- #1
This is a hidden gem to me, at least so far. It had me hooked right from the first few chapters and never disappointed in the 102 chapters I've read so far.The comedy is great, often making use of various characters' quirkiness and the mc's madness, extreme skill, taboo knowledge and seeming lack of morals and clear emotions, not surprising with his life experiences. A lot of it is focused around women who easily fall for him due to his blessings, extreme beauty but mainly because he's the master of masters when it comes to seduction and bed skill, which also ends up being a focal point of comedy. The MC is very capable, competent and everything is according to his own pace and he calculates every step of the way, though he makes minor mistakes at times he will manage to correct them and even make use of them with just a few clues.This novel reminds me a lot of emperor's domination and would be very similar if emperor's domination was more focused on comedy, if Li Qiye was better in bed, focused on seducing women and not as OP, not as "supremely heavenly" (Li Qiye has EVERYTHING in control and knows everything and everyone are ants to him, rayne knows his place and while superbly confident, he can't control everything on his own and needs the help of the people around him, so he uses people and manipulates them to his benefit unlike li qiye that is, at the end of the day, a lone wolf that plays with people sometimes) and not set in a cultivation universe. The protagonist also reminds me a little bit of regressor's instruction manual's one, though he's less of an as*hole and far, far more capable in every way and way more in control. The way he makes use of everyone and manipulates people.I'd also like to mention that building a harem is NOT really the focus of this novel. It's more of a byproduct. It's not typical romance in any sense, he uses seduction, manipulation and s*x as a tool to make various important and powerful women "swear fealty" to him (though it's more like falling in love to the point where they're basically "love s*aves" that would do anything for him rather than swearing fealty), thus the title. These women are not really people he loves, at least so far, many of them have been enemies that has killed him before, sometimes many times, in previous timelines, he has also killed them many times. There's only one woman he loves right from the start, though he has some petty grudge and suspicion of her now after being killed by her once, though it's nothing that serious and I won't spoil it (him being killed by her is mentioned in chapter 1). He has shown intentions to try to love them, despite previous history. At this point, he's close to incapable of intense emotions and feelings and will do anything to succeed.My point is, don't be afraid of the romance, it's more of a gag than anything else. It's a harem yet it's not at the same time. None of the women will be able to control him and he's just using them, at least to begin with, not sure about how it'll turn out later. They're useful and I can't find anything to hate or dislike about any of them, they're just quirky with weird fetishes at times and will do anything for him. I know a lot of people are afraid of harem tags and even more so romance, which tends to be a touchy subject as so many authors fail spectacularly at making it believable or at least not annoying, especially chinese authors have proved great at ruining the protagonist's character and turn him into a wimp where everything revolves around pleasing the girl. But this isn't one of those novels. As long as you don't mind his manipulation, everything's fine.