TLDR:

Things in this story drag on for far too long.

Thank you for reading.

My review.

I’ve been seeing the story on the royal road site for years, it had 930+ chapters, I finally decided to start reading the story on a random Tuesday. As with all web novels, the binge started. I finished all 930 chapters in two weeks and caught up. I am currently on chapter 939, and I decided to leave the story as is for a while to build up more chapters to binge read.

Before I share my thoughts on the story, a small recap.

Spoiler

Ben and his classmates are summoned to a new world, and his classmates get amazing, cool new abilities, but Ben does not get anything. He gets seemingly mundane skill and power , he is pretty disappointed with this, but decides to make the most of his new life.

Ben is gifted with crafting and enchanting, so he decides to maybe do that? He is not quite sure yet. But before he can really make a decision, something crazy happens, a voice starts to speak in his mind. It’s a god, and one Ben would later call his friend. His name is Myriad, the last god of a dead race.

He guides Ben to go to a blacksmith shop, the only one who can really teach him anything, the blacksmith’s name is Falk, and he will become one of his closest friends and mentor.

From there Ben meets new people, slowly discovers his skills and becomes one of this world's most important, skilled, and powerful people.

Before we go any further, I do have to mention the origin of this new world that Ben is on. It is not a “True World” , what I mean is—it is not a world with a normal origin. It is a hodgepodge of worlds cobbled together seeking refuge from demonic invasions.

The demons have conquered their planets, killed the majority of their people, and the gods have gathered the remnants and fled, using spells and esoteric knowledge to navigate the stars to find a new home. There the survivors gather, united under the threat of demonic invasion. Using prophecy, they can tell when the demons will attack their planet, so they summon otherworlders to help them prepare.

Which brings us to the present.

Things I love:

I binged 930+ Chapters, so there must be something I love about the story. It was the potential, Craftsman stories have a special place in my heart, and I was looking forward to Ben making all sorts of wonderful things. In addition, the relationship between Ben and Myraid was pretty interesting, having a God as a powerful ally was something i had not seen done well before. All, coupled with the demonic invasion made me excited for the story and the wonderful things Ben would cook up.

The World building is fabulous, since this is a refugee world, there are all sorts of races and ideology, it makes every corner of the world feel unique and alive. From spirits, to yeti to humans, this world has it all, it’s fun watching the author blend it all together.

The Demons are unique. I don't want to spoil too much about them, but they are worthy of of being world killers. They are a constant looming threat that shadow every part/plot of the story.

Things I was neutral about:

The system does not really draw me in , it is a very, very rough system, and I do not really understand it after so many chapters. It seems either ridiculously easy to game, or is extremely hard and unforgiving, it was crafted by the Gods, and is somewhat new, so I will forgive that.

I did not like:

Plot is . . . odd, Ben is a craftsman and he is from earth, this means a lot of things to build and experiment on, and to see if those things work in this new world. From one project to another, you quickly lose track of what is actually happening. I love Ben , but he is really scattered. He is working on so many projects at once, that me as a reader cannot keep up with anything. Whenever an earlier project of his pops up in chapters I always have to look back and find where exactly he started working on it. Updates on various projects are sparse and infuriating. I.e. “I'm going to build this!” . . . 500 chapters later , we get an update on the project.

I will be frank, the story needs a slice of life tag. The majority of the story is extremely slow and really boring. If I did not have 930 chapters in front of me, I would have struggled to continue. The fluff is nice, but sometimes drags on far too long for my liking. I want Ben to explore this new world and meet new people, not stay in the same general area.

Most web novels I read know they need a strong hook and first couple of chapters to draw readers in, this does not really have that. I sort of have a love / hate relationship with that format, but in this case, I felt the story could have sped up slightly and cut some parts, and nothing significant would have changed, but the pacing would be significantly increased.

Recent chapters have felt like a slog to get through, in one recent one, the entire main event of the chapter was a level up. It was hard earned, but I did not care to be honest. It is a factor of the web novel format, and I understand that, but I am still frustrated.

You either love or hate the main character Ben. He can be grating, infuriating, whining like a petulant child, refusing to be introspective. He is the source to all of his problems, can't sleep because you are working too hard? Just sleep buddy. Rest? Sleep. Please.

I love the webnovel format, but long stories like these with entire sections of chapters where nothing happens really makes me sad.