On just another average day, Jake finds himself in a forest filled with monsters, dangers, and opportunity...
It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.
Jake, a seemingly average office worker, finds himself thrust into this new world. Into a tutorial filled with dangers and opportunities.
His new reality should breed fear and concern. His fellow coworkers falter at every turn. Jake, however, finds himself thriving.
Perhaps... This is the world Jake was meant to be born in.
My Opinion: 716 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
The story starts out a little rough with a group of people getting transported to an RPG fantasy tutorial for the apocalypse. The main character (MC) is antisocial and hard to like, though easy to sympathize with. He comes off as an almost sociopathic, though more amoral, person that thrives in this tutorial environment because he is good at archery and is willing to kill monsters and even humans to gain levels and skills. Especially as the system rewards him with unique bonuses, bloodlines, and abilities.
The story shifts about 30% in, showing its serial nature, by pushing the then kinda OP MC into a crafting side journey to give the other tutorial players time to grow their own levels. But it’s this serial nature of the story that also develops other interesting characters, faction conflicts, reveals how the RPG progression works in advancing classes, evolving races, and what use professions are. It's good stuff. Especially as the author develops truly sociopathic characters as antagonists for the MC.
The RPG side of things is really good. There’s a clear multilayered system for progression. Combat classes level, so do people’s Human races, and eventually their crafting Professions. Each level adds to a person’s stats, gives them choices for powers/abilities/skills, and there’s enough options that the reader can theorize what they’d do. The crafting in the story is also very well done. There’s good details about the profession the MC chooses and enough challenges that it's not boring and that he doesn’t automatically become super good immediately. The later application of the profession also makes all that hard work feel like a good payoff.
One of the only annoying notes in the story was the ending. It’s a serial story and the last 10% shows it. Nothing too terrible, development of characters that had become prominent in the story but no big resolutions or any conflicts I’d hoped for. It just sort of peters out as a pause more than a solid end.
Overall, the story got really interesting once it started adding more complex antagonists and even though the mid story shifts to crafting it eventually returns to the action focus that keeps the pacing tight.
Score: 7.6 out of 10