So I waited until listening to the first 2 books in this series before writing this, hoping that the second book would help improve things. And while it does get better, I really just don’t find this series enjoyable.
While I’m relatively new to the Cultivation genre of stories, the elements of it share a lot with the LitRPG genre in my opinion. And that is the Leveling Up aspect of the story. And frankly, this book is nothing but Leveling Up. There really isn’t any plot, other than everyone crapping all over the protagonist for the sin of simply existing. But other than that, it’s just him training….and training…and training…and hitting a new level/threshold….and training some more, etc etc. It’s just dull. The book starts out as a straight Mulan reference, of the villagers being drafted to fight in the war, and you get a very brief glimpse at the life of the commoners, and how it is for them. Then the protagonist is wisked off to Magical Martial Arts School, and there is zero connection to the establishing events. What about his friends from the village? What about his family? What about the war? All of those plot threads are just dropped, for what boils down to a karate/sports film from the 80s. Complete with stereotypical bully squad like they came right out of Cobra Kai.
The Leveling Up aspect of Cultivation books, and LitRPG books, is a huge flaw in my opinion. The writers spend hours of story time, simply describing stats and telling us “and then the hero got stronger.” Without really developing anything dramatic, or interesting.
The second book gets a bit better, but only marginally in this regard. It’s still almost entirely just Leveling Up details, nothing more. The interpersonal dialogue is improved, as the banter between the main characters is actually quite funny, but it wasn’t enough to hold me.
The narrator was great. Nothing but props on his performance, I just think the material isn’t all that well written.