There is a male lead, but MC is as strong, if not stronger than him in skills and personality, especially as the story goes on; so forget your dreams of a doting, possessive Prince Charming. For most of the story they remain as friends, and they act like it, too. Not only that, MC's sect doesn't allow her to marry, and she makes this very clear with the male lead early on in the story. She repeatedly says that her sect is celibate. At the end, she hammers it in that she loves him, but she loves her sect even more, and she is never leaving the sect to marry and have children. She is staying at Mount Hwa, and history will remember her and her lover as 'best friends'. ML accepts this fact.

The reverse harem is probably because there's a couple of guys who have a crush on her early in the story, but they don't really amount to anything. Not only does MC not return their affections, later on in the story they barely appear. They're childhood crushes who liked her once, then grew apart, and now they're friends. The end. MC doesn't waste time over them. Family and sect are much bigger priorities.

MC's personality is amazing. A sentence to describe her would be a bad tempered, crazy, battle loving hooligan who is very protective of her sect. She's also brash, easygoing, proactive, and aggressive. Lmao. She's very confident in what she's good at, which is beating people up, and the novel does this without making her an arrogant, righteous, overpowered cheat. Especially since life keeps sucking and throwing hardships at her. Nothing's more humbling than losing and messing up. MC's a genius, yes, but not so rare that there hasn't been anyone like her before, and she's still plenty lacking in age and experience.

MC also has flaws, of course. A big one is that she's not that smart. She's not s*upid, but she's only average, and she can be tricked by other characters who are older and much more experienced than her. Sometimes she looks down on people she shouldn't, and overestimates herself, too. But in the end, her flaw only makes her feel more human, and I think it actually helps the story, especially since she learns from her mistakes, wisens up, and... well, that would be a spoiler, lol.

She learns a lot and develops so much. MC starts off mischievous and maybe a little arrogant and lazy, but as she grows older, loses one or two battles, and nearly dies once or twice, she becomes more and more cautious, respectful, and she works harder. Not enough to lose her confident, cheeky spirit, but enough that we can really feel her aging and maturing.

ML also has equally decent character growth. His name is already spoiled in the summary so you know who he is. Don't be put off him being so ignorant and arrogant at the beginning of the story. He later grows more humble, and starts using his brain a little bit more than he used to. Not a lot more, especially in his romance with the MC, be warned, lol.

There is character growth for most characters, in fact. The growth isn't large enough that it's sudden, or so they feel like different people, but it's there, subtly, and you can really feel people aging and time passing by.

The story has a focused plot, which is mostly sect, family, and friendship based. Especially sect. MC has a goal throughout the story. Her friends do too, and of course they all have different goals. They're not just trying to get stronger for no reason, and they're not blindly rushing into battle. I won't say anything for now cuz it would be a spoiler, but the plot is decent and I don't think there's any large problems. We have the common plotholes of there being no explanations for the transmigrations (yes, this story has them), along with other things that would be a spoiler if explained, but it's not anything big.

The story itself, taking away the MC's easygoing personality, is actually pretty realistic, serious, and grounded. We can especially see that in training sequences, and battles, where the MC is not a power wreck train that can defeat and wow everyone she sees. MC laments and complains about this, about how it's not cool, but it's realistic! Training is very harsh, but it's at a level where you can imagine people enduring them, especially if you can sometimes secretly slack off and drink together with friends. Life at the sect is at a level where you can say it might be worth it for the gains. No babies working weights, no complete abstinence, no 'you might die during this training', either. Just imagine an army boot camp also being your family, and this is it.

The pacing is nice. It's slow, but there's a lot of time skips so that we can see what it's like for MC at different times of her life. We skip from her entering the sect, to her training, to her going outside and starting on her Murim journey. Naturally the atmosphere is different for every stage, but it's done very well and nothing is sudden or draggy.