Martial King’s Retired Life Chapter v417 Discussion

Haaah, well, what to say... Okay, let's try. The first and second novel was kind of nice, although there wasn't a lot of focus on the MC, there was at least quite a bit of comedy. So, up to there, the novel was worth a 4/5, it was quite funny and was interesting to read. However, it all took a huge turn as soon as we got to volume 3. The action and drama got really dragged out and exaggerated. It was to the point where we just had a lot of side-characters quibbling and fighting each other along with low-level schemes and extremely boring events. The MC didn't even show up for 10% of the chapters in volume 3. There wasn't a huge change in volume 4 either, although the first few chapters seemed a little bit better, the MC was still treated pretty much like a side-character. This author REALLY doesn't focus enough on the MC and it makes this novel a trainwreck of bad drama and dragged out crap that seems to be there just to have something worthless to write about.

Most of the parts with the MC was actually pretty great with some interesting parts and a lot of comedy, but since it barely made up for 10% of this novel, it wasn't really worth reading and after two volumes, I really just wanted to all to end. Might as well mention that the MC started acting like some kind of a superhero that has to save people at the last second. It's like he's just there to show up at the crucial moments after we've suffered through a few to a dozen of chapters or perhaps even more where there's only side-characters going at eachother.

Spoiler

Oh, and there's a lot of borderline yaoi in this novel in the name of comedy. The MC doesn't really have any motivation either, he's a really boring character in a way, it gets frustrating when he hides everything to the extent he does. It's worse that he's just 28 and probably has a few hundred years ahead of him as one of the absolute strongest in the entire world, so him retiring makes no real sense, I had expected him to be at least around 50-60, but nah, turns out he's just a young man.

The characters are almost all ret*rded, I'm serious about what I'm saying here. Like the emperor and empress who shouldn't be in power at all. They actually spared their son after he went ahead with full treason, just about usurped the throne, bribed everyone, poisoned everyone, killed a lot of people, teamed up with evil sects and almost killed the emperor and many more. A lot of people wanted him to die, but nah, he's their son so of course he gets off really lightly, partly thanks to that "innocent (ret*rded) " su xiao who is the main source of gay jokes in this novel. The sheer hypocrisy of this really got on my nerves, if it was anyone else, he wouldn't give a f*ck and would execute them for just one out of the dozens of crimes he committed, disgusting that a supposed emperor can't draw a line between work and private matters.

Oh, and the MC doesn't want to kill people, so although he kills a few less noteworthy characters, he releases most of the more dangerous ones so that they can bring trouble later on in the "unlikely (lol) " event that they might somehow revive, run into some OP dude that wants to kill the MC and heals them or whatever other thing that can happen so that they'll come back. Because who wouldn't want that to happen.

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So, this novel suffers from a severe case of s*upidity. The first two volumes might be worth reading, but I would stop after that and even so, you should skip all chapters that the MC isn't in, they're completely and utterly worthless. Actually, you could keep on reading after that too and just pick out the chapters where the MC is in, which would be just a few chapters for each volume, but then it would be kinda good. Oh, and do remember that everyone and their dogs treat the MC like walking tr*sh, except for a select few who knows that he's actually fairly powerful, but even they don't know how OP he is. Hell, even the readers have no idea. The cultivation system is also really sketchy at best, there's no mentioning of any ranks or anything, there's no cultivation system and we don't ever get proper explanations on how the cultivation works. We just know that there's something called internal cultivation and then there's external cultivation and then there's some techniques for both, the MC has practiced a lot of internal techniques from many different powers which is why he is OP. Now, what does that mean? No one has any clue, because absolutely nothing is mentioned. There are a few flashy skills, but even those aren't really explained much, we just know that they can make things explode, let the voice travel far or control someones actions or whatever.

Haah.. Really, volume 1 and 2 was reluctantly a 4/5 thanks to the fairly good comedy and that the author wasn't so focused on drama then. Volume 3 and 4 seems to be a 2/5, which means it's a pain to read and it makes you want to drop it after a while of enduring, even if it's not so bad that you drop it instantly, you just get more and more frustrated until you do. So, let's take both those and go for a 3/5 instead, for average. Nothing special here, the comedy is good, but the fact that the MC is barely relevant when he just about never shows up and that all the other scenes are crap makes sure that this will be a chore to read most of the time. Just skip all chapters without the MC or read a few sentences each chapter to get the gist of what is happening before skipping to the next chapter, rinse and repeat until you find the MC which gets rarer and rarer the further the novel progresses.