Elderand

The first chapter was a pain to read because the author just doesn't understand proper tense use. This gets better in the following chapters but never entirely goes away.

And then the characters goes to hell in chapter three and the entire things slows to a crawl, utterly destroying any pacing the story had because the author feels the need to give far too many details on far too many loops the character goes through.

And on top of that you've got a thoroughly unlikeable main character. You kno wthe type, the unsefferable know it all with an over inflated sense of their own worth because they're "smarter" than everyone else.

The MC is supposedly 11 but really acts more like a 16 years old. That shows the author does not have a good grasp of how people behave, on top of that the MC is made into a very particular brand of Mary sue, the type where horrible things happens to them just so they can show off how strong willed and better they are than other people.

TLDR: unlikeable character, horrendously paced and in dire need of an editor.

This story is something special. While the basic premise of a man who would rather farm rather than cultivate and become sbadass because of it is not unique, here it is executed with an applomb and gusto I have frankly never seen before.

Story: As I said, the premise is not unique, but here it is actually explored. There are specific reasons why becoming a farmer makes the character badass in universe. It's not just a thing that happens like in many other stories, here it is explored, thought about, deeply integrated into the setting and philosophical musing are had, in universe between characters about why this happen and why one would chose this path.

At the same time it is also a fantasticaly satisfying slice of life story, full of wholesome moments. It can also, when it wants ot be, be nerve wracking, tense, badass, and exciting.

Even better, this is Xinaxia done right. Whenever the story veers into that side of thing, things make sense. Character having motivation deeper than mere strength or sociopath with on obsession with their ego and "Face" and the ones that don't are obvious villains that everyone, everyone, thinks there is something wrong with them. Just as you would in real life.

Style: The style here is often evocative sometimes a bit light in mood setting and description of locales. But the character interactions are fantastic.

Grammar: There are occasionaly typos here and there but never any sort of word salad or nonsense stream of consciousness construction of phrase. Merely small mistake that sometime slip through.

Characters: Rarely have I ever seen such a large cast of characters that are so dinstinct from each other, each with their own voices, attitudes, belief, passion and hidden depth that yet do not fall into charicature or over exageration. Not only that but all characters who end up in focus experience character growth in one form of another with complex and believable interactions.

I simply cannot praise the author enough for the quality of it's characters.

Many stories show that not everyone can make even a single interesting character. This author made dozens.

This is without exageration one of the best story you could read on this site and if you are at all interested in a slice of life story or a subversion of Xianxia usual fare I urge you to read this story.

There is only one word I can use to rate this story:

Oatmeal

As will be made clear from this review, and the review of the author work Salvos, it's very clear to me that the author is heavily inspired by Japanese Light Novel (JLN), and inherit every flaw of that genre. However because this is an original english language novel rather than being translated from japanese the technical quality of writing is enough that readers who are not accostumed to JLN or who specificaly search for this genre for it's lack of challenge and comfortable familiarity will find this story enjoyable. 

Just like people can enjoy oatmeal when they simply want to fill their stomach or have never eaten anything better, or have never tasted oatmeal before and may enjoy the novelty.

Regarding each specific categories

Story: The story is just about as cookie cutter as you can get from JLN. If the story was called "I became the strongest by fighting for ten years in the void and now I refuse the system because I want a normal life" or other word salad endemic to the genre you would not really be able to distinguish it from the throngue of other JLN. There is simply no creativity whatsoever when it comes to the story. It's not bad, but it's not novel either.

Style: There is no style, just like JLN it is almost utterly devoid of description, mood, atmosphere or any sort of evocative writing. This sort of writing has been carefuly refined to be as unchallenging, as bland and as easy to churn out as possible. 

Grammar score: There is no mistakes, typos or poorly constructed sentences. From a purely technical level, everything is perfect.

Character score: Really, just like style, you have the most bland cookie cutter characters imaginable. With nary an interesting interaction in sight and personality traits that are about as bland and predictable as you would expect from JLN. One positive is that the main character isn't offensively oblivious (as you would expect from the genre) but in its place there is...nothing. 

I would liken the interaction between the two main character as the one you see between genos and saitama in OPM, but that is only on the most surface level. In here the interactions are devoid of the small quirks that makes OPM interesting. The absurdity is toned down, the characters are bland and lakc any sort of excentricities that makes OPM enjoyable. 

If you take a gag story, remove the over the top humor and have something that takes itself seriously you end up with...well, oatmeal.

This review probably comes accross as overly critical, and in a way, it is. But I don't want to give the impression that this story is unredeemable or even bad. It's just...bland. Good enough to kill time. If you want to turn your brain off and not get invested, read this. It's soap opera, it's reality tv, it's oatmeal. There are many stories that ape the JLN with worse writing and more offensive characters/situations. 

Ultimately this is why I gave this story exactly a 2.5 out of 5. It's about as average and inoffensive as you can get.

After reading 90 chapters of this I cannot really recommend this story.

The first book (the first 40 chapters) is actually quite good. Interesting characters, good alignement between the protagonist goals and the slowly emerging larger plot, great character progression. It does have a weakness in that it is an extremely generic "fantasy with a system" type of world with no real distinctive feature in term of world building.

And then the second book starts and all of that is lost. No character progression. Interesting bits of plost that would be great to explore gets utterly undermined and ignored because the main character only wants to do one thing, low key abuse of her only real ally for comedy. The same "joke" repeated over and over again.

If things get better later on then that just makes the story a slog to get through due to glacial pacing. (pacing is more than just stuff happening).

Style: Utilitarian, that's really all I can say about this. The style doesn't elivit any vivid scene in my imagination but it's not atrocious either. 

Grammar: Solid grammar, no real mistakes or nonsensical phrasing.

Story: There is an interesting story happening here, too bad the main character and by extension, the author, seems hell bent on ignoring it.

The goals of the character and following her adventures are league less interesting than the tiny snippet of good plot and story we are privy to whenever we cut to secondary characters.

Even when some plot crosses path with the main character she shows no interest in it and will actively try to ignore it. This can be fun in a very short comedy, not in an 8 book epic.

Character: The characters here are one step up from what you'd expect from a japanese light novel. Which is good, but not good enough to be exceptional. But that only apply for non main characters. The titular character however is not good. 

As I said before the main character is hell bent on doing her own thing, she ostensibly care for her companions, or at least that's what the author tries to imply but it is utterly impossible to believe that when the MC is so completely self centered that she will happily risk her companions life so long as it serves her goal and only stop once she herself would be in danger of dying. Nor does she show any interest in their history or well being in any way shape or form.

This was funny and a little endearing in the begining of the story, and the character showed clear signs of progress and growth over time as she acclimated herself to her new situation throughout book 1, but comes book 2 and no more progress happens. The character becomes flat, somewhat mean and boring to follow. 

This I believe is a result of the author trying to keep the same tone that was funny and endearing at first. And while the joke (the interaction between Salvos very blunt personality and her human companions) was funny in chapter 15, comes chapter 90 the same joke repeated over and over gets grating. Especially when it has been established that it is no longer done by accident on the part of Salvos, but that she knows better and does it to mess with people. It comes accross as uncarring and mean spirited.

All these issue becomes prevalent around chapter 60. I think I gave it a fair hsot of course correcting by reading for an extra 30 chapters, but it hasn't. And that is why I cannot recommend this novel.

If you enjoyed the initial plot points and are content seeing the same situation repeat over and over again you might very well enjoy this story. Despite my criticism it is competently written and does make for an enjoyable read at first.

This is a story you can really tell ran its course by chapter 8.

For those first 8 chapters the main character has an actual character, reacting to things somewhat believably, feels emotions and indignation over how the rest of the staff at the mansion she works at was treated. Feels like something is worng with the way the world works andother actual personality traits

Then comes chapter 9 the character suddenly has exactly two personality traits.

1: She likes cleaning and is obsessed with being a maid
2: She has japanese light novel protagonist idiocy turned up to 11

That's already a shapr decline in quality, but then the character turns into a complete sociopath in chapter 15 and 16. Murdering two people in broad daylight in the streets and calling it taking out the trash. Showing no emotions whatsoever and seeing nothing wrong with the act.

Yes, the two people killed where most likely some sort of thugs trying to rob her (or worse) but the encounter was not actually violent in any way, or even all that threatening making the attack completely unjustified.

And the main characters friend claims the attack was self defense. In no way is it justifiable self defense to kill two people who just talked to you merely because they seem dodgy.

Add to that a writing style that is very reminiscent of japanese light novel (and that's not a compliment) and I'd say you should pass on this if you want a story with some meat to it and actual characters rather than broad stroke caricatures. Or want an MC who isn't a sociopath.

TLDR: Gimmick story that nosedive in quality faster than a guy can plummet to his death without a parachute.