The Statsguy's Mag

Views : 20.81

Rating : 9.2(1052)

Chapters : 3335

Status :??

Word count : 10.49million (yup very big)

Author : The Enlightened Master Crouching Cow

author level : lv5

No of works : 2

Disscussion : 154697

Year started : 2015

Translated works :

Genres : Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Martial Arts, Mecha, School Life, Sci-fi, Xianxia

Tags : Academy, Adapted to Manhua, Artifact Crafting, Artifacts, Average-looking Protagonist, Body Tempering, Caring Protagonist, Cultivation, Cunning Protagonist, Demons, Famous Protagonist, Firearms, Futuristic Setting, Genius Protagonist, Hard-Working Protagonist, Harsh Training, Inheritance, Male Protagonist, Money Grubber, Outer s.p.a.ce, Philosophical, Reincarnated into Another World, Romantic Subplot, Shameless Protagonist, Souls, Spirits, Strong Love Interests, Sudden Strength Gain, Transplanted Memories, Virtual Reality, Wars, Weak to Strong

Popularity : popular in china

Last edited : 7/mar/2019

*******************************************************

Website : qidian international (webnovel.com)

Views : 20.6million

Rating : 4.4(782)

Chapters : 1023

Rank : 58

Status : ongoing

Schedule : 7ch/week but translated at 14ch/week

Translator :

Editor :

Premium : Yes

Premium chapter : 400

Stones per chapter : 10-11 ss

Popularity : well popular here

Last edited : 7/mar/2019

***************************************************

Synopsis :

Even if this universe is truly nothing more than a brutal b.l.o.o.d.y shadowy forest, we Cultivators will burn all that we have just to give off a single weak flickering spark in the darkness!

No matter how weak each spark is, how short-lived, how small… As long as the sparks flow unabated, then one day one of those sparks will light some tinder, and that tinder shall light some fallen branches, and those branches shall set ablaze each and every last tree of the forest!

In the end, even the smallest sparks will eventually set the shadowy forest ablaze, and illuminate the whole world!"

In a world teeming with cultivators, Li Yao, who makes his living collecting sc.r.a.p metal, encounters the soul of a t.i.tan powerhouse from forty thousand years in the past.

***************************************************

POSITIVE REVIEW :

Brilliant novel. Absolutely brilliant.

The three volumes I have read so far can be described by their overarching goal (the following description adapted from the author"s words himself - because I completely agree) :

The first volume is a more standard progression, where Li Yao grows from junkyard orphan to a person who has made a name for himself based on his hard work and ability. He faces arrogant rich brats, other similarly talented people who grew up in feeder systems, and other hardened people.

{Spoiler

He also meets his girlfriend in this volume}

He grows, experiences major setbacks, but comes back, and declares his vow to exceed something. Things happen, he delivers on what he said, etc., and becomes a major success story.

Unexpected disastrous situation! He is embroiled in an extremely deep plot to overthrow an entire nation of people. While slowly figuring out the true components of the plan, he uses his multiple talents to execute a resistance, and eventually triumphs.

As he solves the previous mess, he realizes an even greater, and more nefarious plot. In an effort to combat this, he formulates plans on what to do - but some twists happen, obviously, and things don"t go as planned. As he tries to resolves those little kinks, he starts to realize something - there is no true black or white in this world, and the only way to guide himself is his own belief and opinion.

That description was not the best, because I"m not yet able to fully wrap my feelings for this novel into words yet, and so it may make you feel like it"s some hero story - I a.s.sure you, it is in no way close to that.

Here begins the lengthy explanation of its good points :

Our MC is known as The Vulture, and for good reason - his personality can be considered cunning at best, and conniving at worst. His fighting style is exceedingly refreshing - rather than the traditional "Let me yell my move out before/while I do it so everyone knows I can do this", it"s far more realistic, and dirty. This is a futuristic world, with guns, bombs, the like, as well as energy, and he makes full use of it.

The romance scene here is one of the best, ever, period, full stop. I can"t begin to tell you how much I loved it.

{Spoiler

Li Yao"s gf is a fighting maniac - she has had similarly traumatic experiences as him, and was at first an elder sister char., who would beat him up / help him with his combat. They would spend time alone just fighting, and he slowly fell in love - they eventually get together, but they"re really busy trying to fight and get stronger, so their dates are literally while beating each other up. This is the kind of mood she has - an absolutely individualistic, powerful, show-no-mercy, amazing kind of character. One of my favorite lines she says goes something like "What do you mean my position as Li Yao"s wife will be lost to Li Yao"s apprentice? Why should I be worried? B*tch, I"m gonna be known as Ding Lingding, not somebody"s wife, and I"m a boss *ss girl". Ooooooh, she is DOPE.*}

The plot"s here are ridiculously intense. And it"s not something like, "But wait, there"s more!?", but actual plots and hidden plots and sub plots and the ilk. I"m talking super, super, super layered plots. Starting in the second arc, there"s a basic plot for him to solve, but as he goes through, he starts to find more and more things happening, and by the time push comes to shove, the villains are no longer villains, heroes are actually just big losers, Li Yao was accidentally fighting for the wrong side for a bit, and the best part? THEY ALL HAVE BACKSTORIES. Side characters, main characters, protagonists, antagonists, even the mob characters get story time. And it"s all relevant!

The first arc/volume, there is an enemy, and Li Yao is going heavily against them. Not really a spoiler alert - they"re demon beasts. In the second volume/arc, you start to get the feel that things aren"t black and white in the second arc, but there"s still really a "main kind of enemy" involved, one that clearly violates your feel of morality. But once we hit the third arc, things are flipped upside down. Major spoiler ahead:

{Spoiler

He comes back to his home region in the third arc (was in a different "s.p.a.ce fragment" in the second arc), but because of a certain problem he brought upon himself unknowingly in the second arc that only blooms now, he is forced to go into the Fiend Clan area. Hoping to stay there till he recovers, and until then, gather some useful intel in hopes of repelling a soon to come horrible calamity, he goes undercover, but starts to discover shocking backstory. The cruelty of human nature (Fiend Clan nature, too) is fully revealed here - no one either can and/or wants to stop a 500 yr long war, and stopping it is the third arc}

What happens, chapter by chapter, is that Li Yao realizes the complexity of war, of all the factors involved, the horrors it causes, and its repercussions.

Lastly, and still importantly, the villains are smart. Very smart. Diabolical at times, but terrifyingly smart. I thought I was good at reading hidden plots, and picking up on possible faults, but I was taking doozy turns on this.

Even now, I feel like I"m missing some important parts, but I"m not a professional novel reviewer, and if I were to go any deeper, I"d just be giving a full on summary. My main point is this - the novel is deep and complicated; maybe not the most thought provoking piece of literature, for sure, but for a web novel, it sure does a fine job.

Lastly, there"s a theory in here called the "Dark Forest" theory, and it has something to do with extrterrestrial life. It"s both extremely intriguing, and absolutely terrifying to think of. And worst of all, there"s a high chance it could be true.

If sci-fi meets Chinese fantasy world is your shtick, this is your shtaff, my dudes.

-artfulFool(NU)

*************************************************

CRITICAL REVIEW :

I hadn"t even gotten through the first chapter and I was already tired of all the unneeded descriptive / comparative phrases the author kept adding in. Let me write a short paragraph to show how annoying it is.

The author writes a paragraph and adds unneeded descriptive / comparative phrases, just like how Hollywood directors needlessly splits a short book into two movies. It"s unbelievably annoying, just like how an unending itch on the skin is. However, every web novel author needs to add words of absolutely no substance in between those with, else they run out of ideas on how to proceed, just like how Anime makers add filler after filler in order to make sure they don"t catch up to the source or to wait for the source to proceed with the actual story...

I mean, obviously the author doesn"t do it every paragraph but these phrases stick out just because of how forced they are. This honestly might be the most annoyed I"ve been due to the authors writing-style. Usually it"s because of dumb characters, dumb logic, dumb events etc. Actual components of the story itself, not the author"s writing.

As for the story... people are saying it"s a breath of fresh air but because I"ve just read (and dropped) Battle Frenzy, I don"t find that to be the case at all. Cultivation system set in the modern world, has a simulation system, MC is not a cultivation genius at the start but is a genius in another aspect which just so happens to be extremely important in the set world, MC started at the bottom of the school, best friend has a lot to say about women, a "b.i.t.c.hy" girl in school who is called a genius who ends up "despising" the MC, his fat friend, and their kind (b.i.t.c.hy and despising are enclosed in "" because in BF it is shown that it was a misunderstanding and that the female was actually an extremely good person. Wouldn"t be surprised if that turns out to be the case in this novel as well), etc. All these similarities and I only got to chapter 8 of this novel.

The main difference so far really is that, Battle Frenzy was way smoother to read. I"ll use what the author of this novel likes using. "Mish mash". The author pretty much "mish mashed" multiple traits of different novels in order to form the setting of this world. The problem is that his writing isn"t good enough to smoothly tie it all together. I mean, the whole test question just to bring up the world"s history simply felt misplaced. It felt like the author just asked himself, "Hmm, how do I introduce the history of the world?" "Oh, I know, let"s just make it an answer in a test so I can literally dump in an info dump which is multiple paragraphs long."

The thought is there, just that the execution just isn"t up there. I dropped Battle Frenzy because it turned out to be waaay too drawn out. It"s the same here. It"s even more noticeable here since the author keeps forcing descriptions in. Not to mention multiple paragraphs full of technological babble / names.

Dropping this as I don"t think I"ve ever been this annoyed at an author"s style. Feels like the author decided to write a Sci-Fi novel just to add as much "Sci-fi" bullsh*t as possible. Here"s a quote taken from chapter 8 which I"ll leave for whoever reads this review.

"Li Yao thought and thought, and nodded his head, "A sc.r.a.ped heatsink is a common breakdown in crystal processors, technically it"s not a big issue. The reason why none of the repair shops you went to were unable to repair is primarily because this model number of crystal processors is way too rare. The technology utilized by this processor is also way too obsolete. The heat sink used inside has not been produced in the last hundred years, and modern heatsinks used in modern processors are fundamentally incompatible. Anyways, it doesn"t matter."

So much "Sci-fi" bullsh*t "added" in chapters just to make things longer (it"s actually the case for fans in PCs). Like I said in a previous review, good authors add details which actually add to the reader"s immersion / imagination. Bad authors just dump in details which just end up being utter bullsh*t used to draw chapters out as much as possible.

- hero(NU)

*******************************************************

In my library : Yes. Guys give it a try. It"s a mix of scifi and cultivation and oh boi mc really is cunning.