- #1
The MC is the low-key/mastermind type of MC, who rather hides his abilities than being in the limelight, so he often pretended to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, I've seen this many times in recent novels where the trend seems to be pretending to be an absolute tr*sh just to invite bullying, though thankfully in this particular novel there was almost no bullying, at most it's hidden contempt.
The cheat is a space where the time goes faster. It's underutilized since the MC only used it to plant spirit herbs and store things.
The whole novel feels flat because the author doesn't know how to write emotions, to the point that the whole thing feels like it could've been written by AI. For example, the MC's brother was taken away by a strong sect due to his good talent. The whole scene was just like, "Okay, you should just go." Minimal emotions and no impact. Then years later the two met, the little brother was under attack but saved by the MC, after the fight the next paragraph is about the two walking together looking for resources. No hug, no tears, no heartfelt conversations or catching up, no emotions, no nothing. One scene fight and the next is the two walking nonchalantly.
The whole novel is like that, no blood-pumping action (I'm not talking about fight scenes, but rather scenes that would grip you and compel you to press that "next chapter" icon), no frustration due to bullying followed by satisfying face-slapping/payoff, no rage, no humor, just the MC doing his chores (gardening, studying alchemy, building his business), everything just flat.
This isn't the popcorn/tr*shy novel type, and actually quite decent if you like this type of sedated reads, but TBH I would rather read tr*shy but entertaining novels than this.
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