Forgotten Conqueror

Even though Re-incarnation concept is the same.. the way you developed the story till now is really unique.. MC is not  meek nor arrogant, whole being humble.  Even though MC is OP he doesn't show off, it's pace is also quite nice. and i am hoping you can release at lest a chapter daily (only hope though XD). and your story doesn't have grammatical mistakes and easily readable,and you wrote in a way that reader don't lose interest in the story so far. it's one of the best stories i have read.. Thanks for the story

EDIT: I think someday this Author will reemerge like the story's namesake, proving himself a Conqueror by achieving the best-rated #1 once again. For now he remains forgotten, but not forever. #WEREMEMBER

To me, this is the best story that this website have. And that is because it contains all of the regular clichês that you will normally see in this website's novels but delivers it in a refreshing and original form.

First of all, the main concept: reincarnation. I don't like this idea. I think it is silly and unnecessary in most of the novels. This is an exception. What normally happens that pisses me off is the fact that the MC reincarnates and thus is born with some sort of advantages over other peoples of this world but his past life don't really matter. The life the MC had, the people he met and the things he has done don't affect the story.

But here, in Forgotten Conqueror, the past life of the MC plays a major role not just in who he is but in the setting of the world and the plot (since it becomes the MC's goal to discover his origins and discover the status of his past-life enemies).

Usually, the author redirect's the reader's attention of the motive of the reincarnation (or give a half-assed excuses for it to have happened) and starts a new chain of events that the MC has to face.

Not here: the MC seeks only to live his life with his beloved family while researching the history of the world, looking for the motive of his reincarnation and to finish the things he couldn't in his past life (a.k.a. facing an antagonist that was not revealed, yet).  

Usually, the MC is overpowered but still manages to find struggles that require him to unleash some kind of hidden power and then finish off his enemies. Most times, the description of the MC's powers don't match his action when he is in danger, because although he is DESCRIBED AS OVERPOWER he really isn't. And that is fine with me. I like MC's that aren't overpower. What I don't like is this discrepancy in the description and plot, that is usually fixed by the author giving some kind of excuse for his enemy being an exception to the beforehand mentioned power-above-all of the MC.

But not here. Kaidus is described as a higher-being and act as such. He is strong, smart and is always ready to finish off his opponents with his full power. His life is never at stake. When he finds some kind of struggle is just to keep his identity a secret. And that is because he IS OVERPOWER not just DESCRIBED AS OVERPOWER and then faced with even more powerful enemies.

Those things together with gorgeous world building made by the author made me fall deeply in love with this novel. The only thing I could suggest is for the author to give a little more depth to the supporting characters (a.k.a. his family and friends).

Regarding other reviews:

@Sylth: You've made a serious mistake regarding the plot of this series. Kaidus haven't lived 20 lives. What happened is that he was born 20 times and killed at his birth, exactly for the motive of him not being able to control his mana at birth and thus having white hair. That is why, when he finally gets to live, such a long time has already passed. Also, you say that he shouldn't obey other people because he is utterly powerful. That is simply not how things work in life. If you think life that you really should try to change that mindset, because if you get some kind of power in your life people will not like you. He has power but he doesn't have to show off this fact. Actually, as long that it doesn't hurt his family or friends, Kaidus tries to live a normal life, seeking only knowledge. If he started to act in his everyday like the higher-being that he is, he would not be able to live the ordinary and quiet life with his family (one that he likes). By acting normal in his college he gets to continue to live a normal life with his family AND is able to research for his past. He doesn't do things just because he is told to, he does them because they are good for him. And regarding his father, Troyle, the injury he suffered doesn't make him useless. I don't know if you have ever had an injury, but the fact is that when you do, in most of the cases it doesn't make you like a disabled person. It just makes you worse than you were. The fact that Troyle was a top-tier mercenary enabled him to have some degree of skill even with an injured shoulder. I think that is all.

@boridu: Well... everyone has their tastes. But I don't think even if you don't like the novel you should say those things, because they simply are not true. If you really believe them you should read again and work hard you your interpretation skills.

I finaly registered on royal road, after blazing trough your ff in about 5 hours (from 1 am to 6 am in the morning) to thank you properly for the story and the wonderful time I had reading it.

As many have mentioned the world is very unique and hard to grasp at first, the story starts dark with many dead people, but so did humanity troughout it's early history! I like the  mature writing style,and the very human side of the charakters, with all their fear, jealousy, anxiety and anger.

Some have pointed out, that the reincarnation genre is already often used and nothing new, but so was the idea of a young gifted boy with magical abilitys attending school and many of us still liked Harry Potter! So it's not always about original ideas, but what you do with them and how you can captivate your readers in sharing the feelings of the characters, which in my humble opinion the author did very well.

Please keep up the good work and I hope you like the token of appreciation i left you via the new option !

(and please excuse my grammatical errors if I made any, for english is not my native tongue and I am writing this from my smartphone ^^)

I'm really enjoying reading this. The combination of your style and grammar make it easy and fun to read. The story is interesting, it's not going to fast or slow, just the right thing. Im hoping to see you uploading this story for a long time

Style:

Forgotten conqueror is a well written story with decent and engaging characters in a moderately engaging world.  It contains a good mix of action , drama and character development.  The character development suffers though because every character is either perfect moral superman or a mustache twirling villain begging to be killed.  Both the main character and the reader will  near instantly recognize them as they are introduced, making character development unnecessary. 

The author does a decent job of world building. He succeeds in making  a large and living world but fails somewhat in making it interesting. We never really want to learn more about the world as the only interesting or important character is the main one. A consequence of how overpowered he is. 

Story:

Too cliche and basic power fantasy driven. We are told that the church had his previous twenty reincarnations murdered but never see any  remnant of this church or how they knew to do so.  It seems to exist as as part the main characters "tragic backstory"  only to make it clear how ridiculously much hes suffered before the story even begins and so totally deserves to fly around the world like a bored godchild and killing all the cliche villains he can find on an epic quest to murder an entire global spanning organization because they annoyed him one time.  Or maybe it's because he personally dislikes their philosophy  of mages being in charge?   Strange , considering he kills and tortures anyone who gets in his way with magic and goes out of his way to point out how powerful he is and how that means no one can tell him what to do. 

The first book is basically a collection of short stories about how awesome the MC is, but is pretty fun, hence a relatively high score even if I ended up dropping this. The 2nd book, though, is extremely filler-ish, and takes everything that wasn't good in the first, like the side characters, over descriptions, and plot points that lead nowhere, and makes it worse; it's not pretty fun.

its weird your ff not in best rated. Well your story is interesting one and the MC clearly has unique character. I hope you continue your story more!

This is my first review on this site and first book review probably since high school (I am in Grad school now). You can say that I just joined this site so I can write your a review :).

I am an avid book and a big fan of OP MC style.(i.e., MC doesn’t struggle much in the story, bad things happened prior to the beginning). Hence, I really enjoyed your style and must had reread portions of it like 10 times. It is currently in the top 5 on my reading list (which includes >200 Chinese LN).

So far I like the story. It is especially refreshing having read so many Chinese LN with following cliches (which I hope you won’t do in the future):

• Near-Infinite levels: every time when MC reaches the top, he finds himself to be the weakest again & having a long way to go (and repeat for each arc). Good example would be http://www.kanshu.com/artinfo/12881.html (one the most popular Chinese LN). Right now, you have 5 ranks for Mages (http://forgottenconqueror.com/the-world/). I am pretty certain there would be higher ranks, but try not to add so many. 
• Struggling in a lot of big fights (and almost every time something suddenly activates or MC realizes something, and MC becomes much stronger and owns the enemy).
• Stupid/irrational antagonists (so far, the enemy doesn’t know much about Kaidus ). I like how you explain the reason behind everything while keeping a nice flow.
• Black & white antagonists. Please don’t do this. Make it complicated, and present moral dilemma. An extreme example would be antagonists who apparently killed MC’s mom (but for good reason, which I believe to be the case in the manhua red storm)

Grammar:

Took half a point off for a couple of minor grammatical mistakes. I had no trouble understanding everything after the 3rd chapter.

Thanks for great work :).  I will donate to your Patreon.

I came to this site looking specifically for Original English Light Novels, but then I came to this fantasy masterpiece.

By now, I personally differentiate "light novel" and "YA novel" in the terms of their commercial-quality. A lot of light novels begin as web novels, and thus, allow for more exploration of the world, the mechanics of the magic system, and the characters without being limited by the need to make it presentable. Pardon me for mentioning this here, as I am still looking for light novel shape in the middle of the market today. Perhaps it's still not the right direction, and I'm looking forward to be corrected. :D 

Anyway, this is precisely what this story develops. More exploration, more details without worrying of getting cut since "it's not necessary to the main plot or character development". And I love this story for that. It's those fantasy stories that I grow up in and come to love, but with so much more freedom for the author that a lot of YA novel authors (I think) don't allow themselves to have.

I'm always an emotional reader, and thus Overall score is how I generally feel about a story. And thus I gave it 5 stars. 

But then here comes the nitpicky parts.

Style

This is probably what I love the most. So far, the handful count of stories I read here usually come off as "fanfictions". The titles I love beside this one is following either Moonlight Sculptor, or Mushoku Tensei. But this story is so comfortable in its clothes. Not particularly bowing to a light novel I have in mind, this is more like a nod YA Fantasy novel with so much liberty of exploration. Love it. 

The storytelling is also immersive. Not only it has an established, complicated, and rich premise, it also delivers the premise with mastery. Several tidbits of the past come naturally, and not only through the main character, but also from other characters. 

It might be contrary to what I mentioned above, but I just want to say that it also doesn't promise too much. They usually come as prophecies to be fulfilled, quests, or the cryptic message about "if the right people know, they will be rewarded accordingly". It just focuses on Kaidus' agenda, and his determination to protect his current life.

But I also love the Headmaster who tries to throw Kaidus off the balance a little, making him responsible for the other students, expanding his "current life" more than just his family. Making him live properly, I should say. So, nice subplot. 

Story

There still leaves so much for the story to tell. I assume this part focuses on the Plot rather than the style, so I have nothing much to say. The plot is threaded carefully and with no rush. 

Grammar

I'm not an English native speaker, so I don't really notice grammar mistakes inside the story. It's good enough to make the reader drown in the story itself, it's good enough for me. 

Character

Now how should I go with this? 

Since the beginning, Kaidus already has an established character. This is not a coming-of-age story. But, he also has his own demons, and the inner struggle is real. I love it.

Not only him, even his parents have the little character growth. I also love the take on Prim. I'd love to see more rivalry, but Kaidus is already too OP. It won't be fair to the people around him. But if he can't have rivalry about magic, there are still other ways to have rivalry about; his research, for example. A young character knowledgeable and also in the pursuit of knowledge just as passionate as he is would provide a good balance.

^ But I'm just thinking about it on a whim]

Anyway, everyone is well developed, but I'd also love to see more outside factors that will tip him off of balance besides polite, love for family, hatred for injustice, or pissed off by the headmaster. (LOL)

Worldbuilding

It's probably a 3.5 stars. 

There is a lack of in-reference to our world as to how your time terms might mean, or what significance it has in that world to be different. (Like, lunar calendar for farming, tree-months for hunter-gatherer culture, etc.) 

I love the magical system and the ranks, it is well explained and give adequate general idea. I haven't checked the glossary yet, but it's probably described even further there. 

The lack is actually for so wide a world that not even reborn 27 times will make Kaidus know everything, he still hasn't explored it other than reading the books. 

It still has rooms for growth, but I came here to enjoy the ride.

Thank you for writing this masterpiece. :D I'll definitely follow through until the end~

 Summary for those that just want the simple stuff.

Charecters: MC is logically flawed, Bad guys are simply cookie cutters, Family is well thought out and realistic.

Plot: Is easy enough to follow and there is a main goal (I think)

Grammer, spelling and pronunceation: good, unlike mine.

Here's something to play with