The fantasy of progression isn’t simply becoming stronger but is instead the idea that by growing your abilities, people can overcome their obstacles. While this novel has an enormous amount of progression, the character doesn’t seem to be able to use it cleverly and his abilities evaporate the moment the author decides that the stakes must be raised. I just set the book down again after the author had the main character skewered by an attack one chapter after the one in which he told us about how the character’s ability to dodge had sky-rocketed to the point that only beings enhanced by haste have any chance of hitting him. So I guess we have to assume that the incredibly powerful pet class character he’s facing also has magical attacks with high amounts of haste in addition to being able to control enough pets to occupy a town.
The author does well at writing character dialogue that is believable and fun. The friendship between the main character and Sift is the highlight of the series, but I just got so frustrated with the author’s love of melodramatic combat causing him to throw away all progression. The character’s plans are almost never allowed to succeed unless they are ridiculous and last minute improvisations. All of these things are great once in a while, but when they become a pattern, they’re robbed of being special by becoming predictable and, in this case, robbing from other important elements of a good litrpg like progression.
I’m not giving up on this series as there are things I like, but I am in a weird position of wanting the combat to be over in a litrpg when that is normally my favorite part.