Alice is a girl who loves science and lives on Earth. Then, suddenly, she was punted into another dimension. A dimension where magic and monsters roam the land, and, for some reason, a System keeps dinging at her and telling her that her stats and levels are increasing. As someone who loves exploring mysteries, Alice is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. After all, everything has to have a ‘cause,’ including the System, right?
(This story is also posted on Royalroad. If you see this story anywhere besides Royalroad, Scribblehub, Amazon, or Patreon it has been stolen).
What to expect: This story is going to be a LitRPG set in a fantasy world. However, unlike many LitRPG’s, the system has both a definite beginning and definite limits to what it is able to accomplish – rather than a singularly omnipotent, omniscient being that is tied to the laws of the world, the way systems are usually presented in LitRPG’s, the system is close to both, but has definite limits and rules which it operates by.
Note: the rest of volume 1 has been taken down, due to the requirements for the KU program. You can buy the e-book for volume 1 of Budding Scientist using the link below.
https://www.amazon.com/Small-Town-Southern-Illvaria-Scientist-ebook/dp/B0CFW34H98
Or an audiobook link here:
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Small-Town-in-Southern-Illvaria-An-Isekai-LitRPG-Audiobook/B0CFRK9ZK7?qid=1692201343&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=JJ1BXHB9NTSPP5FPNYXF&pageLoadId=AsHXZmcAq15OGzRW&creativeId=0d6f6720-f41c-457e-a42b-8c8dceb62f2c
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An interesting novel about research, creativity and diversity of fantasy settings. In terms of combat, I rate it as poor, but in terms of fantasy scenes, it is quite interesting and attractive. Guide, the main research topic is mana and systems, the main character's interpretation and discovery process is unique and I appreciated the main character's perspective as a researcher.
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For as long as the three cons Im gonna mention below is alright with u, I really do recommend reading this litrpg. Truly.
1. All is fine in the world of Budding scientist as long as reader doesn't mind putting themselves in a position where thinking logically is a sin, and instead, goes along for the ride with mc' questionable thought process. But be warned! u need to have got an aquired taste for making choices on the go with zero to no planning.
2. Be prepared to read, no, to swim through an ocean of a truly obscene amount of plot armor (and be a-ok with it), describing why time and time again our protagonist—Mary Sue— reached new level of OP, doing the bare minimum if not outright making the wrong choices:
like skipping zoom/microscope perk, when mc' biggest strength is her eye powers; One would think that prioritizing boosting everything-eyes related should be #1 obvious choice in most cases. But alas... this particular MC is... unique.
3. Try really hard not to spontaneously combust from never ending irritaton as MC tries and fails at prioritization all the damn time. New adventure every day. What, to-do lists? Never heard of them! The world is ending, but Im gonna spend 2 weeks learning etiquette, because Im smart! 150 INT to the win! IQ minus 200, though.
If after all that it's still your cup of tea, congrtatz! 'cause this novel, surprisingly, unravels into an enjoyable gem to read and deserves much more love!
Now, about the bad, one by one:
Plot armor galore throughout the whole novel: (perks where MC choices dont matter, she does not grow as a person, surviving (and learning) through fallouts after making bad desicions/choices-at-level-ups, 'cause author will fix every single poorly taken perk as the story goes into a completely unrecognizable OP ones (this has been explained as simply fem lead having more support from the System than it gives to everyone else, for no good reason other than been an outworlder) with no logic involved as to how or why, in most if not all cases.
Random perks always being merged into OP perks, even when one of the merged perks in question of the pairing was utter trash or was nothing similar to resulting composit perk after merging. Secondly, merging always makes end result 1 tier higher. 1 trash perk t1 + 1 another utter trash unrelated perk t1 = somehow always ends as OP perk tier2 that has nothing to do with one or both previous perks, but is always amazingly good. What fortune.
Fem lead's unique class exists sorely for enabling even more plot armor whenever events progress towards a harder problem, or when a more difficult opponent shows up than MC can possibly defeat on her own. Rather than using 'Earth' knowledge to weasel her way around difficulties or other methods, what say you, instead, MC gets freebies like OP rewards from the completion of the simplest achievements that no one but her accomplished, just because she has a unique class. Those free rewards play significant role towards victory or loss when events unravel.
MC, for whatever baffling reason, starts her adventure with a balooned out of proportion INT stat as a reward for doing nothing but going to school for half a decade, while taking some basic lessons in robotics and... and nothing! there's no 'and'. That's it. Apparently she is a born genius that remains hidden—genius part of her / IQ, that is—even from readers after 150 chapters. Yet, the way she operates on a daily basis draws a different picture. Her real INT may as well be sitting at a rather low 70 ish~ attribute points than whatever tripple digits joke is written in her char sheet for laughs and giggles. Maybe add a hidden curse of mental impairment on top of that. Just to explain some of her stranger than regular actions (like the way she doesnt even try to give a fast but super important Achievement-to-see-system-mana to her fellow immortal / sensei. It costs her literally nothing, no more than 1 hr of sitting in the mana void room, while her sensei repeats a few questions (of her girlfriend) every now and then. The world is literally goes to sh*t in the background, yet MC doesnt share what really matters for survival at large with ppl who isnt a weak small girl in a world full of assassins. Same problem with her inability to see reason in making a request (she never did) to get rare if not ALL enchant-capable materials in the world for her dream-enchant perk. Her sugar-daddy is obviously capable enough to provide all of this snd more, so that MC could have skyrocketed her enchanter class leveling superfast in her dreams while sleeping, researching new tools for her needs, but no. No such thing ever happened. And this is a problem with OP powers. Author, when u write such abilities, at least use them to a point, rather then immidiately shelving them in the background to grow dust.)
By now, I have completely given up expecting MC taking Magic learning perk boosting her Dreamwalker perk that, by the way, has like limitless mana to experiment, enabling just as much more possibilities for her to grow as magic researcher inside a dream in a relatively safe environment with no self-harm at the very least. On another case just her time-magic mana/ability/perk alone could have prolly produce 50% dream-time speed up evolving 8hrs of sleep into pseudo 12 hrs of scienc-y boosted study time.
Why then MC continues to be an irredeemable moron is beyond me. Again: she has access to ALL the enchanting material in the world via her sugar daddy's unfathomable pockets to permamently boost Dreamwalking enchanting ability, yet did she ask him for any herself? No. She did not. Because reasons.
Next. Early in the story and throughout it MC skips every single perk related to food and mana recovery (in a big way, not passive), but the very first one about not eating poison. Which has been utterly useless for most of the novel, but prologue. MC isnt a noble, nor does she travels outside comfy city walls. Yet she is already starting to become an extreme workaholic all day long no chill, no fun, no nothing (read dump idiot whos gonna have a heart attack soon), who doesnt even sleep nowadays when the world is ending and her efficiency is kinda important, you know? Why not, if nothing else, take a few perks to remove food consumption all together = no more food poisoning AND frees up 2 hrs /day by swapping perks to photosintesis and merging it with meditation or something, so she could gain some freetime to unwind, rather than eating commoner's food in a dirty dingy tavern? Instead MC wastes Dreamwalking scienc-y boosted hrs reading novels. Strange decision. Even for 16 yr old. I question her sanity. Working all day with no rest is bad for u. Eating did not translate into rest and having fun last time I checked.
No char development whatsoever. Although not much time has passed in the story up until now for a good amount of char dev. It is simply a much more visible problem when MC doesnt do very well with logic in her daily live, especially when it matters for her to have any mid-term and long-term plans (they are nonexistant, if u were wondering) : not a single time MC had any intention asking friendly/allied immortals for some help in the developing of a pre-planned compound-perk-build out of her group of classes, not even a little min-maxing or stat/class-grows perks were involved at any level-ups unless they happen to give her above 50% boost per perk. Most of the time it's just her taking whatever best fits to answer a current problem, then repeat; Everything else is being magically fixed through a unique class, perks closely related to this very unique class and achievements' rewards most of which are, u guessed it, related to her unique class).
Finally, and this is just my opinion, - lots of problems with this story overall could have been fixed if some changes were to be implemented sooner (in the story) than later:
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I think this is a great go at a system story. I like the 'part' where Alice takes a more scientific approach to things, and like how she at least partially knows her actions can cause lots of attention, not all of which would be good.
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I really enjoy the deep world building that goes behind the scenes as Alice uncovers the mysteries of the system. It is really amazing how well thought out her rationale is, and very human! She is smart and curious, but still often tunnel visions, AND yet she acknowledges it. Kudos
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