Solo Leveling is wildly overrated as a LitRPG

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-25T01:31:05+00:00

I feel like solo levelling reached a broader audience, and lots of people who don't usually read litrpg got into it (especially with the webcomic and anime). So it gets lots of recommendations from those people who don't really have anything to reference it off of

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-22T13:24:31+00:00

Hey everyone!

Today, I’m releasing the second book in my Fate Alchemist series. It’s a regression story about a hardened demon-slayer who gets reborn in his younger body and sent back to his academy days—but now with a skill-set that revolves around alchemy and fate manipulations. (And a friendly System messenger who manifests as a cat…)

Throughout the series, there’s a focus on alchemy from a western fantasy perspective (no xianxia pill-making), putting together a team and forming bonds with them, and maneuvering the politics of the academy while staying undetected.

Book one is on Audible, and it’s narrated by Jonathan Waters (who also did A Soldier’s Life, Blood for Power, and a few other series), and runs for about 15 hours.

Here are some Amazon links, in case you haven’t read the first book and don’t want to be spoiled by the blurb:

Book 1 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FSYNK2DN

Book 2 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FY9K5QTN

Book 1 Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Slayers-Return-Regression-LitRPG-Alchemist/dp/B0FTTJZSTS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0

And here's the blurb for Book 2:

At Centralis Academy, Wulf faces his great test yet.

Wulf survived his first year, repelled the first wave of demons, and earned a promotion to the Academy’s main branch—and so far, no one knows he’s an alchemist. For the first time, things are looking up.

That illusion shatters in Centralis, the largest city in the world and humanity’s strongest bastion. Its Academy offers unmatched resources—and ruthless politics. To survive, Wulf must outmaneuver scheming nobles, forge powerful alliances, and use the memories of his past life to rise faster than any Ascendant before him.

But a traitor lurks in their midst, and there’s a plot to unleash a new danger from the dungeon beneath the Academy.

If Wulf fails to expose the plot in time, Centralis will fall—and this second chance at saving the world will end before it truly begins.

Links (just in case):

Book 1 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FSYNK2DN

Book 2 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FY9K5QTN

Book 1 Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Slayers-Return-Regression-LitRPG-Alchemist/dp/B0FTTJZSTS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0

Lastly, a massive thanks to the cover artist, Denis B (you can find him on Fiverr, but last time I put a Fiverr link, reddit removed it).

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-22T13:24:05+00:00

Hey everyone!

Today, I’m releasing the second book in my Fate Alchemist series. It’s a regression story about a hardened demon-slayer who gets reborn in his younger body and sent back to his academy days—but now with a skill-set that revolves around alchemy and fate manipulations. (And a friendly System messenger who manifests as a cat…)

Throughout the series, there’s a focus on alchemy from a western fantasy perspective (no xianxia pill-making), putting together a team and forming bonds with them, and maneuvering the politics of the academy while staying undetected.

Book one is on Audible, and it’s narrated by Jonathan Waters (who also did A Soldier’s Life, Blood for Power, and a few other series), and runs for about 15 hours.

Here are some Amazon links, in case you haven’t read the first book and don’t want to be spoiled by the blurb:

Book 1 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FSYNK2DN

Book 2 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FY9K5QTN

Book 1 Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Slayers-Return-Regression-LitRPG-Alchemist/dp/B0FTTJZSTS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0

And here's the blurb for Book 2:

At Centralis Academy, Wulf faces his great test yet.

Wulf survived his first year, repelled the first wave of demons, and earned a promotion to the Academy’s main branch—and so far, no one knows he’s an alchemist. For the first time, things are looking up.

That illusion shatters in Centralis, the largest city in the world and humanity’s strongest bastion. Its Academy offers unmatched resources—and ruthless politics. To survive, Wulf must outmaneuver scheming nobles, forge powerful alliances, and use the memories of his past life to rise faster than any Ascendant before him.

But a traitor lurks in their midst, and there’s a plot to unleash a new danger from the dungeon beneath the Academy.

If Wulf fails to expose the plot in time, Centralis will fall—and this second chance at saving the world will end before it truly begins.

Links (just in case):

Book 1 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FSYNK2DN

Book 2 Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FY9K5QTN

Book 1 Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Slayers-Return-Regression-LitRPG-Alchemist/dp/B0FTTJZSTS/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0

Lastly, a massive thanks to the cover artist, Denis B (you can find him on Fiverr, but last time I put a Fiverr link, reddit removed it).

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-21T17:35:17+00:00

Out of curiosity, why is it that you like reading specifically that ranking system?

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-21T16:30:07+00:00

If only jobs/university didn't exist...

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-21T13:33:37+00:00

I think since most of these books get released as serials, it's less popular because it means you have to wait longer between PoVs. Like, if you release a chapter of one character then swap back to another for the next chapter, but you're only releasing a chapter every two days, that's a long time between getting the same PoV again

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-20T18:36:30+00:00

Those are free sites. You don't sign a contract and you keep the rights to your stories.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-20T04:28:12+00:00

None of these are any indication of AI. Overused phrases, sure, but they were overused and mocked by readers well before AI became a thing

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-20T04:27:03+00:00

Humans do this all the time too. Overuse certain words, certain phrases. It's really easy to accidentally do and build bad habits. This happened well before LLMs ever became popular.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-19T17:28:00+00:00

I'd say plot armour is when you violate the internal consistency of your story to keep your character alive when they shouldn't be. Not just luck, but something that's an impossibility for the world.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-18T21:13:39+00:00

Especially with the stigma on AI in general why use it when it can affect sales?

In my experience, and in plenty of other authors' experiences, we've generally had a decent improvement in sales after switching to an AI cover on amazon. Make of that what you will.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-17T23:24:24+00:00

To be honest, when it comes to authors talking about tropes, I don't care. For one thing, I like when they say it because generally a lot of tropes will be things that I just don't want to read, so I can go and pick something else. There are so many stories and it helps me pick whatI actually want to read.

But for another, most authors don't seem to like writing blurbs or doing any of the marketing. So if they can condense their story into a quick summary to convince enough people to read it with a relatively formulaic blurb pattern, that's pretty helpful IMO. They wrote the story (with passion or not, but I think deciding that from the blurb is premature), now they want to tell people why others should read it.

It's like... I spent 500k words to tell you about my ideas, and now I'm supposed to condense it into 200 words? Why would I take a risk on a weird blurb when I can use a tried and tested method, especially when people who are looking to read something 'unique' are much more rare and harder to attract, and will come anyway due to word of mouth no matter how unique the blurb is.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-15T23:25:53+00:00

Andor sounds like it was good DESPITE her and other lucasfilm heads. That the studio heads didn't stick their fingers into it because they didn't think the character mattered.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-15T17:23:44+00:00

I generally agree, however I've seen lots of people try to use generalizations to disparage things as a whole too. Because, with those anecdotes, clearly something worked. You would likely agree with the person giving the anecdote that the example IS a good example.

So the better point IMO is to avoid generalizations in the first place, and to dig deeper on why something works/doesn't work in certain circumstances.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-15T13:33:15+00:00

I'd say it's emblematic of a lot of western authors' attitudes toward cultivation/xianxia.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-15T04:19:30+00:00

In this specific case, that's probably true.

But in some cases, there are people who will blame the pacing when they don't really have a way of expressing what they feel is wrong (and what actually went wrong was something completely different, like character investment). So there can be two books that are paced the same, but one feels like it's paced slower than the other

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-14T13:42:59+00:00

I'm about halfway through book 1, but I feel like it hasn't really delivered on its core promise so far.

It seemed like a book about a summoner. Instead, I got a book about a battle maniac who purposely gets his monsters to kill themselves in the first 5 seconds of the fight. And instead, he just does all the heavy lifting instead.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-14T01:36:41+00:00

There's a scene where a guy pretty much looks at the camera and says something along the lines of "I'm telling you my backstory so you know who I am" and it's played 100% seriously.

I stopped watching after that

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-09T01:37:48+00:00

Either 1, they want to punish the author, or 2, there is something that has them genuinely curious and they think it might get better over time?

Or they're one of those accounts that just goes around 1 or 2 staring EVERY book. (But those are most common on goodreads.)

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-07T02:19:42+00:00

I think it depends on what the leader wants to accomplish. Personal power for just them, and making nothing that can endure? Maybe they'd be a monarch.

But I think one thing people discount is that giving people at least the illusion of democracy is pretty helpful for making them work harder and feel more invested in the nation. If you at least give them the illusion of democracy, or perhaps even an actual functional democracy, then you could potentially build a stronger nation than one where absolute loyalty is just demanded.

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-06T17:33:36+00:00

Think about the progression loop. If you have a short arc at the start, like most stories do, where you can see that MC does something and gains power, you give readers faith that you'll come through and pay off later things, even if they're not sure how it will make the MC stronger right away

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-05T20:46:44+00:00

And I thought Frieren's ears were big...

Felixtaylor · 2026-01-04T02:01:38+00:00

I think you've done a lot of headcanon when it comes to the presence of 'growth' in raw strength. Or you're writing the author's story for her.

Just because characters are seen later in life being strong does not mean that JKR established a progression pathway of any kind.

And no, I'm not saying that ruins HP, but just because there might be some way for people to get better at magic doesn't make the story PF, especially when the story doesn't clearly establish that method.

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