PR: A guy gets teleported into a magic room for a tutorial, with no explanations, you know the drill. Before the MC could start doing the tutorial, he gets rejected for another unexplained reason, and "the system" tosses him to a volcano, but he doesn't die, and "the system" - the same one trying to kill him - reconstructs him back to life because, if the system proves something throughout the book, it's that it's an idiot. The process of him dying repeats itself about five times, even getting partially eaten by some furry creatures named "Vogmites"; fortunately for him, these Vogmites have the habit of keeping the heads of the people they kill rotting in the "treasure room," so he resurrects there.
MC is unable to use any weapons or items other than some raggy clothes and a pouch of musty copper coins, but fortunately for him, he won't have to because he quickly finds out he's not only got unlimited mana... but one of his "healer" spells has the ability to block any physical incoming attacks, which already makes us think that the author is going to introduce non-physical attacks sooner than later, which is exactly what happens. He does some experimenting, kills hordes of Vogmites by crushing them between the invulnerability repulsion field and the walls, and while there are a couple of borderline moments when non-physical attacks seem to put him in a pinch, the fact that he's got healing spells and unlimited mana allows him to brute force his way through. The most destacable moment of the book is definitely these segments; from now on, it starts falling in a nosedive.
The MC wakes up after killing everyone in the cave through the aforementioned "tactic" and simply walks away from the place, while we wonder why he didn't get any experience; we assume it's some sort of mechanic introduced by the author to make things harder for MC. He walks down the mountain and gets attacked by a bunch of critters but pretty much shrugs it off; at no point, despite his "starving" state, does he consider picking up one of the dead mammals and cooking it, but I suppose lighting a fire is easier said than done. He arrives at the nearest town, where the "alien" population (literally just orange humans) racistly rejects him for no good reason, not that it matters since the Chaitons (or whatever they're called) are all equally flat, two-dimensional, and unimportant to the plot. The only Chaiton of notice is the Adventurers' Guild manager (who has fluctuations of mood so obvious that even an autist could tell he had something fishy going on) but only so that the author could toss two entire chapters on adventurer ranking and questing mechanics that no one gives a damn about. Soon enough, the MC finds a way around the "can't deal damage" limitation that was the premise of the book thanks to the "heal energy deals damage to undead" rule all RPG players know.
He's tasked with clearing a place surrounded by fog and dead trees named "the mausoleum of despair," with red doors and all. Who'd put his deceased family members in there is beyond me. Unlike back with the Vogmite tunnels, the monsters at the mausoleum are generic zeds and skeletons that the MC kills by whittling down through AoE healing waves and other spells he attains after claiming the Vogmite EXP (it was there all along). After the first battle, all the rest are the same with MC tanking most hits and dodging the non-physical ones despite MC not being particularly agile, including the boss fight, which is exactly the same but with more words describing the same actions, giving the reader the notion of a dragged-out battle. He again gets to the "loot" room but is unable to grab anything. The author then noticed that MC was gaining too much edge over the other "players" or contestants, so he randomly decides to put a cap on his level; he now can't level any further than level 21.
So what does MC do until the awaited arrival of the others? Grind the Mausoleum. Why does he grind the Mausoleum if he can't get anything out of doing that? Good question. He also does nothing with the money he earns; he just deposits it at "the bank". Why he doesn't use the ginormous amount of gold to buy the compatible equipment he's always whining about not having? Good question.
Fortunately, the contestants arrive, along with your generic gray aliens (sorry, the "system representatives") to answer all the questions we didn't want answers for. The MC quickly finds himself in the conundrum of wanting to flaunt his levels and gold but also not wanting to draw too much attention, so he does very conspicuous things like showing everyone his levels and skills but then he reminds the readers that this "wasn't his intention". A group of people is drawn to him thanks to the show he put on and get themselves killed when trying to follow him to the mausoleum. But don't worry, MC just revives them. There goes the danger, I guess. The other characters, who are just as flat as the Chaitons, and could all be a single character or even a signboard, start trading power-leveling in exchange for useless information about rarity percentages and restrictions that don't apply to MC. They also come with this lazy story to justify the whole system thing about being put in place to defeat Satan, err "The Adversary", and dungeons being remnants of "the adversary's energy".
Honestly, if they were going to take an entire chapter to narrate that garbage, the author might as well not even bother trying to justify magic. After the arrival of the other contestants, MC now has the ability to be both immune to physical and magical damage at the same time, which finishes overpowering him, so much that there isn't even a point in presenting battles. They're all the same, by the way, copy-pastes from the others because, right, if the MC does the same thing over and over and it works, why change it? At the end of the volume, the system rats him out as the highest leveled player, and we're supposed to believe that a bunch of weaklings present more of a challenge than "the overlord of death", who BTW, has shitty lines the author himself calls out but never fixed. End of the volume.
Honestly, I could continue ranting but I'd never end. This is the guide book of how NOT to write litRPG. The author not only had predefined the path of the MC from page one, he also made the progression repetitive and inconsequential. The "choices" the MC has could be summarized as a bunch of options that aren't worth a damn and one shiny option that's perfectly convenient for him. Really? 2/10
No comments:
Post a Comment