LaoTze

It’s clear that the majority of novels are now translated by AI, so I don’t hold the fact that this is translated using AI against the translator or WebNovel. It’s the fact that long excerpts of the prompts are littered throughout the novel that I hold against them. Even with the comments and reviews calling this out, they haven’t fixed it. Trash translation.

This novel really takes forever to get to a point where there is meaningful conflict, even longer to where you can see what the system is moving him towards, and the filler-fu is strong with this one. Further, we’re slammed over the head with the MC’s inner thoughts on how his earlier life caused trauma that he needs to address, ad nauseum. And idk if the author has never had a friend group, but the interactions with his friend group is the most offputting part of the novel— they are props to pull out when he wants to demonstrate that the MC is making progress on his trauma by opening up to others. The novel’s storyline is not bad, from where it looks like it’s going as of chapter 378, but it would benefit greatly from an editor, and be much less dragged out.

Thank you for this comment. It’s the only reason I kept reading. It really did much better — the author should go back and rewrite those chapters IMO, because they can easily be blocking many readers from this gem. I just made it to chapter 421 after a few days of devouring this novel, and I am really satisfied with it.

She stays arrogant for a really really long time, stubbornly thinking that every time he becomes more powerful it’s just a fleeting circumstance, that eventually she’ll be much stronger than him due to her special physique. It makes for good reading, watching her delude herself and dig the pit deeper. Several times she asks for his help for the sect, but it’s always with that hidden undercurrent of disdain. Eventually, much much later she realizes that she can never catch up with him but it’s too late for that to save her.

Yep I just caught up to chapter 666, and it’s terrible. I basically skimmed the 20 or more chapters before that of him watching someone’s breakthrough and then him breaking through, they were so redundant and dragged out.

I was enjoying it until the MC leaves his initial nation to join a sect. Before that, the pacing was just right: he developed fast but believably, and the conflicts were interesting. There was a strong Gary Stu element, but the plot was strong enough to make that acceptable. After that point, the writing style switched for the worse. There have been at least 80 chapters of obvious dragging out of the plot: entire chapters where the peanut gallery speculates or is in awe, multiple chapters dedicated to tedious descriptions of a single passerby’s breakthrough, arena fights where each chapter consists of a fighter thinking about then beginning to make a move, etc. Because of this switch, I do not recommend anyone read the novel.

I’m enjoying this: the MC is believably smart, ruthless without lacking compassion, and levels easily. The world is pretty interesting, and new elements are revealed slowly as he grows. Even as he grows he still shelters his family (at least to chapter 460), and this realistically poses constraints on the actions he can take. There is no romance so far, and it doesn’t feel like it’s missing. My only complaint is that the author spends far too much time describing skills that the MC is learning or even contemplating learning— to the extent of having multiple chapters in a row consist of the MC listing out his options, or the MC wistfully thinking about his skills for several chapters during a fight.