Lots of exposition. Paragraphs of text broken up by the occasional static, sloppy drawing. It’s more like reading an illustrated novel than a webcomic.

Also a lot of unnecessary, tedious backstory that never matters to the plot and doesn’t build an interesting world. Like being forced to study for AP Wuxia nonsense exam.

Also, also: dang. Tell us how you really feel about Tibet there guy.

The start was pretty good, both art, story and character wise. But after about 100 or so chapters things started going downhill and rapidly.

From carefully constructed stories, we got to weird generic arcs that are 10-20 chapters long that speed through a generic plot. In the beginning the villains made careful intelligent plans, now it is just random nonsense.

Even the art became significantly worse at some point.

I suspect there might be an inherent incompatibility between web nobles that are 3000 chapters long and written willy-nilly because it isn't very hard for the one author and the readers like long stories, and webtoons that can never afford to be that long so they have to condense everything, which leads to a worse story, which leads to even less resources for the webtoon and a further downgrade in quality and so a death spiral is inevitable.

Some slightly spoiler-y examples:

A better review coming someday(?) in the future.

The MC isn't 'talented' (coming up with new techniques) but he's extremely talented (in copying other's techniques) and this essentially becomes his personal limitation in which he is bound by the past and what happened in the previous timeline and that he eventually overcomes to find his own way.

At chapter 100 the story is pretty bland it's just another OP MC with a massive plot armour. It really pisses me how the author treats and depicts most of the MC's allies as saints that would have a bad ending without the MC's intervention, this is extended to most of the just faction.

I like the verisimilitude the author tried to create in the beginning. Similar to the start of tales of demons and gods with a more humble MC .But it all went down the drain when the author tried to make the MC do everything and humbleness was substituted with pompousness.

Having various MCs moving independently/delegating into people that aren't allies is the obvious choice in this type of setting (the number of "talented" allies the MC has is absurd) .This main flaw in some reincarnation mangas with similar settings is that, one person can't be everywhere (much less in a war).

Lets not forget the MC is supposed to be your average Joe he should fight with technique instead of being a power brute . It's also strange how it took him a whole life to master one art and now he is the best in almost everything but where his allies excel .

... Last updated on June 15th, 2021, 2:44am

The plot and story is just so good. Also the mc has a good personality (and isn’t creepy to women :> ) and all the supporting characters also make it so enjoyable to read this masterpiece! This is one of the best Manhwas I’ve ever read. The art style is also phenomenal and the speed of this comic is just right, it feels like each arc is timed so that it is quick enough that you don’t get bored and slow enough that you completely understand what’s going on.

The mc is also not super overpowered. He’s strong because he works for it and also because he remembers his past life, which makes complete sense (most other comics just have an OP MC without any reasoning). Occasionally, he also fights with people stronger than him (like the elders), which is refreshing since the mc ISN’T like the “IM-THE-BEST-IN -THE-WORLD” type mc.

Overall, this Manhwa is spectacular. Please read it!

... Last updated on August 22nd, 2020, 9:27am

The story is about Ju Seo Cheon, who became an elder of his sect by sheer coincidence and luck, he lived his previous life in regret due to the consequences of the conflicts of his era had brought to his sect, as he lies on his death bed, waiting for the inevitable to happen he is returned to his past and has the chance to wrong the mistakes that happened in the previous timeline and finally bring an end to the conflict that leads to the deterioration of his sect.

It follows a typical "Strong to OP" storyline since the MC being an elder in his previous timeline has all the inner knowledge of his sect and is fairly knowledgable on the situations that happened in the Murim of his time, he uses this knowledge to strengthen himself as much as he can, and bring strong allies close to him that'll aid him in his endeavour, be it physically, brainily or financially.

Most of the opponents that can match him are usually Elders of other sects, but since he's a "youngster" at the present timeline he mostly cub-stomps his opponents without mercy since they're anything but that.

It's a fun, albeit cliche story, but executed very well with good artwork to boot with very clear lining and very easy to follow. Overall It's a very solid work if you're in the mood for such a premise.

... Last updated on October 20th, 2019, 1:43pm

Awesome manhwa.
MC became a elder through luck. With his authority, he can access to all kind of informations in his sect. While dying he was full of regrets of how powerless when he was young. Upon back to the past, with the information he got while he was an elder he became an top notch expert pretty fast, we can see him standing out among his generation. Bit by bit he is starting to make a name for himself. Knowing that a future disaster is closing to the martial world which involves lot of deaths including those from his own sect. He decides to stand up and gathers a number of trusty allies.

I like how powerful is MC and how funny he is. He actually rarely met a match for him (they are old top expert while he is still a kid or youngster), i like how the novel is mostly without troubles for MC because he is enough strong or smart to deal with them. I like also the interaction of MC with others characters and how there don’t have things like betrayal of people close to MC.
Anyway, i think you can understand that i really like the manhwa. Also to the comment below @xplicit666 about the wrong title, i do think they purposely translated it as such. Hwa-san is actually Hua Shan (Flower Mountain) or « Mount Hua », Mount Hua Sect is an popular sect name in the wulin (aka Martial World or Murim in korean), which how often Mount Hua Sect is translated in the manhwa, this is doubtful they mistranslated it. The exact title should actually be « Mount Hua Reincarnation », as indicated in associated name above.

This is a good example of a series that doesn't bring anything new to the table, there is hardly an ounce of innovation and doesn't surprise you in any particular way yet still, it's done right, proving that storytelling and worldbuilding are just as important or more so than trying to write something completely original. Likewise, chars are good or not bad at least, there is a bit of comedy and a decent MC (in personality). Of course it only been 70 chapters and after the 100 chapter mark is where most stories start to crumble it might just be that it's just a good start. By the way, it reminds me a lot of "The Scholar's Reincarnation".
To sum up the main pros and cons so far:

cons:
-story progresses a bit too fast, sometimes it feels like it skips explaining stuff to favour a fast pace.
-hiatus!!!

pros:
-Consistent and coherent for the most part (so far), something rarely seen in this genre. The main char's actions actually make sense.
-No magic power-ups and random super lucky things. Yes, he does get those but from his knowledge and actively looking for them, a completely different proposition.
-Interesting characters, both main and secondary, and MC is neither a goody two shoes nor an amoral piece of sh**.
-Even if the MC is reliving his life he's not an all knowing god who remembers everything he ever reads (aka Tales of Demons and Gods), he needs to go find skill books for example and is liable to forgetting things thus he knows from the start that he being human, his memory and knowledge have a limit, likewise there are lot's of things he can't do so the author instead of making the MC magically learn those things he recruits the helps of those able to do them; it sounds so obvious yet almost no wuxia or xiaxia does that...
-Events change from his past given his intervention and this is taken into consideration by both author and MC for a change.

-Politics are interesting thou feel over simplified.

... Last updated on January 9th, 2019, 4:49am

Hwa-san in this case isn't a volcano, 'hwa' in this case means flower or bloom its blatantly obvious with all that blossom on its cover pages and sleeves of the members uniform. Its definitely something easily mistaken without given context as with alot of other korean words without proper spacing that can translate into all sorts of stuff.

Literally in korean it would be 'flower mountain past life' each word read as a seperate word is also why it was written downwards like hanja on purpose to be read that way.

After you have read one or two of these type of manhwa it feels like you have read them all but Volcanic Age is actually one done right and hats off to the author. In my opinion what the strongest point of this story is the pacing and we?re only 40 some chapters in. Usually most of these stories take ages for the plot to advance cause authors want to spend the first 50 to 60 chapters having the MC cultivate without any true movement in the plot but for chapter 1 of this manhwa you could tell this author had a proper direction and hasn?t deviated from it. The one flaw I would say this has is it doesn?t really have a strong cast of memorable characters outside of the MC but it?s still early so that judgement is probably premature....