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Rating(4.2 / 5.0, 2035 votes)
5 | 61% (1237 votes) |
4 | 18% (359 votes) |
3 | 10% (207 votes) |
2 | 5% (106 votes) |
1 | 6% (126 votes) |
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Weekly Rank: #4331Monthly Rank: #6242
All Time Rank: #5
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On 18925 Reading Lists
Monthly Rank: #39
All Time Rank: #39
Description
Links are NOT allowed. Format your description nicely so people can easily read them. Please use proper spacing and paragraphs.Fate had never been kind to Ji Ning. Wracked by illnesses and infirm his entire life on Earth, Ji Ning knew early on that he would die as a teenager. What he didn’t know was that there really was such a thing as life after death and that the multiverse was a far larger place than he thought.
A lucky twist of fate meant that Ji Ning was reborn into a world of Immortals and monsters, of Ki Refiners and powerful Fiendgods, a world where Dynasties lasted for millions of years. A world which is both greater… and yet also smaller… than he ever could imagine. He would have the opportunity to join them, and in this life, Ji Ning swore to himself, he would never let himself be weak again! The Era he was born into was a Desolate one, but Ji Ning would make it his era.
Associated Names
One entry per lineJade Sword (official English title of drama and anime version)
Mãng Hoang Kỷ (Man Huang Ji)
Records of Barbarian Ji of the Primeval Era
العصر المقفر
莽荒纪
Related Series
Coiling Dragon (Shared Universe)Recommendations
Coiling Dragon (23)Stellar Transformation (12)
I Shall Seal the Heavens (10)
Swallowed Star (9)
The Nine Cauldrons (8)
Tales of Demons and Gods (7)
Recommendation Lists
Latest Release
Date | Group | Release |
---|---|---|
03/08/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c18 |
03/08/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c17 |
03/07/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c16 |
03/06/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c15 |
03/06/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c14 |
03/05/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c13 |
03/05/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c12 |
03/04/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c11 |
03/04/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c10 |
03/03/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c9 |
03/03/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c8 |
03/02/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c7 |
03/02/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c6 |
02/28/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c5 |
02/28/15 | World of Watermelons | v1c4 |
Objectively speaking only talking about Desolate Era, it is a decent novel till volume 11. Afterwards, it starts to become boring. The fights described in the novel are poorly done with just bang bang sfx and no imagination put to them at all. Secondly, there is lack of any proper story. And readers will start to feel this towards end of volume 24. Volume 24 is when the civil war in Grand Xia Dynasty ends. After that till volume 42 (till what I have read), there is no substantial story AT ALL. Its just usual progression with no real substance. The MC only wishes to resurrect his lover. But for this to go through 20 WHOLE volumes with 30-35 chapters in each volume is asking too much from readers. This is one of the flaws of all IET novels. They are usually too long with story development happening too far and few in between the chapters. This happened in Stellar transformations, Coiling Dragon and Lord Xue Ying. Plus, if you have read other IET novels that you will know that all the MCs are interchangeable. There is no difference in the personalities of MC in ST, CD or any other IET novels.
You could put Qin yu in CD or Linley in DE and it would hardly make any difference. Plus, the entire story is just about MC. There is hardly any interesting side characters. If you are looking for casual read go on ahead, the LN is OK till volume 24. After that it just gets progressively worse with author just expanding the power realms and world building as story goes on. Oh you think Daofather is most powerful??! Oh but wait till you reach volume 24 to realize that they are nothing but regular guys when you go beyond three-realms.... WTF...
- Plot is very slow and bland. First 2 volumes spent on describing how the MC trains every day to become the most OP character ever. Training is very boring and the details are not useful. Fantasy magical training techniques are neither relevant to real life nor interesting to read about. Volume 3 finally has the MC moving out of his house but is also filled with boring stuff like random people getting eaten by monsters only to be saved by the MC etc. Very repetitive and boring. The author's lack of creativity is palpable. The world is so small, filled with so few interesting things, that after 3 volumes, all we've gotten is scenes of the MC training and beating up monsters and bad guys getting in the MC's way. That's it. Just practicing skills and beating monsters and encountering bad guys for 3 volumes. Even Alice in Wonderland was more interesting than that.
- Bland characters. Spring Grass and Autumn Leaf are almost identical. You could not tell them apart - in fact, almost all the female main characters including the MC's mom are almost identical to each other. The female characters are only capable of worrying about the MC whilst the only emotion that male characters are ever capable of experiencing is anger when things don't go the way they want. One wonders what's the point of having so many characters that are completely identical, if not to have some of them die for dramatic purposes. MC's dad is a bland and boring character. There is not a single quoteworthy line from the entire novel. For all the "cold" talking he does, he never once utters a single line that is actually cold. Not even something like "Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.” (quote from game of thrones - not a novel that I enjoy but at least it's better than this one). Nope. All of his lines are literally just plot exposition or (like all the other characters in the story) expressing his shock at how awesome the MC is. Even Terror Infinity had interesting characters, like Xuan, and those were just cardboard cutouts!
- Certain characters are only there to make us feel bad when they die. That is their one and only purpose. Spring Grass for example. One might make a reasonable argument that if the MC truly cared for her, he would have never sent her away. In fact, if the MC truly cared for anyone then he would just leave them at home where they would be protected by multiple xiantian lifeforms instead of sending them away to some remote unprotected village just so they can get abducted and r*ped to death by some random bandit/monster/whatever (it's worse in the novel because she actually committed su*cide to "save face" so the MC doesn't have to find out and get "ashamed" of her, what flawless reasoning!). I mean, random monsters appear all the time in this world, so it seems like it would be common sense for you to leave important people at home, where they are most protected, right? I get that the MC has to risk his life on adventures, but does he have to risk OTHER people's lives as well? People that he cares about? Compare this to the MC in Path To Heaven (a MUCH MUCH better written novel than this in all aspects I must admit). The MC in Path To Heaven actually thinks about protecting his women (as well as his other assets), comes up with well thought-out plans, doesn't take unnecessary risks, and all in all is just a better MC period. I mean yes the MC in Path To Heaven was born in his world so he's naturally more street-savvy but the idiocy shown by the MC in this novel really is inexcusable especially given how he's supposed to be super smart due to his strong soul etc. Seems like the MC in this novel can only do 2 things: take s*upid risks and then vow revenge when people close to him are killed due to his s*upidity. Much like most xianxia novels in that those xianxia protags seem to never go beyond revenge to deeper self-reflection on what they've done wrong and how to fix stuff. They are only capable of going on revenge trips. That is their one and only trait.
- Lack of real character development. MC keeps saying how he learns things from the events he experience but he never actually learns anything other than most OP skills. He neither has the guile of Chu Yang in TTNH nor the caution of the MC in Path to Heaven. Says he spent 3 days preparing for his trip to kill deadly dangerous diremonsters. Really? Only 3 days and you skip all description of the preparation? Might as well have just packed some extra clothes for all we know. Immediately runs off to get revenge as soon as an enemy offends him, just like his father. One wonders how these morons haven't gotten killed by an ambush yet.
- The MC is "awesome" and the author never holds back on any opportunity to beat us over the head with this fact. First he was luckily given the most OP visualization technique which makes his soul super strong then he's given the most OP body strengthing technique and then movement technique and sword technique and blah blah. It all gets quite tedious. Does the MC really need to always happen on the most luckiest of situations? I'd love to read a CN webnovel that gives the MC a cheat just once, at the start of the novel, and has him have average luck through the rest of the story. It's really tiring to read a protagonist always have godly luck every single time, making breakthroughs in the middle of battle and all that. Quite annoying. This was a problem with FLTX's TTNH as well but TTNH made up for it in other ways, such as having characters that are not completely bland (although still stereotypical) and a story that actually goes places. In Path To Heaven the MC fights several other guys who obtained more OP items and skills than him and still wins because of superior battle tactics and foresight. The MC in this novel (so far) has won literally all his battles via brute strength and OP powers. He even falls into Ironwood Zhan's trap and still wins because of his OP powers (OP visualization technique, OP body refinement technique, OP movement technique etc).
tl;dr All characters are bland and boring, nothing interesting happens,... more>>+Quality translation.
+Detailed world building (though the author does tend to hyperbolize a lot of details).
+Well written action scenes.
+The main antagonists have some depth to them and they don't just go around thinking they are the center of the world, most immortals don't wish to throw away their life. The ones that do are a very small minority and when they realize the difference in power they either try to escape or plead for their life, differently from most other novels of the same genre where they would just refuse to accept reality.
+Most minor characters aren't forgotten and they re-appear, albeit shortly, constantly during the story, while in other novels they just disappear completely.
+Most of the characters have an actual backstory.
+The protagonist cares about his clan and doesn't go around forgetting them after he grows powerful, he constantly returns trying to improve it.
+Good character development.
+Slow, but fulfilling romance.
+For me at least, the protagonist has a great personality.
*Neither arrogant nor annoying. *Intelligent. *Realistic. *Mature. *Loyal. *Level-headed/equanimous. @Delroy I really have no clue where the protagonist was branded as a "saint" in his previous or current life. He wasn't some sort of holy man who went around the world helping every person he saw or something. He was ill all his life and was stuck living locked in his room, so as to pass time he started earning money online. Then, because he knew he was going to eventually die and his parents were already rich, he decided to give the money he earned to charity, saving a lot of lives. While that makes him a good person, that doesn't make him some sort of saint who embodies the seven virtues and goes crazy the moment he hears an injustice being committed, or else everyone who has donated money sometimes in their life to charity is a saint. Also, having a lot of karmic points means you have done a lot of good deeds, it does not mean you have a heart full of kindness. If a terrible demon started saving lives to accumulate karmic points, he would get those karmic points even though his heart is pitch black. It's like a reward system for doing good or bad deeds it isn't a system to judge your personality. You could have a lot of karmic points simply because you accomplished a lot of good deeds in your previous life, even if you had no memories of it.
just before Ji Ning leaves the Fuxi... galaxy?
His family actually dies in this one, and there's an actual sense of his loneliness and the sacrifices he had to make. However, I don't know whether he resurrects his family in the end, which, if he did, would almost make me want to deduct a star from the rating.
Ji Ning's first girlfriend actually ISN'T his one true love, which is nice, although his second is.
IET brings back science fiction elements into DE, except even more egregiously. The whole Chinese pantheon is actually just a bunch of scrubs in some weird larger universe rife with kooky aliens and spaceships. This totally butchers the fantastic and mythic qualities of DE and makes it another kooky entry into an already kooky bibliography.
As I said in my review of Stellar Transformations, there's nothing inherently wrong with a spatial setting, but it undermines the spirituality and aesthetics already present inside the novel. Chinese mythology has a broad set of associations, mixtures of bureaucracy, profundity, awe, and quaintness. Having the Jade Emperor going out in squads with his bros to another planet to do battle with googly-eyed aliens is one of the most absurd and cognitively dissonant ideas I've ever heard! The fact that not only does this occur, but all of the Chinese Pantheon is parameterized in a levelled system of strength, power, and ability, totally demolishes the ambiguity and mysticism surounding them. It's to the point where even *karma* is stratified in the novel!
Finally, IET needs to figure out how to have his characters deal with loss. Having them all romp across the universe because they're unable to accept death of close ones, and then having them succeeding is acceptable once, but a childish habit when spread across multiple novels...
Ok, honestly speaking the novel isnt that bad, or at least it wasn't. Not until MC met his lover who by now is still dead.
The story explains that reviving Ji Ning's wife is so hard due to something something unstable space that can only be withstood with the help of a cultivator that as of current chapters we still dont know if they still exist due to how hard it is to get to that level.
how absurd is that? Very absurd. Our mc's swiftness in his progress to cultivation is due to the fact that he wishes to revive his wife. That's a really convenient way to make him achieve to become the strongest huh.
If the above explanation still does not convince you then lets talk a bit about his lover/wife. Basically MC goes to war with his buddies which lasts for quite a while and it was later found out that mc's wife was actually one of the spies of the other side of the camp. she destroyed something which cost lots of rare and difficult to find materials after which she kills herself because she feels guilty over what she did. But oh wait, mc's lover only did it because she was controlled by the enemies' power apparently her soul was being controlled by the enemy. It also describes how she could have decided not to comply with the order but then she just did it coz her soul is obliged to follow the orders of her soul's captor.