The Next Step

Cultivator vs. System #2

by Valerios

The Cultivator grows stronger. The System gets serious.

After carving out a foothold in this odd new world, Long Fang must now defend it. Enemies swarm when the System calls for war, but cultivators thrive on the brink of disaster.

As foes of incredible strength gear up to destroy Lonely Mountain, Long Fang pulls out all stops in his quest for power. But can he make it in time, or will the sect fall?

Fortunately, he is no longer alone. The world's most inventive kobolds are about to turn the System on its head.

Genres: Fantasy

490 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 26, 2022

About the author

Valerios enjoys letters and numbers. One day, combining them crossed his mind, and now he spends most of his time placing one after the other until something pleasant appears.

Besides transforming words into worlds, Valerios also enjoys moving figurines over chess boards, spending quality time with quality people, and stubbornly trying to convince machines that cats are not, in fact, dogs.

Reviews

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I am not really a fan of pop-humor, it distracts from a story and cheapens the story. With that said, my dislike of this humor isn't the cause of my mediocre review. Specifically I found some issues in the following (added a spoiler tag, but all of my points should be pretty generic/assumed):


1. The main characters all have plot armor and consistently make it through scenarios and situations they shouldn't make it through completely unharmed. After enough reading it disconnects you from the characters struggle as you outwardly KNOW they are not actually going to be in any real danger.

2. The timescale for progression is pretty absurd for the entire group. I understand making your main character progress faster then most, it fits both the theme and

3. Character development is significantly lacking. While the first book struggled with developing or growing the characters, this book was worse. I can tell there were a few situations where the author attempted to inject in something, but it didn't really work and more often then not just made the characters come off as hollow husks specifically tailored to show the superiority of the MC and his infallible decisions.



All in all its an alright story... Nothing stands out as overly special or noteworthy. I realize now after writing this review that the target audience is likely younger audiences (which I really don't care for), so I am going to give my review one more star then my initial impression to account for the fact that I am probably not the target audience.

[Scott Wozniak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The world stopped getting bigger. We just had more adventures in the same places. We did meet more people, but the characters are the worst part of this series. They're all simple, without complexity or surprises. They all change their mind quickly. They all speak their mind exactly. And even the people who have lived literally thousands of years act and feel like middle school kids (emotional outbursts, impulsive choices, obvious manipulation attempts, etc.).

And despite being a book about cultivation AND system growth, we get almost no growth and absolutely no stats or details. The little growth we see is something the hero literally lucks into and is given to him (no choice on his part at all).

I won't read the last in the trilogy. I just don't care what happens to these folks and I'm not getting the leveling up and strategy that I love.

[William Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cabbages!

This occasionally descends into pop-humor, but mostly stays true to its fundamental conceit: Fighting against the system.

Everything picks up directly where it left off in the previous novel, so I recommend re-reading the final chapters of book 1 to refresh your memory. Fast paced, but with several important chapters of meditation and consideration of the Dao.

A few odd words that the online dictionaries don’t agree with their usage. But clean prose and essentially zero sex.

[F. AY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another exemplary book.

It's a page turner and I really enjoyed the the direction story took. A fun mix of cultivation and litrpg. Looking forward to reading the next book b

[Johnie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I recommend this book to anyone who like LitRPG and progression type of books with lots of action.

[Travis Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has turned into quite a series. 👍🏾👍🏾

[Richin109 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series.

Love the idea of a cultivation novel set inside a system. Long continues to grow in power and learns more about how the system came about.

[Christian · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF Chapter 3

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

dao of wind vs wind skills, the clash of grandmasters of different sources of power.