Review Detail of Gerd_Eisenheim in Demon's Virtue

Demon’s Virtue This story divides me. It has really strong points but also glaring weaknesses. But the weaknesses are to blatant to give this story a positive review. The good: 1. The characters feel 3 dimensional. They feel alive and are not the simple dummies that you would expect, to make the main character look good or to give him a weakness. Even the main character does not feel generic, wether the reader likes his attitude or not. 2. Some of the concepts in the story are deep and well thought through. For example: It is carefully explained how the magic cast is working and why a mage gets an edge over another. The bad: 1. The power creep is a major issue that plagues this novel. The power levels feel off, because of poor writing. System novels have the advantage to explain a structured and comprehensive feeling for strength. The motion of levels is used. But it is not used in comprehensive manner at all. Enemies seem glaringly overpowered for no apparent reason, coming out of nowhere. Godly characters are found across the street. Forcing the main character to use his "cheat" time and time again, even though the main character seems to be an abomination himself. The main character gets overloaded with divine abilities that would make every person in the world exceptional by having one of those. And the main character still feels weak, because of the inconsistent world building. Yes, the main character is told that he seems broken by his friends, but the feeling is not conveyed accordingly, as his enemies are even stronger for no reason. And no. It is not even close. They literally stomp him in the ground. I think it is supposed to create suspense or anything but it does not. It just feels off. It destroys the world building. Example: MC and his children try to sleep in an inn for 1 night. But nope. The town is created by the devil itself and the 7 deadly sins demons are already waving. A random chief guard is a hidden expert, that can stop time and absolutely trash mc. A random murder suspect is an undead overlord that mc can not even touch and gets toyed with despite being in his third major power up. Yes. The combination that the main character managed to pull off in each evolution step, was probably not pulled off in the history of the world. It is supposed to be that good. But nope. Does not make any difference. 2. There is barely any storyline. As alot of novels on this site this novel does not follow a typical western storyline. Instead it forces unlikely events to force the plot in a certain direction time and time again. The story is glued by random events that forces the main character to act in certain way. It loses me here. Why make such complex characters to simply make them follow the life goal to "get stronger"? The characters do not seem to have another motivation, as at least the main character is constrained on this goal to protect his loved ones. As i have already said the powerlevels are off at the same time. It makes the story feel shallow. In the beginning the story is told by sequence of highly unlikely events that should not even happen once in a lifetime. And it goes on. Nothing is foreshadowed. It just happens, by literally taking a walk. As the characters are not motivated by tangible goals the story writes itself as a slice of life. That is fine, if it is well done. But so many plots are started and simply forgetten. We do not even have a clue how much time has passed in the later chapters. At some point the progress just halts, by filling the story by unimportant trivial matters. Example 1: His children are barely getting any character development at all. We do not even know how they are progressing in their levels or what their classes that the had obtained a 100 chapters ago are even doing. Even though they are supposed to be overpowered themselves. Do they even know how to fight? They have not fought a monster by themself in 250+ chapters. Yes, they get new abilities, but progression stops there. We do laterwards not even know how old they are. Example 2: The main character likes to read. But it does not feel that he has gotten any knowledge, as the reader is flooded with trivial matters without knowing anything about the world. It is not even mentioned, that his language skill is progressing. 3. The story feels slow and dragged out, although having no substance already. It neglects its strong points, but it weirdly puts focus on complete trivial matters that should be mentioned in a time skip: Interactions with his familiy. It is fine, but it gets redundant as the same interaction seems to be repeated time and time again. Training without getting stronger. I mean it that way. Every single action of the main character is explained. Like sitting there and feeling nature. Getting new abilities that make no difference on the scale as already mentioned. The main character is overloaded with divine abilities, but after introducing them they are simply forgetten shortly afterwards. Example: One of the main theme of the story is that the main character is able to produce life like limbs, figures and so on. But in over 100 chapters the main character has not gotten a single skill points to show his progress. It is also not mentioned that he is progressing at all. Like what? Example 2: Mc was supposed to be an expert in water and ice magic. He literally faces a foe that is slippery like an eel (random undead overlord) and should therefore by frozen and he does simply not make use of his main magical powers??? Showing that the main character is irratic. Threatening random people to show that he is a big bad demon. Happens literally every chapter. At the same time highly crucial concepts of the story are barely touched. This ist he final nail in the coffin for me: The world building is really lacking. It is barely explained that the world is supposed to be the japanese hero and demon king theme, as it was never explained. That these concepts are not just titles but literally positions of power. You do not get to be the hero by being good, but the hero is already born being godly as he is the hero. Another example: There are royal monsters of exceptional power at the absolute top of the world. But we do not how many of them even exist. Why is there a balance between good and bad. Why is the hero even needed if there seems to be a balance so that humans are not getting wiped out? Mc also just happens to come across two of them in the span of 1 year… Another example: We do not know anything about the geography of the kingdoms. Is there a demon kingdom? Is it one the same plane of existence? How many human kingdoms are there. We do not know anything about the races the inhabit the world. How many are there? How are their living conditions and their relations with each other? You clearly do not have to mention every race that is supposed to inhabit the world…but just scraping the introduction and then writing ten chapters how the mc constructs training weapons for his children instead that are not even using them, seems really really off to me. Another example: The main character is a collector imp that collects trophies. It should be a major concept as the world uses a class system and a class is singlehandedly the most important aspect of a person bound by the rules of the world. But we do no even why he collects trophies even after changing his class, even though it is his major class ability. It seems that the mc just needed a storage ability and conveniently got one. Another major theme (plot hole) in the novel are divine cards, that give the holder divine abilities. But as previously mentioned they are not explained at all. They are just "there" and easily accessible for the main character, even though we later get the information that some people would start a war to get their hands on 1 of them. The main villains of the story got their power by using these cards!!! How can they not be explained at all? And again i have to mention major plot holes: mc manages to lay his hands on a major arcana card that allows him to become a royal, because the previous royal was weakened and therefore a pushover. Really? No strong noble monster even had the idea to do the same thing even though they are supposed to be that much stronger and older than him and having human intelligence? It is mentioned that the mc can not even use this card, as he is that far off on the power scale. We do not even know how the mana system works. It is said that the MC has alot of it. How can he not as being the godly imp. But how much mana does a regular mage have? How many spells can you cast? How long does it take fort he mana bar to refill. Does it refill by sleeping? Are there mana potions? Not metioned at all.