A mediocre cultivation story.

I ran out of things to read, so I decided to read various things, and this was one of them. I wasn't particularly entertained, and though the fact that only MTL (fortunately rather readable) is available means that I might be a bit unjust due to (lack of) translation, this story was far from impressive anywhere nearly enough for it to be a matter of MTL.

Like I said, it's a mediocre story. Let's start with the premise. It's just as mediocre as it gets (and just as... more>> cliche) : an alchemist of great skill is reborn after dying. Well, almost the whole premise is a ripoff of Alchemy Emperor of something something Dao (except that here the alchemist returns to his teen past self, whereas the other has a guy simply reincarnating/transmigrating). There are many similarities between the two stories (including alchemy, sword cultivation, harem, and so on), but this one is unfortunately inferior on (almost?) all accounts (and is probably a copy of the other novel as well). The only good thing is that the plot diverges into a more generic plotline of leveling up in a sect with random subplots, but this very good point is moot exactly because it's generic and plain (ie. boring).

Since I've already started making a comparison, let me continue.

Alchemy Emperor doesn't have a good plot at first (it does later), but neither does this. I read 485 chapters (many of them skimmed through, and it had no impact on my understanding of the story). The events aren't really interesting. If you read a dozen xianxia stories, then you read this one too level of interesting.

The protagonist is also inferior. He's just a random dude, and his alchemist backstory is almost useless. In those almost 500 chapters, he only used his alchemic identity thrice:

Spoiler

to bail out his family in starter town (cliche), to make friends with a powerful alchemist with bad temper who would have otherwise killed him (also cliche), and to give a pill to someone, and have some elders marvel that he actually knows alchemy (less, but still cliche).

[collapse]

Other than that, there's little impact of his knowledge of alchemy on the story. You'd imagine he would use pills for himself, or if he doesn't want to (because cultivation-gained-through-pills-isn't-real-cultivation), then he could at least sell pills and exchange for materials (he does find materials and use them for crafting swords, for example) or martial skills, but no. Why bother, right?

Haha, speaking of martial skills (which are just as generic as the rest), MTL made a funny translation of some movement skill: "shaking the leg." It's my new favorite MTL thing now.

On a side note, the cultivation realms are rather vague. Only the first two are known for the first several hundred chapters, and third one only was mentioned after chapters 300-400 somewhere... Could be an issue with MTL tho.

Back to the topic of protagonist, not only is he a failure in terms of backstory, but he's also not interesting at all. He has a generic character (unyielding, loyal friend, ruthless to enemies - but the latter will still live long enough to be a bother or scheme against him, tenacious, and that's it), and he has no real aspirations (becoming OP swordsman is as generic as it gets). There's no real maturity or senior mentality in him. His past knowledge only appears as an occasional convenient plot device (eg. to give him martial skills when he needs one, and can't get it elsewhere, but even then that was the case only at the start, and then he suddenly has none). He should have been in a high realm in the previous life, but acts as though those lower cultivation realms are OP half of the time, and acts as if they're nothing special the other half. I don't think there ever was a mention of how high his realm was, and he learns stuff like sword intent and whatnot as if it's completely new to him (he should at least know about the successive stages, but no, he always acts as if it's completely new). This is different from other alchemist-reborn stories, where the alchemist at least makes use of their skills consistently.

He's also a dunce in romance. There's harem (kind of, just love interests for now), but he isn't really proactive. He promised to come get together with one love interest, but he completely forgot about her for like 300-400 chapters (and still has yet to remember). He never even thought of wanting to be with her or planning to meet her. Love interests in general aren't that great, either. We have a random girl who used seduction techniques in negotiation, and later was surprised her target kissed her, we have a random girl who doesn't seem to have feelings but secretly is bashful about MC, we have a random girl who prefers to die rather than get half-naked for life-saving medical treatment, and then wants to kill the guy who saved her (twice, and she barely resisted the urge in the end), we have a random girl who was so random I just skimmed through the encounter (saving the beauty and her companions from bandits basically, so cliche even Japanese novels have it). Meh, man. Not only are love interests plain and mediocre, there also is little interaction between them and MC, who is busy leveling up and doing missions. Alchemy Emperor is rife with harem and love interests, so it might be stifling for some, but it is still better than this both in terms of screen time of the love interests as well as their interactions with MC, and Alchemy Emperor has occasional good scenes.

Other characters are meh as well. They're either good guys and friends, or they're bad guys who either badmouth MC with everyone else as peanut gallery or try to scheme against him or kill him, even if they're in the same sect or something, and of course they're all arrogant young masters who can't suffer even the smallest slight from MC, and want to kill him for it. This is a common failing in Chinese novels, of course, but Alchemy Emperor at least has some enemies whom MC reconciled with. Here? Nada.

So in general, this is just a boring level up story. Moreover, it's generic in all accounts, plus it's MTL. Honestly, I'm not surprised nobody translates this. <<less