- #1
Pretty good.I've always been a sucker for second chance sort of stories, and this one's great. The MC starts off pretty weak but knows how to get strong, and uses his knowledge of farming and training and stuff in an effective manner to get stronger. The process is methodical and reasonable, which makes it a joy to read and is somewhat relatable as well since his strength doesn't come immediately through a cheat but through a long process of detailed and lengthy grinding, which makes his character more tolerable and his growth easy to accept.Speaking of the MC, he isn't bad either. He isn't the sort of Mary Sue self insert character you see in many isekai's and he isn't the ruthless merciless emo edgy mu*derer you see in many Chinese novels either. He's somewhere in the middle, having an interesting and somewhat charming personality while also not being a completely immoral and ruthless prick. It's honestly somewhat refreshing, as you get tired of seeing the type of hypocritical characters who claim to be on the side of the innocent while slaughtering whole clans of random baddies indiscriminately. His motivations are clear and easy to understand, and his personality is likeable and somewhat complex.We haven't been able to see many side characters so far as there's only one person following him at the time of writing, but from what I've seen she's also pretty good and scores similar points to the MC in terms of character growth and development.The writing so far is somewhat generic, but the biggest gripe I have with this novel is the style of writing. I'm not sure if I should blame the translators or the author for this, but the writing style (paragraphs, sentence structure e.t.c.) is sometimes awkward to read and needs some getting used to. Perhaps this won't be so strange to a native Japanese reader but this style certainly nearly turned me off to reading it.World building is strong so far. The world is gradually developed as new chapters come out, and the explanation for the world and the skill and magic system is also pretty fun and intriguing to read and wrap your mind around. A small pet peeve of mine is the integration of video game elements into what is supposed to be a real world, where characters would literally refer to video game things like stats, levels, skills and drops as if they're actual things in the real world. I don't know, some part of me just doesn't like that sort of system where things like power levels are integrated into the real world as it makes conflicts and fights a bout of who's numbers are bigger rather than pure skill, but with skilful weaving this could potentially work out just fine.Overall this is great. Certainly much better than a lot of the other novels up on this site.
