but that got solved partially without him trying because it turns out his system gives him like a year of life just for killing one bottom-tier monster and then it gets solved completely without him trying because of a random encounter was like "hey thanks for doing this thing that you did with no effort, btw, I am actually a god and I fixed your supposedly unsolvable problem without you asking me to"

MC's temporary boss/high ranker/harem candidate tells him not to let anyone leave town because it might be too dangerous. Random low-tier noob says she wants to leave anyway. MC pulls out a gun and points it at her head and tells her he'll kill her if she leaves. Like seriously, out of nowhere. He could have just said, "hey, the gold-ranker says you can't leave because there are monsters roaming outside" but naw, straight to gun-in-face. Keep in mind this isn't some grimdark fantasy, this is a hyper-modern world where there's supposed to be rule of law. Our MC is a psychopath, but it gets worse.

Random bozo tries to stick up for the girl and say the MC is being unreasonable, which is what every halfway sane person in the room is probably also thinking. Not our MC! Our MC displays his genius thinking to himself "Huuuuh, why is this guy I can easily kill trying to stop me. Gosh, I know I'm not wrong so...I know! This random bozo must be doing this because she's pretty" and spends like a minute patting himself on the back that he isn't swayed by pretty faces like everyone else. Author makes it clear he's also proud his MC isn't, the chapter title is 100% for real titled "What's Being Kind to Women?".

We never get to find out what MC is going to do to them because, suddenly, for no reason at all, random mid-boss antagonist who has been harassing MC (and other people) jumps in to start a fight against MC, not because of the girl but because he wants to pick on MC. They look like they're going to get in a fight. Mid-boss is definitely stronger than him, he literally beat MC like yesterday and let him go because "you're so weak you're not worth killing." Which is a classic mid-boss line, except only about two chapters before the author established the only reason he's here is because he's uh, here to kill people he thinks are weak. Riiiiight.

MC doesn't back down, because I don't know, being a dumbass threatening some random girl with shooting her in the face so she doesn't endanger herself is more important than his own life, which is all so s*upid I can barely breathe. Fortunately, they're suddenly interrupted by random bullsh*t and everybody forgets what they were doing. In the ensuing few days MC exerts his dominance by beating up shit-tier background characters with no names and doesn't let anyone leave.

Somehow, this makes people trusting and admiring of him, which is important because he's about to lead a squad into battle because his boss/harem candidate thought all that previous bullsh*t was genius work by him. A couple of chapters later he declares he's going to stay and defend the town from monsters despite being having a power rating of effectively zero when there are literally a thousand other super-powered high level humans running around. Tens of thousands of years of combat experience between all of them, and somehow MC is piping up with his shit-tier ideas and people are calling it genius. It also feels super weird because our MC has been relatively focused on himself and his sister so far, and this is the first hint that he gives a sh*t about anybody else, yet he's suddenly burning with self-sacrificial desire.

Not long after, it turns out this was a tremendously s*upid idea (which more experienced people than him told him at least three times, but he ignored because he's dumb) and he's going to die, 100%, no take-backsies. Just then he gets a system notification: Would you like to get your get-out-of-jail-free card I didn't tell you about and you didn't know you had? He's like: "sure". And then the magic wish automatically determines how to get him out of the situation with no input from him, and kills millions of monsters with a nuke that only hits bad guys and instakills everyone but the boss, and saves the day. No, I'm not joking or exaggerating in the least.

But wait, it didn't kill the boss. Boss appears and says, haha, you humans are so dumb, Superman-Goku Macguffin the 3rd isn't coming to save you, Superman is a dumbo and is fighting my sekret clone. By the way, I'm going to kill all of you, especially you MC. Suddenly, harem candidate goes, "Wait boss monster, can you please give me 3 minutes to confess my love for MC? Pleaaase? Pretty pleeaaase?" Boss monster goes: "Okay, sounds fine with me, but don't doublecross me or I'm gonna like, kill you. Uh, I guess I'm gonna kill you anyway but I'll like really super duper kill you or something", and he goes to sit in the corner and jacks off for awhile.

Harem-candidates grabs MC, and then is like, "omgersh boss monster, you so dumb!" and then she pushes through MC through a portal while boss monster is distracted. Staring at the portal he goes, "How dare you lie to me!" "Curse you humans and your predictable yet inevitable betrayal!" "It's a good thing you were too dumb to take your own portal, now I'm going to kill you even harder!"

But then she goes "Wait, let me give a dying speech. Okay, still giving a dying speech. man, why am I not dead yet? Guess I'll speech some more. Also, it's sort of weird that I pushed MC through the portal and stayed behind but he's still here but oh well, if the author's not paying attention why should I? MC even though I met you like last week and we've literally never had a conversation, you are the most amazing man ever and I love you."

Boss monster: "That's great, I'm gonna kill you now."

POW! Suddenly the goddess our delightful MC met last week in yet another random encounter roll after feeding a squirrel who turned out to be a immortal god-beast who was the pet of the goddess back in the day so he was like, how about I show you her corpse and then just because MC is MC the goddess came back to life from him getting a plot boner or something and was like "Oh hey MC, we're soulmates and I love you. Please ignore my irrelevant background story which makes it seem like I should vengefully kill all humans." Anyway. Goddess shows up and her pet squirrel smacks boss monster to death with a single slap. Actual Deus ex Machina. It's not every day you get a god to solve your unsolvable problems. Unless you're the MC. Anyhow, Goddess says, "BTW MC, since we killed a immortal super boss monster, why don't you take its soul. You can raise it as a soul pet and get super powers you didn't work for, again, just like the time you became a grandmaster in a sword technique that takes a lifetime of effort to learn by watching me make tea."

MC: "Huuuh? Oh, okay. Oh yeah, goddess, can you help save this harem candidate who I met last week?" "long as you're here doing miracles, y'know?"

Goddess: "No, that is impossible... unless I had a boss monster soul or something like that, but those are pretty rare and it's not like we just have those lying around." "Oh whoa, it turns out there's a boss monster soul I just gave you. But are you sure you want to give it up? You worked so hard for it. Oh wait, no you didn't I just showed up and gave it to you."

MC: "uh, sure, yeah, whatever G-dog"

Goddess: "haha, just playing, I don't need the monster soul after all. It'd be too much of a pain in the ass to write another monster in...I mean, I don't need one because I got others. Despite me being dead for the last thousand years or whatever" "Bippity-boppity-boo! This girl is alive! But hey we're still gonna get it on at some unspecified later date when you're a god through remarkable happenstance, right?" "also, the girl is super mega powerful now cuz I put a god-beast in her. The soul I gave her was like a super rare Phoenix soul I just had lying around."

MC: "Yay!"

First off. This review will be straight to the point.

Monster Paradise is (for lack of a better metaphor) "post high school". Its focus is not the drama between people. Colleagues, friends, enemies and the like. There is hardly a very strong mentor to always appear Deus Ex Machina like to protect MC, or the baddie. And the MC is, for the most part, surrounded by elites, or very patient mediocres who spent a lot of years of hard work and collaborated. In such a world, without backing, what is the most important tool for a character? Hiding. Appearing very non shiny. The one who hides deepest lives longest. The tree that stands above the forest is the first to be felled by the wind and all that. Or perhaps more accurately, sustainable shining. If it can't be kept with one's own two hands, revealing even its shadow is su*cide. Inevitably to do that, MC will have to be intelligent. The poor man is guilty for owning a treasure. Since even those with backing just as easily *ahem*.

It won't track an antagonist for an arc and repeatedly compare the MC's progress to them (remember: non shiny to live), but before the MC surpassed the antagonist give the antagonist handwaved (lampshaded?) random powerups to keep them in sync with MC's (usual for the genre) quick progress with the hope to emphasize "MC's progress is not good enough". In its world, this is not enough to gain strength. Why? In this world, if you are not strong enough, you die. Or you inevitably, unwillingly, watch your loved ones die protecting you, just before you.

It will not badger you with random self doubt. What is self doubt in the face of death? In battle, all other things equal, hesitation is a luxury that paves the way to death. Now in some ways, self doubt is universal, to some more than others. Some people are like that much more often, which is fine (I personally know some wonderful people like that). But some people are not like that, which is also fine.

It also won't pester you with angst, pays no heed to bully taunts and will not claim to profess that the best reward in life is to slap the faces of others, though there may be taunts and there may be some faces slapped, far in between. Because the reality is, with strength (where strength is currency) is the inevitable decline of the value of the opinions of (lots of random) others, that never mattered in the first place.

If you're looking for "taunted, grows, shows them he is better, others marvel ooh and ahh, repeat", there are lots of other stories like that. Some of which have their very enjoyable other points.

As for " (not?) focusing on other characters", while I personally would have liked to see "just a bit" more of some very few other characters I care about, to the MC, compared to other "social drama posed as cultivation novels", very few people mean enough to him to matter to his motivation, and those that do, mean everything to him.

Even then, how much time can one spend with the significant people in their lives if they must increase their own strength? "Increase in strength", not in the "get the next Legacy Item from the Last Great Emperor taught by The First Sage under the further tutelage of The King of Heaven immediate boost in strength" type of increase in strength, which item's value will eventually decline (I can think of at least 4 other stories like that I unwillingly let go of, off the top of my head right now) as a character progressed, but actual progress, in a world where "how far you go is (mostly) up to you (and a high degree of self awareness) ". Its the question of inevitably having to choose, reward now, reward later or intermittent bite sized reward in between, in this as in life. Even so, he is not unfeeling, simply aware of his need to do, not chat (I'm looking at you, The Gamer), but do.

As for weapons having levels, to me, this makes perfect sense. Would a well developed nation cling to conventional bows and arrows as their weapon of choice? Then reject proposals to upgrade them from sisal string? In the same way, a god's weapon is not a chicken's weapon and to expect them to be the same will not only miss the point, but will lead to frustration, regardless in which story.

I have a friend who really likes stories with magic, wands and chants. Some years ago when we went to the movies and chatted into the inevitable post film discussion which we usually did with excitement, he revealed with a poignant look "I didn't like it!" (We watched Avengers, if that matters. No judgement of course). Curious what lead to his very strong opinion, he declared "There were no magic wands!" (One could also argue Clarke's 3rd law, assuming an uneducated observer, but that's for another time) I stared, speechless. "Sucks, if you waited 2 hours for it and it didn't show. Its not about wands though." I probed, to which he promptly folded his arms and proclaimed "It would have been better with wands."

Some people like a (comparatively more) intelligent antagonist. They want to feel the danger as palpable. Which inevitably leads them to experience desperation. There are many stories like that, some of them can be enjoyable. But what makes one story good is not what makes all stories good, or maybe, perhaps, they feel intelligence is valueless on a protagonist. But what if intelligence required to remain undetected is the only way to live?

My friend, who has the most extensive collection of magic fiction media of anybody I know, having spent a sizable chunk of his income for a while getting it put together later admitted, pained, "Some magic wand stories really suck." Either way, he would have been a lot happier and gotten more sure reuse if he looked past that, to what really it is.

As to the point seen in more than one review of MC

"I've been attacked by a vampire!" - vampire became his s*ave, ok that's cool.

"I need to get stronger!" - some guy let MC copied his sword technique.

"My house is ruined.." - it got a makeover.

"Birds chased me." - sent a distress signal (which is ok but..) and then stayed at the hotel before going back out.

"I can die any moment now because I'm born unlucky" - a girl out of nowhere healed his one flaw (which made him unique btw)

"I'm just watching her make tea.." - BAM! He learned all the sword technique wtf.

"Oh my god, some boss will attack us please hear me out!" - upper rank guy just trusted him and gave him a team to lead (the no rank MC).

"Wah I'm being attacked!" - I'm not really reading seriously by this point but I think he got a bomb card for 10k something radius. Boom. Problem solved.

"Hot examiner almost died because of me." - the same girl came and helped him save the woman.

After reading the first couple of chapters I was really intrigued. The author sets up the novel as if the main character was in one of those Japanese, card-collecting mobile games. He can get cards from the monsters he kills, gain skills from the cards, fuse different cards together, combine fragments into cards, etc. It also has a system that reminds me of Absolute Choice, where he is assigned various missions from the "system".

Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, it could have been, but it was poorly executed.

The author drops you into the world with zero background info on the main character as most reincarnation stories do. He was just some random, unimportant dude who got transported into someone else's body due to some weird phone app. "Fortunately" he retains 98% of the host's memories so he naturally knows everything the genius host knows about monsters and the new world. Plus, he is super protective of his new sister to the point where he would fight a vampire to protect her. Let's not forget to mention the awesome combat skills he mysteriously has.

That aside, he does have one flaw. His "life wheel" if injured and he is due to die in 90 days or so. Awesome! Now we can see him struggle. Oh wait, nevermind. Anything his minions kill extend his longevity so he ends up extending his life by 8 years in the span of 1 chapter.

However, if he doesn't complete the missions given by the system, his blessing will disappear and he'll die from it anyways. That makes sense, the character does mention how awful his luck is after all. Well, no, his luck is actually phenomenal.

He's poor! Some random guy gives him an expensive life crystal and renovates his house.

He doesn't have an attack skill! Fortunately some random guy teaches one to him under the orders of some mysterious benefactor.

He used the SOS beacon so he should be disqualified from the trial! Good thing he's a super duper important beastmaster.

His life wheel is still injured! Some powerful yeti uses his blood to revive a sleeping deity and she heals him in 2 seconds as thanks.

Seriously? He has the audacity to try and say his luck is poor?

All these points aside, I truly enjoyed the story up until chapter 39. On chapter 39 the MC finds out there is a dangerous monster in the area and that he needs to stop people from leaving the hotel to prevent widespread panic.

Sounds simple enough, except that when a girl tries to leave he points his pistol at her head and threatens to kill her. Fortunately a couple people try to protect the girl, but they're painted as the bad guys because they have ulterior motives and aren't the MC.

The instructor eventually arrives and settles things by claiming the MC made the right decision and trying to get the other party to apologize to him.

I dropped it at that point.

His goal at the beginning is fairly quickly solved as he gets help from some higher beings to save him, befriending the being at the same time, the only thing is that I am not sure if this is a plot hole as there has been no mention of this in like 800 chapters (I think its been just a few years though), but the upcoming big arc should have mention of whats going down. Also now that I think of it, there hasn't been any big monster invasions like there were at the beginning of the story that made you feel like humans weren't at the top of the food chain. So I really don't get why a lot of the story elements from the start of the story have been forgotten but like I said, the next big arc seems like it should have mention of these things. I will update the story score when that happens.