The Amber Sword

Description

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An RPG gamer who played the realistic VRMMORPG ‘The Amber Sword’ for years, finds himself teleported to a parallel world that resembled the game greatly. He takes on the body of an NPC who was fated to die, and with the feelings of the dying NPC and his own heartrending events in the game, he sets out to change the fate of a kingdom that was doomed to tragedy.

Associated Names
One entry per line
Heroes of Amber
TAS
琥珀之剑
Related Series
N/A
Recommendations
I am the Monarch (12)
Release that Witch (12)
Night Ranger (10)
The Second Coming of Gluttony (8)
My Death Flags Show No Sign of Ending (7)
Sevens (7)
Recommendation Lists
  1. Masterpieces in their own category
  2. The Mt. Tai of Chinese Novels
  3. Win Life with War Strategies
  4. Western Names Part 2
  5. A Web-Novel otaku's MUST READ. (CN version)

Latest Release

Date Group Release
03/28/24 Otaku translation v1c16
03/25/24 Otaku translation v1c15
03/22/24 Otaku translation v1c14
03/20/24 Otaku translation v1c13
03/18/24 Otaku translation v1c12
03/16/24 Otaku translation v1c11
03/13/24 Otaku translation v1c10
03/12/24 Otaku translation v1c9
03/11/24 Otaku translation v1c8
03/08/24 Otaku translation v1c7
03/07/24 Otaku translation v1c6
03/05/24 Otaku translation v1c5
03/04/24 Otaku translation v1c4
03/03/24 Otaku translation v1c3
02/29/24 Otaku translation v1c2
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154 Reviews sorted by


Ojano
Ojano rated it
April 14, 2021
Status: --
Its alright novel, but the poetic styled writing makes my head spinning in confusion... also some arcs are too long like how the MC escape from the count and the tree witch for maybe 100 chaps I mean jeeezzzzzz you can skip this arc and still understand the story which show how unnecessary long this arc is

If you have alot of spare time then its okay to read this ln otherwise I dont reco this ln
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eylos
eylos
January 25, 2021
Status: --
I'm having a hard time to continue after
Spoiler

MC destroys an army by himself, the Power lvl increased too fast, and the demon portal Quest etc is boring

[collapse]

Idk I Will try to continue later, since before that this novel was Very good, but I do not like the direction its taking now
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phosphex
phosphex rated it
January 9, 2021
Status: v4
The problem with a lot of Chinese novels is that they don't stay good for long.

World building is all over the place, author keeps on inventing new things, without explaining how they all fit together.

Most of which you can overlook until the author adopts a magic the gathering system into his rpg world. Wtf?

Latest chapter turns out one of his companions know him from real life?
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Josuto
Josuto rated it
August 24, 2020
Status: c137
Reading this was such a chore

Maybe the others like this novel but it was hard to read for me. Overall plot is good but it was ruined by the pacing. Like watching a movie but you press pause every 5 mins
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AncientElf2020
AncientElf2020 rated it
August 20, 2020
Status: v3c348
I loved the story until chapter 300ish where a holy war happened.

The author kept introducing so many characters without any explanation where they came from and their relationship with the main character then to be killed after. Why introduce characters then kill it afterwards? It just made the story very confusing and impossible to follow.

The author even kept on introducing numerous strong enemies on the holy war which made the main character's efforts for the whole chapter 1-300 a waste.

The story kept on switching from different points of view which... more>> made it more confusing. <<less
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Battalion
Battalion rated it
July 15, 2020
Status: c116
The TLing is excellent. The TLer admits that s/he changes a little bit of the story to make it better -- and quite frankly, it makes a huge difference. Im reviewing at CH 116 and I believe if a different TLer translated it and gave the characters bad bs names and tr*shed the plot with useless word poems, I would've cried and never would have read this. I salute the TLer for using her/his creative writing skills to reframe some plots in a way that it improves the general level... more>> of the writing. I would rate 4.5/5, but this novel doesn't deserve a 4 rating, so I will rate a 5. It is probably one of the best TL'd novels I have read (It has a lot of typos, but the general structure and plot writing is very good), so thats a bonus. Plus, there are very few cliches, and this novel is very unique! <<less
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MisterAbstruse
MisterAbstruse rated it
July 9, 2020
Status: v3c338
The Amber Sword is my absolute favorite light novel. Are there things it does imperfectly? Sure, but no mistakes are so egregious that they would merit less than a 5-star rating. The below review assumes that you have read the "Description" above.

Characters: While Brendel (the MC) is a pretty powerful main character, the pacing for his growth and the difficulties he faces are balanced to prevent him from feeling too OP. In fact, most of the characters develop in more ways than simply "getting stronger"; the characters seem like people... more>> who learn from their experiences and make choices based on their thoughts rather than simply for "advancing the plot". Some characters are simply a delight, and the banter and snide remarks "show" their personalities.

Plot: I won't get into spoilers, but the plot is interesting. Brendel doesn't want certain mistakes to be repeated and we get to join him on his journey. While he has a goal, the story does not always play out in accordance with his expectations. I really enjoy the relationships and personally look forward to further romantic developments. This isn't really a "romance novel", but it does have romantic subplots and it adds to the fantastical realism - rather than detract from it.

Combat & Magic Systems: The combat and magic systems are good, but also a little confusing. It can be difficult to keep track of what combat style is being used by a character, and I have all but given up on remembering all but the most major of the MC's "spells". However, both systems still add interesting and engaging elements to the story.

Enjoyment: 10/10. This series is practically impossible to put down. Now that I have caught up to the TL, I am going to have to go back to my pastime of finding other LN's similar enough to TAS to keep me tided over. <<less
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wait321
wait321 rated it
June 22, 2020
Status: v3c332
The story starts out strong but gets cliche fast. The MC starts gaining more and more items and connections by pure luck right before he needs them rather than his knowledge and planning. Larger sections are filled with pointless tr*sh talk. History and conversations are purposely concealed or vague until you feel lost and can't make sense of anything. For example, the November War is mentioned constantly but, 500 chapters later, I still have no idea what it was about. There's too many gaps and it's impossible to feel like... more>> you're in the story instead of an outsider reading it. <<less
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Xuen
Xuen rated it
April 1, 2020
Status: v2c55
I seldom leave a review when I dislike a particular WN, where most of the time I just drop it and move on. However this novel had me fuming at how casual and sudden the author is to just totally change the direction of the story. I thought it was a MMORPG novel where the MC gets reincarnated with the future knowledge in the back of his mind, doing his best to alter the tragic part of the history, and it was going great. In fact, exceptionally great. Lots of... more>> world building with interesting characters. But all of a sudden the author just dumped info about a profession called "Planeswalker" with cards of fate, mana pool, elemental pool, yada yada. I was like wtf?! And without prior built-up info on all these bullsh*t magic/cards, I couldn't digest anything about them at all. Literally nothing. So I went to see how other people was coping with this s*upid turnaround and I realized that the author was writing a copy of magic the gathering, and they said it was crappy fanfic. It's boring and lame, and if you try to skim through some of the boring chapters, lemme tell you, it's not gonna freakin work. Every chapter is filled with info which somehow relates to the future chapters. In conclusion, don't read this novel, it's a waste of time with so much info that you would be better off studying chemistry and understand the logic behind it rather than trying to comprehend those bullsh*t cards, unless you're a fan of cards and the like. <<less
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Mr.G
Mr.G rated it
March 17, 2020
Status: v3c274
Without a doubt one of my top 5 favorite light novels I have ever read. I am so happy that this started updating again. There have been a few name changes but to me they are rather easy to understand and catch onto.

To start out with the writer does an amazing job at avoiding 90% of the usual tropes and pitfalls of both Japanese and Chinese transmigration novels usually end up falling into.

The characters are unique and each add to the story in their own unique way when they are... more>> involved.

The way the story was set up makes the MC's strength and progress believable.

The story line is neither to fast nor to slow. It slows down at certain points to explore a situation or important point in the story then speeds up slightly when an arc is finished and we need to progress to the next one.

The main character is unique and likable and doesn't fall into the Japanese style of being massively passive and concerned about imposing their will or like many of the overly arrogant and aggressive Chinese MC's.

In summery, If you like transmigration novels, adventure novels, kingdom building, or fighting novels, and you are looking for something unique, you should at least give this one a try. It may not be your favorite, but I very much doubt you will think it's bad. <<less
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Vaati
Vaati rated it
January 21, 2019
Status: v3c210
The Amber Sword (TAS) continues a strange trend for me as far as Chinese novels go where the quality of writing goes up considerably when these stories are given a western based medieval theme. Maybe it's the fact that the writers are free to move away from the usual Xiania tropes or heavy nationalism present in contemporary novels, but TAS manages to have a lot fewer flaws then I typically see from a Chinese story.

Regardless of my musings, this novel is one of those stories where the main protagonist travels... more>> back in time. The twist from that trope is in this case the protagonist is transported to the world of a game he has played a lot in life and has come to a very early point in its history and is possessing the body of a nameless villager fated initially to die. Since he knows of future events, he can exploit his knowledge to fulfill his goal of saving the kingdom that fell in the original timeline.

There are some flaws concerning game mechanics, character moments, but what drew me into this story was the worldbuilding. I like learning about the history of this place, and that makes up for any niggles I might have about some of the other details.

All that said let's talk about the elephant in the room. This version is not a faithful translation. The translator has changed numerous things so if that bugs you look elsewhere. However with that being said I like the changes the translator has made and think they are overall for the better you can clearly tell this is someone who is passionate about the source material and is treating it with care. Sometimes the translator will even drop in a music track (which is an optional listen) which has enhanced my enjoyment of a chapter.

Unfortunately, this does come at the cost of translation speed which is dreadfully slow. It's why I could not tell you the intricate details of the earlier chapters as its been years since I have read them. It's a one-person operation, so that much is understandable though be aware even with him promising an improved release rate at the cost of much less intensive editing this novel is still about five years from being translated.

In conclusion, TAS is one of the better Chinese novels out there and is a worthwhile read be aware if you want a decent queue of chapters after catching up you might have to put this on the backburner for a year like I have had to do. <<less
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anon25
anon25 rated it
November 9, 2018
Status: v3c178
THE BEST. Only problem I find from my point of view is the lack of romance. But that is also a good thing as many stories are ruined because the romance is terrible. There is after all a lot of chapters left before the end. It is well written with an interesting plot and few cliches. The best thing is that the MC is not a pe*vert which seems to be the trend in Japanese light novels.
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uictoriam4
uictoriam4 rated it
September 30, 2018
Status: v2c19
This novel's writing quality, translation and characters are all excellent but there is a major flaw in these kinds of stories-When our protagonist already knows everything about the enemy (it's somewhat like time travel) then what meaning is left to the plot and storyline. There are also some unbelievable tidbits of knowledge that our MC knows.

How in the name of nine hells would you know everything about every character in the game. He (our MC) knows how every NPC moves down to the smallest detail and exploits them fully but... more>> it is not humanly possible with the kind of detail in the game. Maybe mario or gokart but not vmmorpg (You can try this with Skyrim on lesser level and try to remember every last detail). This lack of common sense and unbelievable cheats, hints sadly seem to be standard in 'System" type of chinese novels.I think I will just switch to xianxia exculsively after reading many such mid-numbing logics in modern era setting ones.

So, 5-2=3stars

5=great characters and fluent writing

-2=bad logic and foundation of story <<less
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Promethean
Promethean rated it
October 11, 2017
Status: v3c24
It's pretty average.

It's really, your typical rebirth series, and nothing much sets it apart, except for maybe the game system, which is slightly more interesting.

Other than that, the MC is just a bland MC, and the side characters are one-dimensional most of the time.
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sleed
sleed rated it
September 26, 2017
Status: v1c0
Excellent start but later becomes stereotypical really easily.

From chapters 33 onwards the author repeats the same dramatizations (the emphasis on the fights and bouncing ponytails is probably the reason this novel was made. The first times it was cool because you could learn that MC and allies fight agile but as the story progresses and the encounters gets more numerous this details makes the story feels substance-less and like a very long winded and repetitive car chase and shooting scene would be on a movie, this would make the 70%... more>> of the content.

The author spends way too much time on details of events that are just means to get to important events... They shouldn't have such overwhelming bigger space than the plot drama iself while the critical interactions keeps increasing the amount of things left in blanc.

While the translator made a miraculous effort in cutting in essential elements the direction and pacing is so painfully slow and the fights keep being Fundamentally the same tiring repetitive and unnecessary focus.

Probably the translator stopped cutting in the end, probably because his school assignments, for me the transformation was like a brilliant and shining sword into a lump of tar.

Feels like this Novel tries to make a movie in a Novel and the empahsis​ on Mon essential action becomes very fast a dead weight on the story; what made this Novel good was the translator edition.

uninteresting details is what makes me feel like I'm riding on a dead horse and the driver is increasingly wasting our time to admire the pebbles on the long desertic road. <<less
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Harizak
Harizak rated it
September 19, 2017
Status: v3c24
Loved it, every chapter was fascinating. Main character is not over powered nor do things always go his way. Even though he has future knowledge... and plot armor (Main Character) he loses things or is forced into doing things he may now wish to do. Not a spoiler but at one point he orders some of his subordinates to do "something" for quite a long time. Then when everything is set up he orders them to abandon that and do a different task all because of something else coming up.... more>> Like all other books I dislike it when it switches off the main character, and it does it quite often. That being said they are all normally next to him or around him enough to make it relevant. My only issue is sometimes it feels like the points of view might be well into the future, but those characters points of view later are current time line. Which confuses me because if those scenes are current than that would mean those people have crazy information gathering networks. Which begs the question on how they could be so fooled everywhere else. If I think it could be a future scene they normally feel pointless to some degree. Just for you understanding there is one scene where someone explains the exploits of the main character... like a lot of them in which hardly anyone was there. Where all the people in those scenes should have been no where near able to give them the information nor should they want to. So those couple things confuse me but maybe they get cleared up later. Could have just been a recap and used to introduce a new character that was very far away. Beyond those I loved it. I especially like how people get names and can just die like 10 seconds later, good or bad. So you cycle through people, items, and his ideas often always feeling like it is something new. Also there was one scene where I was like "what!!!" as the author is fine killing people most people might not, even very good people to depict how evil someone is. Also hero is not a bit*h even if he cannot take on everything. He might run but it is with style and doing everything he can to life sometimes like a bad ass.

recap/cliffnotes

Main Character is not OP but he is also not a worthless person.

Story has gains and losses which shift around how the main character moves. Leading the story to always feel fresh and new.

Most characters have names and personalities even if they will be short lived.

Only complaint is sometimes other POV's can make the story confusing as you cannot tell if they are past or present. Though they are fewer than I can count on one hand. These instances could have been used for recaps or other things and I could have looked to deeply into it.

As of v3c24 I am rating this 5/5 probably one of my top 10 novels. On the upper part of that as well it is so good. It did not have any scenes that made me go OW MY GOD THAT WAS AMAZING!!! Yet it never let me down. It deserves this rating for being a good 4/5 throughout the entire series so far. Lots of series have their ups and downs but this one just seems to always be way up which may be why I never had an OW MY GOD THAT WAS AMAZING!!! moment as I was already so impressed. <<less
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Scholek
Scholek rated it
May 19, 2017
Status: v1c23
This story just rambles on and on.

The Main Character seems to make very little sense and is inconsistent. A Chinese online gamer sitting in his room instantly transforms to become a fearless hero who laughs in the face of death? Much effort is given to make this main character seem very experienced and intelligent, however, I feel it's just so strained.

Frankly, the author's math is horrible. He just throws out numbers, skills, stats, and levels that make no sense/ are poorly explained. 2 = 1 Kill me. People have lifespans... more>> of 160 years. Nearly half the human race is over lvl 20 (which gives them enough power to swat boulders the size of a car 30 meters into the air and at the same time the MC is only lvl 2? Yet, the level 2 MC can defeat the lvl 20 monster with 3 hits?) The author said that the MC has godly equipment at lvl 2 that was better than a lvl 130 player's equipment. By chapter 20-25 the MC is able to lift over 250 pounds with one arm like it's easy for a lvl 2 NPC and at the same time keeps complaining how weak he is. WTF. Is he going to defeat God at level 3 and then get killed by Spiderman at level 4? <<less
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tallrice
tallrice rated it
February 16, 2017
Status: v4c76
This is a really great novel, I highly recommend it!

Warning: Action scenes can drag

My main issue with the series is that a lot of the action scenes drag way too much and they often stop making sense at some point.

... more>> The author writes in arcs, usually centred around some big battle or prize

Warning 2: Deus ex machina random OP power ups

Another reason for facepalm moments in this series is the random power ups the MC gets. They are often totally unnecessary, and curve balls that have little to do with anything that was mentioned before. For example:
Spoiler

a) M*gic the gathering: One of his abilities is from the card game system of OP magic that nobody else has any clue exists and yet where cards appear all over the place in people's pocket's and out of thin air. I think it's a great concept... for a novel that actually focuses on that. As a system of magic, it just has no relation to the setting, other characters or the mythology (yeah, he tries to create deep hidden conspiracy theory type explanations, but it's pretty lame).

My biggest issue of all is that he could have done everything the cards do without the card system.

b) Ring of the ancients: so yeah, it's great you got an heirloom from your grandfather, it's great it gives you a magic spell, some stats and I'm even fine with it having a backstory and ancient spirits with sword skillz. Why did the author have to make it materialise an ancient spirit that wasn't even supposed to be in the item...? If you're going to make an OP item for your MC, don't make it more OP than it would normally be just to make your readers facepalm please.

c) Lionheart sword evolves into Gigasword: Again, he puts a neat backstory to an item, makes a nice scene where he gets the approval of some ancient king who wielded it... then a few chapters later decides it wasn't good enough, so he says it's only 1/4 of the sword that was actually an even better sword that belonged to an even more ancient king. Now he'll be 10 times more powerful!

Why?

[collapse]

Warning 3: Harem

So, to be honest, it's not so bad, as far as harems go. There are actual cool male characters in the series in all the arcs and most of the girls are quite well developed and aren't all kya kya, but smart heroic characters. It's still a harem series with a lot of the usual issues of harem series:
a) girl characters appear randomly even though it doesn't really fit the plot,
b) lots of 3rd person pov chapters of how a girl comes to terms with how she's in love (I mean, it's not as if they're terribly written compared to some other harem series, but it is a bit repetitive and boring)
c) a lot of the usual social tensions and frictions that make a gritty fantasy so good don't happen because everyone loves our MC or is an outsider to his inner circle.

This last one means you basically have your typical villains or groupies, not much in between.

Warning 4: Reincarnation/game system issues

There's a lot that doesn't make sense in the main premise of the story. The author sets up a couple premises such as "this was a game world", "this is not a game world after reincarnation", "

Tactics

One thing I really like is the tactical and use of skill (... sometimes...) to win the action sequences. Despite a lot of s*upid OP moments, there's actually quite a bit of good description of how the MC overcomes odds stacked against him through tactics, positioning, command decisions, etc.

Worldbuilding

The world and its lore is quite good once you get into it. It can be a bit boring early on when the author just gives you blocks of text with names and names in them that he doesn't elaborate (he likes doing that...), but he does eventually get to explaining places and different kingdoms and races, their magics, etc. There's quite a bit of depth and originality in the Amber Sword, and the author manages to weave a lot of it into his story quite effectively.

MC's character building

Brendal's character building within Sufei is quite interesting, if not very common. I particularly the grandfather who appears every so often.

One thing the author does very well is describe the mystery around Brendal in other characters' POV. I love how the author uses particular regions and lore to support who characters thing Brendal might be, giving quite a complex and interesting mosaic of different perspectives. Brendal himself is quite mysterious and often makes excuses such as "oh, I know about that because I learned from the mages in the black tower" or some such.

Spoiler

Some of these images include his disguises: a highland knight and then later on as a Viscount from the South of Ailuin, his NPC identity as related to his grandfather, some of the other misunderstandings are even more interesting: as a dragon when the dragon loli helps him out with Makalov, him being a sun knight when he uses charge or the misunderstandings as him being the Dragon of Darkness by the witch and later undeads.

[collapse]

Freya

I'm hoping Freya will be developed even further. At this point in the story, she branched off from our MC for a while and has a few nice side stories. She's pretty interesting as a character and where she might go, as well as the Princess. At this point though, they don't have too much screen time, unfortunately.

Anyway, I very much recommend. There are some parts where it's a chore to read, but try to skim over and get to the next good part! <<less
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Maleandar
Maleandar rated it
April 3, 2016
Status: --
Enjoyable read. First disregard the game system, it is total gibberish lol. Now with that out of the way enjoy the story. MC is basically reliving his online game in real life now. The entire history from the beginning. However there is a catch, he has taken over the body of an NPC, thus he can not gain the skills of a hero as an online player did. Also the memories of his past life and the NPC have merged. Ton of action from the get go and little time... more>> for romance. I hope things slow down a bit so that the romance can develop some. 4/5 thus far -1 for a really really crappy game system lol. Read for entertainment. <<less
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Melfer
Melfer rated it
January 21, 2016
Status: --
This novel is horrible although I've only read 5 chapters so far. First, the dumb author knows nothing on gaming yet is trying to write a novel on gaming. Second, he is ret*rded and makes girls with male names and boys with girls names. 3rd I guess he's Catholic or something cause he keeps having the idiotic sissy MC cry to a mother Marsha which is extremely annoying.
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