My life was ordinary, but never boring. That is, until a colossal tower landed smack-dab in the middle of the city.
What should have followed was mass panic and hysteria, but I never got to that part. Why? Simple. I was taken along with 99,999 other people from Earth and dropped onto an unknown world.
Strange beings appeared before us—floating, featureless figures that call themselves demi-gods. They ruled this place, this fantastical world called Gaea. The reason why they took us? Not so simple. We’d supposedly been selected to show that Earth was worth saving from an upcoming cataclysmic event. So, no pressure there.
Gaea is a world entirely controlled by the System, a sarcastic and level-hungry intelligence that granted everyone magical powers, strange classes based on personality or luck, monsters to fight and even loot. It forces us to compete in ‘events’ but no one can really tell us what the endgame is. Climbing the tower and finding out exactly what Gaea is, who created it, and why, could bring us closer to the truth behind our abduction and the fate of our world.
My name is Devin Cain. Join me as I wield Muramasa, a cursed katana that hungers for blood and souls, and a class created to curse players and monsters to death. What can go wrong?
As of writing this review, I’ve read the first book.
Ah I was so excited to read this series because its cover is on of my all-time favourites. Alas, I ended up not vibing it too hard, but mostly because the presence of the System in everything made it feel like I was reading a VRMMO title with low-stakes instead of a life-or-death novel.
Anyway, onto a bit more of a spoiler-free plot synopsis, the story focuses around Devin and his close friends (in and out of the tower). There’s Ben and Emma (a brother-sister pair who are also teleported into the tower), plus Jenny, his best friend. 100k people are teleported into the tower, and the first book is them just completing the tutorial levels. The fatality rate is less than 5%, so it’s not a bloodbath, and the scenarios presented are very much in line with VRMMO quests.
For example, (plot-irrelevant spoilers), Devin uses monster cores to build a village and purchase all the buildings. They form by magic, and, hey presto, a shiny new village. Now, I do love a good base-building story, but only when there’s more to it than just hitting “buy now” in a menu.
Now, VRMMOs generally shine in the area of class development and player agency. That min-maxer optimising their build is always like reading crack, but unfortunately the actual agency Devin has is minimal. His class is gifted, not chosen. His skills are from a small list in a shop. He levels up but doesn’t gain stats to assign or class evolutions to pick. He just levels up, and becomes a bit stronger, in an ephemeral way.
For those that do like a lot of System, but without the pages and pages of “Oh boy which of these dozen skills should I pick, the common ones, or the single Legendary one??” (Looking at you, Primal Hunter), then you may find this refreshing. There’s definitely lots of fights and action to go around instead of internal monologues on optimal choices.
Alrighty, onto characters. All I can say is… “mmmm.” Devin himself is fine, Ben is a sweetheart, but I can’t help but not like the way the romance is written here. It’s not as bad as Noobtown in how women are written, but it’s not amazing.
So, Devin and Emma hit it off. The weird thing is that Emma starts flirting with Devin and bonding over both being weebs (their word) right away. Despite the appearance of these alien towers, teleportation, seeing people dying, fighting for their lives, it’s just right into it. It feels so incredibly inauthentic.
The author even lampshades how out of place it all is:
When our eyes met, she winked, but then she ran and hid behind her brother exaggeratedly. She was very cute, and I could feel my heart beating faster. However, I also felt a significant flash of irritation—her teasing and joking felt childish and out of place in the Tower of Oblivion amidst all the death.
And later on, once their (day old?) romance develops, we also get a trope I dislike, which is stringing out the romantic tension:
“I, umm…ugh. Can’t you take a hint?” she muttered and turned to face me. “I wanted to…lose my virginity to you, but… chickened out when you saw me naked.”
I felt my right eyebrow rise involuntarily along with the corners of my mouth. Ben said that she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend before getting transported here, but I guessed things hadn’t gone that far. Either way, it didn’t change my decision. Part of me wanted nothing more than to lay down with her and become…something more, but I couldn’t, not now.
“I think that’s a good thing. Us becoming more I mean. It’s just…I can’t do it yet, I… Prahna and Roman and…things.”
I found myself stumbling and searching for the correct words. For some reason, it just didn’t feel right as I knew how important it was to claim Prahna and get rid of Roman.
Emma made a disgusted face. “Wait, what? You would have said no? Didn’t you just see me naked? I’ve got a body to kill for!”
“Emma, please, just hear me out. Let me…let me think of what I’m trying to say.” She nodded, then let out a deep breath as she leaned into me. Her body radiated warmth and I just wanted to sit there and hold her forever. That was one of the best things about…
Blah blah blah
“It does,” she replied weakly. “But don’t forget one thing, Dev. If you lose yourself in others, what’s the point of living? You need time for yourself…a woman…and a warm bed. Is life worth living without those things?”
I shook my head. She definitely had a way with words.
It again feels like I’m reading a young adult romance aimed at early teenagers and not an authentic, emotive relationship started to form.
As I final point, I did laugh at one good point in the book. There’s a subplot about a character who can mentally dominate others, and has been spreading lies about the MC. But then, out of nowhere, the MC stands up and decries all the mean things said against him, and ends with:
“… May the System strike me down if any of it is a lie!” I stopped for a moment and waited.
“Player Devin Cain has sworn a tribulation. Calculating…Player Devin Cain has spoken the truth.”
Like damn, way to shoot that plot point between the eyes. How can you have a serious conflict driven by misinformation and two characters saying conflicting things… in a place where you literally have an omnipresent and omniscient lie detector to validate everything you say?
Anyway, I have a bad tendency to talk about things that annoy me more than things I liked. If you’re a fan of tower climbers, of VRMMOs, or of party battles and monster hunting, you’ll enjoy this book. Sure, there’s some fairly juvenile romance elements in it, but ultimately the two characters are starting a wholesome relationship and that’s something I do whole heartedly like to see in the genre.
