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.

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.

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.

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. 

I've been looking at the other reviews and noticed that this book is often called out for following the general tropes of the genre. However I don't think this is that bad honestly. I think the author does a good job of character development even with the 'slightly' over powered protagonist. Conflict can come in many forms and in my opinion the internal conflicts that we see in the novel are well done. Enjoyable read!

I like it. I'm usually not that big of a fan of xianxia, but Western xianxia tends to be less ridiculous - just like this one. 

It follows the standard formula of an extremely talented protagonist, but without the arrogant and murderhobo attitude Chinese MCs tend to embody. He is more reasonable, but still very flawed, with an occasional petty and childish streak, and that despite the fact that he is reincarnated. Overall, however, his personality makes sense to me. He doesn't act rashly or over the top. 

I also like the underlying plot. It's not merely a power fantasy, but it hints towards an interesting bigger picture with the multiple reincarnators of Earth. I'm interested to see where the author will take the story. 

But honestly, I'm glad I didn't read the synopsis, or took the title too seriously, because it really doesn't do the story justice.

I agree with some of the reviewers here claiming that these two factors  give a wrong impression of what the story is about. It's not a comedy or a parody. It only subverts the trope of the powerful young master being cannon fodder, and instead posit the protagonist as a decently reasonable guy, not abusing his power. Sure, there are some intertextual references to other tropes, but I don't see that as subversion. Instead, it even follows those common tropes, such as gaining the inheritance of Immortals, or facing life-and-death situations to get stronger (albeit rarely). 

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.

It's a decent Xianxia novel, but it's fairly generic other than the trope-filled 'MC' side characters. The writing mostly follows the standard Xianxia style and there's some grammatical stumbles, but overall it's quite readable. However, you'll get the overly flowery, borderline nonsensical descriptions of spiritual roots, martial arts, cultivation, etc. Basically, the standard Xianxia powerleveling stuff; don't really expect any cleverness in fights or logic in the magic system (cultivation is basically a magic system, right?). There seems to be some more explanation about the politics of the various sects, but that's about it as far as worldbuilding is concerned. The characters are pretty bland and generally lack depth, and I don't really expect much growth or character development moving forward.

If this was fashioned into a parody where the MC uses his trope knowledge to avoid problems and gain power, I could see this being far more enjoyable to read. But so far, it's just a standard Xianxia with an OP MC. Maybe something to binge if you're particularly bored, but overall there's nothing new here.