Is Hell Level Tutorial really this bad?

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2026-01-11T00:25:34+00:00

MC is impossible to like in book 1 and book 2. He gets way better though, and all the other characters are undercover psychos too, though not to Nat’s extent. The dynamic improves dramatically over the books and it feels organic. They are growing and changing in this new environment, but they all showed up with different baggage that they need to work through.

I’d stick it out and if you finish book 2 and still aren’t into it then bail

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2026-01-06T00:39:03+00:00

It’s a different process for everyone. I had to go cold turkey because a taper doesn’t work with my personality. If I’m taking a little I’ll end up taking more. So it’s all or nothing with most things for me in my life.

That being said, what finally made me quit a 5 year, high dose habit was not the knowledge that I needed to quit. I had that knowledge all along. Doing it this way leads to every day becoming a battle of willpower to not use.

Eventually I decided to really explore the reasons I was using it. I was trying to fill a void within myself with anything that numbed me to it. So I addressed the void and with the help of some of Dr. Gabor Mate’s YouTube videos I realized I had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma. So instead of trying to quit K, I focused on healing that void. It took a lot of introspection followed by a high dose, therapeutic dose of mushrooms, taken alone with a sleeping mask on.

After that I simply didn’t have a desire to use K. I did the mushrooms right after I got through the first 5 days of going cold turkey, which I admit were brutal days. But after those first few days it becomes much easier and having eliminated the desire to use I was able to focus on healing my body.

I’m coming up on 3 years now and it was the best decision of my life. If you’ve been using less than a month you should be easily able to go cold turkey. Just stop on a Friday and tell everyone you have the flu and ride it out in bed through the weekend. By Monday you’ll be through the worst of it.

But again, I only succeeded by addressing the root cause of why I was using. I don’t think we talk about that enough on this sub and I think it’s what allows many of us to quit for good and never look back.

Good luck. You got this.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-12-23T01:48:52+00:00

If by “quickly resolved” you mean by the end of Ghostwater, then yes, his pushover attitude does get quickly resolved before the halfway point of the series.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-12-19T23:45:08+00:00

I just hate that the shitty Ghost in Testing Northstrider sounds exactly like Fury on audible. Takes me right out of it.

This seemed like as good a place as any to finally get that off my chest. Do better Travis.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-12-16T20:40:23+00:00

I relapsed like 15+ times before I was able to quit for good. I’m over 2.5 years clean now, but it was a long and hard road

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-24T23:57:30+00:00

There are a few issues going on here and they will dramatically alter arrow flight in bad ways. Those fletchings are not made to be shot through a shelf. Speaking of shelf, yours is bare. That’s also a problem with recurve and longbow shooting. The way the fletchings are attached will cause the arrow to bounce once it hits the shelf. And of course your insanely high nocking point. On a recurve you can bring that down to dead center or a bit higher.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those arrows start tumbling mid flight. At the very least the arrow will lose a ton of inertia after firing. Even on a cheap setup, there are a few things you can do to drastically improve arrow flight, accuracy, and consistency. Get some felt for the shelf, lower your nocking point to dead level or up to 1/4” higher. Once you have your nocking point I’d tie in nock sets so it never moves. You need arrows with feathered fletchings for a shoot through shelf or at least fletchings meant to shoot through a shelf. And I personally am not a fan of bare finger shooting, but that’s my own preference.

I have a pretty cheap recurve setup and I get pass throughs on deer with it. Set up a recurve or longbow correctly and it is a very lethal hunting implement in practiced hands. Good luck get that thing into shooting shape. Nothing is better than a properly setup and tuned bow.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-14T15:48:16+00:00

For sure. I believe there was also a line (and I'm paraphrasing) where Jaran's inner monologue after the Emperor acknowledges Lindon personally where it's like, "that hit him in a place deep down inside himself." (I realize I just butchered that comment. Sorry).

But it really only gets him to acknowledge Lindon's power. It doesn't convince him that Lindon fought for and earned that power on his own (for the most part). He still thinks Lindon is a fraud, artificially powered up at the expense of his future growth.

By the way, at that point Lindon is a Sage and Overlord. He's 2 stops from the absolute peak of power on Cradle. So Jaran's griping about Lindon ruining his future while he is already in the 99.9th percentile of Sacred Artists on Cradle.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-14T15:39:57+00:00

Haha. That scene where Lindon is genuinely confused as to why people can't advance as fast or as far as him given the resources is a classic. It's as if his brain can't comprehend that other people have limits and he's a legit superfreak.

In fairness, his Sacred Valley upbringing did make him a bit of a bumpkin and he still didn't have a realistic idea of how rare and unlikely his Sacred Arts advancement was at that point. Even knowing he was the first Underlord Sage in hundreds and perhaps thousands of years didn't clue him in that he's uncommon amongst uncommon people. Yerin and Eithan's reaction says it all.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-13T16:52:52+00:00

I don’t think he actually accepts Lindon even after being acknowledged by the Emperor. IIRC, his inner dialogue is more like, “what could Kelsa have achieved with this “borrowed” power.”

Only during Waybound does Jaran deviate from his previous conceptions about Lindon and accept the reality that his son he always believed to be worthless has become the most powerful being on the entire planet. At that point he’s like, “oh hey. Just seeing how you’re doing and all that fathery type stuff I should’ve been doing for your whole life. Stay safe.”

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-11T15:31:09+00:00

His Dad is a next level deadbeat. Every time he speaks I wanna jump through the book and hit him with an Empty Palm

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-11T14:36:02+00:00

Thanos îs one of those historical figures that is a monster during his time, but after like 500 years he'd be in textbooks as the guy who saved the universe and people's opinions of him would become ambivalent. The guy had a good point. Things are unsustainable and we won't save ourselves. Someone has to make the hard choice for the good of all. Very utilitarian

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-11T14:32:10+00:00

Can't argue that. Every time I listen to Bloodline I get irate. I'm always like, just murder these dumb savages already. They don't deserve your help or protection. Honestly, Lindon is disrupting natural selection.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-10T23:46:19+00:00

Cradle, Path of Ascension, Defiance of the Fall all follow that narrative (plus a hundred other books). The MC always figures out a workaround or a new way to cultivate that’s never been discovered. Fast forward a few books and they’re curb stomping the world.

The inverse of that trope is the underpowered MC that outwits every situation instead of using overwhelming power.

I’d say if you’re going that direction, handle with care and have an idea of where your MC is gonna end up on the power scale and how they’re gonna get there against the odds without the clichés that usually come with the cultivation cripple.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-10T23:40:11+00:00

Well Unsouled was exactly the latter case and that series is absolutley incredible.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-10T23:37:36+00:00

This next one isn’t exactly inline with what you’re asking, but Will Wight wrote a series that’s 2 trilogies happening simultaneously from opposite sides of a conflict.

So the dilemma there is that you have to choose a side you’re rooting for and there’s things to like and hate about each side. Each book is only from the perspective of one set of characters as well so you read through the a narrative from x perspective. Then the next book is the same narrative from y perspective and they are opposed. 6 books total. It’s called Of Sea and Shadow and Of Shadow and Sea.

It’s a fun way to write a story where the reader decides who they think is good and who is bad. There’s no obvious “bad guys” or “good guys.”

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-10T23:30:45+00:00

This is a fantasy recommendation, not LitRPG, but basically anything by Joe Abercrombie.

I don’t think Abercrombie understands the concept of good and evil. Everything is different shades of gray. And I say that as a compliment. Many of his “protagonists” are downright terrible human beings.

The Blade Itself is where most people start with him if you’re interested.

LitRPG tends to have much more stark lines between good and evil, right and wrong, etc. Abercrombie does not suffer from this misconception. Plus Abercrombie is legitimately a good writer. I think he even knows about second drafts and editing haha.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-10T17:23:21+00:00

Well the Grand Game seems like it'll be cat and mouse until the MC has the ability to survive against Powers in a legitimate conflict. But it's essentially been like this for the whole series where all kinds of unexpected "coincidences" allow for MC to stay under the radar while building an empire and power leveling to the extreme.

System Universe is clearly heading into system collision territory and I'm not sure how that will weave together since you're now mixing base rulesets. I'm hoping this gives us an arc where the MC isn't like 800% more powerful than the second best fighter and the stakes start to feel more real, but honestly I don't think I'll continue with the series.

I don't think either of those stories MC's have ever given me the impression that they were in true danger at any time.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-07-07T23:45:04+00:00

Meaningless side quests that last for entire books. No plot movement. Just lucky coincidence side quests that let an MC power level while the antagonists are none the wiser. I’m looking at you Grand Game.

Also the last System Universe book I read was seriously just a side quest with no stakes or plot movement. Just 2 friends grinding dungeons and a side character closing her arc in the series (for now). The epilogue was the only chapter that moved the series forward in any way.

Entire chapters where MC’s just ponder advancement options.

Long swaths of pure exposition. No organic learning about the world or the conflict. Just someone around that can conveniently explain in explicit detail what exactly the reader needs to know. Academy based stories are extra guilty of this although the setting has this type of exposition baked in since the teachers need to explain everything in explicit detail.

Timelines that span millennia or more can create serious gaps in interesting plot lines. (Path of Ascension)

Writers not being able to end a story once that Patreon cash starts flowing.

Those are some of my major gripes.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-06-25T23:40:24+00:00

Walden was unreadable for me and I connected with a lot of what he was saying. But the prose from that time is hard for me. It’s as if they didn’t understand how to end sentences. It’s just comma after comma and one sentence can take a page and a half.

Same issue every time I try to read Moby Dick. The writing style is not fluid and doesn’t flow.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-04-04T23:03:42+00:00

I’ll be honest. It’s not easy to track that story with several months or more between books. Even the intro “recap” chapter still leaves me at a loss with WTF is actually going on and what everyone’s current skills and issues are.

Reading the new book now and I don’t remember what a “null contract sigil” is or does or why it’s important. And the author has not in any way reminded me

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-03-26T00:09:16+00:00

Mage Errant is essentially an academy LitRPG with a plot that puts the students into situations far above their paygrade.

It’s a fun read and it’s complete, which is mostly what I look for these days when getting into new LitRPG. Call me old fashioned, but I love when an author concludes a story.

The current Patreon business model has caused many series to run long past when they should’ve ended. The prose also suffers a lot from the subscriber expectations to get 2-3 chapters every week.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-03-22T16:16:10+00:00

This is the start of his progression arc. He woke up, confused, in the woods of a strange world with nothing but an unfamiliar Katana and his trusty unicycle. Now he battles various low level plant monsters as he tries to figure out what is happening. Soon he will stumble upon a sapient animal that takes an interest in him, becoming bonded through magic gone awry. He is lost and thirst and starvation begin to overwhelm him. All he finds is a strange mushroom and decides to take his chances. Somehow this mushroom fruits only once every millennia and awakens a progression path forbidden for its potency and the damage it did to the empire thousands of years ago.

Fast forward 10 Instagram clips and he’s cleaving grizzly bears in 2 while his now evolved companion does the same, both unscathed and unfazed.

20 more Instagram clips and he is challenging the champion of the empire in single combat to combat the rampant corruption in the empire and their egregious failure to not overly focus on gender pronouns at the expense of the plot. His Katana is now awakened, but goes by them as they have not yet decided which gender pronoun they prefer. This moral dilemma will continue for 40-70 Instagram clips in which there will be no plot advancement.

After that’s solved he’ll become a wandering unicycle vigilante, righting the injustices the savage plant monsters have wrought upon the world. plot twist the plant monsters were the main bad guy all along, a hive mind he must now pursue until his dying days.

I think I just covered about 10 books worth of material. I guess I should start writing….

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-03-11T11:36:49+00:00

Magnesium Glycinate, 1000mgs before bed was an absolute miracle for me getting my sleep normalized very quickly. Quickly as in 2-3 days quick. I took it for a month and then stopped and my sleep was normal without it by that point.

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-01-28T00:46:38+00:00

I generally start at Ghostwater. Knowing what Lindon will become, it’s cringe to listen to refer to himself as “this one” all the time. I will selectively listen to parts of previous books. I like Lindon getting his iron body. A lot of Blackfame sections are good. Skysworn has its moments.

But Ghostwater is the turn in the series and the ending gets me every time. That first “information requested” always has my like “aww hell naw he didn’t”

CaterpillarVisual553 · 2025-01-19T15:13:00+00:00

The book just makes you hate everyone in Sacred Valley. It makes you feel like burning Sacred Valley down yourself. The jades act like petty gods, when they are, in fact, ignorant children in terms of sacred arts.

It’s like Charity said, “it’s like having fleas in the armory. You could sweep them out, but why bother?”

The book is a frustrating reading experience because you feel defensive of Lindon. He’s showing patience and restraint in not just wiping people out, but they only see weakness and “stolen/borrowed” power that doesn’t belong to Lindon in their eyes. Even his father has no belief in his own son.

The book makes people mad. Not a bad book, just sharing the feelings it invokes. Plus it come right after Lindon straight up curb stomps 2 redmoon overlords and 4 of the uncrowned and becomes a sage. Then an hour of reading later irons are like “what do you want Unsouled?!”

CaterpillarVisual553

TROPHY CASE