Turns Out To Be a Genius Duelist

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I never thought I had meaning to my life, but I guess I have a talent too.

「Get ready. The duel will begin soon.」

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알고보니 일대일 천재
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11 Reviews sorted by


ChibiSensei
ChibiSensei rated it
August 5, 2021
Status: c62
TLDR; Meh, as a power level up, OP MC story. Decent as a time killer, but definitely turn off your brain, or you might get mental damage.

To preface the review, There are currently 70 chapters up on Active Translation and I've read 62 of them.

Rating as a story:

... more>> Overall: 5.04

Characters: 5

Plot: 5.6

World Building: 3

Intrigue: 7

Writing Style & other stuff (includes stuff like pacing, description lengths, the way information is introduced, consistency of rules, etc.) : 4.6

Alright, let's start with the good of the novel. It has relatively interesting ideas and concepts that are enticing and definitely alluring at first glance. It mixes elements and ideas of many other novels, it isn't reinventing the wheel in any way shape or form. This part is probably the highlight of this, as this will make many read at least a few chapters to see what the whole thing is about.

But this is precisely where anything else good stops.

The characters are about as boring and bland as the typical power up fantasy. Characters exist for one of three reasons:

    1. They are there to show how cool, bad**s, and how big the testa*les on the MC is, as he achieves power and results never before seen in the history of ever. Essentially, blank pieces of paper with some words, as they praise and look on in and awe and fear at the all powerful protagonist.
    1. They are there to teach and provide the MC with everything he may need. Yeah not much to say here, most people have seen this before, it's the same in whatever you read, this one just does it very painfully average.
    1. Or if the character is very unlucky, they'll be an antagonist of some way shape or form. The antagonists are so shallow and badly done, that they have provided many near aneurysm experiences. They are painfully sh*t at whatever they do, they are crushed with either no effort or just tons of plot armor, and their motivations are as deep as a puddle in the desert. They're usually just "haha I'm mr. bad because I do bad things, and I like bad things, so haha, let's do bad!".
For most stories with "smart MC's", any and all engagements with the MC I would say this "if everyone is s*upid/borderline paralyzed, even an average man is seen as a genius". But in the case of this story I would instead have to say "If one could learn by simply looking and then grow it to the next universe, even a genius is seen as average". So in a place full of people that could be considered gifted, and then someone who is considered a genius amongst them... you could assume how ridiculous and bullsh*t it gets. I understand from the title that he is literally supposed to be a genius, but could he have some sort of hardship? This is literally the definition of easy mode.

Spoiler

The fact that the guy that gave him trauma gets dealt with SO early on (maybe he comes back? As of now, he's essentially been relegated) gives me constipation. People like that are normally supposed to take longer and are supposed to be a longtime obstacle for the main character to get over.

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The main character is bland and boring. Plain and simple, like white bread from the store, nothing special, nothing you haven't seen before, but you eat it anyway because it's not terrible. Not the worst one I've seen by far however, because unlike many other people in the same genre (that belong to the japanese light novel part) he at the very least is merciless and willing to kill and do some pretty f*cked up stuff. Which is actually a really good thing, except the times when it goes over the top with edge, like damn, it's like a pizza cutter, all edge and no point.

Around chapter 40ish a serious a shift in personality happens, and yeah it's just very edgy. Like edgy with with a capital edge. Like typical revenge dark edgelord BS you'd see on fanfic where the MC goes dark and releases the demons from their boner.

World building is... pretty, not good. Honestly, there's so many interesting aspects and ideas that could be explored but so far it is unbelievably shallow. To be able to give examples I'd have to go into some spoilers so here:

Spoiler

There are 4 professions in total, 3 other than duelist. But they have hardly been explained or understood. And on top of that, they are horribly imbalanced. Unironically, the duel is far superior to the other professions by a long mile, and it isn't even close. You would think that the author might give each of them something special within their job so that they can all be very powerful in some way shape or form, but no, only dueler gets to be powerful. As for these jobs... well, we don't really know what happens there, it would be interesting if maybe in a hub area, the MC would talk to some people of the other varietals and they would talk about how their stages were. Or maybe after a certain point, people will have to form parties amongst one another, except only one person from each profession is allowed, so each party is forced to have 1 of each kind of profession.

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Spoiler

Another one is that admins apparently leave traces of themselves in certain floors???? The information was literally not hinted at whatsoever, and you are essentially expected to just accept it at face value. Besides HOW THE F*CK WOULD THAT EVEN WORK? It isn't explained how these traces of the past somehow take physical manifestation and are used as contestants. The way time works in the tower is awkward and isn't explain whatsoever, so assuming that it works like how IRL time works (don't give me bullsh*t and say that it's not normal, because I understand that time works differently in there compared to the other dimensions, like how he can return to earth for a whole day and not a second on the duel timer passes.) unless some weird mana BS is explained, the idea of admins being in the stages as well doesn't make sense.

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Also, f*ck putting this in a spoiler because this part just doesn't make any sense whatsoever, maybe I missed the explanation for this, but someone tell me, how can he take a temporary leave from the tower and go to earth for a day where time on earth is normal, and not miss a second on the tower, but when in the tower, time on earth passes normally? I probably missed the explanation for this, but this seriously gives me brain pains.

As far as the writing itself goes... it's like a typical korean web novel with tons of descriptions. There are certainly issues here and there but they're not novel altering. However, there is one thing I can't stand, and that is how many damn description words are used in a single fight. It literally takes like half of a chapter just for the main character to trade like 5 hits.

I understand that people like putting lots of details into fight scenes, but the thing is that it slows the whole thing down soooo much. A fight is supposed to be fast paced and quick, which would mean that you'd try to match that by increasing the pacing that sentences are read, usually using short and terse sentences with only the odd long description here and there, maybe to describe their special move or the horrid wound that one had suffered. When every damn hit takes a year to write out, it makes me want to just skim the fight and not bother reading everything that had been put down. (Which I hate doing because I respect the authors and the fact that they had to type/write every single word on the page, causes me to try my best to read every single word on the chapter.)

With the plot... it's just meh.

It has an interesting premise, but that's about it. It's just very average. I don't want to go into any details about it. The only thing to take away from this portion of the review is that the plot is very mediocre. At it's best, it's decent, at it's worst, it's tr*shy fanfiction. <<less
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kjpo34
kjpo34 rated it
January 6, 2022
Status: Completed
I read the entire novel, and I think it's a really fun and engaging novel. You can't give a low score to a novel because the MC is OP! Every shounen story has a OP protagonist! Why the heck would we read about a guy who always loses? Especially when losing means certain death?? The low reviews don't even make sense. This protagonist got to where he is through his own skills - he went to the HARDEST difficulty, trained like a psycho constantly, trained at least 5x more than... more>> anyone else, and you say he doesn't deserve to be much stronger than plebs who chose the easy trials and missions with other players versus competing in death matches? Come on.

I stayed away due to the reviews the first time, then came upon the raws (because this is an earlier work by the author of Surviving as a Barbarian in the Game, which is one of my favorite novels) and ended up reading it without knowing it's this work. Honestly, reviews are always a subjective thing, and having read hundreds of light novels now, I can confidently say that this is one of the best when it comes to engaging plot progression without absurdity. There is a set system in place and the worldview is built carefully. <<less
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Pendragon05
Pendragon05 rated it
June 12, 2020
Status: c262
Spoiler

A weak MC who gained a skill that can steal the power of defeated enemy. Personality was shaped by past experience of being bullied, he became a punisher of evil and killed every evil guy including his friend who bullied him. But became a character who kills people randomly because it has gains as the story progressed. Story with convenient plot where strong character became his mentor, he also is a reincarnation of a strong character in a different planet which mainly contribute to the plot about the tower and her manager. So far, MC became op in the eyes of the weak where he's committing massacre of thousands of people but when he got a stronger opponent who he cannot defeat even with cheat, a miraculous plot armor in the form of an item enabled him to defeat the enemy in 1 hit thus again, gaining the power of that character. Cycle repeats itself, MC killing powerful person gaining their powers, recycling it to further strengthen his power. Seriously, author needs to give more challenge because at this point, MC will continue to kill rankers who is supposed to be more powerful than him by using some plot armor. Plot became boring as the story continues, might dropped the rating to 3 or dropped the whole novel depending on the future chapters.

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Godgrid
Godgrid rated it
January 27, 2022
Status: Completed
The story starts out strong, with the MC discovering he has a talent for fighting along with his OP skill. And until almost the very end, the story was pretty fun, just a slightly above average Korean webnovel. But then the ending came and the ending s**ked ass. A lot of loose ends and just overall, a pretty unsatisfying ending. I would have given the novel a 5 if not for the ending but because of it, I'm forced to give it a 3
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promet
promet rated it
April 23, 2022
Status: c305
A decent novel from Korea. Before I get to actual review, a small warning: the AT who translated this disbanded, leaving 30-40 chapters untranslated (there are 308 translated, to be exact), so it's unknown when it'll be finished. There are, however, plenty of pages which give access to those 308 chaps if you google the novel, but be careful 'cause there's a ton of MTL sites as well. Just check here: if there are no new chapters listed on NU or their number is bigger than listed, you probably found... more>> MTL. Speaking of it, it makes me rather hesitant about rating this novel, but I'll do so on the basis of what I read so far, so remember that my score doesn't include the ending (which is unknown to me).

Anyway, let us get to business. When I read it, I was a bit surprised. Curiously, this is the second novel in a row that I read that makes use of tropes I hate but does so in such a way that I actually enjoy it - the previous one was Stranger's Handbook or however it went, which I reviewed last time. This trope, in this case, is dense protagonist - I think I don't have to explain why it's annoying and vexing. However, this author pulled it off, making it 1) funny, 2) believable and fitting the character's backstory and personality, and 3) very suitable for the novel.

Now, don't get me wrong: I love harems (unless they're written poorly, which is the case of at least 50% of them lol), and while I ended up really impatient because it took way too long for MC to get together with anyone, let alone realize their feelings...

Spoiler

(It actually didn't happen yet at chapter 305... In two most prominent cases, MC either misunderstands Heavenly Demon in various ways that actually make sense at the time, and in another, Elizabeth is pretty much in love with his past life self, and he draws a clear line between his past and current self, so it is actually legit that he doesn't really accept her feelings.)

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... it wasn't really much of an issue, because, at the end of the day, this is a story about PVP (duels) - though it has a deeper plot than that, fortunately - so it makes sense that harem and romance aren't at the fore. I still find it disappointing, but it's acceptable objectively. Anyway, a few words about the protagonist other than that... He's basically someone bullied and suppressed for a long time, and then realized his talent for combat (PVP in this case), and started to change. Be advised, though, that he pretty much develops a worldview in accordance with his new life, i.e. kill and live or not kill and die (since duels only end with death). What is nice is that MC's values evolve throughout the story somewhat (keep this in mind if you don't like his conduct after he does change), though some of the examples he took after weren't exactly positive... Also, in the end, he can still be described as a slightly muscle-headed battle junkie.

The harem is pretty lacking. All female characters are pretty lacking. Well, I like that we get to know them gradually (though that applies mostly to just one or two characters). They are also not worse than most male characters, though, so maybe I should rather say that I would like to see more depth from all characters instead. I won't go into details regarding love interests to avoid spoilers, but let me just say that I was surprised not to see one expected character among them, one appeared out of nowhere, and another was unexpected.

Oh, the author did a good job on comedic characters. They made me laugh a lot. No new concepts, but they were done well. I also like that author didn't go KOREA FTW, and we don't get to read about a ton of super-duper Korean rankers while rest of the world is nerfed. No, we only have

Spoiler

two OP Korean ranks and the rest of the world is nerfed... but still better than the rest of Korea. However, Murim kind of works as Korea replacement, I guess, so yeah...

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As for plot, it's not stellar, but there were quite a few interesting points, and the author is doing an okay job slowly unraveling the mysteries. There were some things I didn't expect to be important, but they were. I only have one major complaint about plot progression, and that is that there were too many duels... It is to be expected from the novel given its title and theme, but the author failed to balance the PVP with other parts of the story at one point.

Spoiler

I think it was somewhere around chapter 100? Plus-minus 50

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Fortunately, it was only once, and the main reason was that those were some of the most boring duels imo.

Anyway, overall it's a good story, but not brilliant. I recommend, and I'm going to come back to read it once the new chapters are out. <<less
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number 999
number 999 rated it
June 6, 2020
Status: c6
Hey. I think this novel is good and worth a shot. From the title "Turns Out To Be a Genius Duelist", naturally, You will get a "duel" or duels. As if chapter 6 now I really like it. 2 fights happened till now and it wasn't bad the main focus was on the training and fighting back adapting to the changes that happened. I will update when I read more.
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NOVEllUPdATEss
NOVEllUPdATEss rated it
October 17, 2021
Status: c53
The story itself is worth a 4/5, but it's the same KN that we've read countless times. LiTerALLy the same. I couldn't find any significant differences between this and major KN fantasy novels with tower climbing or dungeon crawling focus. 3/5, a mediocre novel.
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Valixiant
Valixiant rated it
December 20, 2021
Status: c221
Alright, kinda mixed on this novel. It's a good premise, the way everything works is interesting enough, world building is also fairly good, but there are some problems.

First, and maybe I'm just nitpicking, are the stats. At first, they are somewhat relevant but later on they uselessly pad out fights or make attacks seem more powerful then they really are. The amount of x2 power and x20 attack speed stats they throw around is insane. There isn't really a difference.

Onto the main issues.

The plot. Oh boy, such mixed feelings on... more>> this one. I love the general plot itself, just not how it progresses. The main character is described as a genius but he pretty much gets everything handed to him.
Spoiler

First battle in the tower is against an orc. After a monologue, the main character suddenly recalls when his bully taught him how to make a uppercut, and proceeds to execute it flawlessly, knocking out the orc in one blow. Second battle is against a martial artist (the cultivation kind). This battle was entirely bullshit. The main character is hopelessly outclassed, however he manages to copy the swordsmanship very quickly, becoming a master at it. However, the bullsh*t doesn't end there. His opponent, realizing how fast the main character is learning his skills decides to end the battle as soon as possible. His opponent uses a skill that multiplies his power, attacking the main character. The main character's sword breaks, the tip flies and impales the opponent. Yes, thats right. A experienced martial artist died in the most ridiculous way possible. Third fight is where the plot armor really kicks in. He encounters the most powerful person in the tower, who proceeds to teach him swordsmanship. He somehow wins that fight as well after a week of training. You get the point.

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However, like I said before the plot is incredibly intriguing, and when the author isn't forcing the awkward comedy it's really good.

Lets talk about the characters now. As of chapter 221, he has three harem members. (The main character is too dense to realize this). Now, every single one of them has a tragic past. Despite this, the difference between their collective mental age and physical age is insane. (They have a combined age of about 600 (500 years old, 60 - 90 years old, and 17) years old, and a collective mental age of about 30 (10, 10, 10). Now, the whole case of them being more innocent than a 5 year old really makes me lose in interest in all of them. Especially when the story turns into a group of girls fighting romantically over a guy who will never realize they have feelings for him for another 300 chapters.

Overall, aside from the various problems that constantly irk me throughout, the story is pretty good. I recommend this novel if you have nothing else to read, just turn your brain off. <<less
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Stinx
Stinx rated it
September 16, 2023
Status: c210
I have to say, the phrase "the plot thickens" is very appropriate to this novel as a whole.

At first, I was taken aback by the amateurish writing, but now that I'm writing this, I think it was a problem with the translation.

... more>>
Spoiler

At first I though that this novel was unpretentious. I couldn't see the goal of the MC. He solves the main problem of his weak personality in, like, 30 chapters or less. He solves the problems with his childhood bully earlier, although it comes back to bother him a little later.

I though it was a power-building fantasy of a OP MC like Dimensional Sovereign, but the plot starts to move when he gets a "sugar mommy" as she is rather sus. From then on, the story move and its fascinating. I liked this very much. One of my favorite parts is how the MC is too dense. I know that dense MC's are pretty normal, but the form how he notes the signs is very suble, and you dont know if he is really dense, or if he just pretend to be. Sometimes you even wonder if the "signs" are really signs. The author let everything very subtle and cofunsing, which is great.

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And thats it. I recommend very much to who likes seeing the MC building his strenght step by step, with a heavy plot on backgrond. <<less
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rhianirory
rhianirory rated it
August 5, 2021
Status: c73
thank all the hairy little gods that this not another necromancer story (so far). It's worth a.5 all on its own just for giving me something other than raising corpses to read about.

at first this story is like reading about someone playing the arena battle parts of an RPG without bothering with the story or exploration or quests; fight/train/fight/train/fight/train. Then in the 40s he has a personality shift and starts killing even while justifying that it's not his fault that he's killing them, it's their fault for being bad people.... more>> I don't like all the justification and blame shifting but hopefully it leads to some character development later down the road. At the moment this is a solid 3.5 for me. <<less
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dearyabai
dearyabai
July 27, 2021
Status: c58
It's good so far. MC gets bullied his whole life and has no self-confidence. He gets chosen by the Tower and has to participate in the Duel mode. He's insanely talented at fighting and gets super strong, and
Spoiler

around chapter 45 (?) goes through a personality change and gets kinda edgy and bc he can see whether or not people have sinned and thinks he can just judge them all. Hope he stops being super edgy though.

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