Paths of Power: Initialization Book 1

A mid 30s Truck driver must make hard choices on his quest to get home to his family while the world as we know it comes to an end. 700 miles, no truck and just his loyal dog to accompany him, can he survive in this new world? A world where The System spawns monsters and mutates plants and animals to absorb and refine essence? Let us find out.


My Opinion: 379 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited

This is an RPG apocalypse story that allows the people that are caught in it to use one of three paths to power: divine, cultivation, or mana. Because it combines three types of progression it also ends up info dumping a bit to describe all of them. Which is probably the biggest draw back of the first 25% or so of the story. There’s a lot of info dumping compared to the action. Thankfully this changes once the main character (MC) meets up with other apocalypse survivors and he deals with all the bad people that produces.

On the game mechanic side of things it's ok. There are lots of notifications, skill descriptions, item descriptions, character sheets, and even a town building after the beginning of the story. The MC chooses cultivation and the story spends a significant amount of time with the MC clearing meridians, strengthening his bones, blood, skin, muscles, and all the normal cultivation stuff. When he does this, he increases his cultivation level and unlocks various bonuses and increases his ki pool.

Overall, a good read once it got past the slow beginning. It doesn’t do anything new and the cultivation aspect was overly explained sometimes, but once the MC meets some other people there’s more action and tension with other survivors, and the apocalypse aspect becomes more prominent which compliments the general monster fighting. 

Score: 7.5 out of 10

Paths of Power: Initialization Book 1

https://amzn.to/3rjfnYs