Cultivation elements aside, it’s a good coming of age story as far as it goes (obviously this is a series, so the hero’s journey is far from complete).
While initially confused about the extra-planetary elements, they were brought smoothly into focus as the story moves forward.
There were a few elements I found problematic, most prominent among them being the premise that an ‘unsouled’ would be particularly rare in the scenario laid out in this book. Given how comparatively weak the various clans and schools are in the starting area AND that it’s later revealed similarly weak people are routinely trained out of their weakness elsewhere, the idea that someone with so little power would be unusual is quite the stretch. I would have liked to see worry among the clans about the increasing NUMBER of unsouled instead of having the protag’s situation being so unusual as to be unique in the setting. It seemed a bit of a stretch to me and one that wasn’t necessary to make our protag stand out, but it isn’t worth a star off. It’s entirely possible there’ll be some sort of justification for it later in any case and if not, it’s the sort of detail that gets an easy pass, rather similar to the fact that real science precludes the initial storm that kicks off The Martian.
That said, the characters were well-balanced and otherwise made sense in context. I quite liked the various clever schemes the protagonist uses to surmount difficulties with increasingly high stakes, and the pace of the story picks up drastically in the third act to culminate in a battle that’s quite satisfying with an antagonist that’s tailor-made to receive comeuppance.
Mr. Baldree did an excellent job bringing this story to life. Applause all around.