📖 Paths and Topics
A topic is a starting point on Swift Axis: you read its opening story, then choose where to go next. This page will guide you through how threads and series work and what the choice cards mean, with links to the rest of the reading guide for the website and the Android app.
Starting a topic
Open the "Explore" page, or any topic from the site, and press "Start reading". Once you have read part of a topic the button changes to "Continue reading", which takes you back to the story you left off at. This ensures you can pick up a topic days later without hunting for your place.
Reading a thread
A thread is a topic made of stories joined by choices. At the end of a story you see a card section headed "The path continues", "The path splits in two" or "The path splits", depending on how many choices the writer offered (up to three). Each card shows the story's title, a short hook, its reading time and, if you have already read it, a "Read ✓" mark.
The cards are labelled by what they do:
- Continue the path: the main path, the way the writer suggests you go. Its button reads "Take this path".
- Go deeper: a side path that explores something in more detail.
- Take a side road: a crossroad, a link to a story elsewhere on the site, sometimes in another topic. Its card says where it leads.
A card marked "Coming soon" is a story the writer has planned but not published yet. You cannot open it, and it becomes a normal card once it is live.
When a path has no more stories, you reach an ending and earn a gem for the topic's belt. See Maps and gems.
Reading a dated series
A series is a topic of dated entries, newest first, such as a daily report. There are no choices. Each entry ends with "Previous day" and "Next day" cards, a "Latest" button that jumps to the newest entry, and a link to the full archive of entries. If an entry is the first or the latest, the card says so.
Your progress is kept on this device by default. To carry it between devices on the website, see Signing in and syncing.
More on reading
Best Practices
- Follow the main path first: it is the writer's intended route, and the side paths make more sense afterwards.
- Check the map before leaving: unexplored nodes show what you have missed.
- Use the list view on small screens: it is easier to scan than the map.