Transported to another world novel. MC's soul reincarnates into a body of a cultivator in a wuxia/xianxia setting. Its a different form of reincarnation as his old memories fuse with the new body hence its more of the new body/soul receiving 'enlightenment' in form of memories from the game/earth. Anyways he retains the game skill called 'Item Upgrade' which is one of a kind in this new world. It allows him to upgrade items, i.e. +1, +2, +3 etc, improving the item stats & abilities, furthermore he is the only one able to view the item stats while others can only feel that the item got stronger. A side effect is that the more he utilizes this skill, the faster he cultivates and ranks up through the various cultivator realms. Much like how in games, crafting gives exp and allows the character to level up. Very interesting concept, game ability in a wuxia/xianxia real world.
However, the MC is quite naive and dumb. Granted he has memories from our world but having himself lived in a world where the strong flourish, the weak perish for years he still ends up naive and dumb. Easily swindled by people, he is gullible thus easily believes and trust others, moreover he is the 'soft' kinda guy. Not weeding out the problems from the roots essentially cascaded into more troubles later on. In addition, the fact that his skill is unique and powerful, he understands that he should be trying to stay as low key and stealthy as possible until he has enough strength or backing to protect himself but he always end up doing stupid things like selling off his upgrade weapons or giving them to 'friends' which attract the attention of others as they realize those items are different from ordinary upgrade items or using the upgraded weapon in battle therefore in plain sight of the enemy who then realize the weapon has been mysteriously upgraded and the worst thing is these enemies end up blabbermouth about the upgraded items to stronger enemies, it becomes a vicious cycle. All these got him into more trouble than needed just because of how stupid and dumb he is. If there is one thing i hate most about novels, its gotta be a naive and dumb MC. It is not only restricted to how he manages the upgraded items, his other actions also reflect his naivety. Even some of the sect elders have voiced our their concerns about his naivety. Now i know all this is for plot armor/content but it ends up ridiculously repetitive and feels desperate as a thousand chapters down the road and we're still reading about the same problems with the MC. Its frustrating reading about this kinda MC and apparently he doesn't wise up at all or hardly. It needs more creativity while the challenges and obstacles faced needs to evolve over the chapters.
Another annoying thing about this novel, it has 8 volumes but 2 whole volumes are focused on "rescuing the princess" plot. Basically a whole 1/4 of the novel is about his girlfriend getting kidnapped and him trying to rescue her. The enemy is literally brainless as they keep on kidnapping his girlfriend to lure and kill him even after failing countless times, they really can't think of better ideas. On the other hand, this shows that MC's allies are very incompetent despite having so many top experts as they can't prevent a person from getting kidnapped, and kidnapped multi times at that!!! How dull and stupid can a plot get? Apparently this stupid. I find myself thinking, am i reading a wuxia/xianxia or Disney's Snow White, Little Mermaid, Cinderella? There is very little substance in the storyline. The novel has a good setting and premise but it gets pulled down by such a mediocre plot regurgitated over multiple volumes. Again, this is tied to my first point, lack of creativity and monotonous plot ideas.
Finally theres excessive inventory checking and poor character gear progression. After every major battle, the author spends a solid 3-10 chapters to show what loot he gets from the corpses, their stats before upgrading and stats after upgrading. So we literally have tons of chapters flooding readers with items stats excel spreadsheet. I don't mind the loot sorting but the issue is that it serves no purpose as most of it is just for the sake of showing item stats. MC doesn't use most of the items etc, i.e author shows item stats then its stored in inventory ring to collect dust or given to others. They have no lore/story or side plot of their own. Whats the point of being elaborate about items stats then? Just mention you get an epic weapon and store it or give it to someone else, only need 4-5 sentences not 3-10 chapters. This also leads to poor gear progression for the MC. The same equipment in volume 1 or 2, MC will still be using in vol 7(novel has 8 volumes total). Somehow or another, all high tier loot he gets is inferior to his starter gear. So his starter gear is like a frigging end game Tier 9999 OP stuff. He does change some gear or equip additional items and occasionally used in battle but the main battle loadout doesn't change a thousand chapters down the road. Having heaven defying crafting skills also somehow does not contribute to his gear progression. This also means his fighting style is stagnant throughout the novel. Same main hand spear flame proc, same glove proc, same heavenly treading steps technique, same fist force technique, same twin flame dragon technique etc for countless chapters. The only significant progression we see is his cultivation ranking. Whats the point of item upgrading, item stats, crafting and technique/skills then?
Thats how the situation is 1000 chapters down the road, maybe he'll wise up later on or the author gets more creative with the plot? I dunno, but highly unlikely since theres only 1 volume left to the novel and i have an inkling its gonna be a rushed ending.
(-20)
