4.5 stars. Not what I expected but it’s really interesting.
Note 1: I don’t like the title, and I don’t like the cover photo. In fact, I created my own image using AI for this post as I refuse to use the awful one the book currently has on Royal Road.
Note 2: This series has 2000+ pages on Royal Road, but appears to have very infrequent updates recently. You can invest a lot of time reading this, and then it ends on a cliffhanger without a timeline for when the next chapter will appear. The author has taken 2 year breaks in the past.
But this book really pulled me in to the story, and I’ve spent way too many hours this past week reading it. It’s called Magic-Smithing, currently entirely for free on Royal Road.
The story revolves around someone who was reincarnated after dying. What’s somewhat unique in this story is that they came back to the new world as a baby, and retained all their memories and intelligence from their old life. Although, in the early days after being born, they can’t speak or move properly, they can do other things to prepare for life. Having a system, they can see their stats and so they spend their time as a baby training. (That’s not as corny as it sounds. It’s been written really well.)
At 10, they gained the ability to choose a class. They chose to be a blacksmith. They realized that they did not like fighting, and seemed driven to be able to craft things that they could sell for money.
Of course, they became the best blacksmith in that part of the world by the age of 15.
As one would expect with this type of story, lots of high profile people noticed. Everyone from the top general in the army, to a leading trade guild, to the main general in the opposing army noticed the spears and arrows that were superior to others seen before. And everyone wanted this craftswoman to work for them.
This story currently stands at 750,000 words or 2700 pages in a book. (See Note 2 above, however.) And maybe that’s my main critique so far. Time passes really slowly. When the MC is 15 years old, it feels like every day she experiences makes up multiple chapters. The author rarely uses a lot of time skip. Luckily, the story is interesting and engaging. I find myself drawn into the complexity of the different characters.
