Ryn Xaven is now free to travel the realm... if he can protect it.
Having graduated and bonded three loyal and beautiful mages to his side, Ryn is now officially a primal the most powerful mage in the realm. Even so, his first official mission is no easy task. Armed with knowledge gleaned from a dark future, he must stop a second devil war before it starts.
Fortunately Nephale, a beautiful blade mage from a dark time, knows where the traitors hide. When she guides Ryn to an innocent who will one day become a devil forgemaster, he knows he must stop this young mage from making a devil deal... but can he kill them for a crime they have yet to commit?
Every victory Ryn wins makes Nephale’s dark future more nebulous. Yet with the help of his loyal Saphielle, brave Lauralena, and brilliant Aurienda, Ryn will never fight his battles alone. And with the love and support of his auxiliaries, he will carve his own path toward saving his realm.
On the last book I commented that I was pleasantly surprised for liking it so much for a few reasons, one of which was I've had a string of bad luck, reading series that drop off in quality after one or two books. Primal Conjurer continues to surprise me by being - in my very subjective opinion, obviously - just as good as the others. The story continues to build and flow smoothly, and the moral question at the core of the book is a good one: do you kill the person who will personally murder thousands in the future and enable devil armies to scour the world, or do you change why they became that person.
Obviously it's not a spoiler that Ryn chooses the latter, which brings him briefly into conflict with Nephale. As always, things always work out well for the good guys which is exactly what I'm here for. The guy who gave this book one star because the good guys didn't mercilessly kill an innocent girl without trying to change her fate is... certainly a take.
I only have two main criticisms. The first is Ryn himself. Ryn flip flops between being a confident, strong leader and a wishy washy, somewhat petulant child being led around by his hand way too often. I get that he's not been at this long, but he's been trained for most of his life for this role and he has the instructor who was central to that training at his side. I think the main problem is that his auxiliaries feel like they're carrying the lion's share of the load. They're stronger, more capable and strategic than Ryn is, which leaves him in the position of leader solely because he's the primal conjurer.
The second criticism is the mystery of Jessup. If you're reading this book and you haven't figured out who he is then I don't know what to tell you. The hints as to his identity are less hints and more flashing neon signs pointing in the right direction. The issue is that of the three characters who discuss him - Nephale, Ryn and Lena - all of them come to the "only" possible conclusion that he's a secret primal conjurer hiding somewhere in the world. Nephale literally says she'd thought about it, and the only conclusion she could come to is that Ryn is wrong about being the only primal conjurer. Lena comes to the same conclusion, which is funny because Ryn opens the conversation by saying he wants to discuss it because of her intelligence.
Even if you don't come to the right conclusion, stating that as the only possible conclusion is... phew. Even figuring out the truth, I can still think of three possibilities based just on what's happened in the series so far. The characters have exactly the same information as the reader, so when we can figure it out and they're completely oblivious, all it does is make the characters seem kinda dumb.
Those two issues aside, I'm still really enjoying this series. I like all of the characters still, though I can see an issue forming similarly to other haremlit authors, which is where older characters fade into the background in place of focusing on new ones, so I'm hoping that'll turn around before it becomes a problem. I'll re-iterate a point I made on the first book though: this really needs a slice-of-life tag, because I think that would squash a lot of complaints about the pacing and its lack of action.
Now the story is getting complicated in a good way…
So Time Travel tropes tend to be tricky but so far the author isn’t doing anything overly complicated and taking some routes with the MC that make perfect sense to me. Will be interesting how they work some things out though. Harem is building at a steady but reasonable pace.
I've found thus series to be more and more entertaining as it goes along!!! The world building has evolved with each book with more and more clarity to uniqueness of the situation and world!!!! I can't wait for this adventure to continue!!!
The relationships in the series have to be some of the most well written that I have ever seen. Love the series and the characters. Can’t wait to read more
They are traveling to try to stop a devastating war and the very very ignorant MC refuses to kill someone who it the future murders thousands. He wastes time he doesn’t have by being such a little wimp and putting thousands in danger due to his immaturity, Horrible
Very slice-of-life, lots of interpersonal moments and side quests. What annoyed me most was the use of exclamation points which only an amateur does, so I was hesitant to keep going, but ultimately I felt like a SoL story so I kept going. However, towards the end a turning point occurs with one of the potential LIs that rubbed me the wrong way, so I will not be continuing the series.