WIP Vulgar Display of Power (Lady Wukong vs. The World Book #1)

This is gonna be my next project after Ghosts of Smoke, regardless of how well that one sells, because holy crap I had fun just typing up the story for this one. And I know why: it's a raw power fantasy and proud of it.
LitRPG is basically "power fantasy: the genre" but it seems like many stories don't like acknowledging this fact or are even embarrassed by it. So this short series is going to be about (or at least start off with) a power fantasy up the ass, up to eleven.

Everything about it is meant to be over the top and off the rails with a broken protagonist who just crushes all who stand before him. He already starts off at Level 888. He's no underdog; he's just Broken. B.R.O.K.E.N. The whole draw of the book is that this a power fantasy on steroids.

I plan for this to be a trilogy, and I don't see it going any further than that because absolute power fantasies can really only go on for so long.

The backstory is that the protagonist, Rich Stoklasa, is a broke unemployed ex-college student with about $300,000 in student loans. As a proud NEET, he spends some of his loan money on an FIVR set-up and goes about playing World of Chevaliers. However, inspired by that classic South Park episode, he decides to move from one of the starter locations of Volkrall to the exotic land of Wukong-Li and spend all of his time grinding in the mountains. Literally all of his time. For months. Nonstop. His plan was to reach Level 1,000 and then basically crush the world. However, right as he hits Level 888, he's approached by some travelers who mistake his female avatar— a beastkin styled as a monkey girl— for the actual Sun Wukong and call their wushu monkey guild over to him.
All this time, he has min-maxed hardcore. Almost all of his Attribute and Skill points go into strength/constitution related areas, with a tiny bit going into magicke (mainly for basic fireballs and magelights). The guild is astonished at his raw power, such as being able to lift a mountain and cause an earthquake with a punch to the ground, and request him to join but he decides to explore the world first. His first quest in the game in literal months is a simple fetch quest that doesn't satisfy him. The second involves avenging the death of a princess slain by a dragon, so he goes out and kills that dragon with his bare hands. Literally a few punches that smack the dragon around so hard, it's almost scary to watch. The guild catches up to him again and presents him with a challenge: if he can beat four warriors who are siphoning money out of the Players and NPCs (possibly as a money laundering scheme for real world organized crime), the head of the guild will step down and give his place to Rich, the "Sexy Monkey Queen". He is warned that all of these warriors are powerful in their own right and are led by a shadowy figure at the top that is almost certainly a mob boss IRL.

The guild then decides to turn this into a raid, one that will have to be completed in one week if he wants to join them.

Not only does Rich accept, but he decides to do it alone and runs off before anyone can convince him otherwise. He believes himself so powerful, there's no need for help.

Along the way, he will meet quite a few characters, like faeries from the West, a cute djinn girl from an Arabia-expy, horny pigmen peasants, demons, dark Shaolin monks, and a mysterious prancing German named Hans. All this set in what is basically a combination of the traditional wuxia staple of old China mixed with gangsterfied Cantonese port cities a la Kung Fu Hustle. All this while basically being an ultra-high energy female Son Goku in game.

There'll still be development, obviously. As you see in stuff like One Punch Man, when the protagonist is already the strongest possible thing in existence, character development is pretty much all you have left to focus on. Of course, the protag here still has some things to learn. I want him to learn how to use telekinesis, for one. Then there's the fact he's going to need the Ruyi Jingu Bang and Jindouyún. Both of which are catastrophically overpowered by themselves.


And yes, I have done the outline. There is a way to still have convincingly tense fights, believe it or not, since this character is still all physical power.

Expect this to start seeing some progress in August, or maybe October if I'm lazy enough.
If someone can convince me to tone down the power fantasy aspects to a more reasonable level, f**k you basically but I'm willing to hear your suggestions. Just remember that the ultra-power fantasy is the whole reason for the story.


Here's a sketch an artist did of Enekai (from the Enekai of Kollidor series I'm doing elsetimes) that I'm using as a base for Rich's avatar.



To drive home the over-the-top nature of this stuff, here are the current working titles for the series (which I haven't yet figured out if it's going to be two books or three):

1. Vulgar Display of Power
2. Maximum Overviolence
3. Thunder-Voiced Lord of War

 

Now that I'm reaching the end of Ghosts of Smoke, I figured it would be a good idea to start really working out how this story will play out.
Here are some early title cards:

 

Book 1: a NEET creates a fem-Goku avatar (though he insists it's fem-Wukong), grinds for a year, and becomes stronger than everything. He's tasked with defeating four warlords who are believed to have ties to the Triads and Yakuza (a shaky alliance at best).

Book 2: that NEET goes to a Persia/Arabia expy in the game world to rescue it from an evil djinn and his dragons. Hijinks ensue. Even the game devs and admin can't stop him at this point.

Book 4: the NEET has a real life harem going on as he comes into wealth and success and has to fight the Jade Emperor, whose account was hacked by a dictator, and now the NEET must team up with the President to defeat the Corrupted Jade Emperor and find out what happened to book 3

 

So an Ifrit?

Sounds like a fun romp and I love the monkey design. NICE!

 

Exactly. Though perhaps 'Iblis' would be a better term for the main one. It's an adventure to stop dumb djinns and dragons.

 

Well since it's going to a western audience it might amount to same thing. Iblis however is not any type of Djinn. It's just the Arabic name for satan/lucifer. His realm is not the same as the one the Djinn occupy and he has nothing to do with them (unless they seek him out like some humans do)

I say Ifrit because they are mostly depicted as the evil Djinn due to their strong association with fire. Like humans though Djinn regardless of subtype can be good, bad or just neutral. And i'm lecturing so shutting up now!

Maybe you meant Shaitan? That's demon in arabic but it leans more towards the one associated with fire and are always evil.

 

No, when I said the "main one", I meant the main demon. King of them all. Above the djinns. It's just that the MC's mainly dealing with an Ifrit working for him. It sounds complicated, and it is because this is the book that leans wackier but doesn't yet drink Wack-Aid from a Clown Shoe like the third one.

 

Thinking about changing the series name to "Wukong X". Why? Because it sounds edgy and stupid.

 

How's this for a theme song? Chosen initially because this book will essentially act as my "Song 2" and is basically me going "Woo Hoo!" but also because the song is catchy and has that "obviously meant to be used as a theme song for a quirky, edgy, stylized movie" vibe.


The theme song for Maximum Overviolence can be this one:

 

Current early cover sketch by Alouisse-Ver

 

So, is there anything I could do to improve this concept?

 

The names of the four characters on the cover are (in clockwise order): Sun Wukong/Rich Stoklasa, Floot, Lady Zu, and the Miracle Boy.
The Miracle Boy has a name, but Sun/Rich couldn't pronounce it and just went with the second best option.

Now that the story has entered serious planning, it's gotten a lot more like Ready Player One than I originally intended. Mostly because of all the pop culture references. Like my god, the number of pop culture references already important to the plot is crazy.

Like with Ghosts of Smoke, I'm keeping the worldbuilding relatively light to focus more on a few chosen areas. As a result, I can see this particular book reaching roughly the same length— that is, around 70k words. Then again, you could count Ghosts of Smoke itself as extra worldbuilding since both stories are set in the same game/universe.

It might be longer, but I'd be unsurprised if it were shorter. I'm not a big fan of filler.

If everything turns out perfectly, though, then it could be set at 110,000 words— 10,000 words for the introduction with the dragon and 25,000 words for each of the four warlords/bosses. I've already learned just how little 10,000 words actually is— I added nearly 15,000 to El Sexorcisto! and most of that was just in one single scene— so I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's somewhere between 70,000 and 110,000 words.

But if I come back to you in a few weeks with a story that's pushing 120,000 words, still don't be surprised. Astral Falls during the rewrite was easily going to reach 150,000, and I believe I said that I originally intended for Ghosts of Smoke to be about 30,000 words and it's actually 76,000.

My mind is much more laconic than my fingers.

 

Right, so expect the first few chapters to be live on RoyalRoad sometime in early November.
Also, I've been obsessed with Sonic Boom and its remixes (the song, not the cartoon) and one in particular has definitely stuck out to me in regards to writing the story:

 

f**k THIS.
Rage of Angels sucks. I tried to get into it, but it wasn't working. It's gonna need a rewrite with a new concept, sort of like Nightmare Online. So I'm going all in on Vulgar Display of Power as of today. As mentioned, expect the first few chapters on RoyalRoad very soon.