Aspiring to the Immortal Path Chapter 664 Discussion

This novel started out so strong. The MC was actually quite smart, his enemies are also decent and believable. It somehow managed to avoid most of the tropes of cultivation novel that I've seen so far. The MC is literally a Chinese politician thrown back in medieval times. He knows how to play his enemies and how to make allies. It was fun and the MC seemed to have built a group of side characters around him that would develop with him. Not only that, at the beginning of the story, the MC made a vow that set a clear object for the story to follow. It had all the makings of a really good, 5/5 webnovel. All the author had to do was to stick to the object, develop his cast of characters and he was golden. He didn't do that.

Instead of building on what he had set up, the author kept reusing old idea, introduce meaningless new side characters and neglect old ones. Sure, you will still see some off them mentioned in passing but characters that should have been central were quickly sidelined and it was such a shame because I would have loved to read more about these characters.

The author also reused a lot of similar plot line. For example, in the early parts of the novel there is this great sequence where the MC was kidnapped and chased across the country. He had to use his wits to outsmart his enemy and survive. It was well written, I was actually caught off guard by the MC's planning. Really well done. However, guess how many times the MC would "get chased down by more powerful enemies and had to outsmart them" by the time I reached chapter 664? Three more times. And these were full blown story arcs that spanned nearly one hundred chapters. They got progressively staler and staler and I ended up skipping a lot of them without missing a story beat.

But that's not even why I dropped this novel. The reason why I dropped is because by chapter 664, it has become painfully clear that the author has lost the plot. Instead of focusing on the main story, the MC get side tracked again and again on some random quest (albeit some pretty good but mostly boring). The culmination of all of this side track is the world hopping. He gets accidently transport to another world, and another world, and then another world. All the while neglecting the main world with its wonderful plotline and characters. After the third world, I dropped the novel. Honestly it's a shame because this novel had so much potential