I don't know what all the fools are doing in this review section, throwing names and insulting eachother, comparing it to this or that... Let's just write a proper review for what it is instead.
So, this was actually my gateway into chinese novels and thus actually the novel world itself. At the time, I was all about japanese manga and japanese anime, I had never humored the thought of reading novels nor had I humored the thought of enjoying "delicacies" from other countries.
When I first got to this manga, it was just so damn fresh, it blew me away, I loved everything about it and I couldn't get enough. I had never seen anything like it. Thus I, desperate for more after reading the measly two dozen or so manhua chapters that were translated at the time, found my way towards the novel! Wow. After that, I spent day after day reading it until I was done and craving more enjoyment, I started a lengthy crusade, I mean, journey, to pillage all the novels on the internet! Ah, good times. By the way, go for the novel instead! Or rather, try another chinese xuanhuan or xianxia novel, because this shit has an author that is slower than a sedated sloth, we're talking about posting 1 chapter a year or something and then a very, very slow rate when he comes back(at which point the story isn't the same anymore because he obviously changed and forgot things about the story after being absent for so damn long!). Anyway, so, satisfy it to say that I was spellbound.
This doesn't mean that this is actually a super awesome novel. Look at my score. 6/10. That thing includes at least 1 point of nostalgic value and gratitude for introducing me to something so awesome.
No, this is actually a pretty damn generic and super cliché chinese novel. It has nothing that special to offer and it could even be called simple and subpar in many ways. However, what it does offer is a mild way to get used to the idea of chinese novels(or manga). It's pretty easy to swallow for people, there's no outrageous stuff going on here. The mc is just an OP as f*ck sage of 1000+ years acting like a teenager and dominating everything, always showing off how damn good he is. Things that you find in other chinese novels might be much more outrageous and hard to accept for newcomers, such as rape, murdering millions, extreme torture, brutality, horror, tragedy, pussy hunting, killing for petty reasons, revenge and hilarious moments where the obnoxious people you despise finally gets screwed over and killed, crippled or tortured, or why not all at the same time. Stuff like that is quite common. It's far, far more gruesome than japanese stuff, and I love that about it, it's a nice change of pace. Someone annoys you? looks at you the wrong way? Eyes your girl? Has shiny stuff that you feel you would be much more deserving of? Well, they'd better wash their necks because mr. forgive-no-slight is coming to get them, no more forgiving and acting like a doormat. I mean, after reading about that stuff a lot, you start wanting more extreme stuff, no longer the kinda gray-good guy but instead the crazy, insane bastards that does everything for their own profit, that type of mc(one example of many, "reverend insanity" where the mc kills an innocent girl, feeds her to a bear bit by bit in great detail, including bones which he forces the bear to eat, then kills the bear and refines it into a pill to advance in level, where he sacrifices his entire home village to level up, eats brains that tastes like ice cream of a still alive monkeys twitching in horror and pain, burns innocent twins alive in a fire to get a skill, chops a messenger up and sends him home in a box amongst many other things). Would you find that in japanese novels? Nah, not easily at least. By the way, avoid stuff like "reverend insanity" until you're well tempered... It's not meant for newbies that haven't strengthened their stomachs and acceptance ranges.
Well, in this particular manga(and novel), you'd get a guy that is a pretty nice guy compared to most mcs out there. He kinda wants to help those around him as he journeys to become stronger. He does kill, but it's never a big deal(unlike many other chinese mcs that seems to have an experience counter where they level up if they kill enough, wahahaha). He tends to have good reasons to do so as well. There's no torture that I can remember or anything else, overall it's a nice introduction to start with, for the absolute newcomer, I don't doubt it would be a 9/10 or 10/10. If you want another introduction that people usually start with, it's coiling dragon amongst others. I never liked that one since I tried reading it after already going through many novels, but if I had started out with it, I bet I would've loved it.