Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

This is the author here, leaving a review on my thoughts about the book so far. P.S.: This is going to be long because I have a lot I want to cover. Let’s see if you can stick around till the end. First off, the story is a textbook reincarnation tale. The MC, a Systems Engineer and avid novel reader, unknowingly agrees to a contract with someone he meets on a novel chat forum. He then finds himself thrown into the body of a ten-year-old noble named Alex Fury—on the day he’s sent off to a mage tower to learn magic—under the condition that he must return as a proper mage to keep his position as the heir of his noble family. Being an enterprising engineer in his previous life, along with the wealth of experience and ideas he had from various novels he had read, Alex creates a new and unique magic he calls Rune-Tech Magic. This allows him to do far more than the traditional magic of this world. It acts as a platform for him to actualise the tech from his previous life in this new one. Thus begins Alex’s journey in his new world—amidst the political intrigues and everyday struggles of being a noble in a fantasy realm—all while developing magical variants of existing and new tech to create a private utopia of his own. Oh, and all of this happens in the shadow of figuring out why he was summoned to this world in the first place. That’s the basic premise, I guess.   - Now, the real reason I’m writing this review is to answer some questions and clear up recurring misconceptions I’ve seen in the comments:   - Q1: Why does this book read similar to City of Sin? ANS: Because it was inspired by City of Sin and some of my other favourite novels. I’m not even trying to hide it. City of Sin is hands down one of my top 10 best novels. It would probably rank even higher if not for the tragic endings of many important characters. Anyway, I started this book on a ‘what if’ idea—What if I created a story similar to it, but without the tragic endings? Admittedly, the story has deviated from City of Sin for obvious reasons, but I try to maintain the allowed barebones similarities. In essence, this book is my homage to one of my favourites novels, and I’m not shy to admit that.   - Q2: Is it a harem? Why? ANS: Yes. The MC will have multiple romantic partners/wives. This is a nobility/bloodline-driven story. Personally, I believe stories that revolve around those elements naturally incline towards a male protagonist having multiple partners. It allows for things like political alliances through marriage, siring multiple heirs of a rare bloodline, securing interests with trusted partners, and so on. I understand that many people don’t agree with this. Like I said—it’s my personal opinion. If this alone is enough for you to drop the book, then it’s probably not for you. That said, this won’t turn into a Pokémon-style “gotta catch ’em all” harem. The MC will have three, maybe four wives/partners at most. Even I have my limits. And each of them will have a plot-driving reason to be in the harem—not just because they’re pretty and I felt like it. Even if it doesn’t seem obvious at the time of their introduction, that reason will reveal itself later. I guarantee it. Still, if you can’t stand harem elements, I recommend skipping this book.   - Q3: Why is the story so fast-paced at the beginning? ANS: Because it’s a rule of thumb to show readers what’s unique about your story as soon as possible. The vast majority of readers won’t stick around if you start with slow worldbuilding without first giving them a reason to stay invested. That’s just the nature of webnovels. We authors—or rather I—may not like it, but it’s the reality I have to work with if I want the book to reach people and be successful. In this case, the most unique thing about the book is Rune-Tech Magic and the kind of shenanigans Alex can pull off with it. That’s why the earlier chapters seemed rushed—it was necessary to introduce the core concept quickly. Once the foundation is set, the worldbuilding naturally follows, and the pace slows down a bit. Just to be clear: it only seems fast-paced because of the time skips. The story actually builds itself out steadily as the chapters progress.   - Q4: Rune-Tech seems so obvious. Why didn’t the mages of this world invent it? ANS: Great question. It was something I had to think deeply about when creating the magic platform. Here’s what I settled on: Perspective defines common sense. The way the MC creates Rune-Tech Magic might seem obvious to you because of how he explains it in the story. It’s almost intuitive to a modern person—especially someone with a background in computer programming. But remember, computers aren’t a thing in this world. So, it’s unreasonable to expect people here to think in terms of computation. Does that make this world backward? Or does it make Earth more advanced? Not really. It’s simply a matter of different perspectives. So, if you want to truly enjoy the book, I’d suggest keeping your modern-era biases in check first. Try to see things from this world’s perspective first. Once you understand how they see things, you’ll be in a better place to judge them—fairly or not.   - These are the most frequently asked questions or complaints I’ve seen in the comments and review sections. If you made it this far, then I can tell you’re at least somewhat invested—and I appreciate that. If you’ve read all the free chapters and still have questions, complaints, or misgivings—or if there’s something you’d like me to clarify or discuss—feel free to leave a reply to this review. I’ll respond as soon as I can and as best as I can. Thanks for reading.

The amount of reviews I have left on novels can be counted on one hand If I remember correctly, this is novel is well written and you can tell that a lot of effort has been put into the technical parts. I don’t know much about how novels should be written so the only advise I can give the author is just keep doing what you are doing, I am living this novel and I am surprised it’s not blown up yet.[img=update][img=update][img=update][img=update][img=update][img=update]

the first half felt a little like city of sin