Second Chances

If you enjoy relentless, long winded, robotic explanations about every little detail of the world/system or errant thought of the protagonist then you should enjoy this.  If you find it natural for an assassin to deliver a multi paragraph monologue about the why of it all when prompted to by his target then I question your taste, but you should like this story.

Apart from the above there are also issues concerning the main character.  His transition from a crippled karmic saint to voluntarily reincarnating as a reviled half breed, rape spawned, prince of the "Fey" was a nonsensical decision outside of the context of a video game.  After all who would freely chose to live that sort of life without a single thought towards the implications?  But it's a litrpg after all and naturally everything comes to the protagonist like a fish in water despite a complete lack of experience in his former life.

But still to go from a saint like figure to:

“Should we let any of them live, your highness?”  Cedric asked gaining my attention, as he continued to parry and distract the few Satyrs that were focused on him.

“Why bother?” I sneered.  “We know who sent them.  I really doubt we’ll get much more information out of them, and I’m positive Zeus isn’t the kind of guy that will ransom people who have failed him.”

"My newfound battle knowledge allowed me to react almost before they engaged.  My weapon moved into position exactly where it needed to be to diffuse their strategies and tactics."

For all of this to have happened in a single day on top of the endless monologues and info dumps was just too much for me.

Good luck.

"Who wouldn't try to game the system and take all the advantages possible?"

Not this guy, thats for sure. He didnt game anything. More like, he was gamed by the system. This sentence is seriously misleading. Do NOT except a capable and cunning MC that can actually deal with hurdles through his wits and smarts. At least not anywhere till chapter 20. 

As of chapter 23 - 

The gods "author" can indeed be fickle. This is a review as of the point that almost made me give up this novel. I am not sure if I will continue from here however it was great up to this point. The nerf nuke was pulled out and managed to nerf both the MC and the novel. 

The MC is presented as a person that made certain choices in his previous life and was led into the situation he starts. Mainly, good person that did god things regardless of what happened to him. This is presented differently when the nuke is going off. Also, the way the nerf happens is just so out of nowhere that it makes no sense. Finally, the nerf completely alters the story in a way that goes from OP to UP in seconds. Even after reading the reasoning it leaves the reader with a bad experience that is made worse by the lasting effects. 

Below I will go into my thoughts on what happened to help understand what happened. Spoilers included. 

I wanted to like this story because it has a very nice take on re-incarnation and as an unusual race at that. I have two big issues with it though:

• A good story follows the show don't tell principle. This one has so much information being dumped that by chapter 10 the story hasn't advanced more than an hour or so from the re-incarnation. Even when action should be happening there's more talking than anything else.
• I dislike the dialog style. It consistently spans multiple line breaks and just feels rambling. Hypocritical coming from me, I know, but takes one to know one.

FYI: landed here due a link from the Delve by .

I liked it right up to the part were Mac decided to knowingly go into a trap, then call a wild hunt and gets screwed.  It just seemed really out of character to put himself in that situation. Then gets punished. I absolutely thought he would just leave, not swagger like a teen protag into a trap. It reads like the author railroading plot. No lead up to to punishments presented, and plot Nerf to Mac's aura which literally cooked people on his first try. 

With that overt plothole making, like not following up on enemy investigations, and detping into a trap he suspected, I just can't continue reading. Real shame that.

The beginning was great and a great plot was established with enough mistique to advance the story. I was really getting into it and looking forward to continuing to follow the novel, that was until the uber nerf happend. Where even after he had learned from his mistakes and turned over a new leaf a vast majority of his advantages were stripped. This story could have been fantastic but I’m afraid the author has ruined it (at least for me). Perhaps some people will still enjoy the story however it is not for me.

The story tries to craft a strong and caring image for the MC but it fails by turning him into nothing more than another murder hobo. The first thing he does in the new world is murder a bunch of schmucks who were following the magically compelled orders of ther leige lord. The schmucks were very much willing but that isn't the point. They were ants compared to the mc and he killed them after they were not only disarmed but also disabled. The mc then has the temerity to be enraged by the leige lord being alive while his men died when he was the one who killed them without cause. That's the MCs character so far in ch 14. He's a self righteous asshole covered in a thin vineer of "heroism". I do hope he gets better.

Story has a lot of potential, and I really want to rate it higher, but the author uses a ton of info-dumping for world-building. 

It starts off with a strong emotional introduction that is followed up by several chapters of world-building and developing the future background of the MC. Unfortunately, even after the initial chapters dedicated to explaining the world, there are excessive paragraphs of info-dumping.  It is fine at first, because what new author webnovel doesn't have an early info-dump? 

However for anyone who likes to binge a good story, it becomes hard to process and absorb so much information at once (even if it is nicely put in a blue box). A concern of mine would be how dumping so much info at once will turn off any new readers if the trend continues. Most readers don't come to Royalroad to read textbooks. Even the relevant information becomes stressful to process. 

FOR THE PROS THOUGH; Interspersed between the paragraphs is a wonderfully innovative story involving pantheons and foreshadowing a clash between different mythos. Upon processing the large amounts of knowledge thrown at you, you see a wonderful and interesting world to explore. 

Holy cow. This is pretty good, and I was not expecting it. Not from that synopsis. Something that should be noted is the story borrows heavily from mythology, pretty sure Celtic? Germanic? It mainly focuses on the fae (specifically the sidhe) but there are Greek and Norse antagonists included as well.

STYLE: Pretty sure its all first person. Told from the eyes of our MC ( who's name I cant remember. I'm sleepy. Pretty sure its Mac Du Belenos now. Might have misspelled it). No P.O.V. changes have happened or interludes (thank god)

STORY: This is where the score suffered a bit. As I said earlier, this draws heavy from mythology. It's also a litrpg. And unfortunately, in my opinion, this story suffers from being a litrpg. It's like looking at what could be a great story and then noticing it still has training wheels on. Theres something about the status boxes acting as a hard magic system that didn't really mesh well with the vague soft magic like themes of the wild hunt, the summerlands, or the sidhe in general. Because there are moments when magic is unexplained in this story, and those are just more enjoyable. But it could be personal bias.

I would also say that there isnt enough weight in this story. Things happen, but it feels as if it's kind of told matter of factly. What I mean is, I  the latest chapter The Wild Hunt was called forth. And the author did a good job describing it, but that was pretty much it. This is a major turning point in the story involving betrayal, fighting for survival, and facing your fears/ challenges head on (nobody thought it would be that convoluted, but nobody thought he was going to a simple banquet either). And yet, for such a momentous part of the story, it feels flat. Where is that gut punch of fear? The righteous fury? The grim resolve to call forth one of the most terrifying magic in fae lore, The Wild Hunt. Where is the weight of battle, where the 8 lb. blade (guesstimate. I have no idea how heavy it is) feels like its 80 lbs. The exertion of giving it your all to overcome your obstacles. 

Something I really like about the story, yet we havent had the chance to explore, is how a magical society is more advanced than ours. I really like this concept and wish we could explore the world more. What kinds of weapons do the fae use? Iron? Why swords, and not some magical gun or something better? A wand that shoots laser beams or something. Why are there so few princes and kings and queens if all you need is exp? After all, the sidhe may as well be immortal for all intents and purposes. 

GRAMMAR: You get a perfect score from me. I didn't notice anything wrong. 

CHARACTER: This suffered a bit too. The MC doesnt really seem to have any growth. He went from a 700 lb. depressed slob to this reincarnated handsome, confident, charismatic sidhe prince. And it truly seems like he's shed his past life behind. Wish that could have been tied into the story better. Wish events shaped him into the man hes become rather than the system. Feels like a missed opportunity for me. Also, the antagonists suck and are extremely cliche. Each one has been the pettiest, most cliche villain that explains their plans right before the MC kills them. Like wtf..... make the MC work for something, whether its self discovery or trying to figure out who means him harm. It's boring when everything is served up to our MC on a silver platter.

Conclusion: I mostly focused on the negatives in this review. Dont let that give you the wrong idea. I really like this story. It is a MUST READ. Seriously, lotta garbage in royalroad. But it will leave you wanting. Theres just too many times you'll go "that's it?" The action is not gripping, the politics feel flat, the antagonists seem two dimensional. But I love mythology. I love the racial stereotypes. I love the logic of magic causing a society to flourish, not stagnate. And ultimately, only a few days have passed in the story. It's hard to get all this shit crammed into a few days. 

To the author: The benefit of a webnovel is you're not confined to a page count. You can drag shit out. Besides the aforementioned "weight" and litrpg, and missed character growth, I would recommend dragging this story out a bit. Dont get me wrong, it's not the way to write a novel. But then you can world build properly. And then in the rewrite you can condense it. Then condense it again and again until you get to a point where you're building a world and progressing the plot and growing characters at the same time.

I'm sleepy now, night y'all

i have just dropped this at third chapter, i dont want to spend my time with reading sheets only, nothing happends so far. Maybe you can give a chance and read but i am bored. Good luck