/lit/ - Literature

Reviewfag continuing a 20 book read in the Xianxia-Isekai-Gamelit genres. I wrapped up Xia Remy Y, a break in this nightmare. The narrative and character writing is worlds above most of the books so far, for something that's supposed to be cliché. Though that may refer to the cultivation system, which is along the lines of the most basic ones I've read. The wonder of the story tends to be on the cultivators themselves and what their accomplishments within their realm mean. A lot of the focus is on Sects and their influence on the continent they live.

The cultivation system has 3 cores - the foundational core, the middle core and the upper core. Throughout a cultivator's body are qi meridians that direct the flow of energy to these cores. The main character in this is the son of a doctor and trains under a high-level cultivator as a doctor himself, allowing him to sense these meridians and obstructions within them. Acupuncture or a good enough cultivator can even redirect these flows to make cultivation more easy, though this is a rare and highly coveted technique. Qi can also take on an elemental affinity such as fire, poison, etc.

The first arc of this book is absolute gold and is such a realized story that I was entirely hooked. The character writing and attention to training, setup and execution of previously communicated ideals and points just nailed it for me. One of the only xianxia stories that properly break down the 'might makes right' inequalities of the world. Unfortunately after the first arc, things become rather saga driven and the cohesiveness I saw before waned. Not to say it wasn't interesting; they are still building to a penultimate conclusion, but it is very clearly YEARS off.

This is a Royal Road story, so it will be a while before I pick it up again. Seems like the author uses multiple interludes to note the end of an arc, so there are decent start and stop points. Overall, great story and great characters but the author plans to adhere to the cliché as time goes on, so I think the novelty may wear off.

8/10 for everything up to the Dead Plains arc.

Still listening to Mother of Learning Arc 2 on audiobook but it's a slow-go of things. The author is spending more time on telling the reader theory than actually showing it. During the background of this entire mental training arc, Zorian has been working on building golems and improving their design. I think this might've been something truly interesting to follow but instead they're flushed out with a few sentences here and there, only to pop up as enforcers when he needs them to. Same thing with the transmog into an eagle... I can only imagine that's setup for later.

>Next Book:
Lord of Mysteries by 'Cuttlefish'
>Next Audio Book:
Defiance of the Fall by The First Defier