M_Z

Outstanding world-building. Absolutely loved those snippets at the beginning of every chapter. Even looked at the author’s other works to get a better picture of the setting. It really makes everything seem that much more expansive. If those are things you find important in a good read, then this novel is for you. I found the story to be compelling, and the background was explained in a way that was easy for me to follow. Definitely something I'd like to read more later.


Style: Everything just flows. The exposition was delivered in a way that was interesting, and I hardly found myself skimming past it. Since the MC can’t really do much explaining himself, as it is rather primitive at the moment, the worldbuilding was introduced via the environment and another character that took notice of the MC.


Story: Within the first few chapters the author showcased that they knew how to write a nigh mindless creature correctly - that being viewed from the lens of conscious beings around them. Also, it conveniently answered the reason why such a dangerous creature with seemingly infinite potential was left unchecked. In short, rather than evading everyone’s notice, they were left alive due to godly power struggles, with the one that took notice making (rather incorrect) assumptions about the mc, and deeming them a worthy tool for future projects.

While some might see this as a negative, as it takes some agency from the MC, I find that it makes everything that goes on after much more believable. In a high fantasy setting, how is it possible for something like a monster that constantly ravages the environment to go unnoticed by those with perceptions and information channels that span continents? The higher the power scaling becomes, the harder it becomes to suspend disbelief over someone with an overwhelming strength advantage not noticing the MC’s growth and doing something about it.

In essence, the MC is given the green light to do as he pleases (though his desires are still rather primitive, only going as far as survival and evolution, though we see hints that he will go beyond his original programming and become something more) by a native god, and one that holds an extremely high station in their number as well.

It is highly unlikely for this to become a deus ex machina for later, as this god is rather ambivalent to the MC’s existence and couldn’t care less about their continued survival, so it doesn’t detract from the stakes in any way.

Now, whether he will evolve faster than their expectations is something to speculate over. After all, as a being whose understanding is built upon millennia of memories, something that came from beyond the stars should land themselves squarely into the unexpected category, no?


Grammar: I can’t really say much about grammar since I regularly read mtl, but all I can say is that it reads nothing like those. If anything, with the pictures as reading aids, it almost feels like a published work. The quality certainly is there.


Character: The MC is a very interesting creature. It hardly has any semblance of sentience near the beginning, but it is starting to piece together a rather interesting personality by the end of Act 1. Despite this, it's not like other mindless monster evolution stories where the MC just gets stronger and stronger, snowballing into something that the people around them cannot deal with.

I can almost see it not as a brutal killing machine, but as a cute little puppy (and with the way the Life Concept is approaching it, kinda like a trainer would, this becomes all the more prominent in my mind). However, there were moments when its inbuilt coding breaks through, and it becomes the monster it was always meant to be.
I am excited to see how this develops, and how all these various factors will interact in molding the MC’s final nature.

While there hasn't been much else in regards to other characters other than the god mentioned previously, I think this will be changing soon. At the end of Act 1, the MC will be entering the wider world, which at least according to the map more than large enough to inhabit an expansive cast of individuals for the MC to interact with and mature into something interesting.

Great world-building and action. If those two are things you find important in a good read, then this novel is for you. I found the story to be compelling, and the background was explained in a way that was easy for me to follow. Definitely something I'd like to read more later.

Style: It reads a lot like a well-translated web novel. This isn’t criticism, far from it. As someone who spent a good deal of the pandemic just reading all of those, I’ll be the first to praise the actually good ones. The action scenes are well done, and I rarely found the explanations to be dry or uninteresting.

Story: The world is well-fleshed out and I can see how everything ticks. While there were a few things that left me with some questions upon introduction, they were explained later to justify why they existed this way. Basically, what I’m saying is that the setting seemed to be deeply thought out, and what might sound strange has an in-universe answer for it. From what I’ve read, it seems to be shaping up to one that will stay consistently good for a long while.

Grammar: After turning to MTL for the better half of the past year, my grammar isn’t exactly stellar. As such, I can’t quite judge the grammar that well. However, I will say that it read extremely smoothly, and wasn’t ever confused as to what a sentence was meant to say.

Character: I liked the MC Ceres. He reminds me a lot of Chinese web novel MCs like Han Xiao from Legendary Mechanic, with his crafty and profiteering nature. Furthermore, he retains their more redeeming qualities, but doesn’t take those traits too far and crosses the line into greed and selfishness. Granted, he hasn’t been truly tested just yet, and I haven’t gotten far enough to touch upon that tragedy tag, but his characterization so far has been stellar. Not a moral paragon, but one wholly natural given his upbringing and environment.
He seems to genuinely care for his caretaker/father figure and his peers, and not on a fake, surface level.

I read all the other reviews since this’ll be the first time I did something like this, but I’ll try to put my own perspective on this.


Style: There’s nothing I can critique about the style. The tonal shift others pointed out around chapter 10 seemed well-transitioned, although that might be because I had already been spoiled about it. Nevertheless, I’d say the author cleaned up the friction there. However, take this opinion with a pinch of salt, as I personally quite like anime/light novel-esque style novels and regularly read MTL, so I’m probably a little biased here.


Story: As others before me have iterated time and again, the MC’s lack of agency does get a little annoying, but I feel that such a thing can’t be helped in a setting like this. In fact, I’d almost expected her to shut down for longer given the hellscape she’s thrown into.
She seems to have a basic grasp on anime and its logic (or lack thereof), and she needed to quickly figure out the foundational principles of the world she's thrown into.
What I’m saying is that every world has its taboos and common sense, and with her original’s memory being wiped, she has to relearn everything again. It’s dangerous to assume something will happen based on logic proven in their past world/life.
This kind of thing needs both time and curiosity. She has the latter (being competent in STEM), but the former is wholly lacking.
Pulling herself together in only a few days is completely logical.
Not everyone can take this kind of thing in stride, especially since given all that she knows she basically replaced the fantasy world’s equivalent of Albert Einstein.
The Alice from before that everyone around her knew was a veritable savant when it came to magic, nearly attaining the title of archmage (which while we don’t know what this achievement entails specifically, from the context it should be a big deal), with her sister having full faith in her capabilities. She has none of that, only able to tap into that power unconsciously through what I can only imagine as the “muscle memory” cultivated by the original Alice.
Imagine the imposter syndrome someone in this situation will face.
However, she becomes far more assertive later on, and I suppose it makes her mewling worthwhile. Rather than spiraling down a depressive cycle, she breaks out of it, showcasing that her failures had merit and that she learned from those experiences. It is nice to see Alice truly tap into her true potential, even if out of self-loathing and as a direct result of her decisions blowing up in her face.


Grammar: I’d say my grammar when reading has been nuked from MTL, so my opinion here is pretty much invalid. Despite this, the story was very fluid. All that matters to me is that it flows well, and the fact that I didn’t have to scrutinize the paragraphs at all is enough for me.


Character: The dynamic of Alice and her sister was done well in the early chapters, showcasing clearly and contrasting Lori’s assertiveness with Alice’s meekness, while also toning both down from their extremes as they got a better grasp of each others’ boundaries. That evolution continued even after the introduction of a copious amount of side characters that would join them in their party. (it also marked a pivotal step in Alice’s change)
Next, because the party was already well established and had a history together, we don’t really see them explored as deeply as that of Alice and Lorina yet. Still, I expect that to change as the story progresses.
Already we are seeing sides to the other party members in the second arc, and they are distinct enough (not just in appearance) that I can tell them apart decently enough.