Never underestimate the guy who has so much Mana it should kill him...
Nathaniel's bus ride was supposed to be just another boring commute. But now, he, 23 fellow passengers, and a corgi named Biscuit are stuck in a "Hell difficulty" tutorial, battling monsters and leveling up.
Easy difficulty, anyone can handle. Normal difficulty, you've got to put up a fight to get by. Hard difficulty is where only the tough ones last. And Hell? That's where you have to be a bit out of your mind!
With his terrifying talent for mana manipulation, Nathaniel decides to invest every stat point into mana. Attribute imbalance be damned. It will either kill him before the monsters and his enemies can, or turn him into one of the most powerful beings within the system.
New chapters are released 5 times per week Monday - Friday (CEST).
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Book 1 (Chapters 1-101) is now available on Kindle and Audible
You can grab the first book on Amazon here: https://geni.us/helldifficulty1
I cringed every other sentence. While the grammar and word choice was fine, the text of the story was painful. Lets not even mention that four chapters in and the protagonist's biggest interaction is a nod and then some one sided dialog. Maybe it gets better, but just the four first chapters made it difficult to sustain my suspension of disbelief.
I mean who the f**k pinches themselves until they draw blood? Or, who holds a shard of glass and lets themselves be cut? Of course, not to mentioning that no glass in a vehicle will shard due to being tempered glass.
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Ok story so far, the story is interesting and the grammar is good but not great. The format of the sentences is also a bit weird but it’s still easy to read and understand. My only real gripe with the novel is the MC. He’s barely communicated with the other people at all and most of it is just a single nod. He is described as basically emotionless and yet it doesn’t seem like that when you read his inner monologue. He’s also a hypocrite that calls a lot of people around him assholes and then it turns out he’s just the asshole. The only person he is actually justified in hating is Sophie and even then he just ignores her. He comes across as a psychopathic child most of the time.
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The story is really good, but has 3 major issues that drag it down quite a bit. Usually, I mention that a story can always be fixed, but an AN has said that other than getting an editor to do editor things, the story isn't going to change. So no, it can't be fixed.
So, what are these issues? Well, just going in order of worst to best, the first and biggest issue is that the 2nd arc is frankly atrocious and full of constant writing experimentation that almost outright killed the story for me. There are completely random time skips over interesting plot, blue balling, anti-blue balling, extremely brief flashbacks to some point earlier in the arc, and the plot progression is just overall weird jumping all around. It makes the 2nd arc just a mess you want to get through as fast as possible, but some of it carries over to the 3rd arc, and a completely new issue with the story appears.
That being a bait and switch on the MC's personality. The 1st arc does a really good job at setting up the MC's personality, and really it's quite nice, but then the 3rd arc just takes it and chucks it out the window, while covering it up with a future plot hole thanks to the 5th arc. It's really not that bad in retrospect, but coming off of the 2nd arc it really drags down the story. Oh, and funnily enough, the next issue shows up in the 1st arc, but coincidentally really starts to show itself in the 3rd arc, and only gets worse.
That issue being the other tutorial participants are grouped into 3 categories: cannon fodder, friends, and rival, or alternatively, cannon fodder, weaker, and equal to the MC. The issue is that we're rarely shown how they gained their strength, and are never shown how any of them have gained their levels. There is a story wide explanation for this, but it's never really fully explored what it actually means, at most just repeating the same line over and over again early on, hoping you'll ignore the aggravating writing later on when it comes into full force. It really feels like poor writing to me, because everything is literally there, including a VERY valid reason for the MC to feel pride and think about it more often in depth.
Well, let's move onto some good aspects of the story, I spend too much time on the negatives, not that this will help much. The world building is simply stellar, best I've read in a very very long time. It utilizes its world and the tutorial in an incredibly way, bringing the character's to other locations to explore and learn about, rather than following the tradition of most stories having the MC locked up in a single town for 300 chapters. In a twist of irony, the side characters are done incredibly well, creating a complex and well defined background through their personalities and actions alone. Characters the story wants to make likeable are easily made likeable, without the excessive amounts of sympathy many stories employ in a pathetic attempt.
Overall, if the issues were fixed, I'd want to buy a hard copy of this story. As it stands though, it's kind of depressing that the later arcs, excluding the current so-so arc, are incredibly good.
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Best kind o writing that I have ever seen in 4 years of reading novels, when you start you don't want to stop reading.
I thougt about giving a more deep review, talking about the caracthers and world, but english is not my best language so I wont, but know that everything is top notch and the author is visibli improving as the storys go.
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Fairly accurate portrayal of an introvert but not one that introverts would like. Introverts like a MC that is like them and the author nails this but we also want him to have the things we cant have. And the author has yet to deliver that at this point. Having said that this story in incredibly binge-worthy. The LitRPG elements are more structural than crunchy and are used as a mechanic of plot momentum. If you are looking for a recommendation it is here, this is a very good story that leaves you wanting more. It also appears to be early days (barring timeskips) we seem to have a long way to go. Cheers and kudos to the author, your brain is a good one.
This message is brought to you by the pro Biscuit army. (FOOD! FOOD!)
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The story so far is great! While the concept of the story isn't completely new, the execution is superb. Author does a great job with the pacing of the story numbers don't go up too fast a common problem with the LitRPG genre. The transitions to the next big threat feels natural. The story is heavily character driven which is great as the characters are well written. The perspective changes really shines a light on other characters and their personalities. But by far the MC is the highlight of the story. Nathaniel is really the definition of overpowered done right while ridiculously strong we are shown time and time again that he isn't invincible. I especially love how he is shown to have very colorful personality despite not showing it on the outside whatsoever especially in the later chapters.
The world building however, can use some work but even that is getting better in the later chapters. Overall, I really enjoy this story and if you like Litrpg's you should give it a try. It's definitely one of the better ones out there.
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Honestly, I don't get the 1 star review.I like all of the arcs and I think the MC personality is what got me hooked the most. Apart from biscuit of course! 😁
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Recommended
I think it's time to rate this, the writing is great, the quality of the story is good it's not a repetitive or cliche.
Every character has their own character it doesn't feel like other stories where the characters are just there to serve their purpose of helping MC.
Rating:10/10.
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Dam why did I not read this sooner this is now one of my top10 great novels I have read If anyone see this review I highly recommend reading this novel also if you really hate grammar mistakes you might not like this (also sorry for my wrong grammar mistakes writing this English isn't my first language)
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Whaaa, the novel is amazing, everything is perfect, because Nat don't talk much, he make jokes in his head, and it's funny to seem group 4 dealing with him. Every fight is different, so don't be bothered because there is a lot. Nice work ! Edit at chap 308 : this novel is still absolutely amazing, a masterpiece !! I love that even if the tone is a little light because Nathaniel (the second MC) make jokes with himself, sometimes the reality of hell difficulty knock at the door to remind us that death is a possibility. And petty Nat is fun too👌. Edit : don't listen to RandomReviwer, he is a hater in all of his reviews and the chapter 351 is not even out. B*tch. Edit at chap 336 : the novel is pure masterpiece, there is even a battle royal
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