I Became the First Prince

Description

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Reborn as a sword, he lived for hundreds of years, and then he occupied the body of a 15-year-old prince

Associated Names
One entry per line
Ego Sword Became a Villain Prince
I Became the First Prince: Legend of Sword's Song
망나니 1왕자가 되었다
Related Series
N/A
Recommendations
How to Live as the Enemy Prince (7)
Trash of the Count’s Family (4)
Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (2)
Sword Pilgrim (2)
Count’s Youngest Son is a Warlock (2)
Holy Emperor’s Grandson is a Necromancer (2)
Recommendation Lists
  1. Not A Romance
  2. Probably read when im bored (some of it)
  3. Favorites
  4. Fantasy NO romance
  5. Action Novels

Latest Release

Date Group Release
03/24/24 Molidae Translations c312
02/25/24 Molidae Translations c311
02/11/24 Molidae Translations c310
01/27/24 Molidae Translations c309
09/16/23 Molidae Translations c308
09/02/23 Molidae Translations c307
08/26/23 Molidae Translations c306
08/19/23 Molidae Translations c305
08/12/23 Molidae Translations c304
08/06/23 Molidae Translations c303
07/31/23 Molidae Translations c302
07/25/23 Molidae Translations c301
07/16/23 Molidae Translations c300
07/01/23 Molidae Translations c299
06/24/23 Molidae Translations c298
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71 Reviews sorted by


Knight A
Knight A rated it
April 6, 2022
Status: c137
I am someone who is writing the review after binge reading chapters. So opinions may differ.

I think this novel gives the Game if Thrones vibes. Totally. It has its own individuality. It ain't a ripp off. The initial chapters can be confusing. Because the grammar is a lot jumbled. But as you go 20+ atleast, you get a complete picture and you are set.

The MC kinda annoys about old times this, old times that... But he gets decent character development.

How a sword would think in a human's body is perfectly... more>> shown. The awkwardness for family. Vast knowledge. Lack of self-awareness (as in not enjoying perks of humans). Many things.

Spoiler

There are deaths of favouritest characters. So be ready for that!

[collapse]

The arc after his awakening and training is THE BEST! So that's why look forward to it!

But I dunno if I can handle anymore deaths...

I really feel like this novel's gonna keep me on my toes! <<less
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iadzulf
iadzulf rated it
February 21, 2022
Status: c200
For me, the most amazing thing this novel has to offer is the poetic writing inside. I am a sucker for mesmerizing words which can convey the emotions very well. The author and translator really surpassed my expectation. This novel has ignited me and I cannot take my minds off from this absolute prose.

I watched the ancient sword becoming the first prince accidentally. But, I really do not expect that his old and inhumane way of treating everything around him will change gradually as he experiences wins and loss. This... more>> novel also do not ignore the other characters. The knights around him, the King, the Brother, and many more grow alongside him. Even if it only takes a chapter to show a specific character, it is so well done I am shook. The rush of emotions especially during war and poem recitation has left me breathless.

The worldbuilding may be not as good as others and the description about elves, orcs, dwarves, etc. Can be very racist in many places. Despite all that, honestly, this novel really put an emphasize on its poems and the crown prince's journey from a sword into a somewhat normal human being.

In conclusion, I rate this as a 5 star and I don't have any regrets in the slightest. So well done, really. <<less
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sonchymonchy
sonchymonchy rated it
September 21, 2021
Status: c284
I really, really love this novel, I logged in to my account for the first time in a while just to write something for it. The fights and descriptions are quite engaging, and of all things, I really love the main character. Watching him developing bonds with people around him is such a joy to read. I really think this deserves a read.
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maymthu
maymthu rated it
September 6, 2021
Status: c68
Started it on a whim.

I can't comment on the intricacies of the plot (I am not the type to think much when I read). From what I have read so far:

    • The characters were real and relatable. There are many more dimensions to each personality and you find yourself growing attachments to their chara development
Spoiler

Although there were some questionable parts about how everyone just seemed to not question the prince's 180

change in nature... A bit too convenient for the story for everyone to just assume 'oh well, he must've always been like this and hid his strength'

[collapse]

    • The world-building made sense (?) It was a bit complicated but if you don't think too much beyond the information given. For example:
Spoiler

The MC amplifies/strengthens power from songs and poetries. And he claims this is possible due to his mana heart and not possible in people with mana chains due to resonance.

You can have many questions about how the physics work behind this and how this makes sense. Don't think about it. Just accept that it is what it is.

[collapse]

    • The writing was great. The translation which was able to transfer the poetic intricacies and portray scenes where you can vividly imagine yourself in the scenario is applaudable. (The war arcs in particular, are very well written and the descriptions are really hard-hitting.)
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GrayMao
GrayMao rated it
May 26, 2021
Status: c274
This novel toyed with my emotions. And the story really got me good - like a fish caught in a bait yet still feel grateful to the fisherman.

If you are thinking it's your regular transmigration story - definitely it's NOT. Well, yeah it started with 'I woke up with this tr*shy body and so forth' but how the story progress sails better than I assume. Ian is not your ordinary OP MC who just suddenly have the powers to overwhelm the world. He is also not someone that have twisted... more>> personality. He is a MC that you will learn to love as he embarks on his countless journey. You will feel happiness, sorrow, relief and undescribable pride like you are there by his side. I love watching MC grow to be someone better for his loved ones.

This is personal but the MC inspires me how our life and death is not insignificant as I initially thought. Let's say he save a soul.

The side characters are also worth knowing. They are not just throwable characters created to build up the protagonist. They have their own limelight. As for the story - there are chapters that you might felt bored because of the lack of blood - but I'm telling you, not gems are about how shiny it is, quality is more worthy. I also observed some plot holes to be honest but since it does not affect the totality of the novel, it is something you can just let by. Plus point that this story is haremless.

Overall, I recommend this novel. As per posted, I'm not yet finished reading but hopefully this review encourage you folks to read this novel. I am writing this review to express my appreciation to the story and author. Also to the translators, thanks and good job! It was fun. Really fun. <<less
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Hanada
Hanada rated it
January 28, 2021
Status: c170
The world building and story are good but the MC is frustrating at times, it took way to long to explain the poem thing which wouldn't have mattered if the MC didn't keep complaining about how sad that his fighting style died out, he's also pretentious when describing everything, I know he's old but it comes off as snobbish imo, at least it has a good plot
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Daleniant
Daleniant rated it
January 25, 2021
Status: c163
Well, all aspects of world building as per any fantasy world. Technically, this can be considered isekai, but it's not the main point. What makes this novel somewhat unique is its MC, his history in this world and his behavior. Violent and powerful, yet weak and strategic.

Whenever MC experiences significant growth and defeats the opponent of "current level", the author throws in new, more powerful villain. I can't help but remember "tr*sh of The Counts Family". It had the same strategy of hiding the fact that the growth is very... more>> fast. However, in none of two this growth looks bad.

MC is very violent. Yet there is always a reason for any of his action. Even from a perspective oof reader, you can easily understand, that there is no other way. He just kills politicians and nobles around him, if he sees them as corrupted and non loyal. However, it doesn't feel cringy as if Kylo Ren killing his officers in madness. It feels as a domination and respect for power inflicted by Vader into his officers.

Certainly it is a very good novel. At some point of time it may become repetitive, but if you don't read it in 20 chapters a day, you won't f ace it <<less
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Penguin Studio
Penguin Studio rated it
January 20, 2021
Status: c156
Amazing story, really well written. The concept of the world is interesting and The poem thingy (sounds weird but you will understand after reading) makes the fights have a thrill to it.

The characters are developed and the pace of the story is quite good, just hoping it doesn't end abruptly like other novels : (

Awesome Translation Quality (improved after the first few chaps) and Translation Speed as a Bonus.
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saloooca
saloooca rated it
December 31, 2020
Status: c1
it's not perfect but it's quite enjoyable. The translation can be out o place sometimes that's my biggest problem the story is good it's not a unique one but still, it has its own charm I like the main character he isn't completely s*upid or irritating like other MC and other characters have their own screen time all in all it's a good read one of my favourite
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IcyD3
IcyD3 rated it
September 24, 2023
Status: c43
The story isn't bad at all. It's two worst points are that (1) it overuses the cliché of making bets during fights to progress the relationship between characters and (2) has some of the most uninteresting fight scenes ever. With the fight scenes, it's just a mix of overcomplicated narration along with poem writing.
Spoiler

These poems come from dead characters who had strong wills that he embodies for a period of time.

[collapse]
I've bared through overcomplicated narration of a fight sequence before and that by itself isn't a big deal, but the author went a step below and decided to add these archaic poems and even try to bring up the backstory of them during the battle. How am I supposed to get immersed in the high-stakes battle to the death if I have to read a history lesson halfway-through. It reminds me of anime where characters would have these episode long flashbacks in order to power up and defeat the bad guy during a fight. But here, instead of mildly emotional visuals, we just get a wall of text, lmfao.

Everything else makes up for that, however. The kingdom-building, the character interactions, and above all the MC are just a joy to read. If you don't particularly care for the action scenes and would rather skip them, this is a novel for you.
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SpookyReader
SpookyReader rated it
July 2, 2023
Status: c295
Starts well, has lots of interesting ideas and plot developments, but after chapter 250 it feels like it's been written by a completely new writer. MC becomes super mary sue, and many of the plots and character developments are just thrown out.

It really felt like it was leading up to something, ... more>>
Spoiler

the main character goes through an especially hard trial and tribulation, but then just gets better. Randomly. And then is suddenly super super powerful, randomly. He is so powerful, in fact, that he destroys his palace, multiple other palaces, as well as half of the royal palace when he tests out his strength. And all the knights, the king, and people of the castle can do is just look on going 'woooow'. Nobody acts like real people anymore, MC can do no wrong, and he just dips around like an idiot and everyone cheers.

[collapse]

Spoiler

A main character dies early on, he just randomly comes back, super powerful and the main character, who was supposedly super affected by their death just kind of bobbles around without much reaction.

[collapse]

Spoiler

The knights who all had interesting character arcs and were developed well, just suddenly start acting like school children. Love confessions, bragging, acting like idiots, and nagging constantly. It's as if the writer decided they really wanted to write a school life novel instead of a novel on knights.

[collapse]

Super disappointing, really hard to read the last 44 chapters that have been translated. The last few chapters translated by Circle are really bad translation-wise, but the main reason is the storytelling degraded so bad even when Molidae picks up translating again. At this point I think the story is dead and whatever is being written now is something else entirely. <<less
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seutelar
seutelar rated it
March 17, 2023
Status: c291
This is really, really good novel. I'm so glad that I didn't give up reading it because the story just kept going better and better at the latter part. The beginning of this novel, is not very good, boring so I must say? But later I came to love the MC. At first he's just an ancient arrogant being that thinks he's righteous and always correct. In time he grows become more humane, learning that all the people around him is precious and so he too came to cherished them.... more>> There are some part that got my eyes bawled, I cried like a baby I swear. The feelings and the thoughts of all side character are conveyed very well too. Gah, it's so good that I hope this novel wouldn't end <<less
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GodYexiu
GodYexiu rated it
November 24, 2022
Status: c95
I only readed till 95 so far, so maybe my thoughts would change. After reading further. But as I was reading all 95 chapters today the memory is still fresh. The most important part is probably the translation part.

The start is kinda typical and not to interesting, with typical I don't mean a sword taking over a body, but actually even that is typical. Usually it's not swords, but humans reincarnating as tools, monsters or even fishes nowadays. After all, so even that uniqueness is typical in terms of the... more>> author trying to turn the helping tool into the MC instead. Basically he turned a "plot device" (OP Legendary Weapon) into the "plot purpose" (MC) To many holes in the main characters character tho.
(People that did not read a lot of Korean Webnovels/Novels or Japanese LN yet will still find it fresh I guess)

First about the Translation: First 6 chapter are horrendously bad. There are 2 versions of chapter 3 tho, one of them is good, the other one will make you lose brain cells every second you continue reading. After chapter 20ish the translation gets better, while the story slowly starts taking its form.

Then after around 39-40ish - 43-45ish it gets bad again like really bad, not only the spacing and typos, but they even changed the MC's name 3 types in one of those mentioned chapters. Overall the translator is changing his name from chapter to chapter between Adrian, Idrian and Ian. Ian and Adrian should be both right tho.

BUT THE BIGGEST PROBLEM about the Translation is that from normal english, at some point it feels like the one that started to translate it is an super old dude, like 400, no older or a British History Professor/Student. Like the way he is translating or rather rewriting those chapters feels such old and unfitting in some parts, in others they will vividly form the scenes before your eyes. But the PROBLEM about this is, that the translator is constantly switching between 1900+ and super old english. I mean old english would fit the whole setting of the story not gonna lie, but its switching between both. Also the Author didn't write it in old korean either, cuz that would have been impossible to translate for someone speaking only Korean. (It was heavily mixed with chinese etc. Which is why so many translators say that Murim novels that include older writing styles to be the worst to translate)

The story so far is good enough to not throw the story away, actually if the translator would concentrate on which century he is choosing the english he will use from, I would probably still read instead of writing this review.
I mean the stories biggest problem is the inconsistency about the MC's character and behavior. The rest is actually fine.

World Building:

So far is actually done more through flashbacks and the thoughts of the character than through explanations or other stuff. Which in my eyes can be nice, but just doesn't make sense in a lot of parts. I mean dude didn't see the world for hundreds of years and a lot of stuff changed. But he still thinks about stuff and ways that he just can't know if they are still true, but in the end they still are. Which wouldn't be a problem without the hundreds of years he didn't see the world, but bcuz the Author is mentioning his 400 years of not seeing the world like every 10 chapters it's just a ridiculous way to build the World.

Main Char:
Cringe worthy dude that loves to get all the attention he could never get cuz only his wielders received the attention that in his eyes, he was supposed to get. But in all honesty that one also doesn't make sense since the moment he formed his Mana Heart in the first 5 chapters and complained about how much they had to go through.
The Author riddled his whole being and character with contradictions and I still keep reading but it's not seeming to get better.

Well there was a chapter where the MC said: "I will have to fight more battles to define my karma and the being of my soul" or something like that. But I dunno how that part is supposed to be a reason to have such an inconsistent Character. Also didn't matter that he was a Sword before, cuz he knew all the feelings all his wielders felt, which means he wasn't just a piece of steel, but a soul with feelings even before. BTW The cringy part about his attention hungry personality is btw that he's supposed to have an over 400 year old soul, was an legendary sought after Sword and went to more Situations than any living human could go through.

Supporting Characters:
They do have some depth. Not to extreme but still enough to say they could have a lot of growth potential and will have slow but kind of steady growth even in the later chapters, probably, I hope. XD

Side Characters + Others like no-name soldiers:
Almost everyone has either a typical one dimensional backstory or no story/no story that would be worth to remembering. Lets be honest tho, side characters don't need to have depth tho, unless they are Important enough to become Supporting Characters or Antagonist. I mean a Noble Merchant will be a Noble Merchant, no matter if he had a sad life or not. If the main char is only meeting them to slap their faces - or to gain advantages - they are nothing more than plot devices in such cases after all.. More often than not deepening the backstory of unimportant back characters can almost be considered as the Authors writing for word count only in my eyes. Why give a char that appears once every 100 chapters depth if hes never gaining importance in the story anyways? <<less
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Battalion
Battalion rated it
March 23, 2022
Status: c157
The political intrigue/wars in this novel is unparalleled. By far the best political/kingdom building/scheme reincarnated as a noble novel I've read. The Amber Sword is similar, but this novel has far more action and the MC is far more likeable.

Definitely worth reading. 5/5
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DeadOpossum
DeadOpossum rated it
March 8, 2022
Status: --
First chapters were somewhat interesting, with politics and interesting characters, but then SUDDENLY it turned into an endless stream of battles with orcs. Orcs!

It was an absolutely unmotivated change. Why'd he go and fight with orcs? Did he have nothing to do? And why are they using swords? It is the most weird weapon choice against opponents with larger frames. "I'm a sword, now I'm going to nag everything with a sword." And why'd they not even use horses? A country's prince became a dumb infantry.

Maybe only battles with zombies... more>> are more boring... Such a disappointment. <<less
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Fel03
Fel03
February 28, 2022
Status: --
idk why the author turn the novel into a comedy later on. The novel supposed to be poetic with a serious tone but later after people start recognizing the prince abilities and he starting to get allies and subordinates the novel took a turn for the worse with the author inserting korean comedy very frequently. The novel turned very cringe with how all this poetic words mixed with very cringe situation of the MC being treated like a child and chided like a child while him chiding others for their... more>> childishness. Just read to mid 100 then stop and let your imagination finish the story. <<less
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WanderingOakTree
WanderingOakTree rated it
October 19, 2021
Status: c160
First of all I'm only giving it a 5 to get this novel more recognized. My real score would be 7.5/10 for this novel so far.

I really enjoyed this novel. The idea of using songs or rather poems as a form of power was an interesting take. I do recommend trying this novel out but just bear in mind the theme of this novel will make you feel like it's pretty dark.
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kei86
kei86 rated it
August 22, 2021
Status: c38
I usually don't write reviews and especially don't write them before I've finished but I felt I had to for this series.

I've read a ton of different series: a few Chinese ones, many Korean ones, and many Japanese ones; and this is the first time in a long while where a series/novel has "felt like a breath of fresh air." I think the two things this series has is 1) A good translator that can properly carry meaning over and 2) the closest thing to good prose I've seen from... more>> a fantasy [web] novel from the East.

I personally have found it a joy to read because many scenes get way more description than I was expecting and the way stuff is written just flows well. There are typos and a few errors here and there from the translators, which can be jarring, but overall it's been a complete joy so far.

The story is very slow to start and even at ch 38, I only now feel like I have a sense of where some of the conflict might be in the future. For instance, political intrigue has been set up, but its also been hinted that monsters might exist -- we still don't know at ch 38 where things will go.

I think the one thing that made sit up and pay a bit more attention though was when one of the magic systems was introduced -- its poetry. Its a very "soft" magic system, but seeing an author from the East diverge from the usual stuff was great to see.

My only critiques so far are the slow pacing and also a wish to have seen the MC misstep more on a few occasions. I feel like there are a lot of great opportunities to be had where the MC (who was originally a sword) believes things are (or work) one way, but then find that's not the case and its a situation of "what a sword experiences" vs "what a human experiences." Because the MC is definitely very assure of himself and proud, so having these occasions where he missteps would help bring him down to Earth.

So far, a 5/5 series when I compare it to other web novels. Maybe a 3/5 if I compared it to mainstream western fantasy works. <<less
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Ed Elric
Ed Elric rated it
May 22, 2021
Status: c351
Because I couldn't wait with the update I read the mtl version... and the ending made me unhappy. maybe others will like it but I don't.

usually I will still read the translate version even though I have read it to the end. but I will stop...

Compared to the war in the winter castle which is full of emotions, other wars are not that exciting in my opinion. and balahad ranger is the most interesting of all the characters in this story in my opinion. Ooh I kept regretting the ending... more>> for days and it would be like that unless I found another haremless action novel. someone please give me a recommendation

.. I give 4 stars for winter war. <<less
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Hylidahlia
Hylidahlia rated it
May 20, 2021
Status: c143
This is one of the better reincarnator/possessor style novels that I've encountered so far. The protagonist is fighting an uphill battle rather than having cheats and being OP right out of the gate, and it makes his accomplishments so much more satisfying. The supporting characters are also well-written/satisfying, and NO HAREM. Highly recommend.
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