5 stars. Classic cultivation story taking someone from no power to become very powerful.
I was searching the Kindle market for books, and I came across this series called Manifestation by Samuel Hinton.
The story follows the classic cultivation route. Our young female hero is essentially broken. In a world where some people have a magic well inside them that contains their magic power, Raysha has one of the largest wells around. Her problem is that her well takes a long time to refill – months even. So if she uses her power, she will be unable to use it again for a long time.
As such, she is disqualfied from most skill advancement. The people of this world use their magic as part of their profession. Messengers use it to run really fast to deliver messages. Hunters add it to their arrows and bolts. Soldiers add magic to their strikes and use it in their attacks. So what good is someone who would become incapacitated for weeks after performing some task? She was destined to become a babysitter.
A series of happy circumstances set her up on a quest to fix her core. If she could refill her massive well a lot faster, she could actually be useful to society.
Things I liked about the book series:
- MC is intelligent and emotionally stable
- MC makes intelligent decisions
- Great writing
- Relatively fast pace of advancement
- No room for self-pity and no tolerance for others pitying her condition
- Book 2, 3 and 4 had a recap at the beginning and an explanation of the magic system – more books should do that!
Things that took away from it:
- I still don’t understand the motivations of the adults leading the adventure… why bring kids?
All in all, this was a good little book and I am continuing on in the series.
