See this! I just gifted the story: Luxury car

See this! I just gifted the story: Luxury car

There are resources such as a discord, however I don't feel that I've yet put in the requisite time and effort on my end yet. There are obviously resources for more typical authors, but those are going to be for self contained books, which go through a far more rigorous editing and re-write process.

Yeah, consequences of trying to avoid awkward info dumps. Integrating the explanation of the power system with genuine storytelling is proving more difficult than I'd expected.

He got a force increase of 50%, which as you mentioned wasn't enough to completely alter the dynamics of his fight. This is including the synergy with his base water ability, so commiting to it would yield more than a doubling of his control, if you consider the trial version is nerfed. Now maybe you look at this and find it a somewhat underwhelming upgrade, and you'd be correct. The tradeoffs and strengths of abilities will be addressed at some point.

Your prior points regarding stats remain valid, and I sort of fail the "show don't tell test", at least in my opinion. Regarding the system being unforgiving, I would reply with "knowledge must be earned" and leave it there.

Fair enough, I can see where you're coming from, I'll definitely keep that in mind while re-writing the chapters. The only thing I'd say regarding his time preferences is that he doesn't just need to get a little stronger to survive, he needs to get alot stronger. He's on the scale of weeks at this point, as he needs to get strong enough to traverse the forest and explore the world, even if I agree that his goal is to go out and look for people. Appreciate the feedback though, keep it coming! Hope you're still enjoying despite its faults.

Yeah, that's actually an error on my part. I mentioned that his phone was unresponsive, but what I meant was that he can't even turn it on/dead. I'll fix this when I close out edits on the first 19 chapters. Thanks for the catch!

I would strongly argue that every stat affects combat, simply in different ways (perception likely the least, though in principle it helps avoid dangerous situations, and helps significantly at night). To give an example, increasing dexterity improves how fast you can react, and increases your power output. Without endurance to support it, this means that you get a small degree of short term agility, and then quickly exhaust yourself. The benefits associated with investing in endurance are accelerated strength and muscle development. Vitality is extremely useful in prolonged fights, and for preventing disease and sickness, as well as accelerating the growth of your physical development, as well as the quantity of food you can consume (which in this context, literally determines the rate at which he can increase his mana). The main character here is deferring to a medium/long term time preference here. Investment to strength and dexterity at the expense of vitality or endurance has the potential to cripple his short term growth, without yielding huge benefits. This is all to say that there's not exactly one right/clear answer. Life is nuanced and about tradeoffs, as with all things. Our main character is also not omniscient, and is under stress, and is liable to make mistakes. We all have our own path to power. As time passes, he fill find more strong creatures, the forest is not a kind and forgiving place, any further explanation verges on spoiler territory, chalk it up to luck to some degree if you wish. MC is currently very outclassed by most entities in this world.

So, perhaps I've done a poor job explaining why MC is approaching his stat point distribution the way he has. I'm planning on re-writing chapters 3-19 anyway with hindsight (what I arguably should have done in the first place). I digress. So, there's two dimensions to his growth, his mana/stats, and that of his "base physique". The rate at which he can improve his base physique is directly a function of his endurance and vitality. Especially vitality, as it literally increases recovery and growth rate. Increasing his strength for example while not hindering his growth directly, means that he needs to find new gear to help him work out. Investing in it provides him almost no short term benefit, save perhaps for defense against predators (which you could probably argue would be a good thing). Similarly, increasing his dexterity doesn't get him a ton, as he doesn't necessarily have the strength required to use it. Regardless, the reason he's not invested in his other stats, is it does almost nothing to accelerate his training rate. I'll admit a small portion of this is due to me wanting to handle his investment in his stats more at the same time, rather than spread across several chapters. Might this be the best choice? Perhaps not, I'll consider it when I go over the chapters.

I spit balled off the top of my head, though I think describing it as crazy is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I've seen plenty of guys who are supposed to be around 15% bodyfat who don't really have abs. They are cut obviously, but not to the point where their abs are even visible at all. I'd also point out that the metric used to measure bodyfat % isn't really settled and you should probably put error bars of around +/- 2% depending on the measurement used. People's genetics and hormones also influence where they distribute fat. If I'd said barely visible abs at 8%, you'd definitely have a point

For some reason inkscape wouldn't let me export as a png. My scanner was also busted, so potato quality it is.

A certified bruh moment.

So there's three things here. 1. Regarding workouts, I more or less share your opinion, and have given the power system a reasonable level of thought and consideration. That's all I will say on the matter, read on. 2. On Alex panicking more, I don't think I've conveyed him as a particularly competent fighter thus far. I'm also not sure if you re-read chapter 2, but he's had like 3-4 panic attacks in the span of a day. More importantly though, is that I'm doing quite a bit of show, don't tell with regards to his character. If it helps the immersion, just assume Alex is particularly high testosterone, and it's helping his emotional regulation alot. 3. Yes the creature is a dinosaur/raptor, but they still have to comply with the laws of physics. There's no reason to assume a 20 pound dinosaur is a particularly threatening creature, even to an untrained civilian of the populace. You could absolutely fight a dinosaur the size of a small dog, you might not win, but it'd probably be close.

It was not my intent to convey that there was a way to naturally enhance one's stats. It'll become more clear in later chapters how the stats interact with his natural physiology. Chapter was enough of an info dump, and I like to explain things as organically as I can. If enough people ask for it, I may include periodic info dumps of the stats info, however I try to explain why Alex is investing in stats at a given time, so you hopefully don't need to go back and reference it. You also managed to read the chapter and comment within like 2 minutes of me finishing today's re-write.

Fair enough, for some reason reward as plural still sort of works in my head. But rewards works better, so I'll fix it.

No harem, as I don't find them intriguing, and writing a functional relationship with a single woman will be difficult enough as is, in the event things go that direction. Flings and potential relationships which don't work out remain on the table. No guarantees.

I felt I'd teased everyone with the prior chapters enough, so everybody gets it all at once. Fight, hunt, bloodbath, massacre, pick your poison.

That's the spirit. Needs more densely packed trees, and we're there.

Author here. Feel free to use this review to ask questions if you've got any. I've got a pretty solid idea of where the story is going to go, though we'll see how things evolve as I write. If I didn't think it was at least worth 4 stars, I wouldn't bother writing it. Some notes: - First time writing, so there's an obvious learning curve. - Likely to re-write (major plot points won't change, but little details and writing quality) the first few chapters after I hit chapter 20. I particularly think the hook in the first chapter could be better, but it is what it is. - Updating stability is going to vary, though you can probably expect at least 7 chapters a week at around 2k words per. - I am something of a mess of metric and imperial, sue me.