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Review Detail of LostEra in Sage's Cultivation: Mage in Cultivation World

Review detail

LostEra
LostEraLv152yrLostEra

So far I have read the first 30 chapters so this is just an initial impression. I have mixed feelings about this novel so far, a great idea for the story, main character is well described and has an unique character and background, pretty good world building and explanations of how magic helps and not helps with cultivating. But at the same time some of the choices made in the world building and character designs make some of the things I dislike about cultivation / Eastern Fantasy stories inevitable. The main character is a mage who has reached immortality and got bored off it, kills himself and transmigrates to a cultivation world. This is a great story idea and looking at the world building and explanation of how magic works the author shows he thought through how magic should work in a cultivation world. What I find a pity is that the cultivation world is one of those where the strong oppress the weak, everyone is too eager to fight or have too big ego's with not enough self confidence which leads to an excessive urge to show superiority when personal honor is deemed to be slightly attacked, without there being a good explanation for this behavior it feels too much like a forced way to ensure a fight in every city. Also because this behavior results in a lot of fights it is very easy to have a lot of cannon fodder fights for stupid reasons. I don't have a problem with cannon fodder fights but I do have a problem with fights for stupid reasons. Having read many cultivation / eastern fantasy novels the one trend that I experience when reading these novels is that the more forgettable or dumb an opponent is the worse it reflect on the main character (eg if the mc kills a lot of idiots he becomes an idiot killer). Some stories try to fix this by giving these cannon fodder characters a background story but that only improves it if the fight itself starts for a good reason (pretty ladies, not wanting to give an answer or loss of face are more often than not poor reasons to start a fight). And maybe because a lot of novels do follow this pattern it might be seen as part of the genre but I see it more as a symptom of the pressures that daily releases bring with them and this results in authors not having, or maybe taking, enough time to properly plan out the smaller encounters in the story (and as a result I have more problems with these idiotic cannon fodder apearing in the beginning of a novel than when they apear after several 100's of chapters). I'm not sure if this mc has a lot of encounters with idiotic cannon fodder, I haven't read far enough, but the first encounter with cannon fodders did not make me happy, impressed with how magic was used but the reasons for the fight was not very good. And the first fight for a good reason was again not very satisfying because it was a lot of chapters to describe a mass slaughter without any suspense because the mc was already too strong. For such a one sided fight the shorter it is the better. And the last thing I rather not sea in a cultivation / Eastern Fantasy stories are female characters fall in love within a couple of paragraphs. I don't have a problem with the peanut gallery having ladies fall in love at first sight because that is similar to girls and boy bands but when the main heroin, or at least what appears to be a woman who is going to be next to the mc for a lot of chapters, falls in love in a few paragraphs it is for me a signal that the romance is probably not going to be a serious part of the story. Often this becomes an harem story or a story with an far too oblivious mc and those storylines are rarely written in such a way that it doesn't result in ridicule of how fake it feels. And even if it is done for comedic reasons the comedy is not that effective because the romance already feels fake (don't get me wrong it can be done and I have read 1 story that did the harem part well and 1 other story which did the oblivious part well but it is very rare). I like it more when the romance is more build up, even if it is an harem story, and the females not getting a dumb reaction or no reaction at all when they very obviously flirt with the main character. In general I believe that if romance is to be part of a story than let it mean something to the story and don't paste it on just for comedic effect. For now I have seen enough positives to keep reading but at the same time I am weary because I have already seen behavior in the story that usually turns into the stories that I don't like. They are just signals now and I hope they don't turn in the things that make the great idea behind this story turn into the sort of story that there are already too many of.

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Sage's Cultivation: Mage in Cultivation World

yohananmikhael

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LaoTze
LaoTzeLv14LaoTze

Thank you for this thorough review.