2. The Early Stages of Cecilia's Story

There was a LOT that inspired the early concepts of Aether Guardian. I can't really say there was any one thing that stood out to me saying, "Write a book about this!"

Instead, it was a slow drip of different ideas stemming from all sorts of shows, books, manga, and anime.

For one, you could say that the very first concept came from a road trip I took with a good buddy of mine all the way back in the fall of 2016. He and I were headed to check out a college campus that we were both considering for our graduate program. As nerds do, we talked about all the crazy concepts, world building, and magic systems of our favorite shows. He was kicking around the idea of a story about death and rebirth where there was some physical place where people could go and retrieve their souls after they had died in order to achieve immortality.

I thought that was super cool. I had asked, "what if there was a magic system where people could draw upon this location for their power?" Their souls would be shackled to this realm and their ties to its power would be physically represented with massive metal chains leading from their chest into this "Death Well" of sorts.

We laughed, had a great time at the campus, and talked about a whole other host of topics.

But that concept never left my head. Something to "bond" one's "soul" with a "shackle" to a massive well of power... interesting.

But that was just one conversation! I'm also a huge anime nerd and loved different concepts from different shows.

The world of Naruto gave me a love for long training sequences where the protagonist levels up only after a long and difficult grind. This made its way into Aether Guardian when Cecilia must train to master her skills.

Shield Hero had a protagonist that was rejected by his world, but it was only through the protagonists power that others could stay safe. He was at a constant disadvantage and just had to put up with it. Cecilia faces similar circumstances.

I've always loved Dragonball Z, but was never impressed with the "If I just yell louder, I can punch harder and win!" flow of the show. I wanted something tangible, something meatier that I could go "Yeah! That's realistic and believable."

On top of that, I always felt the power creep - although very satisfying in the moment - always grew to levels beyond all relevant meaning. I wanted a slow burn that focused on overcoming one's weaknesses rather than bulking up one's strengths.

Ok, so what does this even look like? Who are my characters? What will they do? Who is the antagonist?

All these questions swirling around. A little bit at a time, a theme started to form.