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Painting the Mists #16
Heartforge
To heal his heart, he must forge it anew.
Recent events have proven too much for Cha Ming. His heart is broken, and his soul is shattered. He cannot move. He cannot speak. His friends worry for his safety.
Soul trauma is difficult to heal at the best of times, and to do so, the Monkey King calls in an expert. He sends Cha Ming to the Heartforge Realm, the place where legends are born and heroes are made.
Cha Ming isn’t happy with this arrangement, but he’s too busy surviving to complain. The Heartforge Trials aren’t for the faint of heart, and less than one in four ever make it.
Yet there are far worse fates than death. There are many who pass the trials but lose themselves. The realm doesn’t just train heroes, after all, but villains as well. The difference is often a matter of perspective.
Recent events have proven too much for Cha Ming. His heart is broken, and his soul is shattered. He cannot move. He cannot speak. His friends worry for his safety.
Soul trauma is difficult to heal at the best of times, and to do so, the Monkey King calls in an expert. He sends Cha Ming to the Heartforge Realm, the place where legends are born and heroes are made.
Cha Ming isn’t happy with this arrangement, but he’s too busy surviving to complain. The Heartforge Trials aren’t for the faint of heart, and less than one in four ever make it.
Yet there are far worse fates than death. There are many who pass the trials but lose themselves. The realm doesn’t just train heroes, after all, but villains as well. The difference is often a matter of perspective.
- GenresFantasy
393 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 14, 2022
58 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Patrick G. Laplante
37 books72 followersPatrick Georges Laplante was born in a small town in the Canadian prairies in 1987. He began publishing Painting the Mists online under the pseudonym RedMirage in January 2018.
An engineer by trade, he graduated from the University of Alberta in 2009 and completed his master's degree in 2011. While writing and engineering have little in common, he actively utilizes his experiences and attention to detail in fleshing out a vivid world and answering the "whys," which are often left unanswered in Xianxia fiction.
As an avid vegan, he aims to prompt internal reflection in his readers through various themes like non-violence, choice, and begging the question: Is personhood restricted to humanity? And what is proper conduct, morality, and love?
His work is inspired by a combination of Western fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Chinese web novels, and various Japanese, Korean, and Chinese comics and illustrated novels.
Patrick's hobbies include: reading, board games, and taekwondo.
An engineer by trade, he graduated from the University of Alberta in 2009 and completed his master's degree in 2011. While writing and engineering have little in common, he actively utilizes his experiences and attention to detail in fleshing out a vivid world and answering the "whys," which are often left unanswered in Xianxia fiction.
As an avid vegan, he aims to prompt internal reflection in his readers through various themes like non-violence, choice, and begging the question: Is personhood restricted to humanity? And what is proper conduct, morality, and love?
His work is inspired by a combination of Western fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Chinese web novels, and various Japanese, Korean, and Chinese comics and illustrated novels.
Patrick's hobbies include: reading, board games, and taekwondo.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 11, 2023
well the best and the worst book of the series at the same time
We all deal with loss in similar ways; we suffer, we deny, we negotiate, we accept, we reminisce, and eventually, the pain becomes part of us. It is never o
overcome, but it is assimilated.
Some people, whoever, become unable to function. Something inside them brokes, and if their will is not strong enough, and if they close themselves to the world, and their life is not a fantasy book, they become wasteful pieces of meat and soul waiting for Death to realize they stopped living a long time ago.
This hero belongs to the second group but lucky for him, this is a fantasy book. It is an excellent story with a very empty, shallow, but overpowered hero.
I wish the author decided to take some spotlight off him and give his Fox brother a central role in the story.
We all deal with loss in similar ways; we suffer, we deny, we negotiate, we accept, we reminisce, and eventually, the pain becomes part of us. It is never o
overcome, but it is assimilated.
Some people, whoever, become unable to function. Something inside them brokes, and if their will is not strong enough, and if they close themselves to the world, and their life is not a fantasy book, they become wasteful pieces of meat and soul waiting for Death to realize they stopped living a long time ago.
This hero belongs to the second group but lucky for him, this is a fantasy book. It is an excellent story with a very empty, shallow, but overpowered hero.
I wish the author decided to take some spotlight off him and give his Fox brother a central role in the story.
October 14, 2022
Enjoyed it
Another great addition to the series. The author continues to hold my interest in the characters and the many realms the story takes us to, even if it is one of the longest series that I have read. Great job.
Another great addition to the series. The author continues to hold my interest in the characters and the many realms the story takes us to, even if it is one of the longest series that I have read. Great job.
October 22, 2022
One of the best books in the series
Great series it has everything to make it one of the best classic of this decade. Give it a try
Great series it has everything to make it one of the best classic of this decade. Give it a try
April 2, 2023
best one yet
This is a serious that keeps on getting better as it goes. Cannot wait to read the next book. I have a feeling the trial is going to be nuts.
This is a serious that keeps on getting better as it goes. Cannot wait to read the next book. I have a feeling the trial is going to be nuts.
November 18, 2024
ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, INSANE WORK BY LAPLANTE.
July 29, 2024
Despite my review that might look like a rant, i recommend this book/s if you're sick of constant stretching of the webnovels and story is unique enough to read. also below>
I like how these books compare to the chinese webnovels; things aren't mentioned back and back and back again a bunch of times, no grammar mistakes and all of that but it still follows the same route of long arcs and author tells us early on in the books that he'll make arcs into 9books.. that's a long stretch...
the story after ascension has been great but it went downhill afrer a certain character comes back to life, for me at least it didn't feel good i guess i wanted the overall situation in the story to catch up and get started instead of focusing too much on that character(i wanted this part of the story to end early) but that is not for me to decide, since author knows what he's doing and there are surely many who like the development so far.
If i were to focus on this story and know when the arc is about to end it won't feel good, there's some stuff i would like to add here -
Author went ahead and fixed some spoiler like things himself but that was a good edition to the books good part and it would be only get better if it didn't spoil things clearly i think vogue wordings solves the issue of spoiling and also add a hype kind of thing to look forward to.
Randomness to the arc ending and starting.
I've one thing to say is: Why focus soo much on odd numbers? 7,9!? it's fine but not when they're mentioned for cultivation levels,story chapters, some numbers here and there but arcs ending with 9 books!? also...
thats a pretty bad thing to experience as a reader and its not just this books problem its a whole chinese culture things of giving importance(too much) to odd numbers..
I've no idea of the thing, I don't even want to know, i know all around the world odd numbers are considered good sign but i don't think that means having 9 enemies, 9 chapter,9th level being the end,3 sub lvls of a 1 main lvl...,3 worlds,7 countries... please spare me from this misery... its soo predictable... just have some randomness it'll add a bit of mistry at least.
The story had just started to get real interesting after the recent events and I'm looking forward to it, though i don't know how many more arcs we'll get.
These kind of stories tend to have too much stuff into them and i hope author focuses on this story instead of following the various trends and stretching of the story like all the other chinese webnovels do, take your time and give us your best.
I like how these books compare to the chinese webnovels; things aren't mentioned back and back and back again a bunch of times, no grammar mistakes and all of that but it still follows the same route of long arcs and author tells us early on in the books that he'll make arcs into 9books.. that's a long stretch...
the story after ascension has been great but it went downhill afrer a certain character comes back to life, for me at least it didn't feel good i guess i wanted the overall situation in the story to catch up and get started instead of focusing too much on that character(i wanted this part of the story to end early) but that is not for me to decide, since author knows what he's doing and there are surely many who like the development so far.
If i were to focus on this story and know when the arc is about to end it won't feel good, there's some stuff i would like to add here -
Author went ahead and fixed some spoiler like things himself but that was a good edition to the books good part and it would be only get better if it didn't spoil things clearly i think vogue wordings solves the issue of spoiling and also add a hype kind of thing to look forward to.
Randomness to the arc ending and starting.
I've one thing to say is: Why focus soo much on odd numbers? 7,9!? it's fine but not when they're mentioned for cultivation levels,story chapters, some numbers here and there but arcs ending with 9 books!? also...
thats a pretty bad thing to experience as a reader and its not just this books problem its a whole chinese culture things of giving importance(too much) to odd numbers..
I've no idea of the thing, I don't even want to know, i know all around the world odd numbers are considered good sign but i don't think that means having 9 enemies, 9 chapter,9th level being the end,3 sub lvls of a 1 main lvl...,3 worlds,7 countries... please spare me from this misery... its soo predictable... just have some randomness it'll add a bit of mistry at least.
The story had just started to get real interesting after the recent events and I'm looking forward to it, though i don't know how many more arcs we'll get.
These kind of stories tend to have too much stuff into them and i hope author focuses on this story instead of following the various trends and stretching of the story like all the other chinese webnovels do, take your time and give us your best.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews