As someone who likes second chance stories this was a really disappointing one. There was so much filler dialogue it felt like the story made no progress. The MC has to make a witty comment about every little thing, whether it’s something he did, how much trouble he’s having adapting to his situation, or how stupid people are. There’s also a lot of self analyzing/criticizing from the MC that doesn’t seem to really change the way he acts at all. For someone that’s supposed to have lived for 650 years before his second chance, he’s also really stupid.
Spoilers:
The MC is supposed to have been an elite soldier in the emperor’s army, a great general, leader of the emperor’s spy network, and the second most powerful person in the empire. Yet somehow he never sees betrayal coming at him and doesn’t question anything the emperor says to him. He also constantly makes simple mistakes throughout the story like underestimating his enemies, letting his guard down after a fight, doesn’t know what keeping a low profile is despite constantly saying that’s what he wants to do, and just can’t seem to extrapolate information at all. Such as: all these people who seem to be corrupt are wearing red robes/armor/arm bands, I guess it’s just a fashion statement, not a possible sign of their group. It really annoyed me that despite supposedly being so experienced and having lived for so long the MC acted more like an overpowered teen on a superiority high rather than the experienced old man he should be. The last problem I had with the story was that it felt like it didn’t go anywhere. Throughout this first book only 4-5 days pass by and he is still in the starting zone. I’ll make a guess that the next few books will probably be at this pace as well since it seems there’s still a lot of world building that still needs to be done.