Overview - I honestly found the book very inviting yet sensical, to say the least. Easy-going plot for readers who aren't experienced with the playing themes, yet others who have encountered this same narrative will be surprised by the work put into the story and characters.

Writing Quality: I'm a stickler when it comes to spelling, and I'm happy to say this hadn't had any that I picked up. The tenses were pleasing, the grammar was pleasing, and the diction and sentence structure flowed very well. This is my first time reading in the Third-person omniscient POV, and I was surprised at how well it worked. However, most of the praise should be given to the writer, who provided excellent thought dialogues and inner intentions and played a great role as a reliable author. The details of how the characters looked were a bit bland, so I couldn't visualize much, but the settings were given a good amount of explanation, just enough to map it out for myself. My favorite part about action books, the fight scenes, wasn't all too bad but moved in a slow motion manner with actions seemingly stopping in time for dialogues, thoughts, and reactions to catch up (sort of like a Carlo Zen, Saga of Tanya the Evil, style, which isn't bad).

Character Design: The characters seem interesting, each with distinct personalities that can be put together through their actions, words, and inner thoughts. Even though it's explained previously in the first chapter that the characters changed significantly, I could already get similar conflicts between the MC and female supporting character, Ariene, to anime like Zero no Tsukaima or Shakugan no Shana (meaning strong and respectable young girl drawn smitten due to male lead's unorthodox acts, or just Tsunderes). Though this type of dynamic is a bit played out, and readers familiar with the trope can figure out where the most prominent love interest will go, it doesn't take away from the main aspect of the story. Nevertheless, the dialogue flowed smoothly, and knowing how all the characters reacted was like watching the folding scenes of a play or anime, which I loved.

Story Development: As read in the title of the book, the plot follows a regression from the MCs past to what's happening in his now future's present. However, around chapter three, he comes to the realization that because he knows what's going to happen ad openly changes the outcomes of significant events, it will eventually lead to forced results (Back to the Future moment, lol). I haven't read that deep into the story, but it will be interesting to know how he'll previous knowledge will come into play when everything is thrown into uncertainty. But the story seems to follow a 'because, then so' format where things are either aforementioned or explained after the fact, so there shouldn't be any loopholes as long as the author keeps that up.

Conclusion - Great story for those who want an intriguing tale of magic from the perspective of a heroic lead gone back in time in anticipation of changing his uncertain future!

I usually follow up with World Design, but I decided that five chapters were enough for a reasonable review and didn't want to give my perspective on something that needed additional information to collect. You can message me whether you want me to post it on your reviews tab, or it can stay on this page.

Read More

For starters, this isn’t a spoiler-free review, so read at your own discretion. I’ll start off my review with the (obvious) good points of this story:

Characters

• Generally really well done, I find them to be well-rounded enough to have their own unique identities and not just 2d sprites echoing after the main character. The way you wrote out the MC’s inner thoughts and feelings makes him relatable to the reader, and I love how you slowly reveal his backstory bit by bit with the progress of the story (eg. About how he came across the gold coin to enter the academy in the first place) instead of just dumping his entire background. I feel that his motivations are pretty clearly laid out too, which is a plus.
• Solitaria’s personality is a little confusing to me, because she’s the one who wanted to keep talking to the MC but ends up being one of the least talkative characters in the story? I’m not too sure if this is due to some unknown reason that will be revealed later, but the way she acts around MC now is inconsistent to me (unless this is intentional)

World

• The setting of the world is beautifully done, it is fleshed out just enough to allow me to visualise the place without overloading me with too much details. I do wish we get clearer descriptions later on though, because it does leave much to the imagination of the reader how the city and academy look like as of now.

Pacing

• I find the pacing to be just right, all of the action scenes flowed naturally and I didn’t have any problems reading the chapters. Dialogues are also executed well, and there were even some funny moments sprinkled in them that made me chuckle, so good job!

If I had to nitpick, it would be that the synopsis gives too much spoilers away about the story and makes for a confusing read as a result. It could be reworded better to be more clear and concise eg ‘When the entirety of Waylurne fell within the Spirit Domain's influence, Roa fought, and fought, until he, the lowliest, was the last to remain breathing’ instead of one para of words.

All in all, I really do think that this is a severely underrated story on this site. Not many stories here can match the quality and polish that this story has, and I hope the author will keep up the good work for future chapters!

Read More