"It is not too late to think about it, after we become stronger." - Jin So Chung

A true masterpiece.

The start of the story is similar to Possessing Nothing, but I think I prefer this one. Firstly, much more stuff happens in each chapter (plot moves very quickly), and secondly, the MC makes mistakes and is punished severely for them, learning not to be rash in the process. I really like that theme. The MC feels much much more realistic and is self-reflective.

I thought that this particular part from chapter 10, combined with the rest of that chapter, was just a stroke of pure genius:

All I really did was kill five or six of the village's rogues and no one knew I was the one that did it because there were no witnesses.

In addition, if the deal with the chief is announced outside, the fact that he is rich will be revealed to the public. The countless vagabonds of Murim will come in search of the chief continuously and ask if he has more silver deposits. So, he will not chase me nor will he report it to the government office. However, I cannot feel relieved yet, since he can hire a high-class martial artist and hunt me down.

But this is also a possibility. Most of the outstanding First-class martial artists with high self-esteem are so proud of themselves that they will never accept a request for monetary gains even if he asks for it. It may cost as much as the silver bullion I took, just to hire a master who is beyond my level of skills. In other words, there is no need to be afraid of the aftermath from the village chief right now.

Here, the MC, after just having robbed the village chief, convinces himself that he has nothing to worry about. IN THAT VERY SAME CHAPTER he gets killed by experts who got hired by the village chief to come after his head (his 2nd death). I personally think that was a stroke of pure genius and I've not seen anything like this in any other webnovel other than Daoist Gu (which is another masterpiece btw, definitely check it out).

As for the translation. It isn't great, but sometimes the original words are there in parentheses if you want to see it.

Here's what I like about this novel:

• • MC is cool-headed and realistic thinking. When the son of the village head, who has bullied him for years, tells him to clean cow dung, he does it without any complaints (even though he hates doing it). Later on, when 2 bandits show up and rob him, he doesn't try to fight back but gives them all his money and luggage and just walks away, even though it means he has to starve for the rest of his journey, because he doesn't want to risk injury fighting with the bandits: "The regular bandits in Green Forest are systematically promoted to martial arts, so they may be stronger than me from the previous life. I do not know what it would be like if I fought with my life on the line, but it is better to obey their words. Now, I am so disadvantaged because I have no weapons. If I had at least a knife, I would not endure such a humiliating choice."

• • No wasted words (e.g training scenes, cultivation scenes etc). MC says he has to spend 2 months to melt his internal energy, so the author spends all of 3 sentences describing the last scene where he's melting his internal energy. I really like this. If only the author of novels such as Immortal Executioner could learn a thing or two from this author! A year's worth of training is described in a single sentence: "One year passed by quickly.". That's right, when nothing interesting is happening, the author just skips it. Why can't all webnovels be like this?

• • The MC is not so lucky in his 2nd life that he can afford to act rashly and not be killed. In fact, he does get killed in his 2nd life, precisely because he acted rashly and robbed the village chief, even justifying to himself later on that he would be safe (see quote above) . Luckily, he still had the book with him. To me, this shows that a fool is still a fool even if he has lived for 60 years, only the experience of life and death can bring true wisdom. This event immediately brings this novel to 5 stars in my opinion, because it shows the MC is not perfect and still makes serious mistakes even in his 2nd life. Just because he has lived a past life doesn't make him omniscient, there are lots of very important things that he doesn't know, that could and did kill him again.

To be honest this guy is just a "cowdung" who gets lucky. Zero talent zero brain.. the guy doesn't learn from his mistakes.. what the village chief calls him is true whatever happens even if heaven gives another opportunity "cowdung" is still "cowdung".... He suffers 2 deaths to simply deal with a rural useless village chief who can't even fight

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Spoiler

The guy gives his biggest secret- ressurection book to a random person who he has not even met before.. it seems like he will die again coz of this.. hope he doesn't reincarnate again and the book ends up with someone worthwhile not a "cowdung" destined to be a fertilizer and nothing else

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It should be around 2 or 2.5 star, but some brain dead are giving it high rating, so I have to lower it to balance somehow.

MC is a complete idiot. Like the village chief's son said MC was born for cow dung as thats what he has instead of brain.

Even after dying times after times foolishly he doesn't learn. With his cheat if he just train under his master for two or three lifetime silently until he is of old age then train under two or three different master then... more>> all his struggle will end. But nope, even after he tells himself he would not do something foolish and train until he gains power he would stop training and leave after only few years and poke powerful master without any need and die. Those masters will be like ants to him if he just train for one or two lifetime. But this tr*sh can't himself from being a cow dung.

He is also a total hypocrite. Once while he was working as a bodyguard, a tiger attacked the client. The client asked him to kill the tiger for its hide. But this tr*sh of a MC refuse to kill the tiger attacking humans, as it has life too. He thinks his client is a small minded evil nature person. So this MC standing on high moral ground then kills many innocent wild animals to feed the tiger. As if only the tiger has life not other wild animal. You may think the special tiger has some plot value. But nope, its just a random tiger author has used to show how virtuous MC is, and how evil the young master was.

In short, even if MC were less than average intelligent human being the novel would have ended in 250-300 chapters. Many korean novels end this way. But author has to put cow dung instead of brain in Mc's head. So the novel is still on going after 1700+ chapters.

Lastly funny thing is author don't seem to realize that MC has cow dung for his brain. Author think this level of intelligence is normal in human. As if he too has cow dung in his head. <<less

This novel's MC is untalented and dickhead, idiot, foolish dumb-ass ever and super ugly face

and he's not great man.

he is Selfish and impulsive like many ordinary people.

But he was born with a gift that no one else could have.

... more>>

Spoiler

In fact, this world is the Cthulhu mythology universe and a mixture of Chinese myths and the myths of many countries.

In the cause of MC's the fourth death, identity of the monster summoned is Shoggoth.

so hopeless cosmic horror world

and MC got a a talent for be loved from all of evilthings. MC does not want to be, but he is too much badly loved.

and this novels keyword is law of Causality.

Every event has its cause.

If anyone break that law, will be doom

It is an absolute rule and fate that even the gods can not avoid.

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It's a long story. But great plot and too many Foreshadow and unexpected story.

Foreshadow working is perfect.

Trivial information is also important after many hundreds of chapters. <<less

Was reading "A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation" and the author's Q&A mentioned that he took lots of inspiration from this novel. So I came in with high expectation since "A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation" is brilliant. Surely something that inspired that brilliance should be decent right? Wrong.

Let's start with the protagonist, he's all over the place. He's a 50 something years old man that underwent regression, you'd think he'd act like a 50 years old man but no, he acts likes a dumb teenager that gets frightened by his own... more>> shadow. He gets side track way too easy. Here's an MC with the ability to regress and is talentless but instead of using his ability to overcome his weakness, he gets into s*upid adventures that gets him killed very early. He has no real motivation to drive the story forward and overall he's very boring. I would praise the author for writing such an unlikeable character but the problem is he's the MC, we are supposed to like him.

The story itself is also laughable, it has no real driving force. There are way too many coincidences that shouldn't be there - like the MC stumbling on treasure or just happens to meet characters important to the story in the middle of nowhere. Did the author not remember that he is writing a story where the MC can continuously regress? Why make it a coincidence? Why not just make it so the MC lives like 20+ years and travelled and learned everything about the land. Or better yet, have it as something he's heard about in his previous life and actively have him investigate. The writing takes away the MC's agency and it makes the story feel very convenient as the author can just throw random sh*t at any time.

Overall a very frustrating story to read. Go and read "A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation" instead for an actual good regression novel. <<less

First off: I love this story.

As an idle/ incremental game lover, the idea of going through a life then coming back to the beginning with everything you've already done is attractive to a degree that's insane. My reaction to reading 'that was my first death' was instantaneous, I got HOOKED. With a core concept akin to Mother of Learning, the story has a theme where although he is not talented, he eventually (With time) becomes the strongest.

Of course, this is just as of chapter 6, and the story has a... more>> chance to turn into rubbish later on. Despite this, I have high hopes for this novel.

The setting seems to be well defined, despite being glossed over, and as a result of it being centred around martial arts (No xianxia stuff, mostly wuxia~ish), I can feel the story being more about the world around the MC and how he reacts to it, compared to being more around the MC and how the world reacts to it. Now: Although this may seem small, this small change is massive in terms of plot and development. This is the difference between 'The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich' and 'Tales of Demons and Gods', etc.

Now... Let the lurking (And wait...) begin! <<less

I've skimmed the first 60 or so chapters and for me it look that this novel was inspired by mother of learning. Time loop is a bit different (anchor is death) and the MC is swordsman instead of mage.

... more>>

Spoiler

The swordsmen picked up some weird book/artifact and when he dies, he resets to the same time and carries over with his ki/internal energy/knowledge accumulated. There are conspiracies (involving human sacrifices), powerful factions, some more even more powerful factions. Powerful and even more powerful rivals/teachers. Bit of the world revealed, revisited, updated. The person was the "frog in the well". Learns the things he didn't knew were happening when he was a low level grunt. Sees different perspective of the stuff he knew before.

MC powers up a bit too fast (novel is over 700 chapters long) and not 1/10 passed he already powered up A LOT.

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I didn't read that far ahead so hard to compare, but since MOL is not yet finished currently so waiting for next chapter for 3 weeks is a bit longish, the vibes this novel gives so far seemed similar, so chose this one to fill the void between chapters. <<less

This is probably my all-time favorite genre novel in Korea.

It's a shame the novel translation was discontinued, but here's what to expect should it ever get picked up again:

The novel has the reincarnation trope (not just once, but the MC dies and reincarnates multiple times) in a Wuxia setting at first, but it evolves into an incredibly unique world centered around Wuxia, Cthulhu Mythos and Chinese Mythology, along with elements from Gnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism and even Quantum Physics.

The different elements aren't thrown in your face as a means of flaunting... more>> the author's knowledge, but fits right into the novel's worldbuilding, which I think is really commendable. <<less

OK, so this series translation was dropped - for now at least - since March 2018 or something.

The novel premises is fun. The MC is an untalented cannon fodder martial artist, who is getting older and bitter about his life, but keeps hanging on... In a sudden turn of event, he is reincarnated at the age of 13 with his memories and cultivation from his previous life. In his new life he is still tr*sh, but with slightly better cultivation and memories of treasures, before they are discovered. Will the... more>> MC do better in his second life?

I really liked the easy reading. There MC adventures are fun to read. The world building is done in a clever way, because the MC knows some major events from his first life, but not much really, so he is continuously learning something new. I read RS also because I wanted to read another reincarnation story in comparison to TDG. I have to say I much prefer how the world building is done in RS than in TDG. In that novel the MC knows eeevrything, for the first couple hundred chapters at least. In RS, I really admire how the author is able to revisit some happenings in this story multiple times and the MC is learning new things, without it becoming too repetitive.

RS does not focus on some clever cultivation methodologies that take lost of words to read. There is inner power and techniques skill (until now at least) and it is an easy read. The only major downside for me is perhaps that the fights and their techniques are not interesting to read. The author even uses one-liner-batman-style fighting noises (like screeech!, or thud!, for example), which is incredible. The focus is on the story. The MC has characteer development, with some other characters, but at 37 chapters, you can't ask too much.

What about the MC personality after reincarnation... He can sometimes benefit from his past life experiences, so that people do not take advantage of him, but often the choices are immature and moody. Oftentimes, the MC choices are not smart. He is an example of learning by doing. It is a good thing for the reader, because it would probably be a little boring to read about continuous thinking about his choices and probability calculations.

This is a fun read. It helps the reader that the MC is a good guy that wants to return favors, but he can also dish out some sinister revenge if he feels like it. The 37 chapters finish in a nice spot, so it will not be too disappointing. But I wish somebody picked this up again. I might even patron if you do. <<less

This a Korean novel that is an EPIC work spanning over 1, 000 chapters. Just that fact indicates how awesome it is. The story has twists and turns while having your typical grind and power level.

Our MC is an ugly as heck young orphan boy who accidentally stumbled on an artifact that can endless regressed him every time he dies. Each regression explores a different "what ifs" while allowing our MC to gradually build power.

There are numerous conspiracies in the background that each chapter slowly peels for us keeping the reader captivated. The reader would think this is a typical Wuxia novel based on a Murim world only to be shocked that it's a lot more dark, magical, and mythical than originally thought.

Fair warning: I suggest taking long breaks between chapters when reading this novel. Though it is good, it is also rather depressing and dark. While the MC makes progress with each regression, the world and its people are so f**ked up you'd wonder if the Author is a severe mental case in real life.

This is a slightly weird Gary Stu MC story that recycles common tropes, also done with passably good plotting and developments than are somewhat interesting.

... more>>

Spoiler

I say 'slightly weird' because the genre appears to be your basic VR world 'weak to strong' type story (where the popularity is so high that game currency is valuable to real world corporations), but the author says 'Not enough!', and throws in reincarnation to do time travel so the MC can second chance it, THEN the author says 'Not enough!', and throws in wuxia elements in real life making the real world a high-tech murim story that's mostly ignored except where it's convenient to expand the in-game plot. Is that enough for the author? No- but I'm not going to get into all that because it's pretty ad-hoc after that.

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Regardless, it's pretty readable/enjoyable.

The GOOD:

• The plotting is actually 'planned' to a good degree. There are some issues at times with execution/forcing- but mostly it's better than most.
• Dual plotline 'real world/VR world' story development. Barely.
• Many story events are interesting.
• The world cannon is basically 'armchair game design', and is pretty detailed and somewhat interesting- though it would be unbalanced nonsense if actually implemented.

The Bad:

• Characters are all shallow plot-puppets, and mostly are just to validate/revere/fear the MC.
• So many girls to second-fiddle/revere/crush on him it's laughable. I guess it's good they're all skilled/competent & we'll focus on it that way, yes?
• The MC is an idiot
  • MC does dumb things
  • MC ignores 'friends'/takes advantage of 'allies'
  • MC thinks to develop own guild often AFTER other guilds have taken the lead in some area. Not sure why this is for a 'time travel' story, but whatever.
  • MC is so focused on grinding, bad sh*t happens to his guild while he is out ALL THE TIME, and seemingly no one can do anything except wait/repeatedly die till he gets back to save the day.
• The timeline accelerates for some reason, which doesn't help the story in any way. This is also contrary to the normal idea of 'MMO game development takes time'- but the author thinks all 'expansions' were 'in there' from the beginning, just waiting to be 'triggered' by some random player (so they can be immediately applied to the whole world 'ready or not').
• This is one of those 'Author forgets some of the items/powers the MC has in order to keep the challenge up' stories- so expect 'he can use (such and such item/summon/NPC) to not happen quite frequently.
• As a LitRPG you should expect stats and such similar boilerplate nonsense, but this one somehow makes it tedious to read them, probably because of the above point.
• Very verbose. Lots of exposition.
• The passage of time in this story seems off in lots of ways, and the MC gets 'this must be immediately handled'-type developments all the time, which he 'I'll get to that' and 'my own pace' does other crap, just to finish everything perfectly (due to some random bonus) anyway. It's one way how not to do drama,

The Different:

• Nothing really. Mixing future VR & a murim (hidden martial arts masters) world I guess?

Overall, it's got issues- but it's still good. <<less

Typical example of a tr*sh will remain tr*sh even after rebirthing multiple times. Extremely low ratings near the point of having none. Still 3 stars cause premise is interesting I really hope this novel will make me edit this review for better in later part of novel.

Actually a fantastic story. Well written, in-depth martial arts. Especially recommended if you're into lore/eastern history/theory-crafting of martial arts.

People keep saying the MC is dumb. Well, kind of. He's very dumb, impatient and foolish at the start. He doesn't get much smarter per se, but he does obtain more wisdom and thinks out his plans more thoroughly. Even then, he doesn't lose the 'essence' of his character, as he still sometimes throws caution to the wind and goes with his heart, even after several incarnations. This is ESPECIALLY refreshing because... more>> he tells his closest companions about reincarnating, which is very rare in this genre.

He's also not 'dumb because the author can't write smart', it's very much intentional, and his companions are smarter than him, guiding his actions.

It's a similar premise to A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation, where the MC is a talentless but good-natured fool who keeps reincarnating, Regressor's Tale is more of an immediate Xianxia (insane power levels), while this story is more of a Wuxia (more grounded power levels) + Cosmic horror. At least at the start, I'm only at Chp 100 and apparently this story is 1000+, and his end goal right now is to kill an Elder God. Still, the 'feeling' I get from this story is more Wuxia, where the characters have more believable motivations as opposed to a Xianxia where people are constantly on coke divine pills yelling "I MUST TRAIN FOR 1000 YEARS AND GET STRONGER!!!". <<less

I was very excited at the start and I still am for the rest of the story as the MC goes about his business. The one thing I noticed how the author specifically made his talent absolutely tr*sh and was a little disappointed that the MC does not have something that would improve his perception to help him be better at martial arts. You would think after 3 lifetimes, he would gain more and more knowledge, but that doesn't seem to be the case as for some reason, the author... more>> made him an idiot as well.

Spoiler

He took what was basically 3 lifetimes to take care of a single village chief, which is s*upid beyond belief. He justifies it with monologues about how the government will investigate and the like, but truth be told, he doesn't even make sue of his perfect future knowledge to even strategize a way to kill the chief without being involved. Hint: Leak to the Moorim all the secret silver he has left and hide yourself when you do it so no one knows who leaked it. That would've solved the problem and the government wouldn't care because he was hiding money from them too (he deserved it).

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I just hope he utilizes his knowledge more often and not remain a complete moron. Later on, I'll be coming back and editing this review based on how the story progresses, but until now, 4/5. <<less

The story itself is very good, but the translation makes it very hard to read. Its beyond the usual bad grammar and mistaken gender pronouns (which I can deal with to an extent). The main issue is the inconsistency, the names of techniques, artifacts titles, sects and occasionally people are translated differently over chapters. I have to play a guessing game every time I see a technique being used and it takes me out of immersion and ruins epic moments or makes me feel techniques are pulled out of his... more>> ass when they are actually just a previous technique translated differently. Also that translation issue carries over to descriptions of realms above first-rate so the progress becomes ambiguous, which ruins a progression fantasy. It also gets even worse over time. However the fact I got to chapter 151 despite that MASSIVE issue is a testament to the quality of the work. This is a 3 or 2 if you can't read Korean (like me) or a 4.5 if you can. <<less

The story is well written. The MC was unfortunately also well portrayed. It just for a reincarnated character, he was like a kid who died multiple time and never grew up into an adult. You have face the world once and then twice, but you still ignorant about the world around you, this was how the MC is portrayed. Nothing wrong with it, people will also love and hate this kind character, yet perhaps it is true that there's this kind of people who barely learns anything in a single... more>> lifetime. <<less