Lord of the Mysteries序列的戰爭 (old)

诡秘之主 (new)

Allow me to start by the end: This novel is definitely worth the read, very particularly for those writing light-novels, who could learn more than a point or two.

That being said, my review is divided in 4 parts: Settings - Characterization - Plot - Style.

The beginning itself was entirely a masterpiece. The author was very creative, both in style and settings. It's cultivation system was unique, and the plot was very well weaved. Honestly, it was very refreshing discovering this, among many novels that... stained the light-novel universe by either its simplicity, or vulgarity. And very particularly, the most surprising part, is that it was a West vs East style of fantasy novel; very unexpected was the fact that it was a C-LN, a Chinese novel. Not that I'm discriminating, of course, it was just that for those who've read a lot of C-LNs, this one is an utmost memorable one.

As I've said, the beginning was a masterpiece: in every and any point. However, the Mid-End deteriorate a little... One could even say that it was normal. I mean... the most difficult part of all novels, is to start and to end. The author did a wonderful job starting it, but the mid-end was slightly... less well-thought, or rushed. It can't be said that it was bad, it was simply disappointing that the novel couldn't sustain its masterpiece level throughout the whole journey. Still, compared to 95% of all light-novels... Well, I wouldn't do it, because that'd be very insulting for the Lord of Mysteries.

So, here's the summary of the Bad Points:

1- Power-fights: Honestly, the fighting scenes was probably the hardest part to read... because sometimes, the complexity is kinda... over-complicated for nothing. And that, made it a bit... tedious to follow at times.
Ex: The foreshadowing for settings was well pre-planned, and well-dosed; but for the fights, it was often overly complicated, and worst, interrupted by... out-of-blue explanations of why the powers worked in that way. (A bit... disruptive.)

2- Plot-weaving: While it starts as a REAL Masterwork, it ends only with: better than most. A bit disappointing... Why? Because at some point, the plot repeat and repeat, while we lose track of its original creativeness.
Ex: It was way more interesting, well-written, and captivating reading the MC's initial progression from Low Sequence Beyonder, to a High Sequence one.

3- Consistency: If Lord of Mysteries could have maintained its initial quality, it would have been doubtlessly the most well-written web-novel of all times... by very freaking far. Unfortunately, it wasn't able to preserve that... extremely high, initial quality. Ex: Beginning, everything was like a perfect, unique puzzle, that would fit, somehow, one with every others; and then, at the end, there were many... under-developed parts that should have been focused on, and other parts that should have been reduced.
Ex: I, as a reader, had initially attached a lot of importance and emotions toward Klein's family. It was beautiful to see the siblings help and grow toward each others. And then... poof! At some point, we totally lost track of them... It was like, a bit too sudden. Even when they had, somehow reappeared, it was a bit pointless and superficial. Besides, if there was a major plot-hole of a part in this novel... (spoiler warning) it was that, for example, those almost almighty quasi-gods could do almost everything one could never think of (stealing fate, mind reading, impersonating, etc.) ... but couldn't discover Mortal Klein's true ID, and exploiting its affection toward his family... when the dumber Leonard, had somehow managed to figure it out before everyone else... And that's not even talking about after Amon had, somehow, discovered about it... and then nothing ever happened... very un-amon-like.

4-Interactions: Lord of Mysteries totally lack a little bit of a certain aspect of the human interactions... Never thought I'd be saying this for a light-novel, but it was one of those times that I'd wished that the MC would have had some kind of... romance, with excellently portrayed gf candidates, like: Audrey, Evernight, or the Princess. I mean, I trust the good-taste and the writing style of this author, to have made Klein a bit more human-like. (As if a guy could have motivated himself to go through all that cultivation hassles, while never even being slightly attracted by a girl... At this point, even if Klein was gay, it would have humanized the character a bit more.) I trust that even if the author had written a small romance, it wouldn't have sunk like most of those junk-chinese-harem stories out there.

In any case, this novel is still—by very far—one of the most well-written light-novels out there. And my bad-mouthing is merely due to my highest expectations of hoping to put this one, at the very top of all those light-novels. It was something—realistically expectable—for such a talented Chinese writer. He, alone/along with few other Chinese writers (Mao Ni, or Gu Zhen Ren), had renewed my initial... very, very poor impressions, toward most superficially and terribly written Chinese light-novels that had junked our universe.