After trying several wuxia and xianxia novels this is the first one I could actually finish. Surprisingly enough that doesn't mean it was good, just that it had less of the enervating aspects that abound in this genre, mainly, the author doesn't kiss his own ass every 2 sentences with how unparalleled or incredible the MC is.
Unfortunately it's ridiculously verbose and could have easily been written in 1/3 of the pages. The repetition of words and terms is so prominent that I'm pretty sure 1 of every 50 words in the book is "extremely". The author is very incoherent, he forgets things, invents things, leave things unexplained or simply change them and hope no one notices, needless to say, as every other such book I read so far the distances are a mess, this things happen because he makes it up as it goes instead of having a clear picture of story and map from the get go (at least it strongly gives that impression). Also, in the effort of being mysterious in his writing, the author doesn't explain many of the things that happen or gives some unconnected phrase which the other character in the book understands but I as a reader certainly don't, and he takes advantage of this "mysticism" to avoid explaining many things, if the author says "in some mystic way" just asume it's magic because he won't justify himself.
I could write for hours about how bad the writing is but is could be summed up in one thing, lack of edition. Let alone publishing, as long as web-novels don't go through an edition process I doubt this problems will disappear, I might finish other I started but 20.000 pages (or much more) of content that could be delivered in 5.000 is just too much waste of time and ruins any good story, and don't forget those repetitions.
As for the good parts, the MC while boring is a rounded char which acts coherently for the most part (except the Garden of Zhou), it's also entertaining to see how his awkwardness causes misunderstandings everywhere when he first enters society. Tang Thirty six and some other secondary chars are fun to read, pity he isn't the MC. While the overarching plot is nothing special or profound, the level of some contents, dialogues and thoughts are more profound than in most similar novels. The author is moderate in his adulation of the characters while getting through how outstanding they are. Leaving aside what felt like a rushed ending the pace and progression of the story while slow was good. Well, except for the "Garden of Zhou" there were no exceedingly annoying and ridiculous arcs, I think the authors brain became poop in that arc and by the end of it he was so deep in his own BS that the only way to get out of it was just more BS, if it weren't so important for later plot developments I would recommend just to skip all regarding to the "Garden of Zhou", unfortunately it's not possible, just hang in there.
Last, a recommendation for the translators which applies to all the web-novel translations I've read. You guys did a great job, specially at the beginning when using many different phrases and words, alas after 200 chapters it might be hard not to get tired. There are also lots of notes to help understand and references to Chinese literature which are great. In any case, just a few remarks that could help: extremely is used too much and 50% of the time the word "extremely" was used, just using "very" would fit better, of the remaining 50%, in 40% using no adjective at all was a better choice (like "extremely empty", huh?), editing this alone is a huge improvement. On the same logic: Uncomparable / unparalleled could be mixed or replaced by outstanding / remarkable. Indifference can be alternated with detached / indignated / stoicism / disregard, same for indifferently with stoically / apathy / with disregard. And even unimaginable / unfathomable replaced with deep (all cultivation levels are ranked, saying its unfathomable when it hasn't even reached divine rank is kind of ridiculous, saying it about divine or concealed divinity does make sense), there are many others.
In short, less repetition and if everything is extreme or incomparable or whatever the comparison looses its meaning, I don't know if this exultion is a quality of Chinese language but it does not go well with English. As for indifference, I don't know how it's used in Chinese but it's overused in english and many times in contradictory ways. Also, a 15 year old no mater how much he read can't be a better read person than a 1000 year erudite, so using compromised terms like "the most" in such cases doesn't seem a good choice (ej.: "remarkably well read" instead), this applies to many things in the book.
So, is it worth it? While it's the most decent one I've read so far I would say no, but that's my opinion on webnovels in general, they are just pointlessly long, takes months to read them and they don't have that much content.
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