Aspiring Rationalist Isekai.

If you've read rationalist fiction before (and liked it) then you're in for a treat.

I especially like how the protagonist is genuinely intelligent; not Sherlock Holmes style where they have the ability to pluck facts from thin air but genuinely intelligent, the kind where you try your hardest to think your way through (and actually think, not just mentally ramble). Writing intelligent characters is hard, but this novel pulls it off, at the very least for the protagonist.

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Fascinating dive into studying a world of magic with a system. An intelligent and logical main character, who still makes mistakes. 

And probably the first time where the "medieval" world wasn't actually that far behind in terms of knowledge to the modern world 

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So made it to chapter 97 which means I like this one enough not to drop it.  Lets start with the good.  The #1 strength of this story is the world building.  Like others have said, magic, the system and human society are closely linked.  The author explores this quite well.

The bad:  The story is really a slog at parts.  The alone in the woods first arc is the worst example of this.  Someone could read the first chapter and then skim the next ten and not miss much.  

Fights: for some reason I really don't like how fights are done in this novel.  They come across as confusing and have a inconsistent pacing.  Some things are overexplained while at times after reading a bit I find myself wondering how things got here.  Or I read something and think how is this happening?  How stats, perks, and magic is a bit wishy washy.  Can a person take a hit with a kinetic projectile from a character with X stats?  How many direct hits can so and so take.  There are no hit points or something like that so things are a bit weird.  There are quite a bit of people that get one-shot but if someone can be one-shot or not is unclear as a reader.  Can anyone be oneshot?  Is this a world filled with glass cannons?  Unclear

 Also, character sheet bloat is a problem.  Alice ends up with a huge character sheet as the story progresses.  Many of the abilities barely ever get used.  Why even award them if they are only going to be there for one page?  The result tends to be bogging down the story with barely relevant stuff at times.  

The biggest problem I would say is the old "Show, don't tell" saying.  Alice spends way too much time in her own headspace.  I get that she is a scientist and testing hypothesis, thinking of experiments is important. But the delivery is not very enjoyable.  Suggestion: stop, (or at least cut back) with whole paragraphs of just Alice thinking to herself.  If she would just voice her ideas to her friends it would be better IMO.  Reading dialogue is easier than mental musing and can get the same message across.  

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This story maybe little too slow for people who like fast pace story but after around 20 chaps the story become more and more fun it just feel like we are experimenting and discovering the system with the protaganist.

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This is the first litrpg I've read where I felt the litrpg aspect was integral to the story, rather than being some way of making writing progression easier. I've long wondered about whether I dislike litrpg as a genre-tag, but this story proved that notion false. There are a lot of good litrpgs out there that are good, without really owing much of their quality to their litrpg aspects, instead to their character dynamics. This story, however, has the concept as a core. Quite frankly, if you like litrpg progression, this story will probably be up your alley. The thing you might find off-putting is the fairly consistent perspective switches. Some of them have intrigue, but there are a lot where I wasn't particularly invested in the random new characters being introduced by the switch.

Overall, for people who enjoy stories about mana, this is a gem.

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I feel like this story is a sort of critique of the iseaki genre, or at least certain aspects of iseaki. Iseaki has a tendency to imply that the protagonist's old world is superior to the fantasy one. Sure the protagonist's old life tends to be bland or terrible, but when they're sent to the alternate world their knowledge from their old world tends to set them above the residents of the fantasy one. They can decimate large armies and swarms of monsters with their recreated guns or abuse their knowledge of physics with magic. They recreate conveniences of our modern world in a very technologically struggling world and get praised for it. 

This story takes this idea of bringing over knowledge of our world to dominate on its head. It says that thinking your high-school physics puts you above everyone else in this alternate world is the peak of arrogance. From what we've seen so far this new world works completely differently. Its alien and weird to us. The people have a completely different perspective. To really sell how out of her depth the protagonist is, the story starts off as a wilderness survival story like hatchet. It's a really unique take on the genre.

This kind of story basically lives and dies on its world building and so far I think its been doing a great job. The world almost entirely revolves around the system and mana. The monsters have been pretty unique, although we've only seen a few and the magic is very interesting and unique. All these things have obscured rules that pique the readers' interest and make one want to continue reading to learn more.

Overall I'd highly recommend at least giving this story a try, however I have a few warnings. The story spends a lot of its time in the protagonist's head. Personally I really like this (in this story at least) because the whole point of the story is to try and understand the world, but others may find it boring or feel not a lot is happening each chapter. Also the protagonist's actions can sometimes feel frustrating this is a bit of a spoiler but an example is...

Otherwise very good story

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EPIC

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Rating - Overall a great readThe pacing of Alice is nice and comfortable. Something I do like about it. She is completely logical and uses fair reasoning when making her decisions.  Which is part of the charm of the novel. Also the story feels very concrete and sturdy. All of the characters feel logical and self aware of Alice as well. 

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I mean, where do I even start with this series? I read through this author's other series, Markets and Multiverses, and I thought that was good. But this one, Budding Scientist, it's on a whole other level of amazing!

It's a rationalist litRPG. By rationalist, that means that every part of it is explained in detail. The existence of "the system" is justified, quite thoroughly and believably, as a an answer to a harmful and life-threatening substance in the air known as "mana, " turning it from a deadly poison to a boon that helps people get stronger. And we spend this entire series watching as our protagonist learns things about the system that is quite distressingly on the verge of breaking down.

And even that convenient timing is rationally explained, because the gradual breakdown of the system is actually what weakened the dimensional barrier enough to pull her to this other world.

The threats that our cast has to deal with are colossal to such an extent that the author really does not have to fall back on the tired old tropes of needlessly hostile ass-hole government forces or nobles. And so, they don't. The incredible threat posed by monsters of the wilderness, other nations, and the increasing deadliness of mana as the system that once protected humanity is breaking down in stages are plenty to deal with and drive the story, making the situation seem hopeless enough, that we can completely do away with the typical shallow interactions that we see in some other series. Our protagonist is actually smart, and does smart things. The people around our protagonist are also smart and rational, and extremely capable. Everyone acts in the best interest of both themselves and also those around them, because the thing that allows you to live and do well is when the others around you are also surviving and doing well, especially when faced off against such massive threats.

This whole thing is just a massive breath of fresh air in a world that is burdened down by other series full of shallow tropes. I would recommend everyone give this a read. The 1st book is taken down for an Amazon deal, but this is one series I would absolutely 100% recommend you do buy the 1st book so you can read through this fantastic series.

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This work is delightful. The prose is solid, the characters are compelling, the pacing kept me up late at night, and the focus of the story helped me get a more complete picture of what I like in a litRPG. Specifically, I really appreciate it when an author goes through the trouble to really think about the implications of something like a System (the focus this work places on the preconditions necessary for something like that to arise is a bonus). Like, when a level 50 fisherman can catch enough fish to feed a village, what implications does that have for the economic conditions of the world at large?  Especially where the story is at as I write this review,  this work has a heavy focus on that kind of question, and I truly love to see it.

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