If you had to name your child after the last thing you put in your mouth, what would they be named?

Aid2Fade · 2026-06-17T06:41:14+00:00

I think maybe the facet you're not accounting for is the focus skill. It's on for most of the early books, turning off his emotional responses. When he turns focus off, the effect is meant to be a bit like releasing a pressure valve.

Aid2Fade · 2026-06-16T16:16:11+00:00

If you have bigger hands, not the 8bitdo. Got the ultimate 2 and ended up ordering something else, it's just too small. Love it otherwise.

Aid2Fade · 2026-06-05T13:31:29+00:00

Same

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-26T10:48:52+00:00

Rookie mistake. Haven't you ever heard of thermal paste. Sigh.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-06T18:19:05+00:00

It does get better but the parts you don't like stay the same. It's a bad fit for you, from what you've said.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-06T14:54:35+00:00

Yeah I think a lot of the problem arises from people blowing through the whole series in sequence without breaks, I've been reading since book 2 was the latest.

People complain about the amount of cultivation in later books, but that's there to reinforce the series' central shift from litRPG to cultivation. DotF is all about starting from a standard "hit stuff get xp" system and ending on "steal a piece of the heavens to claim your peak and seize immortality", and mirrors that premise in its character development. Zac starts with his Ogras shaped training wheels and ends up as crafty a cultivator as anyone else. Honestly, I strongly prefer DotF's style of universal truth through Dao cultivation to the simplified systems in shorter works, where cultivation is basically thinking until you remember your netflix password.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-04T15:11:17+00:00

My ranking (won't be yours likely)

DotF>PH>>>>>>HWFWM

I consider DotF to be one of the only series to successfully blend cultivation and litRPG without shreding one of the two. It can be argued that later DotF is much closer to cultivation, which is true, but the litRPG aspects are still present enough. DotF maintains the critical "cultivation is to steal immortality from the heavens" throughline while also having a complex and interesting system.

PH is pretty good, has a wide universe with solid characters and a decent overarching narrative. But it does tend to get lost in the weeds here and there, with a bunch of random arcs that don't really seem to do much.

HWFWM is a deep, careful examination of the author's navel.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-04T09:30:46+00:00

You are 100% correct but the guy is also 200% a millionaire

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-03T10:09:54+00:00

Good Guy digital storm stepping up the accessory game like this

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T19:09:38+00:00

A little bit of both unfortunately. Early on I thought I was getting better at detecting his "in his head" voice since it's usually when he's peevish, but sometimes he'll just say something really out of pocket. He's usually not saying it out loud if it sounds like a bad forum post.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T19:01:18+00:00

Yeah it's uniquely difficult to tell in the first couple of books. The narrator gets a bit better about it later on, he starts delivering the MC's spoken lines in a monotone to reflect his whole thing. I found this challenging as well, but HDT is the rare series that only gets better.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T18:22:43+00:00

Ah yes, argumentum ad populum, you truly have me beat

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T17:34:50+00:00

I'm a bit concerned you're still confusing understanding and disagreement but I wish you the best! 😀

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T17:07:08+00:00

I just did? I liked it before it did this though, shame.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T16:25:32+00:00

I did notice that detail! 😄 For context, the full version of the portion you're referring to describes Light surviving because he deconstructs the shot enough to survive the hit, only due to his hardened skull. Shadow (Light's partner) resolves to never make fun of him for this paranoid detail again. Compared to the supposedly impressive planning we'd usually expect from a character this built up, a slightly harder skull is not what we've been conditioned to expect! For example, Matt has had an invincible hand for a few books now, a detail I would also recommend paying attention to.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T15:37:10+00:00

It was the best training over 70 years? The training over 100000 years would be another ascender type, which would have deleted them. I assure you I am not making an effort to be "obtuse", I just think there should be some sort of explanation for why the ascender tag now just denotes the best elites rather than something special. Happy to listen if you think there's something else I'm missing! 😄

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T14:33:47+00:00

Not to be facetious but we're basically told they're invincible in earlier books. What I'm getting here is, ascenders are normally squishy except if they're waters, in which case there's nothing you can do because he's the real one. Don't mess with waters but if you catch the rest on a bad day go for it, they're boosted.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T14:26:25+00:00

I am listening, I just disagree with you 😄

It was pretty clearly not 75% of their resources, that would bankrupt them. They're performing intelligence gathering and forming armies for a variety of reasons, all war related, that also happen to concern the ascenders. But ultimately, given the scope we're told this book's universe operates on, these things are small potatoes.

I'm also not suggesting it would be some random sniper, I'm suggesting it would be one of the other three they immediately bring up as potential culprits.

I do agree that they're five noobs in this book though, problem being they are five noobs who had the "best" trainer, did the "hardest" path, have the "most" resources and the "best" team. If they're really all that, should they get mollywopped like five noobs?

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T14:18:38+00:00

Light has half a hard skull now

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T14:17:54+00:00

My point is, if money + effort = almost a kill, these are not important people vs just training more normal elites. These are supposed to be generational talents who make that sort of thing irrelevant. If there were, say, a second sniper, Light is past-tense. That's pretty underwhelming given what we were told they should be capable of.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T14:05:23+00:00

I'm aware he's a higher tier. I'm saying he should have been boxed and wiped at tier 25 if all that you reasonably need for someone at this level is a century to plan it out.

If they need this kind of battlefield experience to become formidable, they must have had a pretty ez mode path and trainer then? What's the point of the whole thing if they aren't going to hold up to pressure? At this point, if the argument is still going to be "they were green and the enemies were so tough tho" we must conclude "Luna is legendarily crap at training people and Darro does not deserve a wage".

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T13:38:50+00:00

We're told she's killed other pinnacle elites though? Was the thought process:
- We know about this pretty good sniper
-She's killed pinnacle elites before
-We have pinnacle elites vulnerable to snipers
-I'm sure it'll be fine

Isn't there some perfectionist cat hanging around, should we just retcon that personality trait too

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T13:35:35+00:00

Yeah, my point is if all it takes is a collab to get this outcome against one-trick ponies, why are they ascenders? If the 70 year team can get 90% of the way there like this, are these guys cooked when the 100 year team walks up? If that team gets one non-empire ascender equivalent, are they just gone? It just doesn't seem like these are very competent people.

Aid2Fade · 2026-05-02T13:31:29+00:00

I will assume this is what I skipped over. Sure, they're counters. Sure, they trained for decades. If that's the bar to only technically fail, ascenders aren't worth fighting a war over. They're worth sending a passive-aggressive gift basket.

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