- #1
I really liked it for the first 200+ chapters and wanted to give it 4 or 5 stars, but the few latest arcs annoyed me, so I decided to drop the rating to 3 stars. I will explain why.One of the biggest highlights for in this novel are characters and their interactions. There is no pretense or at least not much. Characters are grounded and talk and behave like actual people, not like some cartoon. There are clear motivations and character evolution over time. I also like that there is finally a proper relationship displayed in a novel between the male and female leads. They are truly a power couple and they are most of the time together, doing things together, fighting together, living together. Their relationship have properly evolved over time until they got married and behave like a couple with general intimacy (like cuddling, hugging, spending time together) and overall they are very close to each other. They don't get s*upidly separated for some idiotic reason, no one ditches the other one to cultivate for 25 years in some cave, no s*upid drama. They don't leave one another when people tell them they are not a good fit, etc. They just properly get together and develop together and they trust each other unconditionally, talk to each other about issues and make decisions together. I don't see this kind of thing very often and I really like that it's here.I also like how the story progresses. It is indeed filled with contrivances, but it's just fun to read and it's not annoying. The humor is mostly acceptable as well, except for the few moments. I like how the characters are mostly ruthless and don't leave enemies alive, even if the enemy is super minor, they just get killed when the opportunity presents itself. It was all fine until the zombie arc, which I found to be super shallow and super s*upid and the kidnapping and nuking arc, which I also found to be completely ret*rded and out of character. I was expecting MC to just say "go ahead and kill her, it has nothing to do with me", but that idiocy happened and MC even did things very uncharacteristic for him. I also don't think that the usage of that kidnapped character was good. IMO she either should've been forgotten or have some kind of other role and didn't deserve what actually happened. Also the way she agreed and actually followed through is also s*upid. These things ruined the novel for me. The biggest plot point that ruined it for me was Spoiler
when it turned out it was the aliens all along!
[collapse]I don't really mind that in general, but this was a bit too contrived and unexpected for me. Just out of the blue for no reason.The other things that I don't like is way too much Chinese propaganda and nationalism in the novel. I usually don't mind it that much when it's somewhat mild and is just part of the story because it happens in China, but here it's just too much even for me. Also, in addition to that, other countries are depicted kinda cartoonishly, like a caricature of the real thing.SpoilerEven the f*cking aliens are like - China is clearly superior country with deep roots and even though we could manipulate other countries previously we don't dare to try and manipulate China because China is just so damn great. Bleh
[collapse]One other point that really sticks out to me, but I am not dinging points off is that the author have granted several really god like abilities to several characters, including the MC, but he doesn't seem to realize it and doesn't make full use of the abilities he made. The progress of the abilities is also a little slow - there are only about a third of the chapters left, but the MCs only have something around 30% of the abilities developed. Also there is a clear foreshadowing that MC will just get super power up for all his abilities later all at once and just maximize them instantly. This progress could be fine if there were more chapters, but this isn't going to be good story progress.Overall I am having fun reading it and I would recommend giving it a try.