This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

This story is a blast from the past. You're getting all of your classic xianxia tropes played 100% stone serious dead straight. You open twelve meridians to move on from the meridian opening realm, but the MC opened 8 secret meridians on top of that to gain special powers. Tribulation lightning largely exists to be refined by the MC for more power. For crying out loud, we even got a multi chapter tournament arc that existed to serve no story purpose but increase word count. This is original flavor 2012 era xianxia.

I give it four stars because I like original flavor xianxia. Compared to unofficial translations of Chinese novels, this is a much better reading experience. Also, having the MC start out on top and have to worry about keeping his position is a nice little twist from the usual MC who starts out in the smallest family in the smallest town in the smallest province of the smallest empire on the smallest continent of the smallest world.

Note that my review of the first few chapters would have been much lower, as I was expecting a parody. This story is not a parody at all, unless you count the transmigrating MC shaking his head and thinking to himself "this is just like all those cliche novels I used to read." If you can set aside the expectations of humor that the blurb creates, the story is  enjoyable for what it is.

Honestly I am still not sure. The synopsis points to a parody. The title points to a parody. The first chapter points to a parody. Parts of chapters point to at least a comedy. So... is it?

But slowly as I read, I wondered. Why does it never actually lean into it? Why does it only have the occasional surface 'haha's'? And at other times seems entirely unaware of what it's doing?

It seems to me that it actually wants to be a serious story, which not only contrasts with the comedic tone of the early parts, but many things that can be overlooked or are even intentional and beneficial in a comedy, suddenly become glaring flaws in a serious story.

It sounded and seemed like the old, and unfortunately dead Arrogant Young Master (RIP Spoon). But it's not.

As a parody, it's not funny. As a straigforward cultivation story, it's bland. Grammar slips up, and it somehow gives the feeling I'm reading a translated work. Stuff is inconsistent, not even across chapters but inside the same chapter, and the earlier ones are painfully bad. 

The story can't go two paragraphs without wanking on how great the MC is, how his stuff is absolutely perfect grade, etc.

Twenty four chapters in, I've to stop ignoring the writing on the wall. It's mediocre. The prose is weak, the dialogue sounds fake. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, the characters aren't particularly compelling or fleshed out. 

It's back-to-basics straighforward xianxia, and at that, it actually isn't that bad. It's just not that good either. 

Hell, the original title "Emperor of Cultivation World", or something like that, gives the biggest hint as to what kind of story this is.

The AYM-like title drew me in, as did the nice cover art. But I can't see what this has to offer. Matter of fact, I think I've read something nearly identical a few years ago, and it too just uses a few self conscious lines to try and justify the bad old tropes.

I will give you this: if you compare it to the average xianxia story, this has tight pacing, great characters and flowing prose.

It's just that the average xianxia is a barely readable mess.

So, if you simply really love xianxia, with protagonist snowflakery being your drug of choice, then sure, go ahead.

Otherwise, pass. 

Maybe there's some grand revelation that happens in another hundred chapters, given all the rave reviews. Or maybe people just rate against the usual translated generic xianxia stuff. That's the only way to justify those 4s and 5s I'm seeing. In which case, fair enough, but I've given the benefit of the doubt by ignoring the atrocious first few chapters. "It gets really good on Season 13" isn't a great selling point.

@edit: Also, Spoon is back and doubled the lenght of AYM, so go check that out! Now!

Yeah so, it's a little too plot armory  for me and the mc is a little too overpowerd/blessed by opportunities and ass pull mc chosen by the heavens for my liking.

However, I can imagine how this story will progress and the type of tropes that have and will appear during this story, it's perfect for new and young readers just getting into these types of stories. 

If I rated it lower it would be purely based on personal taste and a complete disservice to the story itself even if I'm probably not going to continue reading it, I hope the author continues this story for the people who will appreciate it.

I should preface this by saying that I do enjoy this novel a fair bit, but there are some things that keep it from being truly great.

This novel tries to parody all the pitfalls of your standard Xianxia novels, but merely pointing out that you are doing the same thing and laughing about it doesn't make it any less irritating. Coupled with the near cartoon level villains who always just manage to escape by incredibly convenient means this novel has no suspense throughout.

I can only describe this novel as average on all accounts. But in a good spectrum, so, average-good.

The grammar almost perfect with some minor errors. Only in the early chapters though.

The style is somehow looking safe, here is where I can only think wow because there are absolutely no problems. The author has a wide knowledge of chinese culture it seems, knowing or having researched it. Every thing that happens is building the world and informing us without lowering our interest. Introducing common tropes like trouble at the auction house without making it seem strange or out of place.

I really enjoy the story it isn't getting boring and slowly picking up. We were already introduced to some parts of the world and a goal has also been created.

The characters seem fine, while there hasn't been anyone with bigger talent than the MC. I'm certain we will meet someone, like a rival in another 20 chapters at least. The main characters to date are the mother and (small spoiler)    the second disciple.

To sum this up it is a worthwhile read with a nice world a good story and nice, real looking character.

((This certainly is just me being negative, sorry as this still is a really awesome story.)

But the spark is missing (wtf is the spark?!). It is like the average of most good cultivation stories with a nice MC, a nice world, etc. but there somehow isn't much that makes this different from most cultivation novels. This on the other hand makes it a 'safe' read as previously said combusting many tropes and presenting them on a nice looking plate. Showing, how such cultivation stories look like and most likely also being a nice introduction to the world of chinese novels without being a chinese novel itself. But the reason why this doesn't look different than most cultivation stories is most likely because we haven't gotten to the meat of this story yet. So all there is to do is wait and see where this story will go, as the beginning already looked fantastic.)

Edit ch55: I stopped reading. To be honest this isn't a bad story, but... there isn't anything exciting here. Comedy isn't truly there, action is lackluster especially the scenes. Otherwise... the progression is pretty slow. All in all in these 50 chapters there wasn't much development if it really WAS a chinese novel this of course would only be half of the beginning, but it isn't. Especially on RR there are many better stories and this one just doesn't cut it anymore.

I kind of tried denying myself about this story. It truly is average, but while average often can be good if there aren't enough areas where a story shines it isn't worth reading anymore for me, it just suddenly became extremely boring. 

This story though would succeed on other sites. My recommendation to the author if he reads this, is to move to another site for example webnovel.com has novels like this. It at least would get better reception I think.

I've been enjoying this a lot and I've been reading this for a few months now. I really enjoy the interactions between MC and his mom. My only real gripes with this story are that there's too many characters that I just can't remember who's who if we don't meet them for 10 chapters and I wish Tianyi and his mom got to develop their relationship some more. They've been kinda hands-off-y with each other and they feel kinda distant now.

The style is fine, but aimless even if I had a lot of hope for it. 

A couple of typos but overall it is written well. 

The characters are mostly one dimensional. The author doesn't respect the main character and makes him look very goofy out of nowhere for cheap laughs. He is also way too lucky. If he needs something, he finds it by sheer luck. He can also be quite dense (Wireless? Come on! It's obvious)

Oh and some Yu-Gi-Oh out of nowhere... I think the author was getting bored at that point. 

Read it if you want. It was enjoyable at the beginning. 

Style: Leans into the genre's (bad) tropes

This story is stylistically very much like a translated Chinese novel, so it'll scratch that itch if you have it. That being said, translated novels objectively aren't that impressive stylistally as pieces of English literature, so I settled on a 4.5

Story: Focuses on the wrong stuff

The elevator pitch of this story is that the main character is expected to act like arrogant cannon fodder, then violates that expectation and hilarity ensues. Tianyi just doesn't encounter many such situations, and so hilarity is often absent. Instead, we're left with a fairly big-standard cultivation story that doesn't even have the underdog protagonist angle to pursue.

Grammar: Surprisingly good

I'm a stickler for grammar and I'm keeping up with it. It's not published-book perfect, but it's a sight for sore eyes on this site at least.

Characters: Bland but serviceable

Just like with the style, the characters in this story follow the genre tropes, which are in turn unfortunately subpar writing. They're mostly one-dimensional characters that can be summed up in a single sentence.

Conclusion: Enough promise to keep me reading.

I came into this because I wanted a very specific kind of payoff - the titular young master not being canon fodder. I'm still waiting for more protagonists to try and fight him and realize they made a mistake.

I'm not sure the author plans on fulfilling those hopes. The most recent mini-arc with Elder Redseal was just classic boring wuxia with no twist. But I have time to waste if nothing else, so I can afford to keep up to date with a half-decent story for the potential payoff.

All-in-all, a competently written story which is bland at worst.

I'm new to cultivation novels. But I found this story a nice adventure fantasy novel with OP reincarnated MC. 

The plot is good, with interesting ideas. The flow of the story is okay. The characters, their personality, their relationships and their motives are the strong point. They are believable and attractive. The clichee novel protagonists popping up in multiple places allows the story to introduce many side-characters in a fresh way and I'm very expectant as to how they will be used later in the story.