Azarinth Healer by Rhaegar

Ch 70 review: 4.5/10 slop.

MC gets transported to lirpg fantasy land. She accommodates very quickly since she is obsessed with fighting. She gets ultra lucky being transported right next to a place where she gets her powerful ancient azarinth healer class.

But she remains very naive and reckless. She risks her life without precautions and acts traumatized when she almost loses it. She reveals info to strangers hoping they are all good people. Mini spoiler about how nonsensical she acts: She saves noble girl's life from bandits. Afterward the noble girl is ungrateful and lies to the MC asking her to go into a dungeon that would probbably kill her to make contributions to her family saying its actually to heal a family member. When MC returns alive she conforonts her and doesnt even receive an apology. After all this, the MC decided to impart the secret of obtain her legendary class to the noble girl because they "used to be friends".

Side characters and world don't feel alive. Just quickly spawn to play a little scene in the MC's adventures. The plot is meh, worldbuilding while intriguing not developed or well thought out. And MC is not very likable imo.

The saving grace of the novel is that the author keeps well track of the stats. But overall it's too tiring to read to deserve a recommendation.

So, after finally coming back to finish this I finally read the last like 150 chapters to finish this series and I kinda want to vent. Sorry for the big review. I think I vent like this when I see wasted potential in something I otherwise liked. =\

So this series is not without some good and bad. It's a real mixed bag.
Starting with The Bad:
1. The biggest problem with this series is that the Narration and Character writing aren't very enjoyable to read when they're not teasing one another. Which sounds silly to say but conversations between characters need to be met from different perspectives to make it feel natural. You can't just have exposition/question/answer and sarcastic snark. There's more to communication than that. There are moments that are good and those stand out but there's a large word count and big parts of fluff. Add in the Skill descriptions and sometimes drawn out combat sequences and it grows tiresome after a while.
2. The Narration exampes; the author later in the series introduces side gigs and side quests for the MC that gives us so many POV shifts to new garbo a$$ characters that it becomes page skim-city. The Sentinels are such crap imo. I hated every single chapter with them in it ngl. Although I’ll give credit to the later storyline in the 800s being more interesting than I expected. I even disliked how they were handled as a concept; They all have the EXACT SAME KIT as our MC? So basically, she starts feeling less and less unique visually. Lol aight. I admit this is a personal preference, but I just think the Ash class should’ve been far more rare. Give us a few characters who earn a variant not hundreds of them. They even said only one person in 350 years had been recorded to have it then it becomes like a coke can dispenser.
3. Don't even get me started on the immature writing. One minute Ilea sounds like a "get good noob" cod playing teenager then she's having philosophical and political debates way above her pay grade. Her educational background and clear disinterest in knowledge makes her ignorance stand out to me. Most of it is played for a laugh at first but after a certain point it gets old... These inconsistencies are more the limitations of the writing though and not the characters design. It's likely that the author just didn't think that far ahead and didn't want to bother with background info at relevant points in the narrative. This is forgivable and understandable but it's not to say Ilea is without her faults tho.
5. The Character(s) there's lots of issues but I'll just focus on Ilea. Her character is both likeable and annoying all at the same time. Which is actually really good at first. In the beginning she's sensitive and likeable. Respectful of every loss of life (within reason) which really helps build her characters moral scaffolding. The snarky sarcastic bro humor is amusing at times and she's even shown to be vulnerable (shock) after the taleen expedition. Albeit very briefly, It makes her really likeable in the first books this series and tricks you into thinking there's more to come in the future but it never does. The emotional breakdowns you'd expect someone like her to have just never come.
At a certain point in the story she morphs into something less enjoyable to read and she's put forth as completely infallable. I'm not even sure the author realizes he started doing that with her character because it is a massive deviation from her original design I feel. It becomes more and more noticeable that she will never be stumped or put out of her element no matter what conversation she's in. She never feels physically or mentally outgunned unless it's for a vapid comedic effect. She manipulates people she knows she can crush into challenging her at times for the purpose of sadistically doing so. She uses intimidation almost constantly throughout the second half of the series. She is never and I mean NEVER, brought down to reality again. It doesn’t matter how ancient, wise or powerful the supporting roles are. She never fails to get the last word in. She never gets checked by anyone even when she needs it ie, there's a time Trian communicates a real potential discipline issue in the Sentinels and she patronizes him in a way that was disgusting - then promptly listens to his advise in the next chapter for no apparent reason. There are no hard conversations or repercussions for Ilea. She is the one giving the tough talks from up on her high horse. She never deals with the consequences of her actions in a meaningful way. The excuse given is that because she has special healing, she keeps her “mind healthy” – so the author can just basically avoid issues like fear, depression, negativity, doubt and guilt. As a result any remote introspection or growth is tossed out the window. She rarely talks about how the worlds changing her more and more (aside from the weight jokes.) Any references are one sentence throw aways that have no lasting effect on the characters outlook or actions. It’s just lipservice to remind the reader that the Author is still aware of the cognitive dissonance that is so ever present.
Then you add in the “I feel no pain” aspect and she becomes a completely unrelatable determinator trope. Which in my opinion, is the worst decision in the whole book. Every character with super pain tolerance (shouldn't no pain have been 3rd tier really?) devolves into a writing sequence of "My eyes burst out of my head. They regenerate instantly. My body melts. It heals instantly." It kills tension in the worst way possible imo. This one thing here may be the single worst recurring issue with the narrative direction in the whole series. I can't overstate it enough. AND THE WORST PART IS WE GET A WHOLE ORGANIZATION OF IDIOTS WRITTEN THIS WAY LATER ON. ugh
And~ of course, I have to mention that almost everyone loves her completely after their first meeting with her. Her disrespectful speech and lack of decorum always ends up being a positive in any situation. Seen as “refreshing or honest.” The only people who instantly dislike/hate her are relegated to fearing her wrath because they’re shown as outright reprehensible bad guys. The anti ilea’s are always conveniently slavers, torturers, enemy soldiers(FR tho RIP being a grunt in an enemy army she DGAF if you were drafted son lol) then they exist as jobbers to be squashed. She doesn’t start the story out this way but quickly becomes the prototypical godqueen mary sue architype – which really sucks because it felt like a bait and switch. And it’s made all the worse from the constant jokes about her being the shadow queen and her not taking responsibility for it lol…
6. Then there’s the shallow writing... The MCs flippant attitude is used as a crutch to completely avoid serious topics and conversations. There’s a lot of things that never get said that you’d expect it would. Especially between character interactions. Her life from Earth is mishandled imo. Her core ethics are based on Earth and her values as a result seem to be a western first-world-liberty based democracy set. Her power allows her to enforce these values on all the kingdoms and societies of this new world by the end of the series. Kings and queens and political elites don’t even once question the moral framework her values are build on. Though some push back they’re once again cookie cutter slavers. There is never a morally grey, reasonable argument to dissuade some of Ilea’s heavy handed tactics. They never ask her to explain herself or want to find out more about why she'd feel the way she does. I doubt Ilea would think herself capable of civil service as a politician on Earth so why is she so willing to mettle on Elos? All the side characters just accept it. There's like one or two verbal conflicts in the whole series with Ilea and they were poorly written. All of the side characters are sycophants/yes men but Ilea is happy to use heavily monopolistic market techniques that lead to U.S. Regime Change style take overs. Which is perfectly ok for her I guess. Might makes right.
7. Not that I care about this much tbf but I figure I’ll say it. Don’t expect much out of the sex sequences or relationships. She hardly addresses the fact that her body under goes an insane change. She only talks about being heavy but that even is only played for a gaff. It never causes her an actually issue in any meaningful situation. If you're gonna go there, go all the way or not at all. Make a steamy sex-with-supergirl style scene or leave the shit out imo. Instead it's like fade to black. mid. Which leads to...
8. There is not much emotion here. Lack of emotional connection and tension really hurts this series for me.
In like 900 chapters, I may have been thinking "they may not make it through this one" like 2 times and I went "aw that's sad" like twice lol. Fail imo I’m a sap too so I usually am easy to please on this front.
I barely cared for her friends because they were such empty shells by the end. Half the characters in the series will get put on the bus multiple times only to come back later for some good old character assassination. She will randomly get saddled with a new support character in each arc and they generally do nothing but provide exposition or stand in awe of the queen.
9. The series is (subtly) politically left leaning. Which could be an instant turn off for some people. There’s references to all sorts of modernity related issues. They usually are internal thoughts by the FMC and thrown out pointlessly to underline Ilea's feeling of being out of place. It's off putting at times and rare but it’s there. Take it for what you will.

The Good:
-Ilea is still the best part of the series. She’s still fun and overall worth putting up with despite the flaws.
-The beginning arcs are the best ones imo. It’s pretty ironic because a lot of people say they drop this early, heh. If you can't tolerate the beginning you’re gonna hate the last 1/3 of this series.
Basically:
-World building has some work put into it. The lore is solid albeit some of the final stuff felt heavily rushed. Despite that, it’s still a net positive for it. The world is actually quite interesting and was full of potential and clearly the author spent some time on it. There are entire regions and countries that haven't been really tapped into much and even after the end they lay untouched. Unfortunately though, you will not get to enjoy much of it unless the author goes back to continue this story. Even the large nations that seem to have parts in the story never even get their leaders shown in any real capacity. Some are just killed off screen even. The Countries basically exist for Ilea to trample on them so she can be a goddess among the mortals or for the Accords to prove they’re on the right side of history. Gotta fight the backwards old foogies after all lol.
-If you enjoy a (albeit sometimes cathartically fun) power fantasy featuring a FMC this series falls in line with that more often than not. There’s like of Ilea smashing bad people in this series. She gets to be Geralt/Aloy/Gutts/Aragorn all wrapped into one. She's regularly taking side missions to kill lesser mortals. I put this under the good stuff but it's personal preference – your mileage may vary.
There's a couple of memorable sequences where she's clearly losing her sanity in some power fueled emotional outbursts. These are well done and it shows how unstable she is but they never address them more than once. These are super super rare but highly enjoyable. More of this would've been welcomed honestly. So even while praising them I still feel like they should've been done with more finesse. Example: If her character was legit caught or covertly seen being unstable it could've been used to create entire storylines with her friends that would've been 10 times more impactful. It would've made the whole story take on a different and better tone... Fueling character conflicts jealousy and betrayal. Otherwise known as the page turning good stuff. Potentially setting the stage for Ilea to cross lines she shouldn't. Gravitas and character growth they're so sorely missing. Harry Dresden for example snapping on that cop in Battlegrounds had me unable to sleep. Ah oh well what can you do..

The overall hook/plot though feels a bit cobbled together in the back half. The writing definitely degrades.
Good:
-Fights (for the most part - sometimes it gets long in the tooth)
-Boss fights are legit pretty kick ass and memorable (in book 1&2). Good enough to warrant me reading this.
-The seldom badass moments for Ilea - usually ties into the top two. Her overcoming an obsticle in a boss way or getting revenge. She does this alot but they're not always good mind you.
-Big climactic battle at the end of the series was pretty good.
-Level ups (feels good to watch her grow more powerful - you will root for her)
-Some humor here and there is smirk and chuckle worthy. Mileage may vary on this too. I’m kind of old so for me this stuff felt cringe more often than enjoyable.
Bad:
-One Wo(man) show. No one else is cool and you only get one flavor. Ilea being cool. Everyone else is basically there to big her up. It’s pizza but it’s cheese. All the time. Pizza is still good but cheese pizza gets old ya know?
-Dumb characters written mind numbingly dumb in dumb immature conversations that make light of almost Everything. I. Mean. Everything. The only time she’s serious is when she’s mad. Thankfully she gets mad quite a bit.
-Loose ends due to abrupt ending. This has one of those... and it's over - Endings. There's tons of plot holes/plot lines/locations not addressed.
- Never really get to enjoy Ilea at her maximum power it's briefly earned then the story promptly ends. I kind of get it though, it would take some large expansions on lore etc to bring in relevant level threats, her power level is getting to be over 9000 at that point so it might just be easier to stop the series altogether rather then try to come up with new threats. Still a negative tho.
-Tons of unspoken conversations between characters. This kind of surprised me because there’s lots of ground covered but somehow some conversations just never get delved into. For instance, the idea that an athletic (we’re told) good looking medical student girl has NOBODY she cares about is just super unlikely. No cousins? Only one friend? DGAF about her fam or nothin. And she’s such a damn foodie but never talks about missing a Cheesy Gordita crunch.
-This is the worst of all: It's fairly predictable. There are NO surprises here. You won't lean forward in your seat or sit up in your bed reading this. It just isn't smart enough for that unfortunately.
TLDR:
If you don't like the earliest stuff; it doesn't get better as it goes along. It only gets worse. While not without moments of enjoyment - This series was massively wasted potential imo. Good but not great.
4/5
It won me over dang it. T_T I wish we had more to read so there'd be less loose ends.

I would give a 7/10.
Downside: The author made the main character (female) very crazy, she have no idea what she is doing and she never plans nothing and have a severe degree of ADHD (TDAH) when she is not fighting. She often does the opposite she is thinking to do. Also, she is strong in a bad way, not because she is very smart or amazing but because everyone in Elos is dumb.
Highside: the class system is amazing and it's what made me keep reading. The bickering between characters is very funny too.

So we finished, right? Save to write a review.

Welp, here's one:
A solid 3/5
There's nothing bad about it but nothing good either. The whole story revolves around:
1. Me fight.
2.Me heal.
3.Me gain skills.
4. Me kill
5. Me lvl up.
Fights are... Not to bad, not to good. Can't say to much about them. Creatures aren't bad but everything about the fight is just so basic it gets boring. She hits stuff, stuff hits her, she heals, stuff dies. That's it. No schemes, no traps no suddenness. Just basic farming RPG.
Side characters are ok at the start but when she gets stronger they're just irrelevant and when some side story with them happens I just want the plot to switch back to fighting.
And when it's fighting I just want to scroll down to see skills.
Skills are about the best there is in this book. It's still worse then some books with overcomplicated systems like "The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound" where everything is described in to much details. But at least it's simple and funny. Allows some degree of free development by core points and learning passive skills.
Ending: Well, nothing happened. We just beat another boss. Cool. There were some changes in the environment and I guess epilogue will be about how people adapted to it using 'inheritance' she left behind. She made organization that will help everyone, left this thing for that town so they will use it to deal with Calamity. That girl she taught would use what she taught to help people do this and adapt to that problem. Honestly, shouldn't be to interesting.

Well, I may be biased because I finished reading Reverend Insanity not long ago, and by comparison, most characters anywhere seem shallow. Especially those 10k year old guys who decide to sleep and do nothing to "maintain balance?" "Meditate?" Well. Whatever.

Conclusion: Read if you have nothing to read. A solid book with no big flaws or big innovations

Review after all 930 chapters.
(Note: 929 is last chapter of the story, 930 and potentially further is an after-credits scenes)
Novel is great, I had a blast reading it, and I'm certainly waiting for that second book
edit: second book is just publishing stuff, I've been hyped for nothing

Now, let me tell you what I liked here in main points:

World Building: the whole world of Elos feels living, and not centered around MC like it often happens. Most things, if not all, have their explanations, like a jigsaw puzzle pieces we, along with MC, are putting together as we explore.

Main Character: has a personality, her own morale and principles, which shows well on the background of another world. Oftentimes I found myself relating to attitudes she has towards certain things. Absolutely hates politics, and I was glad she did all the way. She has fun on her adventures, and I consider this a plus, since it makes her so much more humane than all those MC's with attitudes like become strong first and foremost, and fun is for after that is achieved.
Most notably, even when her personality hasn't changed, it certainly adjusted to fit the 'harsh reality,' and while I'll confidently say Ilea chapter 1 and Ilea chapter 929 are same character-wise, weight of all what happened certainly changed her.

Side Characters: like MC, also have their personality, even those we'll only ever see once. Even bandits made exclusively to be somebody to be killed without remorse have their personality. Quite a lot of characters left a lasting impression, and some had their fair share of growth. Quite often there are snippets of side characters POVs, both telling about another perspective and character's thoughts, thus personality. I found myself longing for more of this moments instead of being annoyed by somewhat frequent use, which testaments to something at least.
Another point is side character mortality: in quite a lot of stories side characters either don't die at all or die for the sake of MC's character development. Here, I haven't felt such, if they die, they die for themselves, for their own motives and reasons, like, you know, humans do.

System: reminds me a bit of Nanomancer Reborn's system, but without all the bullshit. System itself is easy: you do the thing, you're rewarded with abilities, you don't do the thing, you stagnate. Very personalized in terms of paths of power, meaning you wouldn't ever meet exactly same (in terms of powers) mages, etc.
But one big thing to note here: system very strongly favors overachieving, creating a viscous positive feedback loop of overachieving leading to more power leading to even more overachieving. Which isn't inherently bad, but does leave some aftertaste for me.

Plot: there is no pressing world-wide matters that need immediate solving, which means MC can freely do her own thing without any pressing needs to rush towards, leaving plot a very relaxed walk instead of mad rush from destination to destination. I particularly liked the proportion of fighting and other activities, mainly how before I can get bored with routine or something else, MC just runs off to give us a fight to watch.
Talking about plot is borderline spoilers, so I'll just say that every walk has it's own destination, and I was quite pleased with how it was concluded.

Time passage: would be a strange thing to highlight if it wasn't so standing out to me. Oftentimes in such adventure-centered stories have time passage mentioned only when author suddenly remembered about it, or time-skips and more often than not in the end it sums up with quite ridiculous number, either too low (like in aforementioned Nanomancer Reborn), or too high for no particular reason. Here, even if not mentioned specifically, time passes, and it feels somewhat right. Like, for example, when MC re-encounters a teenager some time later, and this time they're young adult instead, and it feels... right. There are time-skips, but they're reserved for routine we have already seen, and they're measured in months.

Chapter Length: chapters are quite long, but usually not too much, which is a good thing, in my book. System status, which notoriously takes whole chapters sometimes, here is an addition to it instead, at certain points I could even predict there is a status screen in the end by the length of a scroll bar. Maybe it's just me, but chapters get lengthier the further down the line we get, with last few being absolute monsters of a length, but with how action-packed they are, I deem it justified.

it's a masterpiece, i just hoped the author gave us more details in the political side of the novel. and actually let us see what is being discussed in the meetings, i know it's against llea's personality but randomly going somewhere, not listening at all, or some of the characters just summarized it for her is such a letdown. kind of want to see how the businesses that claire did boomed. and i know the novel is focused on fighting and it's not really a business novel but do recommend me one. ty

if you see chapters past 929 with a slow and unsteady release speed, no, the story is not dying, it ended, the author is releasing PoV and epilogue chapter over long time to give us readers a feeling of fading out instead of a sudden cut. its a good thing.

I've spent a long time in the comments. I'm excited to read these kinds of novels, whose writers inspire and teaches me more in writing. She(?) seems cool and I kind of feel a sense of connection with her writer personality evident in her writing style. She's got imperfections but tries to fix it.

Okay This Novel Was Great Especially The System It Was Unique And It Did Not Bore You When She Was Leveling..... Until Mc Bullshit Romance Was Introduced

Author Keeps Shoving Mc Bisexual Romance In Our Throats...I Basically Don't Care If Mc Was Bisexual Or She Could Have Harem Of Both Women And Men....The Thing That Annoyed Me Is That As I Was Reading "An Interesting Arc Where Mc Was Leveling Up Beating shits Of Things Author Out Off Nowhere Introduce Mc Sad Grimmy Romance Out Off Nowhere Which Basically It Does Not Even Last.....Mc Basically Has Like 6 Failed Bisexual Romance Up To Chapter 800 I Got Tired"