A Thunderous Start

333 words

Chapter 0606: A Thunderous Start

Today's third chapter has been uploaded! Don't forget to cast your Recommendation Tickets — we're at a critical moment for the charts! ————

Desolate Era has only been uploaded for a single day!

I never imagined everyone's enthusiasm would be this intense. My previous novel, Swallowing the Starry Sky, concluded in late July. It has now been nearly five months since the new book began. With a hiatus of nearly five months… I didn't dare hold high expectations for the first day's fervor.

I simply hoped that Desolate Era would gradually attract more readers, with its popularity growing ever more vibrant over time.

But I never anticipated…

Just the first day alone!

The number of盟主 (Alliance Masters) who generously tipped exceeded one hundred! By evening, we had already reached a hundred盟主!

Moreover, the popularity index hit Double Crown status on the very first day!

The comment section at midnight was flooded in an instant!

…

Brothers and sisters of the Red Alliance, you are truly too supportive! Too formidable!

In the early hours, I kept refreshing the author's backend, looking at the names of each盟主 who had tipped. I even discovered that due to a system glitch, three盟主 were not displayed on the leaderboard. Haha… sweat… I must admit, I was also made incredibly exhilarated by your frenzy.

After the exhilaration, it's time to calm down and seriously write the novel.

On the first day of uploading a new book after a nearly five-month hiatus, you have filled me with immense surprise, excitement, and gratitude. All I can do is pour my utmost effort into writing, writing, writing. Desolate Era will undoubtedly be extraordinarily brilliant. I firmly believe this!

…

Regarding the release schedule for Desolate Era, let me also explain.

During the public reading period, starting tomorrow, the schedule will be one chapter at 12:00 PM and one chapter around 9:00 PM, each chapter being 3000 words. This maintains a pace of six thousand words per day!

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Reading Guide Decoding

A Meta-First Peek at the Red Alliance's Power

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Qidian Economy: Alliance Masters & Tipping Culture — If you're a Western reader seeing "Alliance Master" for the first time, it's a huge deal in Chinese web novel culture. This is not a simple "donation." It represents a substantial monetary tip within the Qidian ecosystem (the platform hosting the novel). Each "Alliance Master" tip is a significant amount (roughly 1000 RMB), and a book hitting 100 Alliance Masters on its launch day is a legendary benchmark of popularity and fan dedication. It's proof that the community has anointed the book as a hit on day zero. The "Red Alliance" is a self-organized fan group for IET, akin to a rowdy, passionate guild of supporters who coordinate tipping and voting campaigns. The author’s shock and gratitude are completely genuine; these fans are not just readers but vocal investors in the novel's success.

Chapter Overview

Whoa. Hold your horses, fellow Daoists. If you cracked open this chapter expecting celestial battles or a life-or-death sword duel, you might be scratching your head. This isn't a chapter from the story itself; it's a raw, unfiltered afterword from the author, I Eat Tomatoes (IET), written on the very first day of Desolate Era’s serialization. It’s a love letter to the readers, a chronicle of a monumental launch day that shattered expectations. The sheer frenzy of the fanbase—the Red Alliance—is laid bare: over a hundred "Alliance Masters" tipped the very first day, the popularity charts exploded, and the comment section was nuked. This is a rare, behind-the-curtain look at the raw, electric energy of a web novel community hitting a new peak.

Key Plot Points

This chapter is a meta-narrative, so the "plot points" are about the book's launch. First, IET sets the stage: after a five-month hiatus following Swallowing the Starry Sky, his expectations were modest. He was just hoping for a slow, steady growth in readership. The massive explosion of support utterly blindsided him. The key data point is the staggering "100 Alliance Master" milestone reached on day one, pushing the book's ranking to a "Double Crown." The narrative then shifts to the author's own emotional process, from the shaky, obsessive refreshing of his author dashboard in the early hours to a climactic declaration of renewed focus and professional commitment. Finally, IET outlines the "public reading period" schedule: two chapters per day (a 6,000-word total), one at noon and one at 9 PM. This is a classic author-reader contract moment, setting the beat for the months to come.

Reading Guide

Now, for the actual reading: treat this as a prologue to the story. It's the author baring his soul, thanking the financial lifeline of his creative world. Don't skim it just because there's no swordplay—the passion here is the engine that fuels the millions of words to come. The author's raw, sleepless gratitude is a cultural artifact of web serialization. As you read the rest of Desolate Era, remember this chapter. Remember the hundred Alliance Masters who placed a high-value bet on this epic before it was even an epic. This isn't just "chapter 606"; it's the celebratory roar of a community throwing their weight behind a story they believed in from sentence one.

The Qidian Economy: Alliance Masters & Tipping Culture

If "Alliance Master" sounds like a hierarchy from a sect, you're not far off. In the Chinese web novel platform ecosystem (like Qidian), this is the highest tier of monetary support a fan can give. Reaching 100 Alliance Masters on day one is like a movie breaking box office records on opening night—it's a statement of extreme, immediate dominance. The author's disbelief is not fake modesty; in the high-octane world of web novel launches, this is a "supernova" level event. The "Red Alliance" name is just the fans' way of saying, "We're a tribe, and we are your army."