The Arcane Emperor

High art, thank you for sharing your gift.  Arcane Emperor is easily in the top 3 litrpg category and a must read now collection.  The MC is seemingly OP.  However, I like to see him as a thought experiment in human development if one wasn't constrained by societal norms that dictate linear thinking and a forced process of one having to pay their dues through meaningless waste of time in place.  A young person merely having the gift or ability to be able to shed societal norms and advance their thinking at the speed of their passion/dedication to their art and own creative ingenuity.  The MC recognizes this gift with an altruistic desire to freely share.  Will the MC be able to overcome the reality that ultimate power, ultimately corrupts?

Congratulations author and keep on trucking.

This story rubs me the wrong way. Before I start the rant, just know I've read up to Chapter 173. Major spoilers. 

There are a million other things I have a problem with but I'm sure it's been said before by now. 

In all, I think it's enjoyable if you are bored out of your mind. It's below average in style with extremely repetitive story-telling dynamics - with side characters literally not existing anymore outside of Rainer's sphere of influence. The few things I'd rate above average are the unique abilites Rainer manages to create and the albeit  scarce life-like interactions between side characters. If you're looking to read up until a certain point where it gets to be too much, I'd recommend dropping this novel immediately after Rainer meets up with his extended family. The story took a steep nose-dive in quality from there and became- well, imagine a soap opera without much dialogue. Not to mention everything unqiue that made Rainer Rainer, for as little as that means, is practically stripped away by his family.

For all it's worth, this is a good time waster. Though in my humble opinion I can't fathom why people would give this an overall rating of anything above a 3/5 stars. It's at most a solid 2/5 for me.

(EDIT 3: Most of the people who are rating this highly never even got past the first 50-75 chapters; those that did simply gave it pity points for the amount of potential it had before it got flushed down the drain. It really shouldn't be this highly rated.)

This story starts off strong, with a serious fight for survival and keeps the pace up. 35 chapters worth at the moment. Impressive. The MC is quite OP in terms of growth, but almost always faces stronger and/or greater numbers of enemies. An ideal situation as far as I'm concerned.

The MC is not a hero, in his own words. He's certainly all over the map, morally speaking. Rescuing potential allies at great risk to himself but eliminating enemies rather than giving them a chance to regroup and attack later. Certainly has a ruthless streak.

The world itself is quite interesting, with many different factions, all hostile to our independent mage MC. Realisticly so at that. Who want's an upstart ruining a monopoly on power? Also dig the magic system. Spells get multiple levels to master along with tiers. Classes can be upgraded and a second one is also possible. Very neat. Loads of possibilities.

By far one of my most favourite series. Drags in some points but has a fresh take on the system based genre. Reminds me a lot of The Death Mage Doesn't Want a Fourth Time, but fixs a few of the gripes i have with it.

What can I say. This is just like read Death March, you don't really feel for the problem the mc is facing because he will overcome it in some intersting way.

I must tell that was my interest in magic talk that keep me bring me back, now is just a way to chill and enjoy the little new things that apper each chapter. Wondering what other uncommon power would he show/master.

Good story, a bit lacking in the details for spells and mechanics, and the motovation behind some of the characters.

All around great story, probably one of the best written on RRL, if not the best. Lots of world building, lots of character building, and the main character is enjoyable although he tends to jump to different things. That does happen when other powerful people are out to get you though. Grammar can be kinda off sometimes, but I know that's in the works to fix so I wouldn't worry about that. The only thing that could work for characters is more descriptions of what people look like, that is lacking sometimes. Connecting more faces with names would also be a plus!

If you enjoy OP main characters, video game-esque leveling and stat screens, and a plot that swings from carefree to serious, you will definitely enjoy this. Even if you're not sure if that's your thing, I would definitely give it a try. It'll probably hook you and you'll end up binge reading all 2,000+ pages over a week (or overnight if you're feeling ambitious!)

This is a fun romp, and I've really enjoyed the read. Unfortunately, while the story itself is just as delightful as when I started, it seems like a lot of the quality is diminishing. The technical skill seems to be diminishing, to my surprise.

I would absolutely love to see this work get in the hands of a good editor, and find its way to proper publishing. It's got excellent potential - a truly fantastic story. And the characters are fun, too.

So much of the conveyance and technical writing skill is lacking, however, that I can't fully recommend it. I wonder what this story's future holds, and while I wish that it were presented better, I'm glad the story is ultimately doing well.

After over 60 chapters of this story, I can say that it is one of the best stories on RR and certainly the 1 or 2 best LitRPGs on the site.

Storywise the author has managed to keep from massively overpowering the characters and keeping the power creep to a reasonable believable pace. The characters remain engaging and there have not been any deus ex machina so far.

Seeing as I haven't been on in awhile, I was somewhat surprised to find that a new story had risen to #1. I wanted to see what the hype was about, so I decided to start reading.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm writing this review as if I were reviewing a professional work, and not just a story written on here. I've read several stories on here, and this is definitely one of the better ones in comparison. Yes. It's trope-y. Yes. Some of the characters lack depth, but there are definitely some good elements blended into the story.

Now for the actual review. 

Style: Due to the nature of the story (a in-depth magical researcher in a world w/ status windows), this is resulted in some problems. The magic is explained in detail (which I like), but that also becomes an issue. After the initial flair of the details, I found myself starting to just skim over the magic expositions. While a lot of detail is given, it's not necessarily presented in an entertaining way. Yes, we hear about his failures in his sleep world, but nothing in detail. It's generally just *failure failure failure* *poof* *epiphany* and it works right away. I'd personally appreciate more on how the epiphany came to be (adjustments of past failures) rather than exposition on how certain aspects of magic... feels. I may be biased, but inset laws and playing off of those always seems far interesting than. "This feels right. Lets wing it." It may be too late to change this though.

As for the system, I'm a strong believer that systems disrupt the flow of the story, since I have an extremely hard time imersing myself in a world with status windows and stuff. It's just not relatable or remotely realistic. That's just me though. Personally I think you did this alright, but it feels like a limitation.

Grammar: No serious complaints. I never found this a huge deal unless it made the story literally unreadable tbh.

Story: Lots of complaints about the early chapters. The MC's thought process isn't explained enough when it matters. Esp during the whole "kill everyone to protect Kara and the fairy" dungeon sequence. The action when analyzed was logical, yes, but it lacked the foreshadowing leading up to it. Even if the MC has been established as logical, it felt like he just went full sociopath on us. As for the end goal (school), it was introduced in an odd manner and it currently feels insubstantial. He hasn't talked about funding, recruitment, or a concrete curriculim yet. It's mostly been 1 on 1 interactions that slightly relate to it.

I enjoy that there's signs of foreshadowing where you drop certain plot points down as foundation for the future. Instead of just leaving them be, you constantly reference back to them (ex. wyvern egg, and the cook) in casual conversation.

My biggest complaint about the story, however, is tied to the characters. Unfortunately I can't grade story and character seperately.

Character Score: MC is somewhat fleshed out, but still has moments where he seems robotical. How do I put it? He's too "logical" and "perfect". Flaws about him seem to be superficial and forced in rather than genuine and problem-causing. Everything seems to play to his advantage rather than him working towards it. Does he work? Yes. It doesn't seem like he does though. Nothing has seemed like a genuine threat to him thus far aside from the lich in that quest, and even then he blew past him easily when it came down to it. Tatics seem lacking and are much closer to brute force. I commend you for creating a MC that actually thinks and works towards a defined goal instead of creating another glorified slice of life (a problem a lot of stories on here has), but I can't help but feel that there's a lot of untapped potential here.
Unfortunately the biggest character problem isn't the MC. It's Kara. Initially I was quite pleased to find a female character and love interest that isn't just a personified blob of fanservice (not that I'm accusing the author of doing that now). She was just as strong as the MC and had some defining character traits, but it didn't stay that way. Even before the MC advanced to Archon, she was already fading into the background. She fell in love with him what almost seemed like instantly after the kill-everyone incident. Most of her supposed budding love was off-screen. Rather than someone who brought any insight or competence to the table, she quickly descended into nothing more than extra mobility due to her wolf form. As soon as the MC advanced, she disappeared all together. Soon enough, she brought nothing to the table that the MC himself couldn't bring. You see that she's upset about it, but it doesn't seem to be anything serious. Instead, she just happily plays the role of the girl that needs protection (her power might not fit that role, but her personality is starting to).es, you can argue that Kara brings a side quest to the table, but there's been very few signs of it thus far (until recently). This was honestly quite upsetting for me to see. I'm hoping a new arc fixes this.

Other characters:

Theo and Gul(whatever I can't remember his name. SkeloBro it is.) are well done. Theo brings experience and knowledge to the table. SkeloBro plays the straight man and the side quest role. They both have definitive character traits (Theo less so, but mainly since he was introduced later). Good job here.

Luna. Eh, personally I don't like these types of characters (cutesy kids stuck in mature bodies), but she brings her healing magic to the table, and the side quest. No serious complaints here without being extremely biased.

Other fairies: Reason I'm grouping them like this is because none of them have been all that fleshed out. The author has the issue of not being able to flesh out characters in an efficient manner without dragging it out and requiring them to have a lot of screen time. I advise the author look into short stories and see how characters are fleshed out near-instantly with minimal screen time.

Overall: My Review title.