- #1
- Decent worldbuilding and attention to side characters,
- Nice mixture of politicking, combat, and kingdom building,
- MC is mostly well characterized,
- (Personal) MC is not bloodthirsty or harem-seeking, and the novel has basically no element of nationalism.
- Overall pace is too slow (only ~3 months have passed after nearly 250 chapters),
- Weak introduction from too much padding with litRPG description. This has been remedied in the later chapters,
- Spoiler
A confusing moment of hypocrisy: In the novel, vampires can produce kin by sharing a blood bond with the target. Unfortunately, this blood bond imprints the recipient with adoration and obedience towards the "parent". From the early chapters till c245, the MC, Murphy, demonstrates a general dislike towards this aspect. For example, early in the story Murphy has to turn Adele, a dear servant to another vampire, for both of them to survive a crisis. Later, Murphy discovered a safe method to sever this bond and offered such to Adele (non-coercively). This is in line with his repeated support of free will, if you are his people, throughout the 200+ chapters.
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c245 then comes swinging with Murphy "hinting" Adele to forcibly convert an ex-thief and smuggler, Dorothy, to make her a more effective pawn. He shouldn't be desperate for such a negligible increase in his territory power anyway at that point of the story. Keep in mind, so far Murphy has employed thought reading and charisma to convert former enemies into allies or even his citizens without damning them to become vampires - vampires are generally despised in his world by other races and gods. Given that human Dorothy has been cooperative and helpful after coming under Murphy's wings, it is quizzical that Murphy did not at least try to "convince" her the benefits of vampirification.
- Spoiler