I love the story and characters usually I don't read such short stories but while scouring the internet for juicy stories I read this ones synopsis. And before I knew it I was enraptured absolutely in love with this story. It got to the point that unlike usual I didn't check for update dates so if they where old I wouldn't be disappointed. Well here's to saying I'm disappointed because this masterpiece may never see the light of day again.

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Well, this story inspired me to come out of hibernation in order to write a review! As per usual, I'll keep this review updated with my ongoing feelings, but my thoughts so far are simple:

This story is absolutely one that anyone interested in fantasy in general should read. My review is going to be light on specific details because I want people to go into this fresh, and have the story unfold through the talent of the author.

First: the quality of the writing is noteworthy. Not just in comparison to other amateur webnovels, but across the board. It is both characterful and descriptive, flowing beautifully and wonderfully immersive, but also smooth and easy to read. The author really has a talent not only for clearly conveying the story, but doing so with a unique and tasteful sense of tone and humour that adds to the overall feeling of the story.

Secondly: the worldbuilding. Everything feels so alive. Even simple characters that only show up in one or two chapters are given a feeling of real presence - no one-dimension cannon fodder, with just some witty dialogue and interesting description, every simple character passing through has this real sense of having lived beyond the bounds of the story, and we're just meeting them now.

LitRPG is a tricky genre, especially one starting off with the conceit of "dungeon building/dungeon core MC", because it can easily become hokey and cliche. But the execution of these elements are very subtle and natural. There's no sense of "gimmick", it all feels integrated naturally into the world - again, a lot of this comes down to the author's precise control of the tone of the story through the writing. I think there's clearly been a lot of thought put into this "system", and it shows. There's also enough uniqueness to really make me feel interested as a reader in seeing how the mechanics of this world continue to expand. Most importantly, there's no excruciating exposition dumps. We the readers gradually learn about the world and the dungeon system alongside the character, making it feel natural and allowing us to learn naturally. Final point: the story. This I have less to go on, as marked by the chapter titles most of the story so far is largely "prologue" or setting up the board before the game can commence. But there's a good sense of tension and plot direction going on already that definitely hooked me in, and I'm interested to see where it all goes - and more importantly, based on the quality so far, I greatly trust the author to deliver on the set up so far. There's also an interesting mystery to the main character that, while we the readers probably have a good sense of the truth behind it, it actually just raises more questions. I won't say more, I will just say I think that it is an interesting way to handle a classic trope that adds intrigue. So yes. I definitely feel this is a story worth giving a read, and can't help but recommend it enough.

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