So this is more just a rant about the book. The following is all subjective and s*upid, its just me giving my opinion on stuff that doesn't really matter because I'm in the mood to write something the length of an English paper instead of actually writing the English paper.

The reason why I'm dropping the story is because up to this point it feels like the protagonist just doesn't have a personality, something pretty common in stories that just reuse tropes. If it was just this then I don't really think its an issue that major, but for me the main character despite having no personality has become unlikable.

The main character can basically be summed up as someone who played the game and now he wants to read the ending, I'll get into this more later, but other than this we have basically nothing to him. There's not even anything like "This is my favorite character" or anything like that, he just goes through the actions of a MC. By itself this much is fine, its definitely not a positive for the story, but its not something that ruins it.

The issue that I end up having with the main character is how it feels like they, I guess a way to describe it is feel like they are playing god. To give a bit more details in all of his interactions with another person usually feel very off. His first interaction with his sponsor I believe goes fine, he does feel kind of dull but its fine. The two main interactions I'm referring to are specifically with the games main character and the bully.

For the former the biggest issue is it feels like he is deciding for the games main character. She confronts him to ask about her past, which he knows, and he decides on his own (without any explanation to us the reader) that he wont tell her with just the line of "She will find out in the future." At least to me the issue with this is that she is seeking her past, and our MC refuses something thats important to her without us ever actually getting his reasons for it. We don't get an explanation about why, is he afraid of affecting the future, does he think that this knowledge would be too much for the present day game main character, ect. And at least to me without this detail it feels like he is arbitrarily not telling her, when if you think about this from the perspective of this being real. A young girl searching for the answers of her dead parents and the one person who you found who knows, just decides not to tell you. At least looking at it this way it feels so weird that she just thought "Huh, maybe I'm too caught up on the past."

Honestly a lot of this doesn't matter, but this just feels like poor character motives. Its not clearly explained what both these characters goals are, and for this reason the entire reaction just comes out as a negative to me.

Now, the bigger one of these two is the bully character. Yeah, she is set up as a piece of sh*t person but the entire duel that they had highlights two major issues in this story. This scene I think showcases how first, the school is badly designed in an unrealistic way to simply serve to move the plot along, and second is the thing that made me notice the issue with the main characters personality.

First, the school is poorly designed. In a duel between students, while you can ignore some loose limitations, and even go to the point of allowing mental attacks, the second that she surrendered the duel should of ended. There is no justifiable reason on the schools part to allow this to continue once she surrendered, and there was a teacher directly watching. Overall, this isn't a major thing but it just feels like poor world building or something that just makes me hate the school that he is in, which brings down the whole story since its such a huge plot point.

Second, the most important one, the main character proceeds to intentionally try to harm a kid. From the beginning, they decided that they needed to "fix" the bullies personality and then proceeded to use mental attacks knowing it would synergizes with one of her skills to cause even more damage, with the intention of causing her so much anguish from this event that changes her personality.

The main characters actions here is what I mean by a god complex, although I dont know if that fits perfectly. He believes his actions to be the right ones, and to achieve his desired future he has decided to intentionally harm someone. She literally gave up and then he proceeded to attack someone who has surrendered.

In this case its not even like she was a severe evil. He vaguely mentions her leading to bad ends but so far it seems like she was just a horrible person. While her actions are Definity bad, that does not affect anything here since the problem is the main characters morals. At least for me while I don't like the bully character, the main character torturing someone who surrendered just makes me not like their character.

Now, as I'm writing this out I've kind of realized that a lot of this is pointless because the main character is a f*cking brick in personality. They just feel like an empty shell of a protagonist going through the actions. I'm not sure if its translation or just poor writing but a lot of these situations while writing I've realized the issues I have with them are caused due to them just not working. It feels like its just trying to copy other stories, but in this process its become a shell. I guess to sum it up it doesn't feel like they are characters in a world, it all just feels so artificial.

Honestly this is a lot longer and this book is honestly not worth this amount of thought going into it since its just not that deep, but I think it just suffers from a lot of issues that most stories seems to have.

Idk, I'm probably just way too burnt out on these tropes and this just happens to be the novel since the further I go in this its this weird disconnect where the story feels like props on a stage. Looking at them in one direction its all fine but it all feels flat and empty. Its not on the level where I can identify an issue and sort through my thoughts since when I try to go into it I realize that the entire situation feels off. I wouldn't say the novel is bad, since in my case the reason for me disliking it I would guess is the tropes since I know I'm extremely tired of how the entire world resolves around the protagonist, and while I know its difficult to create a good story without any issues it just sometimes feels like authors dont put much though into their stories. For this one a lot of things I think would make the story better, have him focus on shikigami and get rid of his ability to use any spell since then that creates a path that he follows. Currently the entire skikigami part just feels so arbitrary since if he has the energy he can literally use extremely powerful spells.

Add things like how this game has gone from a hobby to something ingrained in his life, make it so that its clear he is prideful in being 7th in PvP, and for that reason he so desperately wants to clear this game since its something that he loves.

His shadow skill has a lot of potential. Make it a skill thats really good for shikigami since it can give a form, but then have it disable his physical body. His shadow grows instead of his physical form so while he himself is limited he can grow through his shadow, but instead he uses elixirs that essentially sums up to its harder to increase his stats than the normal person. These negatives I feel like are essential to building a story, since in this case it would prevent him from abusing his cheat spell book beyond basic and then it makes a scene more suspenseful. Right now he just feels very cheat like since he can use any spell, but if he was limited to his shikigami then we might feel the pressure of something like a illusion barrier, but instead he instantly knows and can use that same skill so he is literally just superior to other people in every level except energy.

I know this is unfair, since it does feel like the author put thought into things. An example is the 4th games shadow boss. I'm pretty sure that its him, the original character sacrifices himself in the first game but since his soul is in his shadow he lives on and ends up becoming the shadow boss somehow in the future.

I think it all just sums up to all of the stories feel like they have aspects that could be tweeked slightly and it would make the story, at least to me, feel a lot more engaging and realistic, so when I run into stories like this one where I can see a lot of potential that I feels squandered I just get in this weird mood.

Honestly this has gotten a lot longer and a lot s*upider than I originally wanted it to go to, If for some reason you have read all the way down to this point, congrats. Not sure why you would read my incoherent ramblings but if you did I hope you enjoyed.

One thing to note, I would recommend reading the book for yourself and forming your own opinions for all books and not just this one. With reviews they are always biased and sometimes just blatantly incorrect, due to something like accidently skipping a paragraph. I've seen many novels where people complain about things that the book explained, and I'm sure I've done it myself by accident, but due to these things a lot of reviews can be very negative about stories. So basically what I'm trying to say is give the story a try if the description sounds interesting, don't let a negative review make you skip what might become a story that you enjoy.