4.0 stars. A series that overcomes it’s serious flaws by being fun.
I bought this book because four of them were bundled together, and the whole thing was on sale for $6.
I should have checked the reviews on Goodreads first. I didn’t. No refunds on cash purchases. 🙂
Reviewing this series has been confusing for me. I have both positive and negative things to say about it. But I feel the positive outweighs the negative and it was fun to listen to this.
The main character is an absolute psychopath. I don’t say that lightly. He kills millions of people in this series, and feels like he’s doing the right thing. He kills hundreds of thousands of people by hand in minutes. Which is both impossible (practically speaking) and also likely to cause emotional damage.
While insisting that every person he kills deserved it for being a bad person, he regularly kills people who did not deserve it. As well, believing that someone deserved to be killed without a trial, or any evidence whatsoever, is a really flimsy reason to kill someone.
In one example, our MC is sitting in a restaurant by himself eating. A group of men are complaining to the waiter about having to wait for a table. So the MC kills two of them. “I really hope they weren’t important people who will cause others to try and exact revenge for their deaths,” he thinks afterwards.
Some readers might have a problem with an MC that just kills on such a massive scale. If that idea disgusts you, this might not be the book for you.
It’s really fascinating to have an MC who is so overpowered. Jason Asano can take on monsters above his rank, but has died many times at the hands of powerful people. Jake Thayne could fight anyone one-on-one, but would similarly be defeated by a large group. But I can’t remember reading a book where the MC can snap his fingers and have nine higher-ranked opponents die instantly.
This MC eventually destroys a planet by exploding it – “Death Star” style.
Some people like “the system” of this book – the idle system. But to me, it’s irrelevant. The MC has found a way to speed up his progression on a massive scale. It’s a “hack” of the system that exists for everyone else. At some point, it’s expected he will require two years to reach the next stage of advancement, and he achieves it in a couple of weeks. He is 50X faster at progressing than anyone else.
If you can suspend your disbelief (massively), this book is actually a bit of fun.
Like I said, the MC of this book eventually becomes one of the most powerful beings on the planet. In fact, he is the youngest person to achieve that level of power. In the beginning, he fights in hand-to-hand combat and doesn’t use any weapons or magic.
This is an interesting idea worth exploring in fiction.
There are some ridiculous scenarios in this series. For example, midway through Book 1, he went hunting for wolves. In two months, he manages to kill over 100,000 wolves, according to the book. Let’s try the math on that. That is 1,666 wolves per day over 60 days. Assuming 12 hours per day of hunting, that’s 139 wolves per hour. Or about two per minute.
So for 60 days, the MC killed 2 wolves per minute all day every day with his bare hands.
Of course, that’s not all. In order to collect the reward, he had to bring the heads back to the quest giver. He put all the heads in one stretchable bag, weighing tons, and then dragged the bag back to town. And then into town, through the front gate. This bag of wolf heads then began damaging the town, as it scraped against the storefronts.
This scenario is just SO RIDICULOUS that you kind of have to respect the audacity of it. The author Pegaz put those words on paper and published it for everyone to see. And then charged for it! That’s amazing, actually.
“But Pegaz, it’s only half-way through the book. How are you going to top that?”, I asked.
Near the end of Book 1, the MC is called to meet with the King. The King is building a massive army, and will go take on an invasion force that is on it’s way. (The foreign invasion force is walking, and will take months to get there.)
MC: “How many troops do they have?”
King: “We estimate 850,000.”
MC: “Don’t worry Mr. King, I will take them on by myself. You don’t need to raise an army.”
King: “Oh ok, thanks guy I just met for the first time. I totally trust you will single-handedly defeat 850,000 and will do nothing to prepare for the invasion.”
So he takes a fast horse that can run for 20 hours per day and goes to catch the invading force. He shouts at them, and all 850,000 hear him clearly. 150,000 of them flee, leaving 700,000 troops to fight. The MC proceeds to kill 699,999 of them in a few minutes. Kills them by hand, of course. He “clotheslines” thousands of them at a time.
Of course, it turns out to have been a double-cross. Those people were actually innocent. So he goes back and kills the King. And never thinks about that again until the end of Book 4.
The audacity of the author!
In the book, there is talk about how an immortal can turn into an angel or a demon. The MC himself gives no thought to what it means to become a demon. No thought at how killing millions of people cuts off the path of being an angel even though he thinks of himself as the goodest of good guys.
The book contains some broken economics. In the beginning of the book, the MC has 12 pounds in his pocket (the currency of the book). He buys some basic supplies for hunting. Later on in the book, his balance is 29 billion pounds. Later than that, he accepts 40,000 pounds to escort some criminals across the country for a few months. Why would someone with 29 billion pounds waste months of their life escorting criminals for such a low amount? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way money works and money never really becomes an issue except chapter 1.
Even in Book 2, when he presumably has hundreds of billions of pounds, the author mentions how a hotel room costs a few pounds per night, a meal costs one pound, and the drink costs one pound. I don’t think money plays a role beyond the first chapter.
In Book 4, an item in an auction starts its bid at 1 quadrillion pounds, and the MC bids 101 quadrillion pounds just to ensure he wins the auction. So, money has no meaning.
Despite all that, I finished all four books. This series is making me re-think some of the books I’ve hated in the past. Rise of the Cheat Potion Maker wasn’t THAT bad. I might just continue on with Path of Ascension.
I’m starting to find joy in ridiculousness.
