This has now become one of my top ranked novels. (Again, try not to judge it in the first 100 chapters). Very engaging storyline, and not just a linear progression of power ups. Incredibly rich world building : as time goes on you get exposed more and more to how vast the story world really is and just how much potential it has for more adventures, without getting the feeling of it just being a variant to the bigger world outside the world thing that IET's novels usually have.

There's quite a bit of character progression, not just in terms of the MC but of the side characters as well. The author explores a lot of the human moments and frailties that the character goes through, and not just his successes.

I believe this novel's formula for success is that the author avoided rushing the MC through power ups, thus avoiding the spiral of having to find ever better loot and general OPness that pervades a lot of novels in this genre.

Very highly recommended

EDIT 2: (at c237)

Bumping up my review to a 5. For whoever's going to read this, try not to judge it too harshly based on the first 100 or so chapters. After you get past the initial cliche stuff (annoying audience included), you get treated to a nice story with epic battles.

The MC isn't OP : while he's on top of the food chain for his level, he's not capable of jumping up the ranks so to speak. Instead, he constantly uses his wits and intelligence, and along the way you get treated to his viewpoint which is kinda unique IMO.

Instead of becoming just a series of power ups, you really get treated to a journey across different worlds.

EDIT: (at c150ish)

Fortunately, the novel is progressing better as time goes along. No more instant power ups, more story exposition and character improvement. It reads and feels like a unique novel, not just one of those cloned stuff. Happily upgrading my rating to a 4.

ORIGINAL:

The basic premise is ok, with passing similarities to Warlock of the Magus World, at least in the academy phase. What kinda ruins it for me is how easy the author makes it for the MC

The way he keeps running into stuff that he'll need / can use isn't realistic either. A more balanced approach would have been a lot better IMO. Also, I don't like it when scenes events feel like they happen just to give the MC loot. I want a better sense of the story. So far there are also a LOT of author's notes in parenthesis (at least compared to other novels) and more often than not they break immersion.

Anyway, if you can accept that (I guess OP MCs aren't really that rare), so far it seems OK as a binge read. Different varieties of magic plus mad scientist like experiments are a welcome change to the usual xianxia body cultivating thing.

Setting: We don't really know much about the world yet, beyond the fact that there's a sorcerer's continent, a continent for regular mortals, and a bunch of other worlds with a multitude of creatures that communicate through the soul. There are different schools of sorcery on the sorcerer's continent, along with some sort of a ruling group that creates and enforces the rules there, but overall the sorcerer's continent seems pretty lawless, seeing as how the MC's batch of students got hijacked by another sorcerer's school (and all the killing that accompanied the hijacking).

Character: The MC start out a bit naive, but he soon turns into ruthless killer, when he's forced to go through a death game, after his batch of students are hijacked by another sorcerer's school.

Romance: The romance starts pretty early, but who know how long it's going to last. Our MC saves the love interest from being killing, then nothing much happens for awhile. Next time they meet, the love interest gets drunk and pushes herself on our MC; they end up sleeping together, and bam they're together all of a suddenly and being lovey-dovey and showing PDA everytime they see each other. It seems a bit rushed, but hey, as a wise man once said: "Listen Morty, I hate to break it to you, but what people call love is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades; leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did it, your parents are gonna do it, break the cycle, Morty, rise above! Focus on science."

Power-up: The rate at which the MC powers up seems to be quite slow. In fact, he's even behind most of the side characters for a little while. The MC is decently talented (but not the best) and is able to increase his body's stats pretty well; however, he seems to be so infatuated with researching into the sense of smell, ever since he read the book 'Canine Olfactory Enhancement and Odor Mapping, ' and the idea that with enough knowledge and the right tools, one can become infinitely strong, that he fails to learn other magic. To be honest, I really don't see how MC is going to get anywhere focusing on researching resolved around the sense of smell. So far, all the MC has done with his research into the sense of smell is create some aphrodisiac perfume (which I'm surprised no one else in the sorcerer continent has created it so far), which seems to be selling pretty well; he ends up using the money from the sales to buy magic equipment, which he uses to increase his power.

a.k.a the not so realistic 'love vial' exploit getting him a ton of magical stones which in turn gets him good magic tools which is the method the author uses to show that the MC has an edge with others but not to the point of being a genius at magic

of course who wouldn't fall for someone of opposite gender who is willing to risk his life for you in a deadly situation involving tentacles and at the age where your hormones just rampage am I right? (at least I would. Btw I have the same name as the MC no bias though heh.)

For example. the daughter of the son telling MC about a lot of things...I never read this, but apparently she explained them to MC, and it gets mentioned a lot of times