A man bows only to 3 people in his life: His mother, his father and his master.
As the newest member of the Assassin's sect, John is tasked to go after a new target. Alas, as he is away, things will take a turn in his sect's grounds.
A man with the power to control minds will whisper words of corruption into John's martial brothers and sisters. His power will cause unrest and unbalance, driving the sect into a new direction.
Now it is up to John to take care of it before the other sects in the universe realise the change and take the matter into their own hands.
But... will it be that easy?
This second issue of The Idle System brings a continuation to John's LitPRG-inspired adventures. In this world of Xianxia and Fantasy, it will be time for him to face his biggest challenge: his own allies.
I only had 20 min left (including afterword) of the audio book and didn't feel any urge to finish. Even though I did finish it after a bit of a push, it is clear that this book wasn't for me. The MC is a mass murderer that uses a flawed system to decide who he should massacre and who to spare. He has no relationships, not even a friend or acquaintance, but I guess he needed a love interest for story points so one is shoehorned in there. The world building goes from one world to trillions and instead of making the story richer, it's only diluting. Each new world is bland and can be plowed through by the MC without consequence. The system, the game mechanics, is the only remotely interesting aspect and it fails to be integrated with the rest of the story in a compelling way.
I officially dropped this series. This series is the author's take on the Wuxia genre, with none charm of that genre. The authors "borrows" the genre's troupes including cultivation, but he desanitizes it for Western readers by importing LITRPG mechanics so it plays out like a video game.
So instead of the usual journey in enlightenment and cultivation that the Wuxia genre lives on, we have the typical level grind that does not take advantage of the unique East Asian setting. The MC is basically handed power b/c of some obscure LITRPG mechanic that allows him to rampage through the immortal realm. He is a mass murderer killing "evil" people for stat boosts or b/c they somehow offended his moral sensibilities.
The fights are also bland, which is absurd for novel that has such a huge kill count.
A regular guy gets a op system then starts killing people just because he can with childish justification for his murders. atleast in wuxia novels the guys who gets killed does something to the mc first dont get murderd for just walking in resturant. The mc is very unlikeable but story flows ok if u like a op character.
Initially I was intrigue as this is the first LITRPG book that has a very different leveling system. It was unique hence why I sort of like the series initially but everything after the second chapter went downhill rapidly. This might be one of the worst fantasy books I have ever read. Nothing in this series makes sense. Things are just thrown around just because. Time has no meaning as sometimes John does something in a day which is given time in the story, then the story shifts as he just skips 2 years, or sits and reads for 6 months, or runs for 3 weeks. Just what in the hell. The "world" is uninteresting, the protagonist to so boring and lacks any sort of personality, there are little to any side characters, and the plot is ......... I don't even know how to explain what in the fuck is going on.
There is no structure to this story. Things are done haphazardly and randomly. There is no real weight to anything in this book. John entered a tournament which should have been a big deal and interesting, but in two 7 min chapters it was already done. Events come and go faster than you can blink. This way of storytelling is fucking shit. New event occurs, the plot allows for 5 minutes to tell you that John ran through everyone, then he moves on. Rinse and repeat and you have idle system. The plot moves faster than a bullet train in this book. This led me to be bored, unhappy and uninterested.
Then we move on to the protagonist. John is one of the worst hero / anti-hero characters I have ever read. At least in other books, I could have maybe vibed with the MC a little, example I hated Frost in Herald of Shalia, but he was a very charismatic character, and I hated Ty in the Enhancer series, but there was enough given to his character to make me at least want to know something. But John in this series, sucks so fucking bad. He feels like a dried piece of wood. Uninteresting and unlikeable. The author really doesn't know what he wants this character to be.
John is a young adult physically, but acts like a naïve young teen socially, yet mentally he is in his 40's. He is supposedly a smart character but is so fucking retarded it hurts to read. He is supposedly a morally nice guy, yet murders millions of people without batting an eye. His character, in essence doesn't make a drop of sense. You want him to only kill "evil" people, yet you have him murder anyone who has a evil score pass 24. Then you write some bullshit excuse that if you kill someone in self defense the evil score doesn't go up and any other form of killing is bad and deserve death. It just doesn't make sense. So if a woman got revenge on a rapist, or someone in a war killed someone not in self defense, you deserve death. Doesn't matter the circumstances, Evil score of 25 or higher means certain death. Imagine you stole bread multiple times to feed yourself or your family, it doesn't matter if its a vile act or not, once its over 25 you will be put down like a rabid animal. And then we are suppose to cheer because John killed all the "bad" people with a score over 25.
You know what, I am going to half ass this review, as this book doesn't even merit a full review. This book doesn't have a structure, the protagonist is unlikeable and boring, and the author justifies killing everything and everyone just because they have an evil score and John needs to get stronger at any cost.
Now if John was a bad guy who occasionally did good deeds, things would have been different and maybe even better, as all these things that John does, would not have needed to be explained away and every morally gray decision would not need some half ass justification. Having the protagonist always be morally right, then justify him killing everyone by some bullshit logic is fucking retarded.
This is a unique system of litrpg & cultivation, using an "idle" system like phone games, etc. It is litrpg because the Main Character sees a screen which displays stats/ranks/levels, skills, etc. It is cultivation because of the way the system is setup, and the use of beast cores, etc.
Book 1: This is a great introduction into the series. The book is not as masterpiece of literature, but it is very entertaining and worth my time. My thoughts are that the MC is too OP(overpowered), too quickly, and it moved extremely fast. I assumed he wrote himself into a corner, and book 2 couldn't possibly be interesting, yet I was wrong.
Book 2: This book dramatically expands the scope of how strong the MC is. He may be strong, but that is nothing compared to others around him. This book goes a long way towards showing that he is very strong, but not unbeatable.
Book 3: The MC is OP again, taking on people far above his power level.
Book 4: So OP its not even funny. It is even funnier because the author swears up and down that the MC isn't OP. I mean, he is so OP he , yet according to the author, "he was only able to do it because of a special set of circumstances and abilities." Yes, the ability of being overpowered. lol
Book 5: I didn't think I would like this book since it is told from Sarah's Point of View, not the MC. However, I got into it very quickly. While I still prefer reading through the MC's PoV, this might be my favorite book of the series and
Overall,
This series is great and definitely worth reading. Unfortunately, it is held back by editing and a real lack of struggle from the MC. At this point, I am mostly reading it to see how ridiculous the MC can become.
Still continuing, though not sure why. It's entertaining for now, I guess, but the "feels like an extended outline" feeling persists.
The main character has a way too easy path, and everything feels rushed. Characterization is all over the place and doesn't feel consistent, and the side characters aren't believable and way too quick to help the main character with anything he wants. Nothing is ever problematic, and if so he has an easy way out.
Again, this book is firmly between two and three stars for me, and while I do find it entertaining, it's probably not for the right reasons. I do believe that this story could have been re-written into a proper series with several books per currently published book, and that would have made it better. There is a lot of telling (not showing) included, and infodumps here and there. The main character still isn't challenged at all, and the reactions from the side characters are bland and sometimes inconsistent.
This is an interesting concept and take on the LITRPG cycle and levelling systems. I do enjoy the premise of the book but I find the story itself very rushed and thin at times. It is almost as if the story around it is background for the stats, math and levelling system. Some editing errors which ruined the flow of sentences but still an interesting twist and premise. I may comeback and read book three at some poignant but definitely not a series you can main line.
Western mind in a wuxia world. Add stats. Throw in a gaming style interface. Give him some ridiculous powers like Dragon Ball Z. And happy mayhem ensues. I had a blast. Volcano diving, sects, and martial tournaments, isolated cultivation, and monster hunting are all elements in this fast paced book. Oh and he tries to stick to the bad guys while his body count rises. Great series.
Mistakes: I found only three mistakes in the book.
Plot: The Mc is basically running around killing millions of people.
Characters: Able to kill millions in an instant. Read millions of books in no real time. Has basically unlimited money. If you want an over powered character then this is for you.
This stops being about the ‘Idle System’ and becomes more of a cultivation novel. A *whole lot* of tell and relatively little show. More confusing word choices, and though some of them are likely regional others are just wrong.
I said I would read book two sometime in the future, but here I am again so soon.
I don't know where this series is going, but it isn't what I expected. The story is so-so, but it passes time. So I will pick up the sequel sometime. Although I don't like how anime the third book is looking.
What would you be willing to do to become an Immortal? Kill millions of monsters both animal and human to gain experience? Than ask John, the MC, who is willing to clean up the universe of sinners...
Even though this is a fantasy book and requires suspension of belief like all fantasy, the book became so ridiculously outrageous I couldn't make myself finish it. The author writes well but this mechanic and MC antics and abilities...more like a hallucination than a good story. It had potential too.
A very fun read with a great story and I love the world building and the sytem being used as well as good pacing to the story. I would recommend this as I've enjoyed both books and am eagerly awaiting the next.
Ever since I started reading the first book I couldn't stop reading, people might say that the MC is OP but I still like it, I like the blending of eastern fantasy and litrpg and can't wait for the sweet sweet revenge later to come
Lots of tables, lots of point conversions, not much real story. Everything is put down to levels and with multiple worlds tossed about none of it has any substance. A good start in book one is lost in book two due to overreaching.
Too much stays some parts are good but overall not like book 1way too much main character at the he meets Sarah now that could liven up the next book???!