Hidden Beacons is a story that mixes the usual trappings of the martial arts novel with some Magical Girl mechanics, then some light LitRPG mechanics sprinkled on the top here and there. It can’t be really called the Wuxia novel, it misses the traditional Wuxia setting and its tropes by a very large margin. But it is nevertheless quite an interesting novel, with a certain level of uniqueness in it.

Style - When it comes to style, the story is definitely a well-written story, with the visible effort put into its creation. Similarly to its counterparts here on RR, it is sometimes a little shy when it comes to descriptions, but compensates for it through a copious amount of custom artwork the author commissioned for his work. This category, at the very least, deserves a 5-star rating

Grammar - All stories I review shall receive a 5-stars rating by default. 

Story - An orphaned girl from the village raided and destroyed by pirates finds the magical talisman, with a fluffy mascot attached to it, and is granted supernatural power of kung-fu with Magical Girl transformation on the top. We follow her journey and attempt to do the right thing, for sake of justice. The story certainly has its moments at which I wonder if it really should follow this or that direction, which prevents me from rating it full 5 stars, but it is without a doubt a very enjoyable story 

Characters - Characters are, well... cast of the Magical Girl manga. The righteous main protagonist, a slightly more pragmatic sidekick and friend, and of course a not quite dark magical girl counterpart with her own special arc. There isn’t a large amount of character development involved, but all characters are well-fleshed out and do fit the style of the story perfectly. 5-stars here. 

Overall, Hidden Beacons is a story that deserves some attention. It is not perfect, but it managed to hold my attention for its entire duration and author's dedication is admirable. 5-star story here.

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Aaah, I absolutely love magical girls and transformation stories. And this combines it with litrpg, and a more mature cast of characters (At least compared to middle-schooler magical girls) that really just makes this such a nice read.

Style: The style is great! It is very descriptive and has good word choice. The flow of the story and paragraphs are great, and the way the characters interact in this world is actually really nice to see, especially the interactions between the confused MC and Yalch at the beginning of the story created a nice dynamic that passed well onto the latter parts of the book. Overall, it's a 5/5, my only nitpick would be I guess it's a bit drab and colorless for a magical girl book, but that's just a me thing I think.

Grammar: I'm not an English teacher and English is my second language so 5/5 cause I'm not qualified. Characters: Just the existence of Yalch makes the character portion of this story shoot up to a 10/5. But in all seriousness, the characters are nicely written and the way they interact is really good too. Can't say much more than that or I'll spoil.

Story: It doesn't follow standard magical girl formula, it kind of more or less just takes the concept of magical girls and puts it into an all-original story. This is not a bad thing, the author does it very well actually. It's a refreshing take on more mature magical girls and how they would see their powers and their abilities. It's a bit drab and colorless with the whole plot starting on a rainy day in a ship, so very unlike most magical girls plots where it's super bright and colorful at first before the madness of the situation sets in. 5/5, great story writing!

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This is frustrating to read.

The big problem with this novel is that the main characters seems to create their own enemies. Not all of them mind you but enough that it feels forced. The main culprit ? Lack of commitment to do what is necessary (kill) and impulsiveness (not thinking), also not realizing their situation (secrecy/naivety).

It feels very weird. Even more so when I think the author said that he wanted to have a more realistic take on the magical girl genre.

The MC is supposed to not shy away from murder when she believe that the other side deserve it (her own words) yet she spare criminals who WILL become a big problem in the future to her and those she cares about.

It just feels very forced to me.

Also magical girl in this novel  are very weak. They are weaker than a trained warrior. They can only win by luck/plot armor or using magical spell. Either that or the MC is very weak.

On a possitive note the illustrations are very good. And frankly it's not horrid hence the 4/5. It's just that to me those are big problems that ruined a good story.

Don't have your character make bad/stupid decision for the sake of the story. Making mistakes is fine but those are not mistakes it's stupidity.

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