It has finally come—the end of an era. Tomorrow, on Saturday, the 7th of December, 2024, I am going to re-release The Tournament as a new story on Royal Road with all my (massively improved) rewrites. I am really happy with the improvements I made, and this re-release will also come with new chapters and a revitalized effort toward completing the story. I highly recommend that anyone who has read and enjoyed The Tournament so far check out the re-release, as this version of The Tournament will not be continuing.

  This announcement is not just an advertisement for my re-release, though; I also want to take the time to thank everyone who has stuck with me until now and given this version of The Tournament a chance. I don't think any of you really understand how much it has meant to me.

  When I first started writing the Tournament, I was in a pretty dark place. The very origin of the story had sprouted from a desperate push to just do something! Otherwise, if I did not keep my mind busy with the intricacies of a complex fantasy world, then I would think about... other things. The longer term the project, the better, and the longer it could anchor me.

  As I have been going back through my old chapters, rewriting them, and remembering the person once known as me who initially wrote those chapters, I am proud to say that I sometimes cannot even understand that person. Depression is really weird that way, it's this wholly transformative thing making you feel trapped at the bottom of a well, view so narrow, options so limited.

  So utterly alone.

  But, for those of us lucky enough, you eventually clamber out of the dark well and realize how self-fabricated so much of it was.

  I am happy now. My life has not improved; if anything, it has worsened since when I started writing. I am out of a job and sort of homeless as I jump across the family couches that will tolerate me. Despite it all, I am happy. When you're depressed, stuff like that feels like the weight of the whole world collapsing in on itself, irrecoverable damage. But I have the strength now to see it for what it is: transient, temporary, and as my eye remains on the future, I can see the road clearing.

  The Tournament helped a lot with that, having that mission to help ground me. Having that avenue to pour out feelings and fears. Chapter 13: Misbehaving Pet had been me dealing with my first ever panic attack; like, I literally wrote the first draft as I was having a panic attack. That might explain why it was so poorly written, wasn't really in the headspace for revision at the time.

  I also want to give you a huge thanks. When you are low and in that dark place, there is this self-destructive loathing that makes you reject the actual people in your life who care and are there for you. You fabricate all kinds of excuses and rejections in your mind, explanations of why their outreach is only obligatory or somehow inconsequential, the opinion of those who love you doesn't matter, only a nebulous outside greater truth. But a faceless outsider audience with no personal connection breaks through all that internal dialogue. And in a version of my world where I erased all those who cared about me, I still wasn't alone because you were there, briefly interceding into my universe, and for that ten or so minutes it took to read my chapter, so slightly lightened. It so simply demonstrated the fragility of my delusional solitude.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I want to give a particular shoutout to two specific readers who have made a significant impact on me and my motivation.

  Seeing the numbers alone on the stats page is nice, but Abstract, you actually engaged with the story, leaving insightful comments that showed you had not only read the chapter but thought about it and its implications on the whole narrative, with a story as wild and all over the place as the Tournament. Numbers don't really tell you that a story is worthwhile in the same way that an actual comment does. And when you enquired about my long break in chapter 73 and showed that the Tournament was something that mattered (at least in some capacity), that meant a lot to me. I know I have been absolutely terrible at responding to your posts, Abstract, and I have not engaged or responded to many of them, and that was for reasons I think earlier paragraphs here may have brought light to, but it was hugely influential to me: thank you. It may have just been a small comment to you, but it was something that I will never forget.

  The other shoutout I wanted to make was for Dahl.E and my favourite comment that I have ever received. Your comment on Chapter 64 that reads simply: My poor boy Espy got fucked. Is the most incredible work of art I have ever read! I am not joking. In chapter 64, the Tournament roster is finally revealed in full. In this chapter, Espy goes unnamed, with only his christened Tournament title being mentioned. To read that, draw the connection to a character who hasn't been mentioned for 22 chapters, then also make the connection that he is narratively much weaker than his opponent, showed a degree of line drawing that I kid you not made my week when I read it. It showed that people were seeing how everything connected; it wasn't just a story being passively read but actively taken in. People were retaining detail, and subtle exposition, such as the sporadic mentions of Névé's prowess was being retained, and that knowledge was used in later chapters. It was the one comment that showed me that The Tournament was not for nothing.

  You two, and everyone else who has silently been following along on this incredible journey with me, have shaped and impacted me in a way I am sure must be bewildering to those who only thought of it as a casual read on their weekends.

  I am re-releasing The Tournament. One reason is because my writing skills have improved a lot since I started and I think I can tell a better story. Another reason is because I want to make a more concerted effort to utilize the knowledge I have acquired about Royal Road and its algorithms. I haven't fully let go of the dream that The Tournament can pay for the time put into it. There will be a dramatic increase in the amount of Tournament content released, and hopefully, that will create its own momentum and continue; if not, then The Tournament might die down as it has before, as I really need to solve that sort of homeless problem. The Tournament will never be fully abandoned; it means too much to me for that, but how frequently it is updated will depend on the future.

  The best way you can support me if you care to do so, is simply to read the rewrite and comment; if you also care to leave a review, that will mean the world to me.

  One last time, thank you so much for joining me on this adventure. This is not the end, simply a new chapter.