Return of the Blossoming Blade

only thing that concerns me is how the novel is fricking long and how long will it take to adapt

dont take my word for it but i read somewhere it only adapts one or two novel chapters in one chapter

Season 2 of this manhwa left me feeling meh. The main issue? Everyone's talking too much. Characters yakking away with each other or going on and on in their heads, but half of it doesn't even move the story forward. It drags out the chapters like crazy.
And those fight scenes? Ugh, don't get me started. Instead of wrapping up in one go, they stretch them out across what feels like forever—like three or four chapters! It kills the excitement and makes you wonder when they'll finally get to the point.

Reviewed @ch107
Pretty great series. Has a great blend of action, comedy and ...sect-building (training students, growing wealth, techniques, connections..)

The main issue I see is the mc's power gap with his allies. Before a time-skip this isn't really an issue, but afterwards he's fighting on a different level such that...well tbh it's done well. In that often his problems require more than brute strength, or rather strength applied at the right place in the right way, but it concerns me that he's grown in power so much that it feels like the powercreep of opponents will faaar outpace his supporting cast/allies.

At present it's not really an issue, it feels like it may become one. So I feel like the 9/10 is well-deserved,
Give it a go. Action is larger in later parts, like season 2, but comedy is still present even if a bit decreased.

edit: just read the next 10 chapters and the end of this arc was really good and the next one is eastbalished nicely. I'm gonna bump my rating a bit.

The plot line is a relatively standard murim story, but with a slight twist. More importantly, this story is done very well. You feel like there are multiple different characters that exist separately from whatever the MC is doing. The art is good to excellent and the fights are pretty fun. They are more artistic than realistic, but at least they are enjoyable.

The twist here is the character of the MC, who is chaotic good with many minor flaws that make for many funny situations. He is devious, but is clearly a good person whose goal is to restore his sect, which was his home, and to continue the legacy he and his friends cherished. It isn't about being the strongest, being the strongest is a necessary, but insufficient step. He wants the sect to be the strongest. Much of the story focuses on making the sect and its members stronger.

Since the MC has a goal that noble, it is much more fun to read.

Most them saying bad are the people with no intent to get into the series because they've seen another good murim series and expect everything else they read to give off the same vibe. Plots are basically standard and common throughout the whole murim webnovel universe. What sets them apart into good and bad are how the plot is carried out and the way it's expressed to the readers. I believe this series does that exceptionally well. To comedic timing, impressive strategies and manipulation as well as fighting scenarios where it keeps the readers on edge and hyped up. Almost nothing the plot focused characters do in this series, even extremely little things, are without reason (it's not some random BS reason they have to pull out the air) and you'll know it as you progress further, how the author manages to connect everything without forcing it. Me personally I have yet to find a chapter out of the 1000+ that bored me. But hey that's just me doe

It's what you'd come to expect of this type of murim story where the protagonist has knowledge from his past life which he uses to fix his problems and become OP.

Basically the most notable thing that sets the series apart from others of the genre is the main protagonist's personality being the short fused, petty and annoying arrogant type that's a departure from the bland brick wall personality of most other main protagonists.

The comedy is more like a gag then anything else and gets boring real quick.

The main plot itself doesn't deviate much from the standard formula.

The supporting characters aren't memorable.

Art is average.

All in all, a Good self-insert if you're fed up with the typical bland protagonists and just wanna see villains get their ass beat quickly. Nothing mentally stimulating but that's not the reason I read these types of murim stories, good fun read but nothing outstanding.

As someone who doesn't often explore Action/Fantasy genres, this work is enjoyable for me. Honestly, the first few chapters didn't hook me but I liked the idea of restoring something that was great years ago (like Fairy Tail guild in the Acnologia arc?) so the following events after Chapter 15(?) just excited me. I read it when season 2 started and didn't regret starting at this point cause otherwise, I would be cliffhanged a lot in the first season.

Although it's cool to see a strong ML, but he's too OP for my liking but hey the fight scenes are so cool and satisfying to see. I just wish that his arrogance would tone down a bit, but I can see that he has something to back that up anyway.

Also, the comedic facial expressions were effective with their timing so I laughed a lot of times.
And I'm hoping Sister Yu would be able to showcase her power soon in the next season.
And...the OSTs (recommended on Youtube) were soooo cool I had to add them in my playlist.

tl;dr: This narrative revolves around a common plot progression of a martial artist's return, the revitalization of his sect, and the comedic events that ensue.

Comedy-wise, the protagonist behaves like an ooga-booga (actually, closer to these homeless drunks and addicts banging on your car window frame for changes), and can also be reminiscent of personalities like xQC and Paul Logan. The whole comedy is supposed to be his surrounding reacting to his antics, "omg he's so not real!", "he did the funny!". Think of the environment as twitch chat/enablers/clip watchers, and the author is using his behavior to farm engagements for Tiktok shorts.

Diving deeper into the comedy:

Initially, it's funny to watch the protagonist griefing his surrounding, but it gets bland and old fast. It's akin to those YouTube shorts/clipbaits where content creators go with "I WENT DOWN TO BRONZE FOR 1 WEEK AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED." (P.S. They're smurfing for kicks and good laughs in order to entertain their "audience". Think what it would be if a NBA player stood on the same court level as a middle schooler, how hilarious that would be!) The protagonist is also a hardcore flamer, a typical rage quitting gamer if transposed to the modern world (why is this middle schooler so bad😕). He's a good player (because of his experience) but a terrible coach (short fuse) who believes in the "grind and gitgud" approach by berating the weaker ones - it's fiction, but it would be irrational in real life. This approach should work on certain students, but in this work, for some reason it works for everyone (BECAUSE OF MAIN CHARACTER LOGIC). Imagine your math teacher one day deciding that yelling at all the students to gitgud would be super productive and assigning extra homework when you fail - it might work for a small subset of the class, it won't work for everyone. That's how the protagonist is, but he does it for martial arts. Unfortunately, hazing is a thing due to the way Korea conscripts work but that's for another day...

The Main Plot: The story hints at an "antagonist force", but at the pace it's moving, we might never get there. There's just a lot of side-tracking (that are not really fun nor engaging if you don't enjoy the "humor style" ).

Action-wise, there are some good scenes and paneling but most of the time it gets kinda lame. The Conference scene had some nice action. The artist's skill isn't to blame, but it seems more like a stylistic decision to focus the story on comedy. The "most impressive action" isn't about technical moments but more like "my sword can LITERALLY make the surrounding flowers bloom" kind of fantasy. Think of Hanzo/Genji from Overwatch that can spam a visual dragon (not illusion) that can damage people. In higher stake matches, it's about spamming summons from their sword skills, which kind of breaks immersion for me. (Hell, even boxing or MMA stories are better due to the emphasis on good footing, techniques, and positioning (this story does mention a few of these, but only for beginners and you won't see them in higher-stake matches). Murim Login has those so read that Murim story if you don't want endless cooldown spam like this one.)

Character-wise, the side characters follow the standard tropes without much deviation, they're mostly ass lickers. The only standout character for me is the Oldest Senior Third Class (I forgot his name) because he takes a rational approach despite not being the strongest. The supposed rivals have standard reactions (for some reason they all happen to be those narcissist bullies with anger issue you'd expect to see in kdrama plots with school bullies), and the main supposed-love interest girl feels more like low-substance waifu bait with little to none characterization (very cartoonish---like Komi if you enjoy Komi can't communicate, but this is not a romcom but an action story with a serious "plot" so this decision makes the story feel light and less grounded), meh.

The older characters (sect leader, finance minister, etc.) are much better in the sense that they contribute well to the lore and worldbuilding and serve as a good device of comedy (they do have little screen time though). The younger characters are kind of weak in that regard.

Wrap Up: If you're new to the wuxia/murim + return scene, you might get a kick out of this one. But if you've been around the block, it's more of the same old, same old.

There's a twist here and there but mostly, it's pretty predictable. The protagonist is protected by his smurf status (plot armor), so things get boring pretty fast and the stakes aren't really there. The good moments are outweighed by the amount of generic moments on a ratio of 9:1.

Why you should read this even if you've read 50+ murim stories: If you have the "I'm the main character" syndrome, love watching GMs dunking on bronzes (smurf clips), love watching streamers who troll and grief to "farm engagements from chat", have an addiction to power fantasy trips, can't glue your eyes off Tiktok shorts and popular rage bait streamers, this might be to your liking.

Otherwise, it's only worth your time once in a blue moon...