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The Broken System: An Isekai LitRPG
Amid a total System collapse, a courageous young woman must work quickly to find the cause, as this wildly inventive fantasy adventure continues.
Since she arrived in the alternate dimension of Luliv, Alice Verianna’s scientific exploration of its magical properties has yielded fascinating results. She has uncovered many secrets behind the mysterious construct—known as the System—that connects all of Luliv, and her own abilities to harness this magic have flourished in unexpected ways. But the System is failing. And as Alice desperately races to get to the bottom of why, she’s finding more questions than answers while its people go mad and monster attacks become more frequent and deadlier than ever.
With each passing day, crises continue to pile up. Deadly swarms, panic in the streets, and mana-born mania are just the beginning. Sinking herself into experiments in an attempt to cobble together a makeshift system of her own, Alice is determined to unravel the mysteries of the mana linking the entire dimension the only way she knows like a scientist.
The key to repairing the world lies in elements never before tested, scattered throughout the Shil Confederacy. Alice and her companions must travel the realm and learn all they can to complete her research before it’s too late. But even if they survive the journey, there’s no guarantee they’ll make it in time to save her new home. Because at any moment it and all she cares about could come to a catastrophic end . . .
The third volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with almost two million views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!
Since she arrived in the alternate dimension of Luliv, Alice Verianna’s scientific exploration of its magical properties has yielded fascinating results. She has uncovered many secrets behind the mysterious construct—known as the System—that connects all of Luliv, and her own abilities to harness this magic have flourished in unexpected ways. But the System is failing. And as Alice desperately races to get to the bottom of why, she’s finding more questions than answers while its people go mad and monster attacks become more frequent and deadlier than ever.
With each passing day, crises continue to pile up. Deadly swarms, panic in the streets, and mana-born mania are just the beginning. Sinking herself into experiments in an attempt to cobble together a makeshift system of her own, Alice is determined to unravel the mysteries of the mana linking the entire dimension the only way she knows like a scientist.
The key to repairing the world lies in elements never before tested, scattered throughout the Shil Confederacy. Alice and her companions must travel the realm and learn all they can to complete her research before it’s too late. But even if they survive the journey, there’s no guarantee they’ll make it in time to save her new home. Because at any moment it and all she cares about could come to a catastrophic end . . .
The third volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with almost two million views on Royal Road—now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook!
- GenresFantasy
424 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 13, 2026
55 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 22, 2026
Not as good as the last one. While I still greatly enjoy the science part, real innovation from the mc is missing. Most of the time it is just the use of the next higher level perk. Also while the focus should be on the scientific method, some personal stakes and especially some emotional bonds with people would be greatly appreciated. All her travelling companions are just bland at this point. There are struggles in the book, but only one encounter at the beginning felt like the mc was ever in real danger. Looking forward to the next part hoping, that it will be better. Everything below inventing a new system would be disappointing at this point, ngl.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2026
While i was able to enjoy some parts of this book, it turned into a real slog and required lots of skimming at a number of points. Even though a central plot has finally emerged and more characters have been added, Alice spends the majority of this book thinking about different kinds of mana, the nature of reality/belief, and how to emulate parts of the system while she and her companions go on some really long side quests, instead of trying to fix the actual problem.
Considering the urgency of the situation (the system is broken and the world is basically imploding etc), it doesn’t make much sense until you remember that oh yeah, this story was written for sites like Patreon and RR, where most authors will inevitably become more focused on prolonging their story at the expense of everything else.
A big issue i had with this book is that now that Alice is aware that the system is “broken” and can no longer connect to its server, it should be VERY obvious to her that somebody needs to go find the mainframe and manually fix it. Anyone familiar with the internet would realize this. But only the vague idea of this is brought up a couple times until it’s eventually decided that Ethan’s self-absorbed drunk [Explorer] friend can go look for it in case it ends up mattering. Sure he’s immortal and doesn’t really care about whatever’s going on with the system and the world lately, but he’s apparently the best they can do. Clearly the author decided this story could be stretched and padded out for another book or 2 before anyone could think too seriously about you know, actually fixing the system.
I couldn’t help questioning why Alice was wasting all her time doing basically EVERYTHING she does in this book. It’s a problem. Despite the fact that the world is reverting to the way it likely was before the system (an apex monster world that the humans are clearly not native to), Alice bizarrely decides her time is best spent tackling issues like “mana build up” one measly enchantment at a time. And despite the hundreds of pages Alice spends mulling over this issue, she’s only ever able to come up with like one or 2 enchantments that can only be built by a very small number of mages due to the fact that these mages must now be taught to create the right seeds, which also means that everyone must now rely on Alice’s ability to delete a single seed every 2 weeks (lest they die of incorrect seed formation). The rest of her time is spent thinking about her “mana gem” and how to solve the issue of her achievements not working right. I mean really! Considering the scale of what’s going on, none of the projects she’s working on will have much impact. I did enjoy the discoveries she made about reality though (pretty awesome and like something out of a C.S. Friedman book).
I have to agree with another reviewer though, about the characters being so bland. They really are. I want to like characters like Ethan, but he basically has no personality aside from his apparent desire to make sure Alice reaches immortality. Is he or was he ever married? Does he have a partner? Did he ever have kids? I don’t think Alice has ever asked him a single personal question (is she really so self absorbed that she doesn’t care?). Cecilia and Aleera have even less personality in this book that they did in the previous books. Don't even get me started on the family that joins Alice’s road trip (she never speaks to any of these characters so it’s hard to remember they even exist!). I actually found myself really missing the various villain POVs that we got in the last book (at least those characters were interesting!).
Considering the urgency of the situation (the system is broken and the world is basically imploding etc), it doesn’t make much sense until you remember that oh yeah, this story was written for sites like Patreon and RR, where most authors will inevitably become more focused on prolonging their story at the expense of everything else.
A big issue i had with this book is that now that Alice is aware that the system is “broken” and can no longer connect to its server, it should be VERY obvious to her that somebody needs to go find the mainframe and manually fix it. Anyone familiar with the internet would realize this. But only the vague idea of this is brought up a couple times until it’s eventually decided that Ethan’s self-absorbed drunk [Explorer] friend can go look for it in case it ends up mattering. Sure he’s immortal and doesn’t really care about whatever’s going on with the system and the world lately, but he’s apparently the best they can do. Clearly the author decided this story could be stretched and padded out for another book or 2 before anyone could think too seriously about you know, actually fixing the system.
I couldn’t help questioning why Alice was wasting all her time doing basically EVERYTHING she does in this book. It’s a problem. Despite the fact that the world is reverting to the way it likely was before the system (an apex monster world that the humans are clearly not native to), Alice bizarrely decides her time is best spent tackling issues like “mana build up” one measly enchantment at a time. And despite the hundreds of pages Alice spends mulling over this issue, she’s only ever able to come up with like one or 2 enchantments that can only be built by a very small number of mages due to the fact that these mages must now be taught to create the right seeds, which also means that everyone must now rely on Alice’s ability to delete a single seed every 2 weeks (lest they die of incorrect seed formation). The rest of her time is spent thinking about her “mana gem” and how to solve the issue of her achievements not working right. I mean really! Considering the scale of what’s going on, none of the projects she’s working on will have much impact. I did enjoy the discoveries she made about reality though (pretty awesome and like something out of a C.S. Friedman book).
I have to agree with another reviewer though, about the characters being so bland. They really are. I want to like characters like Ethan, but he basically has no personality aside from his apparent desire to make sure Alice reaches immortality. Is he or was he ever married? Does he have a partner? Did he ever have kids? I don’t think Alice has ever asked him a single personal question (is she really so self absorbed that she doesn’t care?). Cecilia and Aleera have even less personality in this book that they did in the previous books. Don't even get me started on the family that joins Alice’s road trip (she never speaks to any of these characters so it’s hard to remember they even exist!). I actually found myself really missing the various villain POVs that we got in the last book (at least those characters were interesting!).
January 26, 2026
Can’t wait for the sequel
The problem with writing genius characters is that authors are not geniuses themselves, so they inevitably make mistakes. And if a “genius” character misses something obvious then it can break your suspension of disbelief. That happened in this story, in a big way.
Without giving away too many spoilers, there is point in the story where Alice is able to sense the direction to a very important clue. Unfortunately, her perk doesn’t give her a good sense of how far away it is. Is it on this continent, the next one, or in the ocean in between? Alice can’t figure it out for some reason, so she has to set aside the clue and focus on something else. For some reason, the genius scientist could not think of the obvious solution: triangulation.
Ironically, a little while later Alice sets out on a long journey, and the whole time I was thinking “Surely she’ll notice the parallax as she gets further from her starting point”. But no, she never seems to even think about that particular clue again. It was enough that I wanted to pull my hair out in frustration for the whole second half of the story.
The problem with writing genius characters is that authors are not geniuses themselves, so they inevitably make mistakes. And if a “genius” character misses something obvious then it can break your suspension of disbelief. That happened in this story, in a big way.
Without giving away too many spoilers, there is point in the story where Alice is able to sense the direction to a very important clue. Unfortunately, her perk doesn’t give her a good sense of how far away it is. Is it on this continent, the next one, or in the ocean in between? Alice can’t figure it out for some reason, so she has to set aside the clue and focus on something else. For some reason, the genius scientist could not think of the obvious solution: triangulation.
Ironically, a little while later Alice sets out on a long journey, and the whole time I was thinking “Surely she’ll notice the parallax as she gets further from her starting point”. But no, she never seems to even think about that particular clue again. It was enough that I wanted to pull my hair out in frustration for the whole second half of the story.
January 29, 2026
Honestly, I severely did not like the ending to book 2. I just don't find the "System" being broken interesting. It actually makes everything insanely tedious. Wasn't there also like a threat of being unmade dimensionally too? Why would we need both things happening? Anyway, this book is more of Alice being in her head rationalizing why she makes a decision for literally paragraphs at a time. Just let me know what she picked. This is not a new criticism but it's so glaring in this book but the characters are cardboard cutouts. Her friend Cecillia was with her in most of the scenes but you would be easily forget. I know this is serialized on Royal Road but jeez it's glaring reading it as a book. Yeah what does the other 8 people there think about this? What do you mean the kickass immortal bard can't even be bothered to listen to these world ending discussions because she's not social? I'm undecided if I'll skim through another book or not because I'd at least like a summary of why all this was necessary.
January 19, 2026
So, I enjoy this type of slow, deep into the system/setting/worldbuilding book. But it can be a lot. Also, the there are good points about 16 year olds, how much science/research/correct procedure she can know/competently do.
But I like the book and the ride. I don't know that I needed the deeper system development/destruction plot to enjoy the place, but probably had to do something given how quickly she's moving her own progression forward. I did like that the book was pretty much just her point of view this time, no digressing to the bad guys.
I do wonder when they finally meet up and she's able to say to them: i've learned so much without killing anyone, what did you manage? :)
But I like the book and the ride. I don't know that I needed the deeper system development/destruction plot to enjoy the place, but probably had to do something given how quickly she's moving her own progression forward. I did like that the book was pretty much just her point of view this time, no digressing to the bad guys.
I do wonder when they finally meet up and she's able to say to them: i've learned so much without killing anyone, what did you manage? :)
January 24, 2026
Not enough happened
I wanted to give this a higher score. I enjoy this series’ take on litrpg. I just didn’t get enough progress in this book and it didn’t build and conclude with any sort of big event. I’ll read the next one still though. I feel some of Alice’s back-and-forth within her own head could be streamlined a bit. I enjoy the exploration of magic systems but I’m okay with getting to the point faster when it comes to things like which perk she ends up picking and why.
I wanted to give this a higher score. I enjoy this series’ take on litrpg. I just didn’t get enough progress in this book and it didn’t build and conclude with any sort of big event. I’ll read the next one still though. I feel some of Alice’s back-and-forth within her own head could be streamlined a bit. I enjoy the exploration of magic systems but I’m okay with getting to the point faster when it comes to things like which perk she ends up picking and why.
January 25, 2026
This has lost its way
Did not finish, just made it halfway and quit. This has devolves into politics and lost all the flavor from the first two books. Without the twist of real world research the characters are not strong enough to carry the story.
Did not finish, just made it halfway and quit. This has devolves into politics and lost all the flavor from the first two books. Without the twist of real world research the characters are not strong enough to carry the story.
January 25, 2026
Based on the events of this book I can't imagine the series lasting longer than 2 more novels.
My biggest complaint is that this series really needed a recap at the beginning, it took me far too long to remember everything that happened in books 1 & 2.
My biggest complaint is that this series really needed a recap at the beginning, it took me far too long to remember everything that happened in books 1 & 2.
January 22, 2026
A strong concept let down by very clumsy writing.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews