that the ants will come up and just kind of overrun everything. Why would they ever go to the surface if the dungeon is just so large?

Well, I mean, this is the difference between Anthony's family and uh, you know, his colony and regular monsters, as he is the differentiating factor. So, I mean, normally monstrous ants would be extremely unintelligent, you know, swarming horde monsters, and they would just hunt down food, right?

Like, yeah.

They would go to the surface in order to eat everyone. But he steps in and ensures that doesn't the case isn't the case, you know. He he makes his um his colony intelligent. He ensures that they work together with people rather than just consuming everything in their path.

I mean, I would assume that eventually they would there'd be nothing left to consume, really.

Well, I mean, the reason why everyone freaks out when they see Anthony is because you know, ants are typically like very rabid, fast developing monster problem that needs to be put down as quickly as possible. So because of his involvement, you know, his colony is a bit more strategic, is a bit more uh cautious in its approach and is a bit more agreeable and you know works with people and develops its own bizarre ant culture as they go along.

Will they ever run into another ant colony?

So far in the story, they haven't. They've run into a termite colony, the destined enemy of all ants.

But just not another ant colony.

But they haven't run into another ant colony. The ants are good opponents for other ants. They don't get along particularly well in the water.

No, no, they do not. I've I've seen the the I've heard well, I've not seen it. I've heard of the people who will like take a shovel and dig up an ant colony and then just go plop it on top of another ant colony. Like, that just sounds mean.

That's horrendous.

Right trying to create big wars out of ants. It's just horrible. Anthony is isekai into an ant body, and uh all of the other monsters that we run across in book one, not very intelligent, except for one other. He does run into one other uh monster that he can converse with. Do we ever find more isekide monsters, or is he the only one?

No, no, we definitely do. Yeah, we could run into three others at the current point of the story.

Okay. Do we ever find out why he gets isekai?

Yes.

Ooh.

We do. There is a specific selection criteria.

Okay. Okay. Which book do we find that out in?

Five, I want to say.

Okay. I have not made it that far yet. Uh I have done the first few.

So I am excited to the first three is sort of I think where the required reading for the story. That's the first arc, right? And it really takes off in the third book. That's when the that's when the other ants become intelligent and he starts having like a whole family to interact with and teach, and it all just explodes from there.

Yeah. I mean, the queen was fairly intelligent in her own way from the very beginning as well.

Yes, she was. But the rest of them not so much.

Wacky Monsters And Evolving Companions

Yeah. She had a good way of communicating. And so the other monsters in this dungeon are incredibly wacky.

Yes.

You do like weird combinations of animals for some of these. What is the craziest monster that you can recall that you've written in the series?

Man, the fifth stratum has some really weird ones. Like various types of snail turtles that are infested with all sorts of parasites. It gets freaky down there.

Do you just have like a old wheel that you spin to pick different combinations of the animals?

Just have a blind dartboard on the wall.

Yeah.

Not really. I always try to make them somewhat creative and interesting. And I get a lot of suggestions from my Discord every time I'm designing a new stratum. I uh I hit up my Discord for suggestions and ideas, which is very helpful. There's only so much one person can fit in their brain. But yeah, coming up with interesting and uh dynamic monster concepts is uh harder than harder than you'd think.

I can imagine because you you want to find something that's gonna be interesting and fun.

But yeah, like you can't just slam any two things together and have it be uh you know a dynamic and interesting challenge.

And so you've said in the past uh that you were aiming in its serialized form, you're aiming for about 2,000 chapters.

Yeah, yeah, I said that many times. I was looking to end it about 2,000 chapters.

Has that changed?

Oh, yeah, or is that still the plan? I'm not gonna make it now. I am not gonna make it.

How many chapters are you at now?

Uh the last chapter on Patreon was 1799.

And so are you kind of nearing, do you know how you want it to end? Are we like nearing the end of the series?

I've always known how it was gonna end. I had a really clear concept of uh how the story would end, and it's it's mostly written, to be honest. But um I am not close.

So it's gonna be more than 2,000 chapters.

It's gonna be significantly more than 2,000 chapters. I'm trying to speed it up, but I'm not very good at speeding it up. It's like Book of the Dead was my attempt to write a trilogy, but I knew I'd need six books to do it.

I mean, that's not really a trilogy anymore.

A trilogy, like if Douglas Adams can get away with a trilogy in four, we can stretch it. A trilogy of six is fine.

Yeah. So book nine is coming out in July. How many books do you think there will be total?

I think it's gonna end up being about 16. Book nine is coming out in July. There's probably two more books of material that's already written. And then I think it's gonna probably take two or three more books to finish it. That's a lot of work. Damn.

It's it yeah, it that's a hefty series. That's a hefty series. But I'm I'm just I'm I'm a fan of long series, though. I've got a bunch of them.

I mean, that's one of the things I really liked about reading web serials and web novels was just the other long form storytelling. The idea that you didn't really need time skips, you just you have all of it there. The growth, the development, the pain, the struggle. You know, you have it all there on the page. I really liked that. But yeah, when you start turning that into published books, you get long series.

Yeah.

I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. Uh, so what made you decide to go uh lit RPG with this over just like a standard fantasy?

Um well that's what I was aiming to write from the start because that's what I was reading, you know what I mean? Like taking inspiration from things like uh Summer Spider, so what and Reincarnated as a slime and other series that were being written at the time. It was something that was not a new concept, even in 2017, particularly in the East. You know, uh Isekai into a game-like world uh was not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, even if it's only kind of really taking off in the broader republic imagination over here now. So yeah, I was reading a bunch of stories like that and I was inspired by them. It seemed like a great way to tell a story.

Yeah, I like that it it lends itself well to him like upgrading different parts of himself.

And well, that's the other thing. Like when you do as a monster main character, you get to come at it from a different angle. So, yeah, not only does he have skills and skill levels and all that sort of stuff, he also has mutations and body parts that he can manipulate and change and give himself new effects as he as he upgrades himself. You know, it's a it's an interesting take on the on the genre, and I thought something that people hadn't really explored. Like what you know, if you have a game-like system as a monster, then you know, you take advantage of that. What sort of cool things can you do? Yeah, that you that you couldn't do as a human.

So I mean it's almost limitless, really.

Yeah, he can cover his carapace in diamonds and make himself harder, and you know, mutate his legs and his acid and his mandibles and his eyes and everything.

Yeah, the acid one was fun. That was a fun one.

Hmm. And then, you know, as he goes on, Leo, every time he evolves, he can add new organs to himself and new body parts, and you know, he gets some really weird stuff.

He does, he really does.

He gets some really weird stuff.

Yeah, he ends up with, I guess, kind of an animal companion, like a monster companion, even though he himself is also a monster, uh, that starts off as like a little tiny little guy. How big does he have? The monster that originally was was very large. How big does he get? Does he get to the normal original monster size?

Yeah, he does, yeah. When you re- so when you reconstitute a monster from a core, they they sort of begin as like an infant version of what they had been before. So you're talking about you know the first pet that Anthony gets, so just tiny, who uh is a is uh his species is a lightning fist ape. He's big, you know, he's a very large boy. He's like, Yeah, I mean originally he's riding around. He's huge.

Yeah. Well, originally he's riding around on Anthony like a dog.

Yeah, but when after he gets re-reconstituted, he's a little baby version of that. So he's just riding around on the back of Anthony's carapace.

Yeah.

But eventually, yeah, he will regrow to his full size.

And you said he was that's how tall?

Yeah, like four meters, four-meter tall gorilla.

So not quite as big as Anthony.

I know that's just his that's his form then. If you go to current, Tiny has evolved many times since then. He's enormous.

How does he fit into the ant tunnels?

Well, they have to dig special tunnels for them.

Yeah, yeah.

Because that was kind of an issue almost from the very beginning.

Yeah, because he was bigger than everything else.

Yeah, because he just didn't fit.

Yeah, so Anthony, like at this, you know, this every time you evolve, you go up a tier. So you start as a tier one monster, you evolve to tier two to tier three. So at the current point in the story, Anthony's tier eight, and he is massive, he's huge. And so the the colony has to specially prepare tunnels for him to move around in. But generally speaking, the lower you go in the dungeon, the more wider, more wide open the space becomes. Um, so he doesn't generally have a problem getting around in the in the wider dungeon, but when he's in a in an ant nest, if he's in a fortress or an ant hill or something, yeah, there's most of the places he can't get to. And neither can Tiny.

Yeah, it was the that dynamic was very interesting. It was fun.

He gets three pets in the end.

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Uh are they as fun as Tiny is?

Uh they all aren't, they're all weird in their own way. So the second one he gets is Crinus. She's sort of like a shadowy blob creature with like thousands of tentacles that she can like spit out. She is a cutie little ball of murderous death.

I love it. I like that. I like that a lot. Do they also start off as like little babies? He Oh fantastic.

After she gets reconstituted, she's just a little mini blob. She just splats on Anthony's back and follows him around. And then the third one is Nvidia, who's a envy demon.

So would that one look more like your typical kind of succubus?

He is, and he's quite small to start with. He's a little eyeball with two spindly little arms that are attached to the side. And he's got little fluttery wings coming off his eyeball. So he's just sort of like jerkily floats and flutters about. But you know how the Cheshire cat, when it smiles, it's like a mouth kind of appears out of nowhere. So just imagine underneath NVIDIA, this giant fanged smile appears in thin air, out of thin air, when he's eating. If that sounds horrifying, this is a comedy series. This is comedy.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the monsters in any other setting would be terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. But it is a very funny book.

Thank you. Yeah, it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be funny.

It is. It is. I mean, the puns do a lot to like alleviate and lighten it up.

Well, it's just, yeah, there's so much nonsense that happens.

Yes.

Pantsing A Web Serial Into Books

Uh, particularly as the colony sort of becomes more intelligent and develops its culture. You know, they just do they just do things that make sense to them as ants and don't make sense to anyone else.

Would you say you're more of a panther or a plotter? Do you have the whole story plotted out?

Pants. 100%.

Yeah.

It just kind of lets it go.

Like I have an idea, I have a direction, you know, so I know exactly which direction the the series is traveling. I know where the destination is, I know exactly how it ends. You know, I know how the world works. You know, I know the motivations of the major players and all that sort of things. So I I have a lot that's guiding me. But generally speaking, you know, the plot-to-plot beats, moment to moment, it's all pantsing. There's no like structure about I'm still not sitting down and being like, okay, what's the next book gonna look like?

I've just accepted.

I'm just writing chapter to chapter. When I've written roughly 180,000 words or so, ah, it's a book. Whereas Book of the Dead Book of the Dead is written in books, right? Like Chrysalis is still just a web serial uh at heart.

It just gets mashed into a book.

Just gets mashed into a book.

This is a good ending spot for one of the books. We'll just end it right here with all of them.

Because it was always written as a web serial. There's not really any neatly designed endings, and I feel like it would be almost weird to start introducing them now. Like the first three books, you know, that is the first arc. Like it ties up very neatly at the end of book three. But yeah, after that, not so much.

Yeah. Your other series, uh Book of the Dead, is on Royal Road right now. Has that been published yet?

Yeah, it has, yeah. So it is filmed on Royal Road.

Okay.

Uh sadly, for Royal Road exclusive for readers. But yeah, yeah, no, that's published. The first four books are out, and book five is coming out. So when we finish editing it, give it give it a month or so.

And so give us kind of an overview uh of Book of the Dead.

Uh all right. Well, I can't emphasize this enough. Book of the Dead is not a comedy. It's not funny in anything in any way, shape, or form. Uh my inspiration for Book of the Dead was like the way necromancy is portrayed in most media sucks.

Okay.

Like it's of it to me, I don't know why. Alright, maybe this is just a weird way my brain works. It's offensively bad. The way necromancy is treated. And something like um solo leveling is the worst possible example. What kind of what you just say a word? You just say a word.

That's it.

One word. So no skill, no preparation, no ability or thought or anything.

No way for it to go horribly wrong.

This is just so just nothing. You just you just you you speak a word, and corpses just jump up off the ground and start moving around, defying the laws of biology and physics.

It does seem too easy.

It seems like a lot of heavy lifting for one word.

Yeah, yeah, I could see that.

So I made this, I started this series because I just hated the way that that was done. Like, because in my head, like most nerds, I don't know why necromancy is interesting.

But it is.

That's it's inherently interesting. Come on now.

Playing Diablo always with the necromancer every time.

100%. 100% you got the zookeeper necro. What do you mean? There's other classes in Diablo too. I've never seen them. I wanted to be like, okay, well, if I was gonna create my own necromancy system, what would it look like? And it was a lot of fun. So this is not an Isekai, you know, the main character Tyron, he's born on this world. It has already, you know, like a game-like element, uh, a game-like system in place. They refer to it as the unseen, you know, in order to see their status, they have to like, you know, cut their thumb and press their thumb onto a page and then do a little ritual, and then their blood will form into their status sheet. Oh, because I really don't like the idea of just having like screens appearing out of nowhere. Like in Crystal, it's just never really explained how Anthony's manipulating the system. Like, is he seeing a thing? Is it just in his head? It's right, it's never really explained.

Yeah.

But in Book of the Dead, it's explicit, like they have to perform this status ritual in order to see this, in order to see the status, in order to level up. And you know, the necromancy is incredibly involved. So if he wants to make a skeleton, you know, he needs to find a corpse, he needs to like literally butcher it himself, get the knives out, cut all the meat off, you know, remove all the offal. The bones need to be as clean as they could possibly get. And then, like, how does a skeleton move, right? How does it move? There's no muscle, there's no tissues. How does it move?

Well, I I would assume like very just kind of janky and like almost marionette-like.

Well, via what mechanism, right? Like we use our muscles to move. A skeleton.

I mean magic, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Magic can get a cop-out answer.

Skeleton has no muscles by definition. So how does it he has to literally create a magical weave and apply it to the skeleton, and then it draws on his power to move. So he has to like weave the muscles, he has to weave the sinew onto the skeleton, and then like once that process is done, he has to cast a ritual, you know, he has to create like an artificial, you know, very simplistic artificial mind to pile up the skeleton. Because in the early days he can't manipulate souls, you know, like in book one. And he has to go through this whole process and he gets one skeleton.

No more, like no upgrading to get more.

Well, I mean, he he can make more, right? But he has to do it for every corpse. He finds every skeleton he wants to raise, he needs to go through this process.

Wow. That is way more. Yeah, that's that is way more intense than any other necromancy uh that I've seen in any other story.

One one word? No, man. Absolutely not. That's yeah, the raised dead ritual lasts like an hour as well.

Wow.

So it's yeah, it's very involved. You know, obviously, there's a whole there's a story going on. It's a story of vengeance. You know, the necromancer class is illegal. He doesn't want to give it up, you know. His parents are like very powerful and famous slayers who kill monsters in his world. Uh and they have a monster for a kid. Which is under siege by monsters, uh, you know, attacking them from other worlds. So his parents are basically heroes. He wants to be like them, he wants to succeed. Um, he's terrified that if he gives up the class that he was given when he, you know, uh, then you know he'll never rise to that kind of height. So his original ambition is to like run away from the law, to try and develop himself and then prove that he can be, you know, a useful, productive citizen with his necromancer class, and then it all goes downhill from him, it all goes downhill for him from there.

And and he's given that class, he doesn't choose that class.

No, he doesn't choose it. So in this in this world, they have an awakening day on their 18th birthday, and uh he is given the necromancer class.

Why is someone given any legal class?

That's a very good question. There might be plot implications behind a question like that.

Okay. Because you would think if they're just assigning classes to people, whatever system or uh higher power is assigning classes to people, why give someone an illegal class?

That's a good and valid question. There's a chance that that kind of idea might get explored. I don't know, somewhere in book two.

Very interesting. And so this is gonna have six books, your your six book trilogy. You know how you want this one to end as well?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm writing the last book now, so I'm I'm in the process of book six.

Fantastic.

I'm kind of worried I might need to stretch it out to seven books.

Seven book trilogy.

But I think as long as I might be able to squeeze it in, I'll finish it in book six. It's gonna be a long book, but I'll get there.

So, how many are out and available right now?

Uh, four books. Four books are out and available as we speak. Uh, audiobooks done by the fantastic Phil Thrawn. And book five coming uh soon, we hope. Yeah, like the cover is done, everything's ready to go. We just gotta finish editing the manuscript.

See, now I know as soon as we get off of this call, I'm going to be going and ordering all four books. Because I just have to find out, I just need to know.

Uh when you when you start reading uh from the perspective of uh the character Dove, I'm sorry.

Who is Dove?

He's a real pain in the ass.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

He's the most he's the most divisive character I've written. Some people love him, you know, for being a foul-mouthed idiot who annoys everybody, and some people hate him for being a foul-mouthed idiot who annoys everybody.

Choosing A Fictional World To Live

Those are usually the very divisive uh characters. Yeah. You either absolutely love them or you absolutely hate them. There is usually no in-between on that one. Final question. Uh, if you could wake up in any fictional world tomorrow, which one would you pick? And do you think you would last longer than one day?

Uh okay, I definitely wouldn't pick Chrysalis.

Probably very, very valid option.

I think I think the average lifespan of a monster in Chrysalis is like five minutes.

They don't last very long.

They don't last very long, right? It's a comedy series. I definitely wouldn't pick Book of the Dead. That is not a comedy series. No way I'm lasting in there. Uh geez. Any fictional world, there's so many to choose from. Dungeon Fall Cull. Obviously, not. I would be inside when the collapse happened. Who goes outside? Who who fights with monsters? Maybe not a bad pick. You know what? Heretical fishing? Safe.

That would be yeah, that's a good one. That's not a bad pick.

That's not a bad pick.

Um and you'd definitely last longer than a day in heretical fishing.

You'd 100% last longer than a day. Yeah, a nice, comfy, cozy uh story.

Yeah.

You get to eat delicious fish. Okay, I'm down with that.

And be a heretic.

Well, yeah, and be called a heretic for it. But I think that's fine. That's manageable.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah, I'm trying to think if there'd be any other likely suspects. Uh let's go Warhammer 40k. Yeah. That's safe.

Okay. I had someone uh say Pokemon recently.

I don't know if I could live uh exclusively.

They were like, you know, free, free healthcare. And I was like, I think the free healthcare is for the Pokemon, not necessarily the people.

I don't know if I could live with myself if I uh made all my money exclusively from beating up children and making them cry.

I could. I already do that.

That's right. That's always what we do now. Exploit the youth. Uh I would go heretical fishing. He who fights with monsters might also be okay.

I don't know if I would survive more than a day in that one. I mean, maybe. But if you're like just not not being born in the world and living there, but like just waking up randomly. He who fights with monsters, I don't think I would I don't think I would survive, but heretical fishing, that's a good choice. That's solid.

You gotta pick, you gotta find a nice cozy series.

Yeah.

So you want to issacide me? Okay, well, take me to the cozy genre. That's where I'm headed.

A hundred percent, yeah.

I mean, imagine being isakai into what these imagine being istakai into solo leveling, even if you survive. You're the entire point of your existence is to stand around so the djinn, so the main character has somebody to aura farm off.

Yeah, no, thank you. That's boring.

I'm I'm going fishing.

I like it. I like that answer. It's a good one.

What's your answer, by the way? Have you given one?

Uh, I have not. And it's so tough.

That's very difficult. You can't steal mine, by the way.

I I know, and that's such a good one. Um, I you know, I should have thought of this to begin with. And I'm trying to look at like what I have around me. Definitely not Baldur's Gate or Elder Scrolls.

No. A lot of people are like, oh, DD, that'd be amazing. Yeah, the DD world is terrifying.

Yeah, that'd be so bad. You know, I would probably also have to go with something cozy. Uh, maybe the the world of Adria by S.L. Roland, his uh like cursed cocktails. Something nice and cozy, open up a tavern, maybe open up a bookstore.

You could maybe the world the cinnamon bun is set in.

Yeah, it's definitely not dungeon crawler Carl, though. I also would have I also would have died because I would have been in bed asleep. It was at like two o'clock in the morning.

Regardless of the time of day, man, I would have been at home on my computer working or reading.

I do I do spend 95% of my time indoors.

Like the odds, the odds of you catch me on like the walk from my door to the car to go to the supermarket are very slim. There's no way I make it into the dungeon. Absolutely not.

Where To Read Listen And Support

Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, no, there's no way. Uh so where can people find you?

I don't really have much of a social media presence. So you can find my story. You can find crystals on webnovel.com or royalroad.com, but obviously those are stubbed. So if you want to start the series from the beginning, you'll need to go to Amazon. Um, if you want to support the series and get advanced chapters, you could sign up to patreon uh.com slash rhinoz. Um you can find all the stories on Amazon and Audible, all the published books. So there are eight books of Chrysalis up there at the moment. There's four books of Book of the Dead up there at the moment. Um, you can get the first three books of Chrysalis for a single Audible credit. They're in a bundle deal, so that's like almost 60 hours of Jeff Hayes soundbooth narration. That's a lot of credit. I challenge you to beat that value.

You'll be hard pressed too.

You'll be hard-pressed. Also, Annie Ellicott, of course, doing the voice, uh, the female voices. Uh, she's incredible. Because all the ants are yeah, all the ants are female. That's just how it works.

Yep.

Um, and if you wanted to talk to me personally, just join me, join my Discord. There'll be a link out there somewhere.

Fantastic. I will link in the description of the video to your Amazon and uh your Patreon. So that'll be easy for people to find. And then I'll send you a link for the Discord as well.

That'll take care of that.

Perfect. Yeah, I will add the Discord as well.

Thank you very much.

That is everything that I had for you. Uh, thank you so much for taking the time out to come and talk to me. Everyone else, thank you for sticking around and keep leveling up.