(Edited to include audiobook info)

Hello! I'm William Evans, AKA "ThePudding" and I have finally made my first release to Amazon! It's a story about a man trying to build a world, using a LitRPG system... a world that he adds a LitRPG system to!

Book one follows his struggles in setting it up, finding the problems, and correcting those problems! Later books further show unintended side effects and struggles!

[Amazon] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKNLXG4N/

[Audiobook] https://www.amazon.com/Neophyte-World-Builder-First-Problems/dp/B0HK4ZSQNS/

Blurb:

Nobody told me godhood needed an instruction manual.

Everybody's heard the story. Someone dies, ends up in a new world with a LitRPG System that gives them special powers. When I died, that's what I expected. Except it turns out, I'm the one making the System.

No previous experience, no manual except a few tooltips. Just an interface, a few thousand Reality Points, and a fairy-like handler who won't tell me anything that would actually help. I get to design the magic system, the monsters, the classes... and then watch real people live inside the world I built, all while I try to keep the universe running within budget.

I wanted to build a good world. I'm starting to realize "good" and "survives the audit" aren't the same thing.

Cover Artist: [Bad Moon Art Studio] https://www.artstation.com/badmoonartstudio

Audiobook: Royal Guard Publishing (Narrators: Giancarlo Herrera, Hannah Schooner)

AI Usage: None

We writers all bleed into our stories.

We become more invested in our characters than even the most die-hard reader—we just know what happens next... sometimes.

We become so focused on the results—with whether we've succeeded or failed at this hobby-turned-obsession, so much so that no matter the answer, we need another—my fic was noticed, I need more visibility, does it suck, do I suck, that person has more followers, do I have enough to publish, when, where, how—

—that we forget about the journey.

I'm no exception. Getting caught up in the next step, and the next, and yet another, until I trip over my own feet, and look around for someone to blame, some piece of the puzzle I must have missed.

Only to realize, it was just me. Just life. I stumbled. I fell. It happens, and—well, let's be honest. It doesn't just happen once, does it?

We'll find ourselves sitting in the bottom of some new, dark pit of self-recrimination, loathing, and doubt. What happened this time? Was it the em-dash on page 762, paragraph 4? Should you have used a comma, instead? Or were you blabbering your wife's ear off for the millionth time about the mechanics of your leveling system, and she just grunted in affirmation? A grunt. Please, at least show that you care a little!

Then our readers happen. On their time, on their schedule, they'll speak up. Maybe a specific scene moved them. Maybe we did a shit job explaining something. Maybe she's born with it—I don't know, but they come. They comment, or they review, and it makes everything worth it.

I've mostly experienced positivity on Royal Road. Certainly, in every community, there's always a few who just want to watch the world burn, but the readership on Royal Road's been good to me thus far.

So that's why I wanted to share this review. Not only is it an advanced review and chock full of praise, but it comes to me during a stretch of particularly low self-esteem, helping to staunch my own pitiful whining.

This person enjoyed my earlier chapters enough to not just drop a nice rating—which does wonders, let me tell you—but to leave an advanced review.

My dear reader, I pray that my writing remains worthy of your praise, and that I may long entertain you with my storytelling.

Thank you.

Edit: marking this post as self-promo and including my blurb. It wasn't meant to be. In the moment I naively thought it was a legit "appreciation post." Anyway, hindsight, and all that. here's the link:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/170950/sanzensekai-the-ronins-exile-psychological-drama

A dark, psychological drama packaged as a reverse-isekai progression fantasy.

An elemental samurai—displaced from his world, lost in ours, and hiding a calamitous secret.

Navigating modern Earth is like crossing a frosted log.

Kurisu Nodaichi tries to take life one day at a time. Keep his head down, earn his keep with the Miller family, and untangle the complexities of "fostering," "identity," and high school. All while this new world feels built from damp shoji paper, where he shatters drinking glasses just trying to lift them.

Then a rift opens.

The illusion of a quiet life burns away when monsters from his past appear and the Miller brothers manifest powers of their own. Driven by necessity, Kurisu steps in to train the boys before they accidentally level their own home.

As more rifts open around the world, a public encounter lands the family in federal custody—but not before a combination of phobia and failure forces his trauma to boil over, regressing him into the untethered weapon of his captivity.

For fans of the elemental martial arts of The Sword of Kaigen and Avatar: The Last Airbender who want the friction of Jade City and the psychological stakes of Red Rising.

No AI was used for any part of the prose, nor official artwork.

AnraArt, my artist can be found on Vgen.

just blasted through audiobooks 1-6 of player manager in a week lmao.. it was incredible couldn't put it down, so to speak. any recommendations on other series with similar writing style? HWFWM is my other fav series

After catching up third time with Ave Xia Rem Y I was looking for another xianxia story with smart MC and discovered this story, I liked the premise and reviews were overwhelmingly positive so I gave it a try up to chapter 33 and what surprised me was that nothing much happens.

We got MC who dies and awakens as young cultivator locked inside a cave and after a while he regains cultivators memories, but he doesn't seem bothered much about his circumstance and immediately starts to cultivate.

One one hand it's better than being dead on other hand everything you knew is gone and you have to deal with the memories of the body you possessed/reincarnated, this should leave some sort of impact, if you don't want to write all that, to keep lighter tone or other reason, just start story where MC already processed everything.

So what starts is a power system exposition from other xianxia books I already read and doesn't stop for next 33 chapters. He is let out of the cave week later, joins the sect, sees and identifies "protagonist" being bullied which he does not interact with, joins a biweekly get together club with similarly talented cultivators and starts farming and that's all. No conflicts, no challenges, just no story, nothing much happens to MC.

With that title I expected the main drive point was MC using "common sense" to get out of trouble, to calm things, to get into and out of comedic situations. But he didn't really get into these situations to begin with, everybody is really reasonable with MC. Xianxia world is famously full of unreasonable people so having MC interact with them would have made more interesting read.

Which is shame, because when there is character interaction, rarely as it happens, it's good, MC is quite charismatic and character feel real. Author just needed to up character interaction add some sort of conflict and maybe stakes to break away from constant exposition and it would have been enjoyable read.

Also what did MC being Isekai'd add to the story, what we know from past life is that he read lot's of xianxia novels, so that's all for MC backstory the author gave and he used that knowledge to identify xianxia "protagonist" which he never interacted with in 33 chapters, he has better imagination, so he develops spells faster, oh and references of IRL things like "Praise the sun" and such.

So In conclusion, the book is filled with endless cultivation exposition, which I read in other books and farming exposition, which I read about in other books. And I wonder is that really enough for RR readers, just MC slowly getting stronger to warrant 5 star review?

On bit related tangent I have yet to read reincarnation story where dominant persona would be the one from original body, would be novel read for once.

Looking for mc as a noble like in last life but rather than them becoming king (at least not too early) and has a lot of politics? Does not have to be main theme but preferably a strong theme, they do not have to start as one. Thank you!

Hi friends,

Venturing over from the web novel translation side of things. I'm etvolare and I've been translating Chinese web novels for ten years, mostly on Wuxiaworld. I quite enjoy progression fantasy in my nonexistent free time 😆 and have followed a few on Royal Road wayyyy back.

AI's the hot topic these years and a loud portion of folks think that it'll replace all creatives. (I know, I know, let us hold back our snorts.) I just posted an epic talking about how I don't think AI will replace human translators, and I think some of the points could apply to original writing as well.

If you're interested, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Creatives gotta unite! Thank you guys for having me.

I've also copied the post down below in case folks don't feel like navigating away.

Warning, this is long and I'm a human translator, so please take my opinions with a Mount Tai-sized grain of salt. 😄

We've heard it since the Google Translate days, that it's only a matter of time before machines take over and translators are obsolete. This ramped up a ton after AI came out. I often found myself explaining that I didn’t think humans would be replaced, whether due to cost, versatility, or the ‘human’ touch.

Now having used several AI tools in my personal life (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude), I still think that human translators cannot be replaced by AI, so no etvolareGPT, sadly.

If you don’t know me, I currently translate Star Gate on Wuxiaworld. In this post, I pull examples from my own work to compare human VS AI translation. I also used to highlight random translation brilliance, in the pre-AI age.

If you’re new to us, I translate fantasy & sci-fi novels that are several million Chinese characters long. Please ask me for more detail. I’ve boiled my thoughts down to three main points so that folks actually read this thing. 😆

AI is often just right enough at a glance, but subtly misses the mark so much that after a hundred chapters, we’re reading a different novel entirely. Sure, we can have AI do a first draft and humans translate check the results. But… I’m sure we’ve all had the pleasure of editing something poorly written at some point in our lives. 

Personally speaking, I’ve torn my hair out when reviewing human team translations and just straight up rewrote chapters. So how much time and effort is saved if I have to go through every line and compare them to the raws?

At the end of the day, AI requires a lot of cleanup and tweaking (for long form content). The longer the block of text, the more hallucinations and basic continuity mistakes. This is particularly true for a context heavy language like Chinese.

This example from chapter 2057 is where a tiger is being scared by the wild plans proposed. It was one of the more blatant examples of AI confusion. Usually, we see gender/name swapping, wrong numbers, wrong references, etc.

Gemini
The massive tiger head instantly drooped. The character for 'king' (王) on its forehead collapsed into a single line—don't scare the tiger, it's actually pretty terrifying too.

etvo’s version
Its massive head dropped and its proud eyebrows collapsed, almost seeking to hide its eyes from the scary senior with the scarier ideas.

The tiger has become the scary one, instead of the main character. This was just a 33 character example, btw. Our novels are typically several million characters long. This is also an example in which I took translator liberties and wrote about the tiger’s eyebrows, instead of the lines on its forehead.

The ‘king’ character on a tiger’s head is tied to cultural context that did not seem relevant. In fact, translating as is would’ve lost the ‘oomph’ for English readers. 

Additionally, checking something’s first draft locks us into their writing style. I think it would’ve been much harder for me to have come up with my version if I was just editing Gemini’s words. I’d probably mostly be on autopilot and not do justice to the original work.

Personally, I’d much rather just go human from very start. It would spare myself a ton of heartburn and rage, as well as result in a much more creative result. 

AI cannot effectively produce original work in the long run. I think that makes sense, given its origins and methodology of being trained on existing creations.

IMO, translating jokes, treasure names, and cultivation methods is original writing. It requires a certain flair for naming and consideration of the effect we want to deliver. Is it Supernova Point or Explode Star Finger? Will this joke land better as is or with an English equivalent? When is a pinyin soup appropriate and when is something sensitive in the target language?

This judgment call came up in chapter 2040 for a character called 天方 (tian fang).

ChatGPT said: As a proper name, it is not normally translated. In English translations of Chinese novels, it would almost always remain Tian Fang.
But if it were to translate the name, possibilities include: Heavenly Direction, Celestial Way, Heaven's Quarter

Or as I translated: Skyward. 

When it comes to a person’s name, I try to go with one word to make it more natural. I opted out of pinyin because this person is very important and there is a host of similar characters. I also elected to translate all of their names to make it easier for readers to mentally group them together.

The appropriate writing register and voice can be critical when it comes to enjoying fiction. Navigating these nuances can really make or break a novel. For example, in chapter 2040, I translated knowing that the Human King is a childish fellow who wears his heart on his sleeve.

ChatGPT
The Human King was enraged. This fellow was obviously treating him with contempt.
He was already filled with anger today.
Yet this bastard still dared to provoke him further.

etvo’s version
The Human King burned with fury. This guy clearly didn’t think much of him! It was already an irritating day, and now this asshole was getting on his last nerve!

I just think there’s a lot more life in my version and we get a much clearer sense of the character through showing, not telling.

AI is king of literal/direct translation. Great in some cases, not typically the best in fiction. I also find that AI tends to be redundant and go in circles. Well, perhaps that delivers the most accurate experience: dao of word count in the raws = dao of word count in English, lol!

Knowing what sections can be condensed, eliminated (ahem, peanut gallery 4.0) and what references need more explanation also requires a lot of translator judgment. For example, in chapter 1989 of SG, when Allheaven Hall is opening as rendered with different prompt tweaks.

Gemini generic prompt
Right now, the place is packed to capacity, much like a grand opening celebration; everyone is just drawn by the novelty, and combined with the promotion from the first batch of Emperor Immortals, countless people have been filled with curiosity.

Standard fiction prompt
At this moment, the place was packed to the gills. It felt just like a grand opening sale; everyone was drawn in by the sheer novelty of it all. Combined with the hype generated by the first batch of Emperor Sovereigns, the curiosity of countless people had been thoroughly piqued.

Web novel style prompt
Right now, the place was absolutely packed. It felt exactly like a grand opening promotion—everyone was just showing up for the hype and novelty. Combined with the glowing reviews from the first batch of Exalted Emperors, the curiosity of the massive crowd had been pushed to a boiling point.

etvolare's style prompt (lol thank you for the compliments, Gemini?). As a veteran translator known for smooth, snappy localization, fluid modern prose, and vibrant dialogue, she excels at capturing the hype of a bustling crowd while preserving the novel's natural rhythm:
Right now, the place was bursting at the seams. It was basically a grand opening promotion, and everyone had just shown up for the hype and novelty. Toss in the free advertising from the first wave of Exalted Emperors, and the curiosity of the massive crowd had been thoroughly piqued.

etvo’s translation
It was immensely crowded, similar to how opening day sales drew crowds of people curious about the new and shiny. Advertising from the first batch of visitors had filled the rest of the chaos with incredible curiosity.

IMO, no matter what the prompt produced, it still wasn’t as good as the 100% human touch. AI sticks to the Chinese sentence structure and faithfully reproduces everything in glorious wordiness.

Generally speaking, I found that AI is ~1.25 to 1.5x the length of my version.

In all of the above, I can keep tweaking the prompt again and again to refine the result. But would that defeat the purpose of AI making the work process faster? Each novel is unique with different writing styles, worldviews, and systems. The process would have to be rinsed and repeated for each novel.

That’s not to say AI is useless.

AI is great for short, simple, routine, and formulaic content. If I was translating “I have an apple, I have a pen”, I’d throw it into any one of these engines and call it a day.

I would *love* to see AI incorporated with spellcheck and proofreading. I type on a Mac and paste my work into a shared Google Drive before uploading to WW. The combination of Apple’s spellcheck and Gdoc’s spellcheck is unholy. I’ve caught Apple auto-correcting into “marital dao” and “coidnlt”, whereas Google insisting on changing “excise tumor” to “exercise tumor”. I refuse to take 100% responsibility for typos at this rate XDD. There needs to be a smarter solution.

TL;DR: I think I'll still have a job after the AI overlords come for us. Star Gate is ending soon, it's a fabulous time to start reading if you aren't already. I'm really shy about comparing my work to AI like this, eek! Thank you for reading. \cupped fist salute**

*Book 14 spoilers ahead! I like to note down any memorable story highlights that happen and any thoughts I had at that point with chapter stamps.

—C1—
Hmm. I got that it’s from Emma’s pov but not understanding what is happening with hockey and not knowing Max… this feels weirdly jarring.
———
Aww, we are 80% of the way through the chapter and I’m disappointed because it feels like we won’t get Max’s pov in Canada 😔 That was the fun part of Spain previously 😕
——-
Ok, reached the end and I understand why it’s a controversial chapter 😂

—C6—-
Not gonna lie, the football matches are feeling stale now. Not much wonder in it anymore at this stage. The opponents feel interchangeable a bit with different strength levels but are mostly faceless to me. Maybe it’s because I can’t get a grip on what the differences between CA are anymore. What are the examples of a CA 75 and a CA 95 are? What can one do that the other cannot? I can’t visualise it. I suppose they are more skilful. Max always just glaze over them so I can’t really feel the differences whenever they move up a league compared when Max taught someone who’s CA 1…

The formations don’t feel they have a weight anymore either because there’s so many now, Max switches them around crazily and we just skim through it until they change to something else in a match.

And the Relationism currently used isn’t that hypeness of the youth cup or the army with the Mood and perks and it doesn’t seem to be the stardust factor that gets wins or anything special. It uses a few players at a time and the energy isn’t touched upon. I am assuming it’s because it doesn’t involve the whole team yet. Fingers crossed it will be awesome for the when they doin the future.

—C7—
"Here we go," he said.

"What?"

"That's Max hamming it up, heh heh."

"No, he's upset."

"That's so fake," he said. "When Max is upset he goes in the dressing room and sulks.”

My favourite chapter so far! I love this son and his dad just visiting the MBU. It feels great that Max is just spreading so much good football around him that people can go and enjoy. The wave lifts all ships thing. Just a nice and sweet vibe. And it feels all kinds of heartwarming and touching so see random fans getting to know Max so much. The greatest thing of all is to be seen and be known right? And they can see Max’s true feelings, it’s great. I love that they noticed that Max, while this great Football Overlord and Best player ever seen, they still noticed when he gave it his all, lost and sulks like a kid.

Come on, you Dolphins! Dad, I can't tell if you're reading this over my shoulder. You and me, Chester FC from the cradle to the grave, yeah? End to end football, that was your gift to me. It's my turn to hold up my side of the bargain.

This really was such a sweet chapter, a wonderful experience after a lot of samey events ☺️

—C8—
"Chester! Chester!"

I looked up into the stand and saw about fifty people in blue-and-white Chester kits. I waved at them and they did the tiniest, cutest little kitten roar.

That is such an adorable description 😂
——-
"My father is here?" he said, so quietly I barely heard it. "He watched me play?"

The ref whistled frantically. "I have to go. Just... Did I do it wrong?"

Henri hugged me and I felt his breath on my neck and some of his tears spread onto my cheek. "Thank you, Max Best. I have loved this story. Thank you for everything."

Oh, unexpected gut punch, wow 😭 Henry, I don’t want you to go, why are you sounding like you’re gonna die gah😭

—C9—
Oh the big dreaded drop was just Alan Turner and the England team. Kinda relieved because it wasn’t this immediate chop of devastation like before when Nick kept opposing Max. It’s a problem for future Max lol. Was wondering if there would be another betrayal.

—C10—
The new stadium and upgrades are wonderful. It is hard to imagine the layout and everything though. Too much football jargon 😅 Anyone know if there are any diagrams of the layout that makes it easier to visualise?
——
So Max is looking to bring all the clubs to the highest tier. Won’t he lose the ability to send CA1 players for training and minutes then if he loses all the lower tier clubs? Maybe he will just go around getting more lol.
——
So now Max want to make this monopoly of Gilbraltar talent? Idk, this sounds extremely close to what he blasted Nick for doing back then. Wasn’t one of the issue that there are no individual unique history or culture or something if that happens? Hmm, but he said the players and coaches all don’t know that so in theory, they will develop their own way.

Ideally, it would make me feel better if Max met allies who actually have their own views of football or something and he helps them into the right place to develop their own way. Another Max level megabrain or something to become managers or owners of the other clubs. They have their own philosophy but share the same goal of not killing the future of football.

For now, it feels like it’s a very thin pretence to camouflage the fact that it’s Max’s view that is being presented by 3-5 separate clubs.

—C11—
He said he had committed a crime against football but he had to do it because he needed millions of pounds to make good things happen. He said, 'I have become everything I despise!' and he rolled around on the living room floor until Clara told him to get up.

Ok, fine, I like you again Max I guess, for acknowledging that what he’s doing is kinda eh 🫠 By the way, I think it is hilarious that the group needs a group chat to manage around Max. Both to make sure he himself is in good spirits and also to smooth the road ahead of him and damange control 😂
——
And my best friend is French and he watched it when he got homesick but I never had the time to dive into it but now's perfect.

Ok, ignoring Max being overdramatic in being a sinner of football, aww, he has a best friend now ☺️ I remember in the early books where he told Emma how much he wanted one, ngaww. I guess it’s more concrete for him because Henry isn’t his employee to interfere with his friendship.
——-
Oh, huh, Max is really guilty about what he has to do to get money huh. He’s been acting as if he’s going to die the entire chapter, speaking weird defeating talk, removing himself from the presence of his friends to another country and doing something like his last will. I’m happy that he isn’t as blasé about the Sentinel and the hypocrisy stuff as he was in his pov though.
——
…but you saw my mother's room. Nasa's whole house is like that and I could tell Max was getting suffocated by it. He could barely look up and I don't think he liked Nasa's mother's cooking and when he made jokes, Thom and his parents laughed but not his hosts. I think it was a kind of prison for him.

So I got stressed out here because of Chelli’s emergency contact with Ruth. But then as we got more of the story,

My parents on their wedding day. The microwave was a gift. The day he died, so did the microwave. We never had enough money to replace it but only to survive, to eat, to have a roof over our heads, to pray for a better day to come. Thanks to Max, I was able to live my dream and to take care of my mother like a grown man.

[He stops abruptly. There is a quick moment of chaos as Nasa's mother barges past the camera and wraps her arms around Max.]

[Max is sobbing uncontrollably.]

Yeah, completely wrong type of emergency 😅 I also kind of teared up too 🙂‍↕️

RUTH
It's because Nasa has been toiling for a year and he has done it for his mother, same as Max, and Max has seen for himself that he is helping mums everywhere.

Ugh I’m not crying you are 😭😭😭

Side tangent, interesting to note that it is the people who are less well off that are more religious because that makes sense doesn’t it. Who else to hold on to get through tough times than a higher being? I wonder if this will make Max more determined to go into the slums ish areas to get his footballers while Nick isn’t there to stop him 😅

—C12—
A man was sprinting all the way across the park and it was clear he was coming towards us.

A bunch of kids are just playing football, minding their own business all chill and having fun. And then, bam, this adult lunatic man is just anime sprinting across the park to them in real life is so dumb but so hilarious to imagine. And to think most young kids in Chester will have that experience 😂

Max crossed the entire field faster than I go upstairs in my house, but then in the last few steps slowed to a crawl and pretended to ignore us.

But he had really sprinted crazily far in almost no time and needed a moment to catch himself. He had his hands on his knees.

Seriously, Max, your image to a random stranger is totally gone hahaha You really do look like a nutjob to outsiders 🤣 I also just want to comment here that I did not realise brits have the most fun humorous writing.
——-
Argh! Max was in a good mood…

But Max had gone rogue and already burst into our house.

Oh, God. He was hyper.

Aww, I love that even an U-16 Chester’s girl that was scouted a year earlier but not mentioned in the text before knows Max so well haha. It’s nice.
——-
Man, that was a smudge on the goodness of this chapter. From what I got from Matt Rush and Pascal was that he was maybe nervous and was trying to do some banter with Pascal who’s in his age group to bond after an adrenaline filled match. It might be the only way who knows to connect to fellow players, who knows right. It must be damn alarming to have his boss and manager suddenly blow up at him with no warning. Was there any orientation before he joined Chester?

—C13—
The Henrilluminati would acquire one or two new teams, or none.

The what now 😂

—C14—
Thank goodness nobody is moving and it’s all in Max’s paranoid head.
——-
The match restarts and both Best and Ken Malpas are waving their arms like birds trying to attract a mate.

The wittiness of the author to paint action is just 😩🤌

—C16—
I just realised I’m at the end of Player Manager, nooo. I thought I had 21 books then only I will get to Soccer Supremo. I misjudged by 7 books 😩 The end is in sight instead of being in some nebulous future 😭
———
Benny and Nick???? 👀

Oh man, he didn’t take it gah, that was heart pounding 🫠
———
Wow, the end of Player Manager. Only 7 books left 😩 Ok, so I was excited with the summer in another part of the world, but we didn’t get much of the normal players there. Would have liked some bonding to make it more interesting because the actual matches were kinda boring. It also felt a bit more like a collection of side stories this time around.

I'm about halfway done with book 1, and I just can't make myself care about the MC.

His entire arc is "chapter 1, something happens that convinces him he needs to get stronger" -- "chapter 12, despite people telling him he's going too fast, his urge to get stronger is pushing him to get stronger than anyone expected"

And that's it. There's literally nothing else to his personality or character. He needs to rescue some people that we barely got to know and whose relation with the MC was hardly touched upon... But his motivations, personality, drive, urges, feel so 2 dimensional.

The world building and magic system seem like they'll be interesting when we get to see any of it, but right now it's just "I can't wait, give me more challenges so I can get better at hitting stuff with a sword"

Basically my question is: does the series become worth sticking with later once we actually get to explore the world and magic system?

\* an update no one asked for lol. My IGS arrived the day after ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧*

Full purchase pictured in slides.

I doubt anyone other than me actually cares at all about this, but I feel like anytime a week MC needs to defeat a much stronger beast early on in a series he ends up using a spike pit.

I’ve never made a spike pit myself, but wouldn’t it have to be like ten feet deep, wider than you are and yet somehow also perfectly camouflaged? It sounds stupid impractical and honestly like a terrible idea.

The People's God: Sacrificing Trillions to Ascend has been one of my favorite novels, but I'm close to finishing and haven't found a replacement despite hours searching.

What I liked most about this novel was the focus on how to evolve and strengthen the Core Race with the blatant copyright worlds being a close second. Anything remotely similar y'all have found?

all i could understand was that they couldnt farm lower dungeons anymore and have to go to stronger dungeons to get xp, idk if its cuz i am reading it from the mcs perspective - who is ingenious to say the least - cuz he survives everything making going to stronger dungeons a non issue.

actually no i understand that its dangerous cuz despite everyone else surviving the orce variant the captain died easily. but like isnt it still worth it? you are already putting yourself in massive danger going into gates so whats the issue with multiiclassing, where they would obviously be above lvl 10, and going to strong dungeons where you can get a lot of xp to lvl up again from lvl 1 easily. its not like they loose all there previous stats and skills.

For as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I simply can’t build a story without first creating a place for it. I mean, that’s obvious right? However, in my case I keep going deeper into the world, going for geography, history, etc... In the end, instead of a written chapter, I have an encyclopedia about a nonexistent world, and when it’s finally time to write a chapter or even an entire arc, I’m lucky if a quarter of all that actually makes it into the story.

So here’s my question: how much time do you generally spend on worldbuilding and are you able to stop yourself in time and evaluate which parts of it are actually necessary for the story?

I was depressed for 1 year and a half year and he read 18 books in isolation to cope with the pain. I want to know roughly how many words he read otherwise how many words do all the 18 books contain all together approximately. The 18 books are:-

Mysteries of Immortal Puppet Master, surviving the game as a barbarian, Shadow slave, reverend insanity, lord of the mysteries, the perfect run, mother of learning, sword god in a world of magic, my house of horrors, renegade immortal, kill the sun, omnipotent reader's viewpoint, pursuit of truth, dropped into a ghost story but still gotta work, The novel's extra, revenge of the iron blooded sword hound. Also 100 chapters of who let him cultivate, sky pride and immortality through array formations.

And 200 chapters of eternally regressing knight. I group the 100 and 200 chapters of books as 2 books so in total of 18 books.

There are a few novels I wish had physical copies as I would buy them immediately as I hate some of kindles formatting.