A top-secret game for training superheroes. Hostile locals and unfortunate kids, fighting each other to get power and save their skins. A man willing to master this new force by drawing the power of his inner demons.
When Nick entered the top-secret project Lost, his consciousness was connected to the combat neural network, awakening the hidden powers of his body and mind. Now, it's up to him to decide whether he'll follow the path of martial arts or focus on achieving something bigger - and whether he'll choose to be a lone wolf or join his new friends.
On an island hidden from the world, players are given access to a system that allows them to learn the ways of the force. They're engaged in mortal combat, but Nick is the only one in possession of a unique artifact with a very strange name - Cultivator.
Will the artifact help him win and get off the island? What secrets does this mysterious place hold?
My Opinion: 315 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure: I received an advanced copy for review. I purchased a copy when it became available.
A lot of the story felt random. This story is supposed to be a battle royale LitRPG with cultivation/wuxia elements. While the dark battle royale elements are definitely there, the RPG elements are less frequently seen and I’m not sure if it really is a wuxia/cultivation story. Though I’ll admit I don’t read that last genre as much as LitRPG.
A good half of the story is setup for why the main character (MC) is being sent to this battle royale island and the seemingly random events that happen to the characters in their first days there. Once the story hits the halfway mark, you get some training, and some PvP action as the people on the island fight over resources. However, until the very very end, you don’t get any kind of explanation about why anyone is there other than they’ve agreed to it so everything feels purposeless.
On the game mechanic side of things, this is LitRPG. There’s character sheets, stats that are increased, classes with particular power sets, and items with special powers. Though I’ll point out that you don’t see those elements very often. One of the big things that I enjoy about LitRPG is understanding the game mechanic rules and mentally creating my own characters or speculating about what abilities or skills I’d take. Frankly there isn’t enough information about this system to do that. Often the game rules would be established and then they would change for no discernible reason other than to create an obstacle for the MC. Other aspects of the game stuff were never explained and didn’t make sense.
The cultivation/wuxia aspects don’t really exist. At least not as I understand the genre and I admit freely it’s not a genre I’ve delved as deeply into. The MC does have a ‘cultivation bracelet’, but it just seems to give him early access to some of the game elements. There’s no meditating or pulling and refining of mana/qi from the world or monsters to advance his mind or body elements. At most there’s a corruption aspect he uses to fuel some special abilities.
Story wise, the most interesting elements of the story, the dark brutal nature of the Island and that characters are killed off, is overshadowed by the kind of randomness to the events of the story. Part of that feeling comes from a lack of explanation early in the novel about what was happening in the world, why it was happening, or what the rules were. This left me feeling confused and eventually uninterested with what happened to the characters. Additionally, I just didn't connect with any of the characters as they were setup to be a bit unlikable, so the threat to their lives and deaths as they trained and fought did not have much impact.
Frankly, for a good part of the story I was either rooting against the MC or just bored.
Score: 5 out of 10
Poor Cultivation (The Slayer of Heaven Book 1): A LitRPG Wuxia Series