What do you think?
Rate this book
The System Seas: A LitRPG Adventure
One Piece meets LitRPG in this epic progression fantasy adventure where the ocean itself is an endless dungeon!
AN INFINITE OCEAN OF LOOT AWAITS.
Marco trained his whole life to become a captain. He maxed every childhood achievement the System would let him, from diving, to rigging, to outrunning couriers up mountains.
But when classing day finally comes, the system doesn’t just make him a captain, it makes him a Gluttonous Marauder.
On the plus side, it’s a unique class with combat perks, shipwright skills, and captain material.
On the negative side, it comes with a reputation so bad he’s arrested on the spot.
Now on the run in a barely-seaworthy smuggler’s dinghy, Marco sets out to prove he’s not the villain they think he is. Unfortunately, he first needs to out-sail bounty hunters, survive cursed dungeons, and feed enough victories to his ever-growing ship to outrun every danger thrown his way.
Experience the start of a seafaring LitRPG epic from bestseller R.C Joshua, featuring in-depth ship evolution, unique class mechanics, crew-building, hardcore progression, and a world where the ocean itself is a dungeon. Perfect for fans of One Piece, Assassin's Black Flag, and He Who Fights with Monsters.
The horizon is calling. Grab your copy of THE SYSTEM SEAS and join the hunt today!
AN INFINITE OCEAN OF LOOT AWAITS.
Marco trained his whole life to become a captain. He maxed every childhood achievement the System would let him, from diving, to rigging, to outrunning couriers up mountains.
But when classing day finally comes, the system doesn’t just make him a captain, it makes him a Gluttonous Marauder.
On the plus side, it’s a unique class with combat perks, shipwright skills, and captain material.
On the negative side, it comes with a reputation so bad he’s arrested on the spot.
Now on the run in a barely-seaworthy smuggler’s dinghy, Marco sets out to prove he’s not the villain they think he is. Unfortunately, he first needs to out-sail bounty hunters, survive cursed dungeons, and feed enough victories to his ever-growing ship to outrun every danger thrown his way.
Experience the start of a seafaring LitRPG epic from bestseller R.C Joshua, featuring in-depth ship evolution, unique class mechanics, crew-building, hardcore progression, and a world where the ocean itself is a dungeon. Perfect for fans of One Piece, Assassin's Black Flag, and He Who Fights with Monsters.
The horizon is calling. Grab your copy of THE SYSTEM SEAS and join the hunt today!
447 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 13, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 18, 2026
The core hook here leans heavily into the "forbidden class" gimmick, and it exposes a fundamental flaw in the world-building. In any universe where a system functions as an absolute, objective force, the concept of an "illegal" specialization undermines the system's own internal logic. Had the class felt like an organic culmination of the protagonist’s choices, it might have worked. Instead, it arrives completely unanchored to his previous achievements. It feels arbitrary, and It's a DNF for me on this one.
October 30, 2026
Steer Clear of These Seas
I normally don't review or even think about reviewing books before finishing them as a rule. This is my second-ever exception.
Another work by the same author, Demon World Boba Shop is one of my all-time favourite works by any author and, in my opinion, is absolutely exceptional and deserving of your time. Seriously, give it a try if you haven’t yet, it will absolutely bring you joy. With that, I had high hopes here, but…
I quit at page 93 right after Marco and Elisa rescued the caged prisoner from the Palmars. Marco opens the cage with an odd comment about the door being on the wrong side. Marco starts sneaking away with the prisoner while saying "...First we need some distance" (I assume referring to distance away from the Palmars) but then Marco and Elisa proceed to run back towards the Palmars and their camp with the prisoner in tow and drop him back in the cage. Marco then picks up a gun (it might be his generically-named “Magic Gun” but we don’t know because the book just says “gun”) that somehow happened to be on the floor of the cage but was not mentioned previously. Marco then proceeds to perfectly shoot several of the Palmars in a row because his shots were informed by 'the skill', even though we are not told what this skill is at this time. Was it the 'Gunner' skill? I have no idea.
Put your hand up if you are confused now. I went back and re-read this section several times to ensure I didn't miss anything and this is all exactly how it appears.
My only guess is that somehow a paragraph or multiple paragraphs were just left out of the book entirely here and therefore the entire section no longer makes sense. How does that happen and not get noticed before release?
For another example of something odd, I highlighted another, earlier, section of the book containing the (insanely ridiculous) following lines of description for Marco's mana-consuming ‘Magic Gun' weapon:
"The pistol will then consume more mana in preparation for the next shot" - well, yes, a pistol tends to need a new bullet in the chamber to fire again after firing. I would think it would be the same for “mana”, otherwise the gun would be rather broken if it just consumed mana once and then shot an infinite number of times.
"Each shot has a slight delay before the next can be fired" - Never heard of a gun, especially a pistol, that can just immediately fire again after firing, so I don't think this needs to be called out either. Even machine guns with a high rate of fire have some kind of a delay between shots fired.
"Using every opportunity to its fullest is the essence of mastering this weapon" - I feel like that would be the case for *every* weapon. When would I not want to aim for this?
"If you miss often, you will find yourself at a disadvantage" - When would missing ever NOT be something that puts you at a disadvantage?
"If you hit when you wish to hit and at times that keep your opponents off-guard, this pistol can serve as the background to an entire effective offence" - never mind the somewhat awkward phrasing here, I think all guns are generally an effective offence when you hit someone with them, and I don't think it matters that they were hit when I *wanted* them to get hit. I really just care that they were hit in the first place. Think you get why this sentence is phrased awkwardly now.
I just hope this highlights that I don't think the book was really edited or proofread at all in any capacity. It is just incredibly frustrating and I just can't take something like this seriously when, so early on, I've run into things such as these two examples. It also makes actually reading the book difficult at best as you are constantly, constantly pulled out of the reading flow because of things like these two examples!
Here are a few additional issues I had, all of which I argue were quite clear even just in the 93 pages I read:
- Typos ("Isn't Knife Rock is boring?"), probably related back to a lack of proofreading/editing.
- Lots of stiff/stilted dialog between Marco and Elisa. Elisa feels like a walking robot designed for information regurgitation vs a person. They definitely don't sound like friends!
- The sailing in general doesn't feel much fleshed-out and I get the impression not a lot of research was done into the parts of a sailing ship nor how a sailing ship handles. I think having more information/description on the ship itself and how it sails would have helped sell the theme of the book. I just finished Magician by Raymond Feist and that book, for its issues, had a far better handle on sailing and sailing ships versus this book. It has been done before; use what has already been written as a blueprint.
- The book feels like a LitRPG that happens to have pirating/sailing in it as an afterthought with the 'System' stuff at the forefront when it really should have had the pirating/sailing at the forefront and the RPG/System stuff more in the background. It would have made this book stand out a lot more in my opinion. The book had no real sense of adventure whatsoever from what I read so far which is sort of the minimum for anything pirate-themed, especially as I gather this was based on the One Piece manga/anime.
A nitpick but I just saw another review that reminded me of this issue as I also meant to put it here and forgot: if your book has a “class choosing” or a “System” day, classes which are considered illegal, and the ability to immediately arrest/detain someone who receives an illegal class, then you have undermined the entire purpose of a System in the first place, assuming that every person receives their class for a reason and that all people/classes fit together in some fashion in society. This is not the only book to do this by any means, but if you are an active author or considering becoming one pleeeease think about this before moving forward.
In summary, if this was the first time I read something from the author, I'd just shrug, shelve it, and move on, but as I mentioned previously this author wrote another series that is quite special to me, so the impact of this book being what it is just really doesn't hit well with me. And, to clarify, I don't mean this in a greedy or condescending way. I respect that it takes a lot to write, and it's not something I personally have experience in. I think it is valid though to still be disappointed in this situation.
I normally don't review or even think about reviewing books before finishing them as a rule. This is my second-ever exception.
Another work by the same author, Demon World Boba Shop is one of my all-time favourite works by any author and, in my opinion, is absolutely exceptional and deserving of your time. Seriously, give it a try if you haven’t yet, it will absolutely bring you joy. With that, I had high hopes here, but…
I quit at page 93 right after Marco and Elisa rescued the caged prisoner from the Palmars. Marco opens the cage with an odd comment about the door being on the wrong side. Marco starts sneaking away with the prisoner while saying "...First we need some distance" (I assume referring to distance away from the Palmars) but then Marco and Elisa proceed to run back towards the Palmars and their camp with the prisoner in tow and drop him back in the cage. Marco then picks up a gun (it might be his generically-named “Magic Gun” but we don’t know because the book just says “gun”) that somehow happened to be on the floor of the cage but was not mentioned previously. Marco then proceeds to perfectly shoot several of the Palmars in a row because his shots were informed by 'the skill', even though we are not told what this skill is at this time. Was it the 'Gunner' skill? I have no idea.
Put your hand up if you are confused now. I went back and re-read this section several times to ensure I didn't miss anything and this is all exactly how it appears.
My only guess is that somehow a paragraph or multiple paragraphs were just left out of the book entirely here and therefore the entire section no longer makes sense. How does that happen and not get noticed before release?
For another example of something odd, I highlighted another, earlier, section of the book containing the (insanely ridiculous) following lines of description for Marco's mana-consuming ‘Magic Gun' weapon:
"The pistol will then consume more mana in preparation for the next shot" - well, yes, a pistol tends to need a new bullet in the chamber to fire again after firing. I would think it would be the same for “mana”, otherwise the gun would be rather broken if it just consumed mana once and then shot an infinite number of times.
"Each shot has a slight delay before the next can be fired" - Never heard of a gun, especially a pistol, that can just immediately fire again after firing, so I don't think this needs to be called out either. Even machine guns with a high rate of fire have some kind of a delay between shots fired.
"Using every opportunity to its fullest is the essence of mastering this weapon" - I feel like that would be the case for *every* weapon. When would I not want to aim for this?
"If you miss often, you will find yourself at a disadvantage" - When would missing ever NOT be something that puts you at a disadvantage?
"If you hit when you wish to hit and at times that keep your opponents off-guard, this pistol can serve as the background to an entire effective offence" - never mind the somewhat awkward phrasing here, I think all guns are generally an effective offence when you hit someone with them, and I don't think it matters that they were hit when I *wanted* them to get hit. I really just care that they were hit in the first place. Think you get why this sentence is phrased awkwardly now.
I just hope this highlights that I don't think the book was really edited or proofread at all in any capacity. It is just incredibly frustrating and I just can't take something like this seriously when, so early on, I've run into things such as these two examples. It also makes actually reading the book difficult at best as you are constantly, constantly pulled out of the reading flow because of things like these two examples!
Here are a few additional issues I had, all of which I argue were quite clear even just in the 93 pages I read:
- Typos ("Isn't Knife Rock is boring?"), probably related back to a lack of proofreading/editing.
- Lots of stiff/stilted dialog between Marco and Elisa. Elisa feels like a walking robot designed for information regurgitation vs a person. They definitely don't sound like friends!
- The sailing in general doesn't feel much fleshed-out and I get the impression not a lot of research was done into the parts of a sailing ship nor how a sailing ship handles. I think having more information/description on the ship itself and how it sails would have helped sell the theme of the book. I just finished Magician by Raymond Feist and that book, for its issues, had a far better handle on sailing and sailing ships versus this book. It has been done before; use what has already been written as a blueprint.
- The book feels like a LitRPG that happens to have pirating/sailing in it as an afterthought with the 'System' stuff at the forefront when it really should have had the pirating/sailing at the forefront and the RPG/System stuff more in the background. It would have made this book stand out a lot more in my opinion. The book had no real sense of adventure whatsoever from what I read so far which is sort of the minimum for anything pirate-themed, especially as I gather this was based on the One Piece manga/anime.
A nitpick but I just saw another review that reminded me of this issue as I also meant to put it here and forgot: if your book has a “class choosing” or a “System” day, classes which are considered illegal, and the ability to immediately arrest/detain someone who receives an illegal class, then you have undermined the entire purpose of a System in the first place, assuming that every person receives their class for a reason and that all people/classes fit together in some fashion in society. This is not the only book to do this by any means, but if you are an active author or considering becoming one pleeeease think about this before moving forward.
In summary, if this was the first time I read something from the author, I'd just shrug, shelve it, and move on, but as I mentioned previously this author wrote another series that is quite special to me, so the impact of this book being what it is just really doesn't hit well with me. And, to clarify, I don't mean this in a greedy or condescending way. I respect that it takes a lot to write, and it's not something I personally have experience in. I think it is valid though to still be disappointed in this situation.
October 15, 2026
This is a great fun premise, but don't go in looking for anything deep (poor pun, I know).
An editor/proofreader is desperately needed; main character's weapon shifts from rapier to saber more than a few times, and the big bad's name interchangeably goes from Steed to Stead multiple times. There are other instances of rewrites that were accidentally left in also. There's a pretty sizeable headscratcher moment where you find out who the other people looking for the temple are, and one of them is not the name that was used a few chapters later.
I'll read the next offering as well, hopefully a bit more care will be taken.
An editor/proofreader is desperately needed; main character's weapon shifts from rapier to saber more than a few times, and the big bad's name interchangeably goes from Steed to Stead multiple times. There are other instances of rewrites that were accidentally left in also. There's a pretty sizeable headscratcher moment where you find out who the other people looking for the temple are, and one of them is not the name that was used a few chapters later.
I'll read the next offering as well, hopefully a bit more care will be taken.
October 21, 2026
LITRPG One Piece
Okay, So there are problems. Especially in the later half with spellings and a few errors. Could use some beta readers and editors.
That aside, the book was fun. Despite that. It felt like a true adventure where a Captain starts gathering his crew of misfits. It also had a great section where they enter a sort of 'Grand Line' aka a more dangerous error where every new island is an adventure.
Honestly, I wish the book had stayed in that area. That it was the main focus for a few books, of meeting new people, new islands and new stuff then returned. It was too short.
Overall the book was unique and fun, worth the read. Hope the second book gets some editors or fans to help point out things to change or fix up. Maybe go Royal Road and get feedback first.
My personal only real gripe was the Love Interest cliche. It pulled the 'first new girl he meets' after the inciting incident that makes him different cliche. Personally, I hate that. Hate when an author makes the very first female suddenly the MC's love. Would far prefer just new friend and maybe a few books and women met down the line he can meet his love interest or find love from a friend.
This is off-set better than some books by already having a female friend, so it's atleast not the very first woman in the book turns love interest like some cliches. Still bad but not as bad.
Okay, So there are problems. Especially in the later half with spellings and a few errors. Could use some beta readers and editors.
That aside, the book was fun. Despite that. It felt like a true adventure where a Captain starts gathering his crew of misfits. It also had a great section where they enter a sort of 'Grand Line' aka a more dangerous error where every new island is an adventure.
Honestly, I wish the book had stayed in that area. That it was the main focus for a few books, of meeting new people, new islands and new stuff then returned. It was too short.
Overall the book was unique and fun, worth the read. Hope the second book gets some editors or fans to help point out things to change or fix up. Maybe go Royal Road and get feedback first.
My personal only real gripe was the Love Interest cliche. It pulled the 'first new girl he meets' after the inciting incident that makes him different cliche. Personally, I hate that. Hate when an author makes the very first female suddenly the MC's love. Would far prefer just new friend and maybe a few books and women met down the line he can meet his love interest or find love from a friend.
This is off-set better than some books by already having a female friend, so it's atleast not the very first woman in the book turns love interest like some cliches. Still bad but not as bad.
October 23, 2026
It was Ok
The world building is fun and the premise really interesting, but the character progression and dialogue were rough. Really rough to be honest. The MC is a kid with X amount of levels, but can defeat an enemy with easily XX amount of levels because he can do XYZ slightly better than someone 20-30 years and levels his senior. Yeah…right. Really weird conversations and points of view between the characters. Sometimes MC is talking then the focus switches to two supporting characters talking about MC. Needs some quality alpha and beta readers who aren’t just yes men. Gets two stars because with some big help and a change of how the conversation is written, this book could be great.
The world building is fun and the premise really interesting, but the character progression and dialogue were rough. Really rough to be honest. The MC is a kid with X amount of levels, but can defeat an enemy with easily XX amount of levels because he can do XYZ slightly better than someone 20-30 years and levels his senior. Yeah…right. Really weird conversations and points of view between the characters. Sometimes MC is talking then the focus switches to two supporting characters talking about MC. Needs some quality alpha and beta readers who aren’t just yes men. Gets two stars because with some big help and a change of how the conversation is written, this book could be great.
October 22, 2026
Simple and fun
I enjoyed this story, it was a simple and fun adventure with a system that didn't take center stage but was used as a setting detail. The system being matter of fact rather than a new thing like in integration stories, was a nice change of pace for me.
The characters and relationships are fine but not particularly memorable, it's mostly the plot that is interesting.
This story does capture the feeling of being an adventurous pirate that is very fun.
Overall, it's a good read for if your looking to relax.
I enjoyed this story, it was a simple and fun adventure with a system that didn't take center stage but was used as a setting detail. The system being matter of fact rather than a new thing like in integration stories, was a nice change of pace for me.
The characters and relationships are fine but not particularly memorable, it's mostly the plot that is interesting.
This story does capture the feeling of being an adventurous pirate that is very fun.
Overall, it's a good read for if your looking to relax.
October 25, 2026
Nice premise, rough grammar
Liked the story and concept enough, but kept getting pulled out by significant grammatical errors and inconsistencies. The worst example is when a certain future threat is referred to in a hint to the main character, but the name is just not correct. This means that when the MC makes a huge twist remark in the final battle, it comes out of absolutely nowhere.
Liked the story and concept enough, but kept getting pulled out by significant grammatical errors and inconsistencies. The worst example is when a certain future threat is referred to in a hint to the main character, but the name is just not correct. This means that when the MC makes a huge twist remark in the final battle, it comes out of absolutely nowhere.
October 24, 2026
Great Beginnings!
I really like Marco and the relationships he introduces in this book. Great job. Very fun book and I look forward to the next one.
I really like Marco and the relationships he introduces in this book. Great job. Very fun book and I look forward to the next one.
November 1, 2026
pretty good with the concept
Just need a little better with the editing mistakes that broke the reading but dang, I like the story though.
Just need a little better with the editing mistakes that broke the reading but dang, I like the story though.
November 3, 2026
Great book
Stellar work from R.C. Joshua. Lots of action and adventure, pirates and conquest. Looking forward to reading the next one.
Stellar work from R.C. Joshua. Lots of action and adventure, pirates and conquest. Looking forward to reading the next one.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews