Sky Pride

As of writing this review, I’ve read all public chapters - which is volume three, chapter fourteen.

Blurb

Parents dead, clan exterminated, body burned, hands mutilated, inflicted with innumerable diseases, tossed into the dump, and even the magic ring with the ghostly grandpa in it has been sabotaged. A reasonable person would roll over and die. Tian isn’t that reasonable. And as it happens, neither is Grandpa Jun. A very tough kid meets a very cunning old man. And together, they will shake the heavens.

Thoughts

So I read this right after reading Years of the Apocalypse and I’ve got to say I almost damn near quit being an author myself. The brilliant plotting and worldbuilding of YotA had me questioning the foundations of my constructed world. And then Sky Pride comes along and punches me in my face with its amazing characters, great dialogue, and thoughtful prose.

Disgusting. In a good way—to be clear.

I lost track of how many really nice turns of phrase the author casually works into the story, in and outside the cultivation metaphors and metaphysics which give the serial a great feeling of authenticity. But I found a typo once, so I’m going to say “Ha, it could be better!” just to spite Warby Picus.

I digress.

The story follows Tian. Tian’s childhood was rough. It’s actually an achievement early on when he manages to find and eat a particularly tasty patch of dirt in the middle of a dump. That’s not great. But, as they say, the toughest conditions give rise to the most PTSD individuals. Tian is actually not driven insane by his awful childhood mostly thanks to “Grandpa Jun”, who acts as a voice-in-the-head and reincarnated-into-a-ring individual, who can spend their energy to try and help Tian out every now and then. Mechanically, Jun helps Tian maximise their gains and insights, while also abusing modern vocabulary and references to smooth the readers understanding of a particularly esoteric or abstract metaphor or magic-system-infodump.

Soon after Tian leaves the dump, its time for serious self improvement, socialising with the rock-throwers, and becoming friends with a Hong Liren, a girl Tian’s age who he believes has severe mental issues. He offers to kick her in the head a few times to help cure it, which gets their friendship off to a strong start. I smell a very slow-burn romance that might bud like a lotus in spring, where spring is probably another two thousand pages away.

After all, by volume three the main characters are still only fourteen. Tian doesn’t even have a flying sword! The power progression is also a slow burn, but also very satisfying.

Honestly, I think my biggest issue with this story is that I’ve run out of chapters. I guess that’s pretty high praise.