I have tried and tried to love this series, but I cannot, for the love of me, find a way to call this good or even remotely entertaining. I slogged through the first two books and now I’ve finally reached the end of book 3, only to find this book in an identity crisis. Allow me to explain:
The Story: This series exists in a world where everyone is gifted magical abilities via Gods. However, prior to these Gods, we learn that the old way of garnering power was through cultivation. This is where it gets weird. It becomes a hybridization between a Mirin novel and a medieval RPG. By book two you are introduced to the 12 meridians which connect to a person’s core and then we have this convoluted system of meridians+magic+martial prowess all culminating in how Ruwen should progress. We learn that Ruwen is special because of core and his crazy ability to harvest a bunch of spiritual energy and yada yada. Now, in the third book, the author blows things out of the water by casting him into this spirit dimension, of which should’ve been a mini vacation, and we learn that Blapy is not who she seems but is, in fact, a crazy void master dragon thing. Because of his innate abilities, his relationship to Blapy, and a whole bunch of other coincidences that weren’t coincidences, Ruwen finds himself overpowered, bringing me to…
The power creep: Ruwen has the hardest time leveling to level 10 in the first two books. By midway through book 3, his power skyrockets, like he went from level 1 noob to level 100 guild master in a second. But god forbid we understate his ascension to power, because of course, he Trained for 4 and 1/2 years with Rami in his mind, continuously I might add! The author pounds this into our skulls because they knew this is a lazy way to bulldoze through Ruwen’s progression. They go on and on about how training with Rami has changed them and they weren’t the same person anymore. Of how the years of constantly dying has elevated to a new level of thinking. Gah, shut up! I get it! He’s strong, FFS stop letting me know every time he has an epiphany! Now, he realizes he’s strong with level 100 skills and can use basically any skill in the story. He doesn’t need weapons or armor cause he will naturally out grow them due to his fortification skill… which leads me to my last thing.
Items don’t matter: Yeah, you heard me, items don’t matter. As long as you train and cultivate and fortify, there’s no need for weapons or armor or whatever! You just need to live long enough to ascend and eventually he will become a god level cultivator.
I simply don’t understand what people see in this book. I’ll give you a summary in terms of Dragonball Z.
Book 1: Ruwen learns he’s special, people try to kill him, gets saved and locked into hyperbolic time chamber.
Book 2: Exits hyperbolic time chamber, does some missions but realizes he needs to get stronger, goes back into hyperbolic time chamber, gets sent to the spirit realm.
Book 3: Kicks spirit realm’s ass, gets trained by whiz and becomes a martial arts master, becomes OP and proceeds to now become a God.
Sure there’s some interplay between the characters, but I ended up not caring. Who cares about sift and Lilyann and Hamah. They were second-rate characters who have their stories barely stuck in. Right now, it’s the Ruwen show, and so far, it’s all about training and how much he can cheat code his way to power. Nothing has happened, and I fear, nothing will happen. So, with a heavy heart, my verdict is to drop this story. It’s too mixed around and there is nothing driving the plot. Ruwen is one of the most uninteresting characters I’ve ever read, maybe it’s because he’s 16, but that only reinforces my rule of never reading stories where a teenager is the protaganist.