The novel is fun though it suffers from some crippling flaws that are honestly making me nearly drop it dead already. In case you're interested in a VR novel with an OP MC that just steamrolls everything, CCM is a decent choice. However, I should probably warn you of certain things.

1. Game (as in VRMMO he's playing) is terribly designed. It has the most bare bones framework but nothing past it. It's hard to gauge the difficulty of fights as we have no clue how much HP the monster has or how much DMG MC (or anyone else, really) does. At best we get some vague sh*t like 'boss has tons of hp' and 'MC deals hills of dmg'. Stats are just numbers and they play little role besides 'he added points in agility now he's faster'. It's just too vague to be appreciated. Leveling curve is kind of nonsense to be honest, but, whatever, it's a power-fantasy VRMMO, it's not like you can expect any better.
2. All - ALL - female characters in this novel are insufferable. That's right - insufferable. There's not a single decent female character in the novel. Honestly, if it weren't for them, I could most-likely ignore the first point and just have fun reading. But I can't. Every few chapters, new chick gets introduced and I just want to bash her f*cking skull in until her teeth are slipping out her ass. Perhaps the worst point is that the MC just goes along with their insanity. 'Y she's insufferable b*tch, but whatever, let's just do whatever she says 'cuz I'm a good person hurdur'. Good god. I never thought I'd actually prefer the 'big-boobed just wanna MC's dick' girls in novels before reading this.
3. Writing style is... not that great. Excessive repetition, empty paragraphs of nothingness, very, very vague fights (MC dodged, he attack, he dodged them all easily, bam they're all dead). There's occasional fight with more detail, but not by a large margin. Even the very first BOSS fight is basically 'MC discovered the flaw, MC dodges, MC strikes, MC kills, the end'.

All in all, these may seem like small points, but they pile on. Honestly, if I wasn't in a mood for a VRMMO story, I probably wouldn't be reading this. Unless female characters either completely vanish from this novel or improve considerably, I probably won't be reading this anymore. Seeing as there's no... more>> 'harem' tag so far, hopefully these suffocating c*nts are just temporary side attractions that will go away. But, then again, MC joined the guild that only accepts female players, so I highly doubt it. Oh well. <<less

All the characters are extremely bland, except perhaps the MC's mercenary group having at least 2D characteristics. All the female players are insufferable and friendly with eachother. The MC is everyone else's b*tch, he does everything for them under the guise of him being a "good person".

The only time he got pissed off was because some ret*rded woman from his guild almost lost him tens of thousands of dollars worth of top-grade equipment that belonged to a friend of his, but he immediately cucked out and forgave her. The MC... more>> gets embarrassed by some priest that heals him at random times and everyone calls that "teasing", I call that ret*rded.

A bunch of women from his guild attack him out of nowhere sometimes yet he doesn't retaliate because the MC is a "good person".

There's a point where he goes to another city and there's a woman married to the leader of a powerful guild, she f*cks with anyone who disrespects her and has her guildmates kill them and anyone from the same guild on sight then making them lose levels repeatedly, but then when he sees her again, he forgives her because "anyone would've done the same". Are you ret*rded ? Only the most psychotic would f*ck this hard with people, he even tries to compare it to someone else helping him in a tavern by killing 5 guys whom he had just killed the friend of (because of a bounty collection mission). They were about to kill you ! It's not the same !

For some reason the MC hides that he's the guy who killed a dude he hated because it'd attract people challenging him, which I doubt, but he keeps doing it months later when everyone else lost interest.

The game rules are unreliable at best.

I can't describe how much I hate this novel. I hate every interaction between characters, there are some realistic ones here and there, but overall they suck and it gets worse the longer you read. <<less

Hi! I'm the new English translator from Gravity Tales, and here is my "semi-biased" review

(You can't translate a series you hate, but I do not deny I stand to gain from increased viewership)

Disclaimer: To those who have read TKA and liked the E-sports aspect of the novel, this novel won't give you that.

... more>> This novel is about a Kungfu Fanatic using A VRMMO to further improve his Kungfu.

But he soon learns that he can't just treat this like the real world, and starts learning the ropes of the VR world with the help of "friends" he make along the way. If you like your MC to grow and learn but still be cheeky whenever, I highly recommend this read.

The novel shines in the characters. The author knows how to build these fun and interesting characters and lean into their quirks and their interactions with one another as a result. Will MC be OP? Sure, but this is not one MC that does everything on his own and is always grounded to a vague sense of realism.

I can't say for how good the translation is *ahem*, but I can assure you that it'll be consistent with releases (:

P.S. This novel suffers from pacing problems, thus the 4 out of 5 stars. The ramp up gets real but the troughs do feel stilted when it happens, but I find the writing superb and we don't exactly have alot of filler moments.

Also the final volume (10) in this novel is almost 500 chapters long. That's basically half the novel. <<less

It's a mixed bag of decent and bad.

MC is decent. His mentality is decent, not a perfect upright, and not a super greedy villain. Sees himself as upright, though his actions are kinda villainous being a pvp maniac. Unfortunately he's able to get away with alot of things because of plotholes that create a bad MMORPG. Like being the only Kung Fu master among gamers. Even though China has the largest standing army in the world, which produces a ton of people who know how to fight.

How is the MMORPG... more>> bad?

1. You have to delete your account if you want to reroll classes.

2. You can create a character with a class on an account and gift the account, but the character created somehow looks like the new account holder. But there's a body scan you say? It was written as having only scanned at character creation.

3. They let you slot stats, but confine you to 6 classes with 2 advanced options later. The last time I played a game that let me slot stats, there was a dozen unique classes.

4. Zero dungeons, single zones only. That's right, to level you have to compete for mobs in an outdoor field against massive amounts of other players, or be ahead of the curb in one way or another.

5. Pvp only server. As alluded to in the first couple of arcs, it scares off all the people who want to just PvE, simply because you have no choice but to be baller to be left unganked.

6. Gear drop. Every single PVP MMORPG that has gear drop died. They don't exist anymore. Why? Because reward vs effort is always skewed towards PvP robbers, which will always scare off casuals and tanks the in game economy, which then tanks subs and micro transactions, which kills the game. Every. Single. Time.

7. Level drop on death. It's always only fine with hardcore players. A few too many deaths in a row, which happens to anyone and casuals always end up quitting. Odd how most of the MC's acquaintances are casuals.

8. For realism, s*xual assault is allowed. It's not apart of the MC's experience, thus not in the story besides being talked about in the first arc. Which makes me surprised there's any women in the game at all. I mean China has a problem with having 2 males to 1 female already, and kidnapping girls and deflowering them to force a marriage. Considering MMOs in general are dominated by males, the women in a game that would allow s*xual assault should be a lot rarer than is portrayed. I mean they are rare, but not rare enough imo.

9. Dmg and def has rather linear scaling, where as almost all MMORPGs have exponential scaling. It's one reason why people can't damage, much less kill things 10 levels higher than themselves solo in most games. The mobs are far stronger stat wise, in late game often 10% stronger per level instead of 10 stat points stronger.

10. Body scanning and forcing players to play with their natural body. It'll lead to RL theft, kidnappings, r*pe, man hunts, and mu*ders. Society just ain't that nice to let people be asses in a game, and have no repercussions in RL. Much less Chinese society who has no probs kidnapping people and selling their organs on the black market.

11. Pay to win is allowed. Which means the fact that there is only one whale in all the top ranking is ludicrous. Pretty much the whole top 10, 000 should be pay to win players, as they can get better to the best loot while everyone else is lucky.

12. One skill every 6 levels. Yeah, that is super rare, and never happen in a MMORPG I've played unless there's a good 100 levels+ to it.

Basically the only reason the game survives is because plot, and it being the only immersive game around. You couldn't pay me enough to play a game where my own RL safety could be on the line.

Regardless I gave it a 3 star simply because it can be entertaining, IF you ignore the glaring problems, have no understanding of real life, or live in an idealistic world where people won't hunt you down IRL and give you hell, simply because you kicked their ass in a game. <<less

I decided to try this series because I liked King's Avatar, especially the MC. Unfortunately, this MC is nothing like that one. He's just a generic, gullible, hotheaded moron that doesn't really believe in thinking. I'd usually give it a few more chapters to turn itself around since I like the author, but now that the translators have officially stated that its not a priority for them, I just can't be bothered. tl;dr: Try if you want something generic and don't mind waiting forever for new releases.

This novel is okay. Here's my full review.

1. 1. The Setting

1. 1. The Main Character

1. 1. The Side Characters

1. 1. Progression in the Universe

1. 1. Conclusion

1

We start off with a brief introduction into the game and the Main Characters background. It's established that the MC is a novice to video games, and while he's heard of games in the past, he's mostly unaware of how games function. It's quickly shown through the Authors writing that the setting is almost entirely fantasy and that even if you're a fan of games, you're going to have to suspend quite of bit of disbelief to immerse yourself into this MMO. The game is touted as the first Fully Immersive Virtual Reality MMO; this itself is fine if it wasn't for the constant flaunting of systems in the game that are simply too immersive. An example of this is when the MC targets a characters acupuncture point. This level of combat precision is never shown again, and the Author never brings them up when describing combat again.

Much of the MMO is described in vague and inconsequential

ways that leaves an unimpactful and deeply unsatisfying feeling afterward. It's described at the start how many points a player receives when leveling, and some of the equipment gets described with numbers that are supposed to be impressive. The problem with this is that we have nothing to base the numbers on the equipment or on the stats to. There is nothing deep about the systems in play, and the Author doesn't go on to describe what putting points into agility accomplishes at what rate. The Author doesn't go on to describe how much health a character or a boss has, and therefore when our MC defeats a player or a monster, it doesn't feel impactful. The lack in the description up to this point has lessened the achievements of the MC and the danger in the situation.

The final part of the setting is the design on the MMO. It's unknown what role at this point the GMs or the company will play with our MC. So far they've held a back seat in much of the plot, and have yet to get on one side or the other with the MC or the MMO. What they have done though, is make a piss poor game in itself. The lack of framework or depth here is disparaging towards the MMO. Up to this point, every character in the game has progressed simply by doing quests and grinding mobs. We could compare this level of gameplay immersion to classic WoW. There hasn't been a dungeon or a larger scale event to be a part of. Not to mention the liberties given to the immersion such as r*pe which the game devs allowed in because they feel like the sexy time in their game would be ruined if a pop-up box for consent was added in. Overall, I wouldn't want to play this game, even if it was a fully immersive game.

2

The MC is described to us as a Kungfu practitioner who disagrees with his family on how to use it. The MC wants to use his martial arts to fight and kill people and doesn't see it as a means to train his body. He started off trying and failing to implement his martial arts into his working life and was unable to become a professional Kungfu artist. A little unbelievable, but that's the tip of the iceberg to this man. While in the game he's an unparalleled genius of fighting, with the ultimate control affordable to a player, he's described himself to be even more OP outside of the MMO. Since the MC at my point in the story has yet to put a single point outside of agility, he often runs into having no strength to deal with people. While he lamenting his weakness, he describes what that action would have done in real life with outrageous results. The Author has said that a kick from the MC would have sent a man 5 meters and other such ludicrous statements.

On the topic of the MCs stats, he has not placed a single attribute on anything but agility. He often forgets about it, but when it does come up, it's a big point for a few paragraphs. While he thinks about it, the impact it has seems to be pretty significant, such as having no ability to carry things or punch people. At my point in the story, he's level 38, and it doesn't seem like any of the 228 stat points he has earned have gone to anything except agility despite his attitude towards his lack of strength stat. At level 40, characters not only have a chance to redistribute their stats but also choose a branch class. We'll just have to see if he changes his stat distribution because he seems unhampered at this point and doesn't seem like he'll stop distributing into agility.

The MC is not relatable, and his attitude and actions don't match. The MC is a PVP Maniac, who will roam the streets with his wealth on display to attract fights with robbers as if he's some sort of righteous hero. Yet he hides his identity when performing massacres because he doesn't want things to get troublesome and he doesn't want to be challenged. He hides his identity and misleads others, yet doesn't like getting made fun of or misunderstood by others. His character doesn't match with his actions, and it leads to a lot of disappointing interactions with the story.

3

The side characters are very shallow in this story. Up to this point, we know more about the villains in the story than the MCs friends. There are many side and tertiary characters that have little more than a name attached to them, yet they're brought up and included in the story often. His main mercenary team is little better than a group of one-word cliches or comedic foil. Most of the characters are treated as dumb, purposefully antagonistic, or rude. While this obviously is there to make our MC look better, it makes him look worse by association. Many of the characters cannot pin a disguised identity to our MC, despite there being no other character who fights like he does, uses the weaponry he does, or even tries to be him. Somehow, the characters are still "left guessing" even with him being the ONLY mage who has been mentioned to fight like this.

There is a wide cast of characters that are really only there because the MC needs to have obstacles in his journey and someone to bounce dialogue off of. It's yet to be seen what use these characters will have with the MC, as he's more powerful and better at combat than every single one to date. His items are better, his control is better, and he's able to level off of mobs 10-20 times his level. There are some good apples in the bunch, but it's easy to overlook them due to the lack of screen time they get. One of them is Sword Demon, he goes from an arrogant Expert player to his friend when the MC returns his knife to him twice.

4

To conclude, the story is okay. There are a lot of negatives in it, that can be hard to overlook. I'm willing to read a little further to see if there will be any character growth that fleshes the story out more. I'm frustrated by what was essentially a 1 month time skip where the MC went from level 31 to 40. This has left me with very little sense as to the progression in the game, or how meaningful it is.

I personally don't recommend this novel. I feel that the author has written a messy story, and the tropes in it aren't well fleshed out. The side characters are unmeaningful, the MC is flat and uninteresting so far, and the world is disappointing. The combat isn't well described or impactful, and the progression to this point has been uninteresting and lackluster. The interactions and dialogue with characters is alright, but it has a lot of redundancy and fluff. 2/5

So, I find this story very unfortunate.

To be clear, contrary to some other reviews, the MC is not portrayed as an idiot or even particularly s*upid at all, merely a video game novice.

If you do not mind OP MCs (which is more of a genre choice than a pro or con) the main character is not a major turn off for this novel, rather there is a very serious flaw.

The author seems to have never played a video game in his life and as this is a game about a... more>> virtual reality MMO, the game itself is utter garbage. I am not talking about the world or the story of the game or whatnot, that hasnt even really been explored yet so I cant speak to that. Rather it is the game systems themselves and the situations resultant therein.

Brand spanking new game that no one knows anything about because it is the start of closed beta and no information has previously been leaked and random pro player 1 has already reached level 25. Misc comedy foil average to low skill player is able to reach level 10 in 2 hours despite there being such a crowd at the low level leveling areas that every mob that spawns has 10 players fighting for it. What the heck is the level cap 1000? Or are players going to hit cap within days of starting this new game that no one has any knowledge about. This really devalues any character progression. Also plot points and their interaction with game is entirely whimsical causing situations that just do not make sense.

Spoiler

At one point that high level pro is drinking in a bar, and for some reason has his super valuable OP dagger just laying on the table. Not for any apparent purpose of showing off or anything since hes just minding his own business and most other players at this point wouldnt be able to tell its anything special at all anyway, but he just has it sitting there where another person just comes and takes it while hes distracted. Keep in mind this game DOES have an inventory system...

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Basically, so far, and I admittedly wasnt able to read far because it was just too s*upidly frustrating, but so far there isnt anything notably wrong with the story, the characters, anything like that, they are all decent and pretty par for course up to now, but what is effectively the "World" that the novel is set in is just... tr*sh. If you have never played an MMORPG nor ever read a good virtual reality novel, you might not notice the flaws and in that case you will probably like the novel. <<less

I can't believe this was written by the same author who wrote The King's Avatar. This novel has an interesting start but it's a down the hill from there. Everyone else is dumber and weaker than the MC who is a dumb martial artist. Compared to this, TKA is in a league of it's own. Read that instead if you haven't read it yet and are looking for a game novel.

Hmm, Chapter 4 Review, it is 1 year past the last update from translators.

It is a VRMMO genre, with the cliche of the real life player skill can be used in game because of the VR aspect, in this case, the MC's kungfu-based accuracy and flexibility. While they are not up to his actual real life level, it is still pretty good compared to newbie players and the monster AIs, even with his Mage base stats.

He then plans on dumping all his acquired stat points on Strength and Dexterity...... more>> I wonder what he plans to do against skills that have auto-aim?

The character sounds pretty funny, and his backstory is 'interesting' as well.

"Father, what use is kungfu?"

"m*sturbation!"

The father, who is his teacher, proceeds to beat him down with kungfu.

The punchline of this skit is probably still untranslated on later chapters... <<less

The Author has no idea how MMORPG Players behave, much less how the companies that make such a game behave.

The combat is not realistic in the slightest and its completely irrelevant that the MCs class is a mage.

The translation isn't bad, but everything else is giving me a headache when reading this, so I'm dropping it.

A classic example of a story told by an unreliable narrator, who tells us how good and smart the MC is, while describing the actions of a peasant moron, who is unable to learn basic lessons from direct experience, or develop their own conception of how a reasonable person would uphold the ideal of familial piety.

For me the novel felt to be too boring The MC wanted a melee class but ended up becoming a mage I don't get why he just didn't start a new account anyways he uses his real life abilities in the game beats the crap out of his opponents while making friends

There is a novel called MMORPG MARTIAL GAMER feels exactly like this novel just that the MC chooses fighting class and then beats the crap out of everyone Everything else just feels incredibly similar

It's martial arts idiot meets VRMMO.

For many gamers, you can definitely relate to during the first few chapters how it feels to play something for the first time. Though in our case, if we screw up we can start again or there is a guide that tells us the best path of choices to take.

In this novel, it takes the quite common route of being something totally unexpected. Like the title, close-combat + mage. Mages aren't supposed to be close-combat according to the characters in the story but the MC... more>> breaks those norms and becomes a combination of both that surprises all that face him. Taking the best of both worlds really.

Only that it really feels a bit unbelievable when the author makes the MC out to be OP because of his real life skills and managing to emulate it inside this VRMMO and then awe-inspiring other OP gamers in the game for playing so out-of-their-expectations. If you can get around that, then I guess the game is enjoyable. Though for some reason while reading this reminds me of the friendly relationship the MC has from Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World.

Anyways, like the King's Avatar, expect lots of detailed game elements and mechanics. <<less

There are good things and bad things about this novel to start with it is a nice read and there are factors that may give people an itch of discomfort when reading it.

• Spoiler

  • the first being how fast people level... the game is in closed beta which means the purpose is the test things out so the developers made it so that the first 30 levels are easy to get to so that the players will be able to acquire skills to test out.
  • the MC is a mage who hasn't really used magic so whats the point of having him in as a mage? as of chapter 21 the MC hasn't really used magic to fight. he is a martial artist and came to play the game for the purpose of martial arts rather than the game itself so many of the mechanics are worthless to him. now since the title does have mage in it I am almost certain he will eventually use magic to emphasize his arts.
  • poor mechanics of game.... some people believe there are some bad mechanics that allow low level players to beat high level players and other points such as stealing items, etc... but this is the first VRMMO game and closed beta, so it is fair to say the devs are not going to magically figure out every problem and bug in the world.

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this is an interesting read in which the only problem I really found was that you cant change classes which I understand would make the novel pointless then if you could do that but seriously a closed beta game should allow class change as I could estimate about a third of the players give or take will not enjoy the first class they play especially if you have a system that allows you to chose a class before you get into the game.

it isn't going to blow any socks off with deep ideas and is simplistic in nature but those aren't bad things and it is possible to immerse yourself into the story as long as you read it with understanding that martial arts will probably be the larger category over magic. Its important to know that the MC only cares about using martial arts right now so things like game stories, quests, and gear are irreverent to him. I would recommend maybe putting this in a waiting folder and wait til like chapter 50 or so comes out (or 30 with how slow he translates them) and maybe by then he might be more game smart.

This series is a lighthearted series one may consider reading to spend time on, but it's not compelling and is rather slow-moving. There's neither significant plot nor drama. It's basically just an kungfu otaku MC who is OP after accidentally getting a mage character as he plays around in this VRMMORPG.

By the time the MC finally starts to learn how to use magic, the chapters turn premium. That's over 80 chapters in. The arcs definitely drag on a bit.

The game itself has a lot of logic holes and appears to... more>> be poorly designed in many aspects, but the setting isn't so bad that I had to drop it immediately. There are some inconsistencies and plenty of illogical things. If the MC is such noob in many aspects, then why does he know the details of combat with this class he's never fought against before? If he has a full-time job as a teacher, then how is he able to suddenly spend so many days spending so many hours grinding online?

Why does everyone look exactly like they would in real life? Isn't half the fun of doing things online the sense of anonymity?

Why are there no health problems resulting from being in this game so long? What is the gaming capsule or VR helmet or whatever they're using look like? Do people plan too long and end up with some worse health problems or at least some aches and pains from not moving? Are there no alerts to let players know they need to take breaks?

Why is pain in this game so realistic? People are playing for fun, not to experience the sensation of being impaled, stabbed, or eviscerated as realistically as possible. The trauma from this game and risk of gaining PTSD is really high.

All the characters are quite flat, including the MC. I think they were supposed to come off as comical, but they really aren't that funny and don't have much depth or development at all.

The sexism is pretty strong when it appears. One chapter says women aren’t able to focus or play characters that require them to use their heads. Like, what the hell? It's a great way to yanked out of a narrative that isn't that intriguing to begin with. On the bright side, the free chapters have yet to show any racism that can sometimes be prominent in these novels.

This series doesn't have any strengths. Overall, it's just kind of... boring.

Translations are okay for the most part. There are some occasional distracting grammatical errors, but I've seen worse elsewhere. <<less

This is a very boring story. The main character is strong physically but weak mentally. He refuses to commit to simple solutions (like killing a player in the game to get the stolen goods back). It feels like I'm watching a fool playing a game to practice his martial arts.

Decent concept, average execution.

MC isn't perfect, nor is he s*upid. He's a man of average intelligence but was born in a martial arts family that rigorously trained in martial arts since youth. Nothing too unbelievable like ZL regarding real life martial arts except for "killing intent" which may or may not exist in real life.

I really enjoyed the story until 320ish ... more>>

Spoiler

they go on this long expedition as a huge group with no clear end to the story arc

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Characters are fun, some humor, MC is powerful but not omnipotent. Would recommend. <<less

A martial artist breaking the game with martial arts. Fun, comedic, and not too serious.

This is one of my favorite novels. You have to treat this novel like watching a slap-stick sit-com. Don't think too much about the plot because this novel is comedic banter first and action second. Just enjoy the silliness as the characters around the MC taunt and ridicule each other as they get into and out of interesting situations.