An Apocalypse. An epic change in biology. Humanity’s new powers. No instructions. So, everyone created their own!
Born over a century after ‘The Rise,’ Jeff scavenges with his tyrannical mother for survival. Banned from cultivating freely, Jeff wants none of this life; his one objective is to join the immortal rankers as they attempt to climb the Northern Tower. On the day of his escape, a powerful guild attacks Leah’s group, and Jeff is thrown through a unique dungeon portal— a portal that hasn’t been used in nearly a hundred years.
In the pursuit of Jeff’s ultimate goal, he must choose whether to follow the Church, join a guild or try it all on his own. Predators don’t only come from dungeons, and he must dig through mountains of misinformation for one straight answer.
When spells and skills unleash chaos, a special blue screen powers up, and Jeff’s journey to the peak or the grave begins.
My Opinion: 514 pages, $5.49, Available On Kindle Unlimited
*Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
The first 10% of this story is not great as it doesn’t feel anything like LitRPG (that eventually changes) and is a bit confusing and feels rather unnecessary. It sets up an older super powerful female character and a world where humanity has been broken as a tower filled with monsters appeared and only those that fought and cultivated there grew powerful enough to get floating towers of their own. The rest of humanity tries to scrape by scavenging and working in the rubble of a crushed world. There’s some other stuff setup, but it doesn’t get any kind of pay off for most of the book and honestly would have been better to be sprinkled as a flashback from this character instead of front-loaded in one massive info dump.
It’s really not till the 11% mark that the story becomes LitRPG as a different main character (MC), a teen with pointy ears, who falls into a training room hidden in a separate and safe subspace that gives him quests and rewards that help him become stronger. There are a good amount of notifications from then on that it feels more game-like, with an RPG interface, quests, and stats increases. The training (physical and cultivation) and room upgrades are interesting enough to keep you reading.
With the exception of a few cut away scenes with the character from the 1st 10%, the story sticks with this teen character as he finds his first city and learns about just how cruel the world can be as he tries to clear a dungeon for the first time. The story emphasizes the dark cruelty of a post apocalyptic world, there’s dungeon diving, some RPG progression through the training room, some cultivation, and some decent fighting.
Overall, the story is rather good, even if the beginning was a little off putting for me. I really got into the story after the 11% mark, and I’d happily read a second book if it was available.
Score: 7.8 out of 10
Starred Tower: System Misinterpret Book One - A Post Apocalyptic Cultivation LitRPG