GrandSageTrev - Profile

Not sure if my senses are off or if Catherine might be a waifu in the future and Lapis either one too or an enemy, but I can tell that whether as enemies or allies they'll cross paths with Miwen.

Good chapter. I like how unpredictable this story is. I can make some good guesses on a bit of the story trajectory and ending and often the immediate next bit, but the rest is highly uncertain and makes me look forward to finding out what adventures and chill times these likeable characters will have next.

How so? Crossbows, historically, didn't make a huge difference over bows in field battles, they mostly only made it easier to defend against assaults or sieges on city walls. Now they did allow for larger volumes of missile troops since training a crossbowman is way easier than an archer, which would probably be damaging enough to ancient formations to cause significant casualties and attrition, but not by a huge margin. City battles, where tons of conscripted peasants could aid in defense, is where the real difference would be made, making the enemy pay dearly for every attack by sheer volume of crossbow fire.

Further ideas here that you are free to disregard but grenadiers would be a good application of gunpowder too. In the warfare that you depict where punching holes in enemy lines is the key to victory, you could either have grenadiers all across the 2nd or 3rd row to shred the enemy frontline apart, or cluster them on one or a few spots to punch deeper holes in specific spots and allow flanking and encirclement. Obviously, grenades would also be an absurdly psychologically damaging thing for the era, explosives would be utterly terrifying to an enemy with no knowledge of them and their superstition would lead them to conclude all kinds of crazy and scary things, making a mass rout quite possible if there isn't a huge troop number disparity.

We're slowly approaching real kingdom building territory, I can tell it's gonna slowly ramp up and I'm looling forward to it.

I think what makes you so unique as a writer is how realistic you make your characters for the most part and their psychology and morality, it's very "human" and legitimately what you would expect people to behave like if one day the world switched to the fantasy genre. It's still a harem fantasy so there's some unrealistic parts, but far less than you would expect for the genre. Also very good worldbuilding and plot development, it's an intriguing world with a great plot that has lots of potential. Keep it up!

Great chapter.

Good on you for making the opponent a real person with real thoughts and motivations instead of just "Punching bag C". Gives the story a lot more depth and meaning as well as, like you said, a good opportunity to reveal AOTG plans, background, and motivation. Keep it up author, I think you may be the best writer overall that I've stumbled across on webnovel so far.

I get the feeling Miwen's opponent has a gift that levels the playing field between skills or even reverses it. No other way I could see him posing a threat to Miwen unless Elizabeth keeps her involvement minimal. I get the feeling she may be more in danger than Miwen somehow. Maybe his gift ignores or dissipates mana, making him the perfect counter-mage.

The mental image I have of Miwen's battle here is Miwen as anakin going berserk while dueling obi-wan in revenge of the sith, except anakin wins and is less screamy and more death glare and furious quip. Both were driven to their rage because of the near-death state of a woman important to them, too.

Glad to hear that, I will look forward to it.

I'm really digging the whole roman legion plus european heavy cavalry, crossbows, and even the instant-bow thrown in mix of warfare, but I hope you're not such a romeaboo that you stop there. If this is going to be several thousand chapters, as I suspect it will be, he should move on to pike and shot or even straight to musket and cannon warfare EVENTUALLY! Obviously his industrial technology is a bit unprepared and he has no chemists to speak of at the moment, but college chemistry classes should have prepared him for at least basic stuff that he can teach, and with gunpowder being a specific mix of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter, it isn't incredibly complex. Remember, your mc IS a metallurgist, don't tell me he doesn't have the knowledge to educate men enough to make muskets and gunpowder, it will just take time. Would be cool if a couple rounds of cannon canister shot annihilated an enemy cavalry charge in its first battle, for instance.

I don't think you made Miwen overly edgy here, it makes sense for the anger and other emotions that came out when he heard his sister, his greatest emotional support, was nearly killed for selfish reasons. That would harden anyone's heart a bit and make them more intense than normal, bringing out aggression and hatred that is not often felt or expressed. Obviously it would be bad if Miwen kept getting edgier and edgier, but if this is as bad as it gets for now then no problem. Also, please don't kill off his sister for Miwen's character development. I don't know her enough to care much about her as a character I just don't want to see Miwen suffer so much. If there HAS to be tragedy to drive the story, kill off his parents at some point. Not that I'm fond of that idea either, it's just a better alternative.

Might want to put a limit on the size of Miwen's harem in order to not compromise character development writing quality. Hard to say what a good number is but if I were you I wouldn't go beyond 12. Take "My three wives are beautiful vampires" as an example for what happens when you don't limit the harem, dude has like 40 or so wives at this point I think and some of them become a bit forgettable or indistinguishable. If you're willing to implement something like a wives/concubines divide, where wives are more prominent and characterized while concubines are less so, his harem could be larger that way and you'd have valid reasons for not characterizing the concubines as much. Not recommending that, it's just an option. I just don't want you going overboard and compromising the awesome writing and character quality you established thus far lol.

Please tell me you didn't drop this permanently...

Ah, between last chapter and this one, Anna's gonna become a barbarian-style tanker, isn't she? Using a shield to tank and an axe to take advantage of her high strength stats.

I think a big part of Miwen's incentive structure should be the system itself and some sort of "reverse tax" where basically depending on their contribution and accomplishments they will "earn" kingdom points (or tickets via a ticket to kingdom point exchange rate) to their name, which can be used for housing, items, gacha tickets, and perhaps most importantly, skill-sharing. This is probably Miwen's most busted ability: to be able to give anyone regardless of gift any given skill of his citizens, allowing incredibly potent and effective skill combinations that allow for absurd amounts of power and efficiency. Combined with a semi laissez-faire leadership style that allows some amount of autonomy, being able to gain that much power and decide how to use it would be very attractive for some, and the security and strength this would provide would also lead to great prosperity for everyone else more than likely, regardless of their strength, as long as it is managed well (which I think is a safe bet here).