First of all, here's the ninth chapter for this week, courtesy of Emperor Blackfish from Patreon. Everyone owes him a big thank you! Book 35, Chapter 7 - Autarch's Decree. Cheers!

As for the schedule change, here's the tldr; we are going to be changing up some things on Patreon, and chapter posts will become much more regular time-wise as a result. The schedule has historically been 'ten chapters a week' (with the exception of two months where I promised and delivered fourteen chapters a week); we're going to make it 'officially' two chapters a day from Monday to Friday, then a chapter on Saturday and a chapter on Sunday (assuming there are Patrons for those chapters), for a total of up to 12 chapters a week. Starting next week, there shall no longer be 'end of book rest breaks' as we race towards the end of this book.

I've been rather distressed with the amount of whining and unhappiness I've seen the past few months, and it has been genuinely weird to me why - I'm doing 10 a week now, just as I have been since late 2015/early 2016 (with the obvious exception of just two months of 14 chapters/week), but there are WAY more complaints and false claims of 'missing chapters', etc. than there were back then. This month, I was discussing this with some of the Chinese authors, and they helped me shed light on the situation, and I think their suggestions are right.

In short, its twofold. First, I used to post one chapter at a time. These days, I post two chapters at a time. This actually makes a big difference, according to the Chinese authors I chatted with. Why? Because readers read so quickly (~10 minutes a chapter) that the wait between chapters 'feels' longer when I post them 2 chapters a time. Previously, it was around 12-18 hours between per read; now, it's 24-36 hours between each read. Yes, each read is longer, but by virtue of the fact that readers read really fast, it doesn't make up for it mentally.

This by itself isn't that bad, but it is exacerbated by the fact that everyone is now basically following the Daolord posting schedule... which means that sometimes the 24-36 hours becomes a bit longer. Daolords were supposed to be on their own separate schedule and have as many chapters to read as I have translated (11-15), but the reality was that I didn't feel comfortable posting new chapters for others but not for my most loyal Patreons. So, the posting schedule has ended up being driven by the Daolord schedule (which is based off my own rather erratic schedule), which exacerbates the issue generated by the double-releases. I will always translate irregularly, much like how the authors can write irregularly, but I'll strive so that the POSTING is regular... and that requires a buffer.

IET (and two others) emphasized to me the importance of regularity, because reading these novels is as much of a daily habit as an actual book... and when I used to have a 'real' buffer, I posted regularly at the same time, even though the 'schedule' was always a weekly one to me. These days, I basically no longer have a buffer; the original plan was to use Daolord/Emperor chapters as my buffer, but it hasn't worked out that way. The only way to get back to the regularity is by no longer letting my personal translating schedule = Daolord schedule = everyone else's schedule.

So... for the past half month, I've worked hard to rebuild a real buffer, translating until I (metaphorically) vomited. My fingers now hurt like hell, but I now have a real buffer... and now that I realize how close we are to the end, I want to finish things faster. (side note - now that I have a real buffer, I can get back to doing Godsfall as promised as well).

There shall no longer be any 'end of book breaks', meaning that we will always have at least 10 chapters a week. Daolords shall now have a higher (but flat number) of advance chapters, and the updates shall come at a much more regular time each day. The Emperor ability to add chapters has been given to the new 'Autarch' tier, except it is now automatic; each Autarch will automatically 'generate' a new chapter rather than have to request it. The schedule would then be regularized into 2 chapters/day for M-F, then 1 chapter on Saturday and Sunday (for a total of 12, assuming that all eight Autarch tiers are filled).

This will probably be the last change we're making to the DE schedule. I hope the more regular releases and overall higher release rate proves to be a positive one. We have around five or so months left to wrap this sucker up; thanks for joining me on this ride!