LaoTze - Profile

The translation quality is trash, see e.g. “Great Chu just develop period if this thing is exposed, will lead to the people’s hearts not stable, is to the emperor will never be soft.”

If their authors were getting even ten percent of the money Webnovel pulls in with their ridiculous prices, good authors would all flock to the platform. Since good authors are rare on here, it’s pretty clear this isn’t an attractive setup.

It’s weird to me how you’re acting like they didn’t *already* say they’re not going to pay for webnovel because the service isn’t worth it to them. You’re the one who chose to argue with them, then you tell them to do what they already said they will do?

The premise is interesting, but the cultivation system is not ever fleshed out, the characters are all annoying, and the translation quality hits the pits after around 45 chapters. Not worth getting into.

It’s nothing special: the MC transmigrates into the body of a former genius who was crippled and sent into seclusion to guard the sect’s tomb area as punishment, and finds his golden finger is maximum level comprehension. So, he hides away and learns powerful techniques from the tombs, unbeknownst to the rest of the sect. Eventually he saves the sect in secret, blah blah. Very generic, but the writing is good enough to pass time. Unfortunately, around chapter 45 the translation becomes low quality and either the translators skip entire important scenes or the author does. Either way, chapters 45 and 46 are both terrible, so you know that the WebNovel effect has struck (passable initial translations, then terrible MTL once you they think you’re hooked so they can save their efforts to go hook people on other novels, and finish the translation of this one using MTL), and it’s not worth reading past that point.

tl;dr it's ok for killing time, but it's also brain-dead. The MC's family was destroyed five years ago at a banquet, then he was apparently tossed into a river and drowned. But in fact, he was rescued by a mysterious old man, brought to a special place, and taught cultivation techniques. Then he comes back five years later to discover why his family was killed, and avenge them. Experts in the outside world only know martial arts, so although they have superhuman strength and abilities, the MC is always stronger and underestimated. Somehow in those five years, he cultivated high enough and learned enough about cultivation to continue to use his knowledge of cultivation to get stronger even in the outside world as he encounters increasingly stronger enemies. There are the cliche useless women that cling to the MC and the requisite face-slapping of arrogant young master-types. Of course, he develops several cliche forces in the business and martial world, and gains a "grandpa in a ring" cheat that allows him to crush enemies who otherwise would easily kill him. The plot is pretty linear: power up, get more powerful enemies, unexpectedly defeat them, learn something about his family and who killed them, and get even more powerful enemies, repeat. The main issue I have 370 chapters in is that the author does a poor job of providing reasonable motivations for the actions of most of the people and organization standing against the MC. It really deadens my interest in the novel.

At least by chapter 250, if not earlier, the translation descends into unedited MTL. Inconsistent gendering is the least of it: we are treated to different pinyin referring to the same places and people, different literal translations of the same names, nonsensical phrases, and more. In terms of plot, the MC is the reincarnation of a god, and arrogantly acts like he still is one. Of course he always somehow manages to be appreciated by the more powerful people who could crush him with a finger flick, and they protect him from the other less powerful people who could crush him with a finger flick. Of course, he acts as though he doesn’t need that protection. Not worth getting invested in even if you can overlook the arrogance and plot armor, because the MTL later on makes the novel unreadable.