Maybe this story will make sense later in the series, but even with the first eight books being free in Audible Plus, I won’t be continuing on to find out.
The first half of this book feels like a bad Last Airbender. There’s strong Asian themes of honor, chi-like magic called madra, and spirit animals. Linden is the weakest tribe member at the lowest level of their feudal clan. There’s a long, dull path to him battling far superior kids in the ring… where he should lose miserably, but easily wins thru made up new powers, fight styles, or impossibly clever trickery.
Then fantasy abruptly goes archangel meets The Matrix, with some nonsense about overlords watching this and other lands (or planets?) and said angels have tech that helps them police uber warriors that try to take over lower-game levels…? Maybe? Bim. Bam. Boom. There’s a deus ex-machina moment and the story changes tracks again.
The second half of the book is some sort of Harry Potter meets Hunger Games as Lindon goes to school, and everyone tries to kill him, while he conveniently gathers magical gizmos and continues to win against seasoned fighters…and then he goes off to …somewhere to level up some more so he can return home years (and several books?) later to fulfill some prophecy and save his family?
If it had been funny, or interesting, or emotional, I might have been willing to see if later books developed the mystery or pulled things together. But the death knell was the boredom. Flat characters, awkward dialogue, and unexplained magic/tech/worlds completely lost me.