Something quite odd is happening in Second World—the planet’s foremost MMORPG. Something that’s causing alliances to be broken, and friendships, forgotten. A worthless low-level mine becomes the stage of vicious battles, its burned ruins suddenly contested by the game’s toughest clans. Every border is controlled, and every road in the province blocked off. The weak players and NPCs alike are subjected to non-stop violent raids courtesy of Eastern invaders. And the strong… The strong are scouring the virtual world for the culprit—the weirdest noob the game has ever seen.
My Opinion: About 347 pages, $2.99, Not available on Kindle Unlimited
A delightful new story from our friends in Russia. If you’ve ever read The Way of the Shaman or The Daily Grind you’ll find familiar elements in this story.
The first 10% of the story sets up why the main character has to stay in the game all the time and that he’s a major noob to VRMMORPGS. I mean, it emphasises his noobishness alot. Practically every other sentence in this section is a declaration of the main character’s noob-hood. Because of his unfamiliarity with these kinds of games, this section also reads like a primer to MMOs and you get a lot of defining of gaming terms and game mechanics. If you’re at all familiar with these terms you can probably skip this section.
Just know that the main character was in a accident and his mind had been sent to live in this game while medical science progresses to the point where it can bring him out of his induced coma and fix him. He has a limited account, kind of like you might have read in the Daily Grind series, that restricts his level but lets him get some work in a mine. What sets him apart from everyone else though is his race, which has several unique abilities that he has no idea how to utilize because he’s such a noob.
You actually get to the first combat scene about 15% into the story and things progress quite nicely after that and get rather interesting. Most of the rest of the story is just the main character learning how to best utilize his unique abilities, raising his stats, gathering resources, doing a bit of crafting, and some mob killing. It’s simple and fun. I found myself reading through the whole thing in just a couple sittings.
While readers of other Russian LitRPG stories may find similarities to The Way of the Shaman and The Daily Grind series in the beginning of this story, this story does eventually become it’s own thing. You may also have to push past or just skip the first 10% of the novel. However, I assure you that the story improves after than section.
Score: 7 out 10.