webnovel
Roinuji
RoinujiLv101yr
2023-09-18 20:28

This is one of those famous cases where the person possesses a genuinely great idea but executes it poorly. About 90% of the story consists of the protagonist's training, which is incredibly tedious. The protagonist is portrayed as an emotionless rock, and towards the end, undergoes an abrupt personality shift to become a clichéd villain "devoid of empathy." I'm a fan of stories featuring villains; my favorite novel is Reverend Insanity, but Shang is perhaps the most uninteresting character I've ever come across. The world depicted in the story feels entirely artificial and lifeless, almost as if it were merely a theatrical backdrop. The characters don't hold much significance to the narrative and seem to exist solely to create a false illusion of a living, breathing world. Occasionally, a character plays a crucial role in advancing the plot, but once that purpose is served, the author either forgets about them or kills them abruptly. To be honest, some parts of the story piqued my interest, such as the action-packed fights and the intricate power system. However, I prefer stories that evoke strong emotions, that quicken my heartbeat, and keep me on edge, eagerly anticipating what will unfold in the next chapter—a roller coaster of emotions, so to speak. Yet, this story felt more like a monotonous car trip on a bumpy road. I had hoped for something captivating, but it turned out to be disappointingly mediocre.

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Other Reviews
Copperhawk
CopperhawkLv2
Stire
StireLv11

Good plot, terrible execution. Meant to be a warrior in a world where magic reigns supreme, instead got an MC which focuses too heavily on his magical aspects. His personality ain’t so fun to sit through either. God gave him a crazy affinity which essentially permanately destroys anything it touches (slowly eats the world) and gave him control over beings which does the same thing, but like an endless army of them. Then, after that, story goes down from there. MC realizes that he could potentially be an enemy of literally all things living so he became nihilistic and apathetic. Killing innocents, killing children (Mage children obv) and doing anything to further his pursuit of power. He summons those monsters to get more powerful by absorbing the strongest one and then, without caring about the consequences, allows the rest of the weaker ones to just rampage around, leaving other people to clean his mess. Those monsters don’t care about what they be killing either, so naturally a bunch of villages with normal families also just get turned into dust. He ain’t shy in throwing the people who has no beef with him (and even somewhat help him) under the bus if they slightly do anything wrong or inconvenience him. Almost Reverened Insanity-ish but worse since such a personality switch was completely unwarranted, illogical and completely pathetic. I mean, while imprisoned, he taught someone how to be strong and such, but whilst fleeing from the Kingdom, he had to kill him to keep his identity a secret because he recognized him?? What? Why introduce him all together? To change the main characters personality to an unfeeling and uninteresting robot? (There is more to it but if you got to this part then you’ll know what I’m talking about) Honestly it is such a terrible excuse that after seeing no changes later on, as well as the quality of writing taking a dive (often repeating and worthless paragraphs) I decided to just drop the book. Going off in a tangent; don’t get me started on the personality on some of these mages either, despite the book saying otherwise, they DO feel like a hive mind - literally no human qualities on some of these guys, just feels like robots in general. I wish there was some form of rivalry or something with the Magic academy, or more Mage companions that sympathize with the warrior cause (or any new companions in general). Or anything to make the world feel more alive, but no we’re stuck with like 6 people, the rest he just kills off or does not care about them in general. Naturally I did not cover the entire book, and I did not want to either. I wanted readers to know what they’re getting into. This is not a valiant, brave sword man who would shoulder the pressure of the Magic world so that warriors before him may get stronger. But a cold, unfeeling, unholy Summoner, which so happens to have a pretty sword and strong body that constantly brings out an army of plot devices and throws the main idea of the story out the window cause the author himself doesn’t know where to take it. Perhaps the author wanted to introduce plot devices to make the story interesting, perhaps not. I could atleast understand the thinking in some of these decisions, but the story is just all over the place. I personally can’t recommend someone spending money on this book unless you dont mind the MC being a pseudo Calamity Mage with strange applications of Magic and the sword - with the occasional exaggerated panic attacks when he kills something with the slightest bit of significance, of course.

Cobra03
Cobra03Lv13

Review as of chapter 630. Might include minor spoilers but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. Short Version: Stop scrolling through reviews and just go read the novel! Long Version: I'll start off by saying that this novel is simply amazing. Stories like this are what keeps me from just deleting the app due to the sheer number of unreadable nonsense it has. Now for an actual breakdown: Writing Quality - The quality is simply top-notch. No grammatical mistakes, clear and concise sentences that flow into each other beautifully, as well as smooth transitions between different points throughout the story. It's obvious that the author has improved in this regard by quite a bit, compared to his first novel (Lightning is the Only Way), which was already incredible by Webnovel standards. Story Development - The novel is slow-paced for the most part, and especially at the beginning, but I find that positive in this case, since we get a better look at the struggles Alex (later Shang) has to go through to adapt to a completely new reality where his life is constantly on the line. There are eventual time skips in the story, which are unavoidable simply due to the fact that you can't become a Sword God without hundreds (quite possibly thousands at this rate) years of training. Character Design - This is the biggest reason for this novel's success. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is fleshed out in such detail that it wouldn't surprise me if the author one day revealed he has been studying the human mind for over 100 years. As for Shang himself, the many hardships he has gone through and the eventual revelation that he is, for reasons I obviously won't mention here, the enemy of the world (Opposer vibes 😉), have made him resolved to do whatever it takes to reach his goal. He will sacrifice anything and anyone for power. Updating Stability - Not much to say here. 2 chapters a day plus the fact that the author is an absolute legend. Broke both his arms at some point and somehow still pushed out chapters until he was eventually forced to take a small break. World Background - We get a basic understanding of how the world works and how the mages have complete rule over it early in the story and get more and more pieces of information in regards to the powers they wield, as well as the nature of the world itself, as the story progresses. Admittedly, there have been a few instances where the author goes into too much detail about something that isn't really relevant, but that isn't nearly enough to make the story less enjoyable, at least for me. Overall, this is truly an incredible story and I highly recommend it. Truly impressive work so far, Heat. Can't wait to see what you come up with next!

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