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Ultimate Level 1 #6

Ultimate Level 1: New Potential

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Captured by a powerful foe, Max finds himself teleported to a terrible prison.

His black skill, Bob and Max work together to try and break free, but the mysterious captor stymies them at every turn.

A cruel game is played with Max.

He is released into an unfamiliar jungle with seven days to survive and escape, as the Hunter who captured him begins the most dangerous game they will ever play. Max and his Black skill must try to survive in an environment far harsher than anything they've ever seen before.

Will Max escape and survive? Or will he become yet another trophy on The Hunter's wall?

478 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2025

601 people are currently reading
159 people want to read

About the author

Shawn Wilson

15 books81 followers

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5 stars
1,846 (75%)
4 stars
455 (18%)
3 stars
100 (4%)
2 stars
20 (<1%)
1 star
11 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
Profile Image for Aubria L..
273 reviews16 followers
August 23, 2025
Wow! What a ride! This is my favorite so far! To keep track of all the skills, magic and the choreography of the fights, battles, and all the elements as they relate to one another was spectacular to experience!
770 reviews4 followers
January 22, 2025
A decent distraction from the normal

Trapped in a new world, Max faces all manner of challenges as he gets strong enough to hopefully make it back to his family.

Toward the end of the book, the author must have been ridiculously excited while writing as words were missing from sentences; I had to stop several times to figure out what the author wanted.

The fight with his captor was actually anticlimactic and didn't make too much sense. Read it and see what I mean.

Have fun!!
655 reviews9 followers
March 21, 2025
Well, that was incredibly creative and well done. Really enjoyed the detour from the main plot.

The MC gets kidnapped by a powerful assailant that has been after him for quite some time. He was tasked to assassinate Max, but failed at least twice before kidnapping him to another world. He told Max that he would hunt him after placing a debuff and collar on him. The world Max found himself on was even more vicious than his world. He had to wade through rivers of blood to finally glimpse a way back to his team.

Really well done. The complete departure from previous stories, while keeping to the theme was so well done. It was also quite refreshing because the dungeon diving was getting a bit tedious so the detour reignited my interest. The characters Max met were interesting and complex. They sought power above all things to an insane (to me) degreee and to be weak was a terrible crime. Max met some real wankers, especially the backstabber that sold their soul for power and ended up creating an enemy they could not defeat.

Once again this was very well done and I just couldnt put it down. Im curious to see where the story goes from here. Who hired Ezreal? What will the team do about the elven princess and her minions who hates humans? What parts do the gods play in directing conflicts in the world?

Profile Image for Norman Briggs.
39 reviews1 follower
March 31, 2025
Feels like an MMO narrative wrapped into novel form. It even has the audacity to use a 'power window' to describe 'upgrades' the character receives as he's going through the world. Not kidding, this is not good writing.

I honestly have no idea why this book would have been rated any higher than a 3 by nearly anyone. It's, to be frank, very poorly written and not well developed at all. While it's not the worst thing I've ever read, it was scraping pretty near the bottom for me to story development. I do hope that the other books in the series are not this poor, but I'm certainly not interested enough to find out.

I will say that the saving grace was the pace was brisk enough to move on before I thought too hard about a particular scene or character. If you like fantasy written for above teenage ages, I would not look here.
Profile Image for Dev.
39 reviews
March 12, 2025
Just as a notice, spoiler warning
I'm 13% through and Man they started out with some garbage in this one. That scene with the lizard women and Cats was trash. So mc needs help and guidance in a new world so let's conveniently make the first group he meets villains so he could save the victims to have a trust worthy helper. I also don't know why authors love this so much but the victim is not only a woman but a child-young teen as well. You really trying to farm sympathy form me huh? Yet Max only saves one enslaved victim. It's just so dishonest to portray them as a hero when they do things that benefit them. If his heart aches so much why not save both? The author wouldn't have a good excuse for the mc acting out of character so he just ignores it. The mc doesn't mention it, the lizard women doesn't and neither do the lizard people. And it's crazy how the lizard women understands the context. "Thank you for my freedom" hello??? What possibly made her think she was gonna be free. She was captured through combat and money. It was more likely she was going to a different master. And of course they conveniently have translation rings. I'm not gonna harp on that one as much because god knows the MC by himself was boring but that was a convenient gimmick. It made sense for the tower folk to have it but not these people. Especially since humans probably don't exist in this world they're probably dungeon monsters.

Welp I finished it. It was definitely a book. This one is in contention for the worst one in the series. For different reasons though. The other one was there because of boredom. This book however just has alot of issues. After the beginning portion it became really enjoyable and nothing too crazy happening. It wasn't around until the 30-40% mark that a cascade of tomfoolery occurred.

So gets warning to make fights slower and painful. Doesn't need warning. Also kauakan was supposed to explain the consequences of not listening which doesn't happen. So dude dies and Max is angry. So what does he do? Exactly the thing the people who hurt him want him to do. I will say Aimee crying was weird to me because she would never cry for the dude since she only cares about like 2 people. Herself and mom. So that was good subversion. Actually hint would probably be better.

So fights continue and that's entertaining. Eventually Max makes it to the center. This is where an extra helping of lazyness occurs. I mentioned this in a previous review but the author does this thing where he'll keep things ambiguous so in the future he is open to pulling anything out of a hat. In this instance I'm referring to the shards. These things are one of two ways to gain a large amount of power and the author purposely doesn't flesh it out. So the MC only gets a molt skill and like 29 dexterity from all that. By the way the author was doing retcons within the same book. When he first arrived it was once you get to the last few rings there may be people who can get it off. Then that was just ignored. Then when he earned his way to the center Igarra said to win three fights and he'll be allowed to enter and the author acted that didn't happen. Max and the skill were out here guessing it would be ten wins when they'll be allowed for some reason.

The fight in the tower to the fight with Igarra was dog water. In the sense that some serious plot armor was happening. See I gave it a chance. When you have someone kidnap a person who is much weaker you have to write yourself out of that. The question is execution and the execution was not good. So the dude released him to hunt him and then proceeded to never hunt him? Not only that but for some reason Ezreal never told Igarra max has a black skill and said he would make it worth her time? He was hired to kill max. He shouldn't be so desperate to give up valuables when that's not his personality. Especially when it comes to how he had ample time to kill max before he made it to the center. And Ezreal died so easily. That made no sense to me. Even if max gained strength after Igarra it should have been a real fight but he just waffle stomped him.

I enjoyed the ending and good news the mc has finally gotten enough strength for the fun stuff to happen. He can go see his family. Fowls family. Tanilas family. Probably kill Tanila's sister. Looking forward to that.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
275 reviews4 followers
August 12, 2025
okay I was completely wrong and this author did a masterful job with this book. In every other litRPG when the main character is stripped of everything and forced to go through a "growth process" it is tedious and painful with the end reward for the reader not being equal to the slog to get through it. This was the complete opposite, it was done perfectly. This is by far the best book in the series, and it even had a great ending with everything contained within the book tied up into a pretty bow at the end.
The fight scenes here were great, the 7 day countdown starts out as a big weight but is handled perfectly as the story progresses. The new characters were fun and tied everything from the earlier books together, and the ending was the best of any book in the series so far. Just well done on every level.
I've been trying not to rate too many books as 5 stars anymore, but this entry in the series is well deserving of all five. I can only hope this marks a turning in the author's way of telling the story, and that this will continue through the other books. The next is the latest published at the time of this review, so I really hope it doesn't end in a cliffhanger and piss me off again.
Profile Image for Andrew G.
130 reviews11 followers
September 28, 2025
By far, the best book in the series.

It does the things (mostly) that I’ve felt have been missing. We have an escapade to another world and the ordeal of getting back home. These are the stakes of real world fights that took away from the repetitive, low stakes that dominated the delving that is most of the word count of the series before this book.

I also really enjoyed the differences in this world. Not just in magic system and races, but in values and culture. This allowed the MC to have some character growth, I’m not sure it’s positive growth, but that’s just another good thing.

As much as I want to give this five stars, I still have to count of for the context errors of using English language phrases, even a homophone joke, when the MC isn’t from Earth, doesn’t speak English and assumably nowhere he goes do they speak it.

I didn’t note them all, but did a few:

Homophone joke of leaves (tree) with leave (go).
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Do horses even exist in this world?
“Pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
“Red-headed stepchild”

Are these throwaway lines worth context errors? No. This is sloppy. And with the other quality of the series, it’s a bit disappointing this author is making these kinds of mistakes.
Profile Image for Leah Oliver.
26 reviews
June 14, 2025
It continues to be an entertaining story, but I'm not sure if I'll read past this volume. The MC is still a teenager so some of the cringe is probably due to that, but he has become an unmistakable hypocrite in this volume. He probably still thinks he's the good guy, only doing the bad things when "he doesn't have a choice". It's like all those stat increases to wisdom and intelligence only impact the power of his Skills, not anything outside of Skills. Like his Skills and stats are separate from himself, and now he seems to be devolving as a person. The system creators seem to prefer an existence where only psychopaths can gain real power, so stat increases don't improve maturity, personality or emotional intelligence. I guess that would explain why the beings he continues to fight are also power hungry, blood thirsty and emotionally stunted while still having higher stats for him to consume. And it would explain why the system rewards killing over other methods of advancement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
77 reviews
October 22, 2025
I gotta say, I usually dislike when the main character is separated from their crew and forces to be alone, because the dialogue is my favorite parts of these books. In this case, though, I think the author created as good a balance as he could. The story progressing at a fast but tolerable pace while still showing the events of Max's friends.

The place Max gets involuntarily sent to is really, really interesting. I like it a lot and I hope we get to see more in the future. Based on Max's actions in the coliseum, I think it's likely we'll see more of it. The new characters are interesting enough and there's still some good progression with Max. I hope we get a satisfying revenge sequence later.

Overall, not what I expected after book 5, but I was pleasantly surprised. Happy to see where book 7 takes us.
108 reviews1 follower
May 14, 2025
This book was a bit of a bottle episode. Our hero needed to have somewhere to go off by himself and level up to an absurd degree. Bam, successfully kidnapped by the mystery assailant who had been pursuing him for months. Don’t worry too much about the even-bigger-than-normal plot holes here. If you’ve liked the series so far, they’re easy to ignore. This entire book is a digression, an excuse to power level our hero and start more clearly setting up the concept of other worlds. Oddly, this made the book a bit more enjoyable to me. The writing was still awkward, but somehow seemed less grating when it was just our hero talking to himself and getting through countless fights.
Profile Image for Marina Oliveras.
318 reviews16 followers
November 22, 2025
2.5⭐️
Hi ha hagut coses que m’han agradat, i d’altres que no. Tota la part de l’Amy, per exemple, m’ha semblat mal portada. Coneix una persona i als 5 dies la considera amiga, i es sent terrible quan ella el traeix. Vull dir, aquesta insta-amistat, em sembla una mica falsa, i més en el món que descriu. No entenc tampoc la cronologia. Va dient que passen mesos i mesos, i quan torna amb el seu grup, la Tanila està embarassada i no se li nota. No sé, a més hi penso, menys m’agraden alguns detalls.
Però com a història fàcil a escoltar, amb un protagonista de poder desproporcionat, cumpleix amb el seu propòsit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
1 review
January 20, 2025
Favorite book in the series

It’s only been a bit over 15hrs since this released. I barely slept because it was even better than expected, the pages just seemed to fly by.

Shawn Wilson has done a marvelous job expanding the world of Ultimate Level 1, creating a masterpiece of desperation, hope and revenge.

If you’ve already read the first five books you owe it to yourself to read New Potential.
83 reviews1 follower
January 21, 2025
A one sitting read

I ...am ...Toorg. I mean... Impressed. This was so much fun! I even shed a tear when he returned home. The last book started to get slow and I wasn't expecting much from this one. But you elevated it and I'm thrilled. Even if this were to be the end, I'd be satisfied. I'm hoping it's not and look forward to the next one.

Now I'm going back to page one and read this again.
Profile Image for Emmanuel Obi.
194 reviews1 follower
January 22, 2025
Whoa 🤯🤯🤯

Truly, a well written, literary RPG, great adventure, great story, progression, great power, leveling, and impossible odds that we all love to see the MC overcome. Can’t wait to see what adventures Max or Seth, and his friend/family will embark on next. At this point, it’s safe to say that he is truly overpowered, but then again that’s what we love about these lit RPG books.
45 reviews
January 23, 2025
exponential scaling creep is happening

Good story overall,

Main issue is that the exponential scaling creep from lax’s skill is really starting to take a hold.
First starts with the classic de powering to bring him back to normal levels than by the end of the book he is so absurdly powerful all past scale is meaningless.

Generally a good story but it does make me fear for the longevity of the series.
84 reviews1 follower
January 24, 2025
A good book

It is a good read. The MC does a lot of annoying, stupid, crazy things, in addition to ignoring good advice to the detriment of others. But the author does that to progress his story. I wish he was smarter and could do better, but it is what it is. If this was one of those transitional books to get you where the really good stuff can happen. All that being said, it was still a good book and worth the read.
Profile Image for Tony Hinde.
2,126 reviews75 followers
February 27, 2025
This was a good'n. Moving Max away from his team and to an entirely different world seems like a weird choice from a narrative perspective. It works though. Lot's of new things to see, even a riff on the magic system.

On the negative side, it seems like Max is playing Russian Roulette. Each battle is life or death... except that Max is the protagonist and thus must survive and get stronger. It would be hard to write a series about a guy that died after his second fight.
31 reviews
March 11, 2025
Great read

This is a hard knife's edge to walk. There's so much combat with how he's telling the story that it could easily devolve into just fight porn. But, he manages to avoid that pitfall and suck you into a classic tale of love that will fight to overcome any barrier to be reunited with his lost love. Well done, Mr. Wilson. Of course, now you've written yourself into a Superman dilemma. That's a problem for the next book.
Profile Image for Gary.
678 reviews7 followers
June 24, 2025
Max continues his progression. But its outside the dungeon venue. I was getting burned out with all the dungeon crawling, so it was nice to have a significant change of pace while still skill leveling up. Max was kidnapped and held against his will at the end of the last book, and this book continues his adventures as he attempts to gain his freedom (while growing stronger all the while). We end with another cliff hanger / Bob is ready to evolve. What will happen next?
10 reviews
January 21, 2025
need more

I was very concerned when I first started this book because it was a divergence from the others but I’m so glad I continued. I couldn’t put it down but I wished I did so I could drag it out longer now I have to wait for the next one. And I will wait with even more inpaicence and enthusiasm than before Pleas continue this amazing story
136 reviews
January 22, 2025
much needed change up

I hope the author can keep this momentum going because before this entry the series was starting to get stale. I just hope it wasn’t a one off. With all the upgrades and an evolution we didn’t get to witness I hope we see the more than just the tower grind again.
1 review
January 23, 2025
Different from the other books in a good way

This review will hide spoilers. So, the MC is alone, which makes this distinct in the series. Since this is a progression fantasy, it's not hard to guess the next part. The main story arc does advance toward what is a major step forward. If you like the series, this is a good installment.
36 reviews
January 24, 2025
I'm impressed Mr. Wilson. There are quite few authors I have read who have written a several book series who lost traction in carrying their story and my interest. Not so with your series. Great imagination, creativity and surprises. I have become a fan and a follower. Can't wait for the next installment.
Profile Image for Travis.
2,855 reviews48 followers
April 28, 2025
Well done piece of the story. I liked this installment. Max finally gets to show what he's capable of, and everyone around him starts to realize he isn't grandstanding when he says he's going to do something. Got to have ripples for the next few books. If you've enjoyed any of the previous books in the series, then don't stop reading now, grab this one and continue the journey.
8 reviews
July 29, 2025
masterpiece

I don’t believe I have ever spent the entire day entranced in a book like this since i read harry potter for the first time as a 10 year old boy. This was like rereading the first book but as the 6th book if that makes any sense lol. This would be a masterpiece even as a standalone. By far my favorite book in the series. Everything I could ever want and more.
1 review
January 20, 2025
A Fun Ride

Like always, Shawn delivers a fun ride in his newest UL1 book. I’m no professional reviewer or anything like some of the folks on here that leave reviews, so no long breakdowns from me. I just enjoyed this book and recommend it.
73 reviews1 follower
January 21, 2025
unexpected journey

Max is taken on a forced journey. He is forced to grow and evolve as a person. Bob continues to change and their symbiotic relationship is the difference between success and failure.
Profile Image for Kirk.
608 reviews2 followers
January 21, 2025
Couldn’t Put It Down

Book came out Monday. I finished it Monday night, if that doesn’t tell you how good the book is I don’t know what will. Amazing continuing story and progression. I simply cannot wait to Consume the rest of the books!
Profile Image for Kalpak Gupta.
23 reviews
January 21, 2025
I liked this one even better than the previous book. The pacing, action, story, power scaling, development, everything was well balanced in my opinion. Eagerly looking forward to what the next one brings out!
32 reviews
January 21, 2025
A lightning fast read. Very little supporting character development, but what there is, is excellent and touching.

This novel like the previous editions sustains my chief complaint: it's too short; it was over too quick.

Please give us more!
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