Spirit Immortal

.Its sloooooooooooooooow.

The author has addressed it themselves but it is a slow burn type of novel. For people who can't take things being super slow, you may not enjoy this novel. However, i'm a huge fan of slow burn esque novels(the only time slow burn does not pay off, imo, is when there is no payoff/climax). What's great about this novel is that while in general climaxes are huge events that come from conflicts, instead the climaxes come as "Lessons Learned" or show growth in mindset. I've been reading too many action novels and i've forgotten that climaxes come in other forms. Anyways, good worldbuilding, characters are not too shallow(pls avoid what Douluo dalu does or any CN novel for that matter and keep characters "alive"), interactions are great and background plot is nice to have. If you have read Ze Tian Ji or Way of Choices, then this one is a must read for you(minus the "profound" feeling but imo, the author hasn't had little chance to do something like that).

Edit: Well returning to royal road for a bit because im bored, i came back to read where I left off (B10, 01/11/20) and boy its a doozy. Criticizing something when you’ve forgotten how the story was is great because you can see things from a refreshed perspective. So what I’ve never noticed is that the novel has become more of a tell then show type of novel, I’ve ended up actually skimming the chapters because the way the story is told seems bloated rather than concise. It feels as if the author is building the train tracks piece by piece while the train is right behind. The sentences feel like word salad. The world building is still fine but the execution is starting to feel dull. Honestly, I think the writing has fallen off from how great the first few volumes were and the epic twist that happened. Im starting to miss things like tiny details on how techniques work and instead we just get things like x used a skill because x is now stronger and x training has paid of and blah other reasons I get that doin tiny details sucks but explaning them then expanding on them without making a word salad should be a priority. The flow in the beginning seemed more natural than the one we have now. The first few volumes kept me super hooked but after the school arc, i’ve slowly been getting bored. So i guess, read till the school arc?

Warning: This review might contain spoliers, read at your own risk.

Okay, so I'll start off with my overall impression of the story: it's a pretty good mediocre xianxia. As in, it's not a pretty good xianxia, it's just a decent mediocre one. One of the other reviewers calls this a 'hidden gem' with 'no paper thin characters'... I'm not sure if we've read the same story. As a disclaimer I'd like to say this: I've read a metric shit ton of xianxia novels already. From female protagonists to healer stories to antihero to epic xianxia. This is one of those epic xianxia, not meaning 'great', but as in 'an adventure story about some legendary hero'. Reading this you might think: isn't that what most xianxia stories are about? And the answer to that is yes, they are. The only truly good xianxia story I've read so far is "Forge of Destiny". This whole paragraph was just to stress that I've read this kind of story before, that I've seen its like dozens of times and that this story in particular is just like all the others. To new, young readers it might be something fun and new, but so was Coiling Dragon when I started reading that. When the nostalgia and newness of xianxia fades away though, that's when you notice these stories tend to be utterly mediocre in story, writing, characters, style and most of the time the grammar is pretty bad too.

Style:

I'm not a professional reviewer, I don't do this for a living and I read as much trash as decent books, probably even more trash. I always found this criterium hard to judge. I don't exactly dislike the writing style in this story I suppose? Obviously it has the usual xianxia-problems: melodramatic wording, words that don't truly make sense, etc., but the style seems okay-ish. Even more so at the start of the story. I've seen the feeling mirrored in other reviews, but the first few books are the best. I feel like with time the authro has been getting bored of writing like he did at the start and has slowly been slipping into a worse writing style. Way more exposition, boring 'explanations' for power ups (in theb eginning there was at least some creativity, now it's just 'I trained' or 'I instantly copied your technique and improved it'), ... It feels like, just as I have, the author has started skimming his own chapters. I shouldn't be able to skip past half a chapter, start reading and still 100% understand what happened, but that's what it does. This is once again typical for xianxia novels, they tend to go for quantity over quality. When you see 'wow 400+ chapters, this story has a lot of substance' and go and read it, you'll realise half of those chapters are just filler.

All in all: please read some real english books and take some hints from them. Please don't let me skim chapters...

Grammar:

As I mentioned above: it's pretty meh. It's not so much that sentences are unreadable, but many of them feel so... constructed. Unnatural. Fake? Forced? The word choice in many chapters is weird, overly melodramatic and just screams "I'm not a native English writer.". It's either that or you're for some reason following the xianxia-train of writing like you put half of your words in google translate Mandarin - English. This critique is something that applies to almost any xianxia story, which is quite sad. There are also many small mistakes that an editor or just a proofreader could get rid of too. Just read your chapters through before posting them. And if you're not capable of finding any mistakes in them, at least get a proofreader or editor. Honestly, if your English is so bad that you can't find the mistakes, you should probably just not write in English in the first place.

Story:

As you can see, I give this the highest score of all. Not super high, but still decent enough. That's because the story is honestly the best thing in the... well, story. I like the world building, I like the overal way the story is going and I like the way that it feels like you've at least got some kind of clue of where you want to go. Especially that last thing is something that many stories on this site, xianxia or not, lack. It's nothing too creative and follows a well-established template, but it isn't bad either.

Character:

The worst score and bane of every xianxia's existence. The characters besides Shin are flat. They're templates and nobody cares about them. Shizen wants juice, kanari wants juice, elrin who? Isadore is a training plot device, Suji is annoying rival, the other guy whose name I've forgotten and is friends with Suji is 'rival turned friend', ... I can boil down most of the characters to a single sentence with ease and that shouldn't be the case. Name any one of your friends and boil them down to a single sentence feeling: "Yes, I've captured the entirety and essence of this person in a couple words.". You shouldn't be able to and if you think you can, you're either a mind-reading stalker or you don't know your friends and are arrogant enough to think you do. You need to develop your characters more. As it is now, none of them have any relevance safe for their link with the MC. Even their goals are linked to the MC. They exist for the MC. Isadore's intelligence network: what's he got? How is he planning on making it? How was he planning to do it before he met Shin? Why does he want to do it (in more than a single sentence please). I need to be able to feel like he's a human with a motivation to reach his goal and understand why. He's not some useless character that barely appears, he's one of the main-side characters. Kanari: I want to chase Shin. That's pretty much what I got from her. from day one she's been chasing Shin pretty much, trying to get him to join her Duchy and now she's the one joining him. Show me more about her. Show her inner thoughts, show her past, show her friends and interactions outside of the Shin-clique. Make me care goddamnit. I could do the same thing for the other characters, or at least, I couldn't do anything more. Honestly Emma, Shizen, Ella, Elyse, Ryner, etc. are all even less interesting and have had even less 'shaping'.

I'm making a new paragraph for Junius. He's annoying. He's the 'friend/family turned bad, but not entirely bad' template. I stopped caring when he became annoying, because I never got a real reason to care. The whole reason he joins the black masks is seemingly because he gets brainwashed like an idiot. He's relatively young when he gets taken, so I can understand he's a gullible idiot in a way, but still. Before this he seemed relatively smart. He understands the Second Elder's grudge and actions, so how can he not understand that the damned criminal syndicate is just trying to use him and is not 'right'? Look, you need to rewrite the whole part where he joins them. I need to have at least a couple chapters showing how, during the timeskip, he gets indoctrinated. Maybe put in a chapter about Junius every once in a while during his dissappearance showing how he gets indoctrinated? Now he just traps Shin tells him 'No Shin, the Frie clan is the bad guys, these criminals have told me so.' and then commits to the syndicate after killing his lover and getting honey trapped. His character is badly done, please go back to the drawing board.

Shin. Oh Shin. You were supposed to be the chosen one. You were to destroy the 'no-reason OP everything handed on a platter xianxia MCs' not join them! Anyways, long story short: he gets OP for no real reason and has a plot device (or several) which helps him at every turn. He's a cookie-cutter xianxia MC. He's boring. At the start he was human and fun, but after his 'wake up call' training drive he turns into something that I've read dozens of times before. Your protagonist is a template. Please find some creativity somewhere in your mind and just rewrite him without turning him into a stereotype. I could give you dozens of examples of how inconsistent, annoying and template-y Shin gets, but I just recommend you read some of the later books for that.

Anyways, all in all a mediocre story with some good, but mostly some bad.

So I got to the end of book 4 as they call it. The story so far is good altho I will not stress enough to people to please read tags as they are serious about one.

You will be happy for the characters and sad for them to. Not much detail on the monsters and MC somehow learns faster than everyone ever know. Somehow doesn't flesh out right in my head.

Also.

 Sorry I went in a massive rant once or twice in the spoiler about the story and the progression. Not going to lie it can be better and not as..how to say it evil of the author. I think a slight change slipped in to one of the chapters can change the whole story for some yet have the same impact and such.

So yeah good story but can be a bit better with some better planning

Read till chapter 569

Disclaimer: these are my feeling about the story.

Style:  its okey nothing too remarkable.

Story: found no plot holes so far. But i have issues with it.

Grammer: sometimeas i see a mistake, but thats like once every 5 chapters. So its good on that front. 

Character: its a mix of good and bad this one. 

So i am going to hide this part because its mostly a rant.

Personally, it is my current favorite novel 

This is my first review so please forgive me if there is some mistake.

What i like in this story is not a blind fighting from the begining and un natural and un realistic main charactor.

Main chractor has a realistc personality and there is a solid story.

One thing i hope that story will not end when main chractor asend to Imortal Ralm. 

Hello writer, aka Linodo

The first time I read ur story (this Story), is in the Other site. I hope U know what I mean.

But since i found Royalroad, around 2 months, I like read it in here.

In general I am not good bout grammar, so I can't score it in ur story. 

But overall story from the begining till book4, I like it. The first time i read it in my head I got a Question, Isn't it a fanfiction of the trylogy of DD?? But it isn't.

It a whole diferent story, but take the same power level.

Thats a good drama in there, Self conflict. The way U showed the protagonist is good. How u tell the perspective of a child, a lonely orphan child or of a children to try bounding they life as a family In other family, even the lazy way a child can became.

I like it, ever really love it, the story. I think u have a great prospect to be a profrssional writer, but its just my thought.

Oh, and I hope for the next story or the next book, u can tell Us the next level system after lv100, what in the story called Immortal.

Hope u read it.

Thank u

-Its my 1st review, so IDK the way i wrote it is right or not, so if any mistake u see in here, pls bear with it

--I know, My grmmar is Sh##, an once again I am Sorry.

There is a lot to like in this story. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Almost every chapter leaves me with that 'yay, theres more to read' feeling.

I've currently read through the first book, and had to force myself to pause and give a review.  The 46 chapters of the first book took me about four hours to read, thats a pretty good chunk of writing. There are currently 190+ chapters so another 12 or so hours of reading before I'm cought up... thats fairly awesome in my opinion.

Realistic and likeable characters.

It represents what could happen in a clan of war survivors: grudges are difficult to  forget, even when the other side is composed by kids who are thankful.

I'm totally gonna keep binge-reading.

29 chapters in book 1- as of this review.

Typical cultivation story but always enjoy the twist of unique spirits or nurturing an aspect, the problems I have tho so far is twofold character dialogue is absolutely horrendous and character development. Dialogue is flat, boring and cliché to the extreme as for character development it feels like the author wants to hammer that the character are only an extension of stereotypes and nothing more.(This really shows in the authors fixation on things like constantly bringing up that yes two twins look alike and only follow a set pattern)

11 books in now

My review hasn't changed much except for the worse. If I was to summarise the work so far it would be chunni wish fulfillment with a 6year old obsession with justice.

The series peaks at about book 5 and then any progress in terms of wiring is thrown out the window and is a quick slide back into bad habits and conventions.