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The Overpowered Novice #1

The Overpowered Novice Book 1: An OP MC Isekai LitRPG

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Ryo never asked to wake up in a world ruled by levels, skills, and mercenary banners. But that's exactly what happens after he gets into a car accident.

Thrown into the Ashen Lands with nothing but scraps for weapons, survival should have been impossible. But the System gave him something it shouldn’t a Unique Skill — Overkill. A power so overwhelming it belongs only to those who’ve reached level 100 and beyond. A power that lets him kill monsters beyond his level and grow faster than anyone else in the world. A power that multiplies his damage, while turning excess damage into experience.

It helps him do more than survive. It helps him thrive.

And in this world of opportunities, where dungeons are hungry, bandit lords are rising, and powerful individuals are hunting him down for the power he possesses, Ryo will rise to the top faster than anyone has ever done before.

About this Check out this action-packed LitRPG that is perfect for fans of Primal Hunter, Solo Leveling, and Azarinth Healer!

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 29, 2025

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Epsyl04

5 books8 followers

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5 stars
316 (42%)
4 stars
211 (28%)
3 stars
131 (17%)
2 stars
60 (8%)
1 star
26 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
2,682 reviews17 followers
October 27, 2025
It was very one-dimensional and the fights were quite repetitive.
138 reviews
March 17, 2026
Poorly planned

The grammar, spilling, punctuation, word choice, and layout are all all done.

Problem is plot. I have no problem with OP MC, that can be done quite well. I especially liked it. This character was given a specific flaw that they were going to have to watch out for. That’s good balance for an OP MC.

The constant dramatic phrasing of everything, like some emo 12-year-old making pronouncements about the end of the world, got old pretty quickly.

The lack of any kind of common sense, planning, foresight, or general likeness by the main character is a problem.

Also, a problem is the timeline: the main character keeps talking about how he has to get stronger faster. At one point in 24 hours, he added between seven and 10 levels. Not the low levels the mid levels. When he went to (to avoid spoilers, let’s call it a location in rich in training partners) he’s going to have tens if not, hundreds of possible bags of XP. If the dude takes more than two weeks from that point to reach level 100 he’s slacking. There is simply no need for this dramatic, overstated, long-winded, dread that “they” will find him before he’s ready.

You’re the problem is a complete lack of planning: after the first chapter, at no point has this dude ever looted any of his kills. He’s leaving better weapons, clothes, armor, and even money just lying around.
let’s also talk about his main weapon. Based on the original description, it’s a short improvised dagger. In reality, it’s a tooth. No handle, no grip, nothing to make it easier to hold. Based on the description, it should be slippery. And to use it, he has to get with an arms length of giant creatures with teeth, claws and magic.
Multiple times, he said the opportunity to pick up a sword, spear, bow and arrow, or any other possible tool. He skipped all those. And this magic tooth didn’t come from some super high-level creature killed. It came from one of his early dungeon bosses, who is at this point something like 1/4 of the strength of what he’s currently fighting. I don’t care how OP skill is. He should’ve upgraded to a better weapon.

I punched out about 61% of the way through when he walked away from a fight without looting a bunch of bandits, leaving money and clues for why they were there behind on the ground, while dramatically stalked away into the dark darkness.

Author has some good ideas, and overall there’s a decent story hiding in here. But the author needs pushback from a serious editor to call out the problems. It’s probably not worth rewriting this book. But on their next book they a trusted reader to call out their lazy writing.

Right now this reads as especially lazy YA fiction, possibly partially generated by AI to expand the word count, not a well crafted story.
Profile Image for Jamie  Wash.
18 reviews
July 27, 2026
AI generated crap with HUGE plot holes

Let's be honest. Is it really that hard to read and edit a 200+ page book before it's released?

This wasn't an impressive book and its riddled with plot holes, missing levels, and other things that don't make sense. Lets get the easy stuff out of the way.

MC hits level 44 twice in less than 3 pages. A simple read through without any in depth read would have exposed this mistake.

Leveling restores full MP/HP but only sometimes fully heals and restores energy. Early on he's in a fight, gets wounded, wins the fight, fully restored but he's to injured but must keep fighting to get stronger. Then later in the book he's fully healed after leveling but barely has the energy to keep fighting?

Toward the end of the book hes down to a little over 100 HP after fighting some bandits. Another beast shows up who out levels him by 10 or more levels. MC gets absolutely knocked around like a rag doll several times, never levels but the MC is able to repeatedly get beat down without dying after only having a little HP left? That math doesn't add up.

I would have given it 2 stars but after thinking about it this just feels like some AI generated crap that the "author" slapped his name on with zero effort or responsibility. I hate myself for even giving this book a chance.
Profile Image for Tholcrist.
15 reviews
September 30, 2025
I think this series has promise, but there are some issues that I do want to call out.

I do like that the MC has an easy to understand skill that is obviously over powered from the get go, and it isn't a bait and switch "useless" skill that's obviously ridiculous. I think that the world building as a whole has promise and I hope that the author delves into that a bit deeper in coming books as opposed to speed running between combat encounters in the future.

My concerns stem from the character. We have an isekai situation and there is literally no build up from "OMG I was a normal human in the previous world" to untouchable combat bad ass with reflexes and move sets to conquer enemies well above his level. Did he train ninjitus in the previous world? Did he teach MMA? We get nothing for why he has these skill sets and the lack of world building means we don't know if it's a side effect from the skill or something "more".

It's enough for me to read a book 2 if it came out, but I need a lot more explanation of how, and why the MC is as powerful as he is because what we know of the skill currently does not explain it and so it's coming off as lazy writing instead to avoid having to explain anything.
1,345 reviews17 followers
November 1, 2025
The protagonist dies in a car crash and wakes up in a compugame with a cheat skill. The Mc has no motivation besides becoming stronger and the fights are extremely repetitive.


Criticism and comments

At least the book is not written in first person view..

The protagonist wakes up clothed but without a weapon?

Whenever i tead overkill i hear it in the mortal combat game voice in my head. That's conditioning for you. #rofl#

Do the bandits in the dungeon practice mitosis? He killed way more than mere 7...

I found it sad that he didn't have to harvest his loot! It felt to easy that the loot just dropped after the kill.. It's funny that only the first boss gave any loot!

Wounding creatures that have lava blood doesn't sound healthy..

Why doesn't he take the equipment of the bandits? He's running around in bloody rags only.. Food and sleep seem optional as well. Not to mention stamina..

It's funny that he sometimes levels up during fights and sometimes only after despite killing a multitude of enemies..

Why does his modifier suddenly go down after killing the spark beast? Why does it stay constant despite the kills after?

The MC'S cloths must self mend - after being cut and burned so many times he should be buck naked by all accounts!
Profile Image for The Legend.
261 reviews13 followers
January 6, 2026
Not much to cover that other reviews haven't

What is there to say? The pacing was way too fast. While not everything needs to be slow burn, going from normal human on earth to bad ass killer fully engaged in THE FIRST CHAPTER. Was a bit of a rush. Like after one fight, he's suddenly all in? Unless it's explained in book 2 that his unique skill warped his mind, it makes little sense.

He never loots anything, like any monster parts. The only loot he ever got was from the first dungeon boss. This is very un-gamer.

He fights like an expert but from his 'backstory' he was a low income worker who played MMOs all the time, nothing more...

He grows stronger from levels but how? Like he doesn't have skills, doesn't gain resistances. Besides more health what does it do? Also why does he have mana when he has no magic? Is it useless for him or is he going to learn magic later?

Everything just felt rushed and unexplained. Double or triple the book length and take time to build up to things. Give him some more skills and make his learning to fight take longer. Will make the fights more unique if he can start getting skills. Needing to counter other fighters. Rather than just dodge dodge, slash. I win.
101 reviews1 follower
October 11, 2025
Please edit

Page 185... Character reached level 44. Two pages later he levels up 3 times and is level... 44. The very first sparkbeast he encounters is level 63 until the following page and it drops a level to 62. Final bandit leader is using a staff as his focus until suddenly it's a glaive and the MC is stuck by it. Every level gains a different number of HP and MP. The overkill multiplier is apparently broken and provides less actual damage the higher it gets. In just a few paragraphs the MC loses 80% of his life and then survives the next dozen pages of abuse.

Don't get me wrong... It's a good story. Everything is spelled correctly and there are no blatant writing errors. No clue what our MC looks like. Leave the guy's ribs alone and figure out how to use the status page. Also, how did we go from a world of fire and brimstone to dew-laden grass and trees...

Ugh
Profile Image for Travis.
3,242 reviews55 followers
December 27, 2025
The Overpowered Novice is an interesting story. It starts like many others, with the main character being transported to a new world. Landing in the middle of nowhere, it takes a while for him to find other humans. When he does, he discovers that his main skill isn't typically something seen at his level, and that if anyone finds out about it, he will be hunted to the ends of the earth to empower someone else. So he simply decides that getting strong quickly is the only cure.
This is his story, and it's a fairly good one, considering the topic. I liked this one, and will probably read more in the series if/when they are published.
Profile Image for Wendy.
Author 8 books18 followers
January 5, 2026
I don’t mind a power fantasy if it has something else of interest going on. This story doesn’t have that yet.

The MC is too far into solo brooding mode to make any lasting connections. There’s some in story reason that I buy. At the same time I can’t tell if he’s going to get over it or if the few opportunities for it are only there to sharpen his, ahem, lone wolf edge.

There are lots of repetitive sections, particularly between chapters. Maybe that’s a feature in a serialized work? In this form it is sloppy. Add that to some annoying style elements—like overusing dramatic fragments and one sentence paragraphs—and I am probably not going to keep going with the series.

I will say that there are a few excellent sentences that show promise. With time, development, and editing this writer may come up with something pretty awesome. Hope it happens.

6 reviews
November 11, 2025
Need work

*The bad
Inconsistent leveling messages, repetitive dialog, way too much restating of the same exact paragraphs, and overall needs a more hands-on approach when writing. This book reads like a first draft of an Ai book. The pacing was too fast, and that made it feel too rushed and panicked of a read
*The good
Love the story and plot. The character growth, while fast-paced, makes sense for a person dropped into this kind of situation. you fight, or you die, that is bound to cause some mental issues crop up for anyone not prepared for that kind of stress.
*Honest opinion
it's not a bad book, but it needs some TLC, and it wouldn't hurt to pick up a thesaurus to diversify your writing vocabulary.
348 reviews1 follower
November 29, 2025
I liked the beginning of this book but it went downhill from there. Him having to fight with just a rock was a twist and then getting a weapon and armour in 1 drop was another thing. I thought this guys gonna get rich quick. But there’s no other drop in the whole book. His body heals but his clothes are ripped to pieces and covered in blood and he doesn’t get new ones. He never picks up materials or loot from monsters or bandits. Eating and sleeping seems to be optional. And leveling up is way too inconsistent. The fight scenes are just rince and repeat. I think that there’s just too many things wrong with this book for me too waste time and money to see if they can be corrected in a second book
23 reviews1 follower
October 12, 2025
Started with an interesting concept but not worth reading

The story falls flat due to a lack of depth. The main character is immature, constantly making foolish decisions. Despite leveling up, his power remains static, with no growth or evolution, which feels unsatisfying other than what you started with. The book also omits key elements expected in this genre, such as details about class, other powers, etc or any meaningful progression system, leaving the world-building shallow and unengaging.
Profile Image for Patrick Campbell.
65 reviews
November 6, 2025
not bad however…

This is specifically for the author; why on earth did you start each new chapter with a slight recap from the chapter we just finished? It was like I was watching TV and you anticipated there being a commercial between chapter so upon the start of a new chapter, you gave a recap and then continued on… every chapter. As an avid Kindle unlimited reader I recommend you don’t do this ever again.
Profile Image for James.
95 reviews
October 19, 2025
Bit of a mess

It's got a great premise, but the underlying system seems to change whenever the author wanted it to. A fang magically went from being just that to a dagger that works like an axe or a claymore, it's all just kind of a mess. Might be their first book, but I hope they stabilize and clean it up.
2 reviews
November 22, 2025
It was good but way to short

Ended to soon and honestly the mc waited to long to start grinding plus no one would just spill info like that and he never even looked into getting a class or other skills. Don't get me wrong I liked the story just feel that these are large plot holes.
Profile Image for Jim Phillips.
1,152 reviews4 followers
November 25, 2025
Very interesting

While I truly enjoyed this there were several issues. For all of the effort or M.C. put in, he got no loot from anything other than the first boss wolf. Also his fang dagger. I'll have to go back and look but I thought that his dagger was a tooth not steel. It morphs into steel later.
61 reviews
December 26, 2025
fun

I was hesitant to grab this one, cover and author name screamed ai to me but it’s a fun read. Light on the crunch aspect and abrupt with backstory for our mc it’s still a decent start that leaves me wanting to grab the next in the series and I’ve already grabbed the authors other book one.
53 reviews
March 8, 2026
Good book

A good read but I wish the author would proof read. One minute Ryo is level 44, he fights and levels 3 times and guess what he's level 44. Then he meets the Sparkbeast which is level 63, next page after Ryo has been hit, the Sparkbeast is level 62 and nearly double Ryo's level. WHAT, that would make the beast 88. Come on, if you're going to write a story, get it right.
Profile Image for ??.
518 reviews
October 2, 2025
Despite my gripes with the MC’s personality, the action was SO good that I bumped the rating up to five stars. The side characters are well-fleshed out, even more so than the protagonist! And damn, that ending was so intense. Looking forward to book two!
421 reviews
October 22, 2025
Enjoyed for the most part

The story is very plot device driven. Sure the MC go from zero to OP quickly, but its only dues ex that gave him his skill. The MC is likable, and does work to level up.
570 reviews6 followers
October 26, 2025
Lots of drama and charismatic writing style. But, one dimensional MC, repetitive battle tactics and descriptions, multiple logic faults. (for instance sometimes level up occurs while a battle is in progress and sometimes only after its over, with no explanation as to why the difference)
Profile Image for David James.
3 reviews1 follower
November 11, 2025
Repeated paragraphs for more word count?

Story is good, but has a few paragraphs repeated where there was no need. Some mistakes with what equipment the main character seems to be using, otherwise it's a good short read.
60 reviews
November 24, 2025
no stopping him

An author I don’t recognize I enjoyed this book . The many twists and turns and action packed with just the right amount of humanity . I know you will enjoy this one.
559 reviews10 followers
December 8, 2025
Low Effort, Low Skill

This is a decent first draft. Lots of continuity errors, half baked characters, angsty brooding, and overdrawn fight scenes, but an arc with the potential to be pretty good.
Unfortunately, that first draft was published.
Not recommended.
Profile Image for James Riley.
1,404 reviews20 followers
October 10, 2025
A fun, quick read

This book was a lot of fun, albeit a bit on the short side. It's just a fun romp.

Highly recommended.
13 reviews
November 2, 2025
Kind of lame.

I read this in about 45 minutes. A lot of it was just one long fight in a dungeon. I don't recommend it.
Profile Image for Michael Burnett.
1,332 reviews9 followers
November 10, 2025
Great book

Great book I can't wait to read the next book in the series I would recommend this author to anyone
7 reviews
November 10, 2025
Not worth the effort.

Every fight is a seemingly endless torrent of words trying to turn every struggle into an epic clash. Nowhere to go after that.
20 reviews
November 13, 2025
hidden gem

Stumbled across this book and read it in one sitting, fast pace and fun, keeps you hooked and a proper page turner!
2,544 reviews8 followers
November 19, 2025
Very good read

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I recommend this book to anyone who likes LitRPG and progression types of books with lots of action.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews