Azarinth Healer

There is no crisis to be resolved, the mc is op but not to the point where she will have to step forward to save the world. This is more the easygoing, slice of life of a battle-junkie grinding out her skills and levels from the system.

I actually prefer stories that are just about batttle junkies (or other eccentrics like crafting-maniacs or mad-scientist), which this story seems to be. It's not a tense story about a hero with the weight of the world on thier shoulders, not about offending young masters and then exterminating their clan, nor about facing the entire world. It's not just a humourous slice of life without any action either, though I do find it funny.

This is the simple adventure of a slightly op battle-junkie type girl. The fighting scenes are great and entertaining. The slice of life is light, funny and refreshing. The system is grindy, straightforward and(for her)power progressive(fast). 

Edit(chapter 36): Changed score after reading detailed reviews abit(especially oinos and ninetails). Though I have a different view on scoring, the minor errors are there, though not very impactful to the quality of the work and are becoming rarer. MC will hopefully pick up interesting long-term companions/side characters soon.

Edit: I think I'm kinda dumb to just realise she has a job that treats magic like qi. She literal has most the skills qi cultivators do. A healer monk type class.

April 2020: I have been reading this story for two years. Perhaps i should have updated this review in that time but other reviews are available. The author has written 450 amazing chapters in those two years (okay, two years and a couple of months). The author detailed use of style, grammar and characters have improved progressively in that time. Still, how to describe the protagonist journey over thar time to carry on from the earlier review and hopefully encourage more people to read, while not spoiling. Well...

Considering the people she met (creature, machine/golem and humanoid), the monsters she has fought (creature, machine/golem and humanoid) and the places she has grown attached too. I'm not sure I ever should have called it a simple adventure, though it is still light on drama. That is thanks to our easygoing protagonist (and ofcourse thre great author), not the lack of plotlines or her lack of motivation.

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Read and rate other reviews if you aren't convinced to read from mine! Upvote reviews that make you want to read, I just love this story, I'm going to upvote reviws that i think are accurate now.

I started the adventure with this story 2 years ago, when the first chapter was released. It is the only one that was able to keep me by its side for so many chapters and such long time. Others either ended prematurely, or lost their appeal. I think this is the best proof of quality of this book, as well the best reason for reading it I can give.

Just read the first 5 or so chapters, if you liked it, then it is almost guaranteed that you will love the rest.

The best part of this book, I think, is its ability to build up an excitement no matter how much already was written. The MC achieved a truly ridiculous level of power, yet I found myself eagerly awaiting the next fight, next milestone. The world is vast, there is always another challenge, without ascending to another level of existence or unnecessary waffle. Just marvelous adventure.

The story is not only about fighting and gaining power. Many mysteries make the world much more exhilarating. There is much to learn, even about the system. Also, the MC is interacting with almost every part of the described world, so not much is left as only dry, background information, untouched worldbuilding block. This is rare and creates a feeling of freedom, simultaneously making the world feel more real.

I spent some time thinking about which category I was least content with to withdraw half a star so that my review doesn't come off as "I indiscrimately give 0 or five stars to everything I like" But I couldn't decide, so I just left it like that.

I first encountered this story when it was trending, read two chapters and was put off by the (then) mix of present and past time in the story. So I put it on my "Read later" list, because it had promise and sometimes the author comes back around and fixes such things. Well, the author did.

This is an amazing story and even better, it gets updated very on a very regular basis. The characters feel alive, you can understand everyones motivations, the MC is relatively OP, but earned it the hard way and the combat is intensely satisfying.

Well, everybody and their dog has written an overview of this fiction and I'm not the one person to be deterred by that, so here's one more to the avalanche.

I've been reading this opus periodically since the time it had about 200 pages (that's when I like to pick up fresh stuff) and it has gotten progressively better. I remember the time I started reading it and thought: "the grammar is weird and the POV even weirder", but it was still at least a little bit enjoyable so i grit my teeth and stuck with it.

Lo and behold, it has gotten a lot better and the authour even revwote the bad grammar and the weird POV in the earlier chapters. And since then it has became the nicely flowing slice of life LitRPG that you can take as a bechmark for others, that still has stuff to go for.

P.S.: I've since reread the whole (up to now around 220 chapters) story twice and still find it nice.

So. You're here. You probably read a bunch of LitRPGs by now and are wondering whether or not this is your next fix. The synopsis up top already promised you a super comfy read, but you wanted a second opinion or something. Well, here you go, I guess:

This book will feature casual violence. Extremely casual violence, mostly the protagonist fighting monsters. Yes, gore is a thing, casually. In fact, this book is casual about EVERYTHING. It is junk food and you're going to like it for what it is.

Yes, it only gets three stars because it takes a while before it even tries to be more, but that is, coincidentally, exactly what you're here for, so start reading already.

Azarinth Healer is a solid litRPG with satisfying and continuous power progression. 

The premise of the story is a portal fantasy where the MC finds herself with a battle healer class, and then proceeds to train, fight, and grind to get stronger.

The story currently releases 6 decent-length chapters a week, which keeps the pacing up even when the MC is training/grinding/studying. The grammar is good, with few major errors. The characterization is straightforward and consistent, with Ilea being a pragmatic and mature adrenaline junkie whose goal is to challenge herself and get stronger. 

A strong point of the story is how well the litRPG system has been designed and handled so far. It is an interesting 2-class/person system with well-defined capabilites and rules. Ilea's progression has been very satisfying and has felt earned.

The story refreshingly does not involved any save-the-world situations, and has mostly been allowed to evolve organically as the MC adventures. The worldbuilding has been quite well done as well.

Overall, I would strongly recommend this story.

(Review as of Chapter 247)

I stopped being interested after 625 chapters.

Optimistic view: That was 625 chapters that had me coming back to it. This should be seen as a positive thing for anyone thinking of starting to read it for the first time. Keep this optimistic view in mind as I now detail some of the things wrong with the story.

Problem 1 – Plot structure (or lack there of).
The main character, Illia, is a free soul. She just wants to travel and fight and not get bogged down with things. The sub-plot about the Azarinth Healer Cult? Mentioned a few times every 100 chapters or so. Apparently they were part of the ancient war against the Ascended, and fighting alongside the elves, and the Taleen. Which may or may not have something to do with the changes to the North.

By ch625 there is a very loose spiderweb of connection between various sub-plots. Which is the problem. . . By ch625 there is ONLY a loose connection between the many sub-plots. The whole story is full of plot hooks that go nowhere, leaving behind loose ends. The adventures aren’t building on top of each other, they are more building around each other. SOME of the sub-plots connect to each other. Some, but not all. For example, the Demon invasion; We the readers know who did it, but none of the main characters ever found out. And the “why?” is just left as another unknown loose end that is promptly forgotten about.

Problem 2 – Power Creep.

Chapters 1-15 – a handful of elves can lay siege to an entire human city. A human city currently full of skilled fighters there for a tournament where they were going to show off how skilled of a fighter they were.
Chapters 60-70 – Ilea can now fight toe-to-toe with Elves. Barely. She meets “Shadow Guard” killing Elves. Trainee Shadow Guard hunting down Elves one by one. Shadow Guard are not just “an” elite force, they are “the” elite force. The strongest fighting force of all of known humanity.
Chapter 115 – Tournament again. The last tournament introduced the Elves. This tournament introduced the Demons. A city of “average” Shadow guard, watching a tournament of above average shadow guard, getting interrupted by the monstrously strong Demons.
Chapter 141 – Normal demons are being cleaned up by the thousands. So introduce an undefeatable super-demon.
Chapter ??? – Let’s skip a bunch. . .
Chapter 300 – Ilea is now searching the North. A land unknown to the humans because nobody who comes here survives. She is solo-clearing a dungeon, because of course she is. To help out an Elf friend, because Elves haven’t been scary since pre-Chapter 100. And she has reached level 300, an achievement basically unheard of for all of humanity. Chapter 300 ~ Not even half way . . .

Chapter 625 – Ilea is now level 500. The elite fighting force of humanity is between 200 and 300. She is so far above that it is meaningless to compare. She has the raw power, the money, and the travel speed to solo fight all of humanity with little effort. And remember ~ the story line is still just a laundry list of loose ends that almost (but don’t quite) connect to each other.

2021 Update: Grammar has improved.

AH is one of the better stories on RR: it has believable characters, decent worldbuilding, and a decent story. The main issues are grammar, style, and unimportant chapters. The grammar issues have mostly been fixed, though there are still errors from typing too fast, such as missing spaces and random letters being added to words. Proofreading would solve these issues easily. Ilea received most of her character development early on, and stagnated at around chapter 80. Other characters have grown well, especially

The style fluctuates as the author tries different techniques early on, and again at between chapters 120 and 200. Other reviews have asked how non-combat classes level up, it's the same as how Ilea first reached level 10, practice. Finally the main issue I have with AH: the pointless chapters. Some chapters, for whatever reason, have no real content. No character growth, no exploring, no meaningful combat, and so on. They have repeatedly stopped me from reading any further, dropping the story for months at a time until I forget them and can read on. I’d name them, if I could remember them.

I have a really hard time reviewing this novel.

Yes, I read a lot and even supported it on Patreon, but I have a hard giving it a very high rating.

Its good, its entertaining, but at some point the story lost me.

its pretty much the ultimate grind and hack and slay novel, with permanent killing monsters and levelling up...it doesn't pretend to be something more tho, so you can't really judge it too much for it.

It was really fun to read it at first, but more and more I found that reading this story turned into a grind not only for the mc, but also for me as a reader.

I just read it, because I get the updates, but I don't have this need for more chapters or any fun in imagining how the story might develop...because it just feels all the same.

You probably could copy and paste chapters and just change the lvl of the mc and names of her opponents and few people would notice.

Again, the story never rally pretended to be anything else, but I feel like at the beginning the whole thing had something that gave it purpose and tied all the fighting to a goal...becoming stronger to survive, becoming stronger to see the world, become stronger to protect her friends.

nowadays she just gets stronger and stronger, endless swarms of enemies (or just wild monsters) get mowed down because she is bored. Pretty much anything that does not involve fighting and levelling up gets delegated to side characters and is then resolved.

This whole review paints a bad picture of the story, it's not bad tho.

1. It's written without many mistakes, the humour is decent and seeing the mc level up is in a way very satisfying and makes you curious what power ups her future levels might give...just don't believe that it will get anywhere and enjoy the process if that is your thing.

I wanted to like this story, but I couldn't. 

Don't get me wrong, i'm usually fine with stories like this, where a character goes from place to place beating up shit, getting stronger, solving every single problem, and having everyone compliment them all the while. It's a guilty pleasure for sure. This? Yeah, nah. 

What didn't I like about it?

The characters. They have no personality whatsoever, as much as the author would like to pretend that they do. Ilea in particular is just about as cookie cutter as they come, and has no personality outside of making sad jokes and fighting. 

The dialogue. Most characters sound like tweens, even the older, supposedly mature ones. It's painful. Also, Ilea's innerse voice is incredibly obnoxious. The author wants her and other characters to sound funny, but they're not. It's so heavy-handed that it brings you out of the story.  

The plot. Again, i'm fine with these kinds of one-dimensional, progression stories, but this one is just boring. Read one arc and you've read them all, with minor changes. Would be fine if the characters were decent enough, but they're really not. I have nothing and no-one to attach to. 

What did I like? 

Just about everything else, especially the magic system and writing style. This story may have evolved into something better, with better characters and plot over time, but i'll never made it there to find out. 

I don't like this story, but I can see why some people do.