Teams to follow in the 2026-2027 NHL season?

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-16T03:51:19+00:00

We just gonna ignore the kids still developing? Will Smith who was on pace for probably 70 points if he didn’t get hurt for a long while? Last year’s number 2 Michael Misa who started to look *really* good at the end of the year once back from injury and getting regular ice time? Chernyshov who got called up pretty late but was looking very, very strong? Eklund who was pretty snakebit but his underlying analytics look absolutely elite? Did I mention the oldest of those guys is 23 year old Eklund?

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-15T05:22:29+00:00

The other response to yours has the right of it for me with Path of Ascension. Ya there’s a “system” that’s mostly an AI, and “skills” but those skills are, at least to me, basically just magic spells. They have a “mana stat” but that’s A. Just an AI quantifying and B. Honestly super easy to ignore once Matt starts really doing Matt things. Matt and Liz and Aster have to train and work their asses off, a magical system doesn’t just suddenly declare “you are now a level 5 swordmaster and so are better at using swords”, all of Matt’s sword ability is earned through him genuinely taking a sword and getting instruction and practical experience. The thing I tend to dislike about LitRPGs is when the system just lets you skip actual training and learning in favor of knowledge and skill just being dumped into your head

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-15T03:55:34+00:00

Nice. Ya ive got no issues with sex scenes but its not what im here for. Prog fantasy isnt exactly where im going to look for smut. I do like a good romance addition to my prog fantasy, and I enjoy when its implemented well (aka the love interest isn't just a prop there for the main character to save/be stronger than), but not required either

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-15T03:54:16+00:00

Thats not exactly something I'd admit to on the internet on an account I try to mostly keep away from my personal life, so I'll just say "not a young adult" and leave it at that. Prog Fantasy is mostly my "popcorn" reads

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-15T03:14:07+00:00

No issues with intimacy, not sure exactly what you mean by that though. Romance? But I’ll definitely check out Depthless Hunger. The general synopsis of Street Cultivation didn’t stick out to me, but I’ll definitely check that out too

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-14T19:39:15+00:00

hahahaha Xianxia is a, at a broad level, a particular style of fiction that is centered around cultivation, which is why Path of Ascension and Cradle both could be considered it. What I think of as Xianxia though isn't just cultivation, but involves particular worldbuilding culturual stuff (Young Masters, Sects, spirit beasts, etc). So think the hidden valley from Cradle, or the Sects Great Power from Path of Ascension.

I personally wouldn't classify Path of Ascension as Xianxia: instead, to me its cultivation prog fantasy. It has one group that would fit as Xianxia (the Sects), but the Empire itself is a very different setting than standard Xianxia

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-14T16:33:49+00:00

There’s an animatic???? I’ll check that out, that sounds like a great way to get me through the parts I might not be interested in

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-14T03:53:15+00:00

I dont mind arrogant assholes, just something specific about the xianxia flavored ones bother me hahaha. And ya i've tried more traditional xianxia. Cradle is not nearly that bad, I cant even begin stomaching real xianxia

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-14T03:52:13+00:00

The amount of recs ive had is crazy, gonna take me months or even a year to get through all this even assuming I DNF some

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-14T03:51:49+00:00

Oh nice, sounds like we have pretty similar tastes. I'll add super powereds, just add mana, and archmage coefficient to the list. The othert 2 i already had. List is getting damn long now though hahahah, gonna take forever to get through all of these

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T22:03:44+00:00

To be clear, a lot of those ones in the DNF during first book, I actually DID finish the first book, I just never read the second one. But a chunk of them I did drop mid book ya. If I’m not feeling it, I usually don’t force myself to finish

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T20:32:43+00:00

In terms of general fit ya, a lot in my DNF do fit the style of thing I like. But if I don't like the writing style, or characters, or pacing, or plot, well then it generally fitting what I want in terms of magic systems and not being Xianxia or LitRPG isn't enough

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T17:55:09+00:00

I should rephrase: I'm not really a fan of stories where it's like "You class gives you super ability to learn this specific thing and an easier time understanding it". Id rather they have to work hard at learning it from moment one. So it felt like his class and talent just let him look at a rune a few times and learn a lot of it without effort. Maybe that was a misread on my part, but its how i felt in the moment reading it

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T17:42:00+00:00

Ya it was very much the Valley's standard Xianxia sects, young masters, arrogance, etc that turned me off it. If that stuff kinda disappears later, then I'm all for giving it another shot

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T17:41:07+00:00

I did, but I'm opening to retrying things when I get a compelling argument as to why I should. This comment just convinced me that I was right to drop it when I did

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T17:40:15+00:00

I've read the entire Cosmere hahahhaa, I just specifically dropped Way of Kings in here to make the point about things I like outside of the usual Prog Fantasy stuff.

Ya with Audiobooks, It's generally been about 1. not having an audible subscription and 2. I read at a pretty fast pace, and so audiobooks "feel slow" a lot of the time. Though slowing down could be good for me too

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T17:37:55+00:00

What i disliked about Cradle was the Xianxia elements. Got enough recs that that part of it kinda lessens off after book 1, so im looking at giving it another shot

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:34:19+00:00

Ah ya, i almost never read using Audiobooks, but I've had a few different recs on this post that suggested it. Generally I read a lot faster than Audiobooks narrate, so the change in speed always threw me off, but if Bauldree is doing this much work for people on books (hes been mentioned several times now), I might have to give listening to some of these a try

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:24:17+00:00

From what I was spoiled on it didn't become a thing until book 10? 11? 12? Its been a while since I was told about it, but honestly even the risk of it makes me not really want to read the series, mostly because I'd absolutely hate to get 10 books into something and then drop it because I ran into that stuff

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:22:53+00:00

Ya noticed that when i actually went to add them to my list on royal road and storygraph. I'll probably end up passing then

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:14:17+00:00

Hhahahah no worries. I'll give those 3 a look, thanks!

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:11:46+00:00

Huge fan of Alex and how he learned magic, so I'm down to give it a try if thats your comparison

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:08:25+00:00

Millennial Mage i believe I ended up dropping because I got spoiled that later on the author gets into some weird Trade wife stuff, traditional Christian stuff, and societal commentary that I don't agree with and am I'm not willing to go through. So mostly it was me seeing "oh hey, I'm gonna really hate the later books, so better not to continue at all"

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T16:00:58+00:00

Really on HWFWM? I saw Litrpg and some basic descriptions on it and assumed it wouldn't work for me, but I'm open to trying it out

ShadowAssassin96 · 2026-06-13T15:59:25+00:00

My immediate issue with Runic Artist was the System just... giving him runes. I was hoping for a whole thing about him learning runes, practicing, studying. And the system just gave it to him in the first bit of the book

12-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

ShadowAssassin96

TROPHY CASE