Spoiler: The Orc Sage The Orc Sage Summary The Protagonist a fanatic gamer, and roleplayer was killed in a freak accident after falling out of his computer chair and cracking his head on a barbell. After dying death gives him a second chance at life, with a small catch. He will be revived, but he will lose all memories pertaining to his life on earth, excluding his core personality, and he will be reborn as a dungeon mob. Deciding the offer is better than simply losing everything and reincarnating at random he accepts. The Protagonist is then reborn as an Orc Runt; a low ranked monster; inside a random dungeon. Bizzarly while he has virtually no memory of his life on Earth, he still remembers the lore from his favorite video game, an MMORPG based off of Greek Mythology. In particular, he can still remember the lore of his main's class, a Sage. Of course, as he no longer remembers what video games are, he assumes his Sage knowledge is real and begins trying to train as a Sage. After much persistence, he suddenly receives a mysterious notification. NEW CLASS CREATED! Congratulations, by embarking on the path of self-discovery you have created a unique class. Additional Information The Sage uses life energy to reinforce their body, and heal themselves and others. Imagine a monk, crossed with a druid, only minus the ability control plants and animals. In combat, the Sage is a short ranged healer, (they can only heal through direct contact) and a competent fighter. Initially, the protagonist will resemble a standard orc, moss-colored skin, tusks, a flat nose, and a big burly body. After becoming a Sage he goes through a dramatic transformation, his skin becomes a reddish pink, his ears go from short and pointed, to round with abnormally large earlobes. His most dramatic change though is the glorious golden, lion mane of a beard he grows. He will not stay in the dungeon for long, after becoming a sage, and changing his appearance, he leaves the dungeon with a group of adventures, who think he's an extra large dwarf. In fact, due to magnificent beard, he often ends up unintentionally seducing many dwarven women during his travels. Spoiler: The Reluctant Cultivator The Reluctant Cultivator Summary The Protagonist is a simple farmer, living in a reclusive village with his grandfather. Growing up he was told several stories about cultivators, living legends who face death at every step, people who rebel against the world itself in order to obtain ultimate power. Which in the Protagonist opinion sounds like an absolutely horrible life. This all changes when fishing down at the river he picks of a stone with strange cracks running along its surface. After staring at it for a while he realizes the cracks look exactly like the roots of a plant. This epiphany causes the stone to shatter into dust transferring the cultivation technique inside directly to him. While reluctant at first he decides to start practicing the technique, though only to help with the farm, which has been struggling due to grandfather no longer being able to work. For this purpose, the technique works perfectly as it infuses his body incredible vigor dramatically increasing his strength and vitality. Eventually, though his peaceful life is interrupted when his grandfather passes away, and a gang of bandits raids the village. While he lacks fighting experience, with his strength as a cultivator he kills the bandits easily. Unfortunately, as he doesn't want to be acknowledged as a cultivator he has to leave the village immediately after. Traveling for miles he settles down as a farmhand in the land of a foreign lord. Continuing to keep his cultivation secret he lives a simple easy life. That is until some of his produce makes it onto the table of the lord's daughter. A fair and delicate woman who is said to rarely leave her estate. In truth, though this self-imprisonment is actually due to her body having a poisonous constitution, making her perpetually ill. After tasting some of the food the Protagonist grew, she notices her body is mysteriously invigorated, and her own poisonous energy is temporarily suppressed. Being no fool she quickly discovers the source, and upon realizing the protagonist must have a vigorous constitution, she immediately sets out to make him into her cultivation partner. For the Protagonist who still wants nothing to do with the cultivator's lifestyle, this new situation is obviously a nightmare. Additional Information The Protagonist appearance is tall and slightly gangly, with awkwardly large hands and feet. After he starts cultivating his body grows larger filling out, and becoming more robust. His skin turns a healthy bronze color, and his features become stronger and more masculine. This is partly meant to mock the traditional cultivator story, which often describes its protagonist as skinny and fair skinned The heroine's appearance is also a mockery, at first, she has a dainty frail build, with a pale complexion, but this is only due to her poisonous constitution. After she begins cultivating with the protagonist her skin takes on a healthy olive color, and her figure becomes more toned and curvy. In truth, the Protagonist radical impression of the cultivation world is grossly exaggerated, due to the stories he grew up with as a child. After he begins cultivating with the heroine, she helps dispell some of his misconceptions, like the idea that cultivators will fight to the death over a rare herb or the notion that cultivators are constantly getting into fights that destroy entire clans. There will be a part of the story where the Protagonist hunts down a spirit beasts, then lets it go after realizing it can talk. As he cannot bring himself to kill and eat something that is sapient. In this world, cultivation success is not based on who has the rarest most expensive techniques, but rather hard work, and having techniques compatible with your body's constitution. So there will be no, "Oh so you train in the legendary dragon claw art?, but too bad for I, your father train in the mythical dragon fang art!" Spoiler: The First Magician The First Magician Summary The Protagonist is a street urchin living in the slums with a dozen other kids. One day his group is approached by a Magician who offers to recruit them into his organization if they prove their potential. To this end, he teaches them a meditation technique, promising admission to any that are able to cultivate magical energy when he returns in one months time. In this world, Magicians are a rare existence that stands above society. Magicians wield mysterious and dangerous powers, so even kings must be respectful when dealing with them. The Protagonist who despises his impoverished life desperately meditates, along with the rest of urchins, and just days before the deadline is up, he manages to cultivate some magical energy. When the Magician returns he takes away the Protagonist and one other urchin off in a carriage. During the long journey, he tutors the both of them, helping them to increase and refine their pool of magic. The Protagonist excels, his magical energy increasing at an amazing rate. When they finally arrive though they are imprisoned, their dreams shattered. It turns out the Magician who taught them belongs to a group of Dark Magicians. Magicians who use forbidden, evil magic, and advance their research using human test subjects. The Protagonist is locked in a dark underground cell and forced to continue meditating. After a long and torturous time, his magical energy reaches a level of strength and purity which the Dark Magicians deem satisfactory. Dragged into a room filled with macabre effigies, and mysterious runes the Protagonist's body is painfully inscribed with several sinister-looking enchantments. After the Dark Magician finishes he only vaguely eludes to their purpose before announcing the start of the 56th test. Raising his hand he casually released a blast of purple lightning which immediately obliterates the protagonist. Waiting for a few minutes, he finally shakes his head and announces. "Phoenix rebirth, test 56, failure!" In another world, deep with a subterranean city, a child is born. The Protagonist is reborn as a Gnome, in a world very different from his last, but also very similar. In this world, all the civilized races have the ability to use magic, due to a magical core within their heads. Unlike his previous world, this one uses a more primitive four element system. With the spells also divided into four levels; basic, advanced, expert, and supreme. The nature of the magic someone can use is predetermined by their core. Someone with a single element core can use the supreme magic of that element, while someone with a dual element core can use the expert magic of both elements, etc. For many of the sapient races, humans, in particular, the type of core they have is random. This does not apply to Gnomes though, their cores always possess all four elements. Meaning a Gnome can only ever cast the weakest basic spells, leading many to regard them as the slave race. Additional Information This summary went on way longer than it should have, basically though the protagonist discovers the meditation technique he learned can cause the different types of magic in his core to fuse together. So he ends up with an arcane core. This protagonist sort of has a warped personality, he went through some traumatizing stuff in his past life and was subjected to poor treatment in new life. Due to this, he has very strong self-preserving instincts, to extend that he is a bit of a coward and has severe trust issues. Even after gaining an arcane core he does not immediately become strong. After all the only magic he ever learned was the meditation technique. The first spell he manages to cast is the lightning bolt, which in his hands is little more than a cattle prod. The Protagonist is forced to flee after he accidentally reveals his powers. So a large portion of the story will be his adventures as he tries to master his magic, and avoid the pursuit of a greedy water mage, interested in the Gnome with the "lighting core." The Protagonist is not born a slave, he is born in a dwarven city, which while it treats Gnomes like second-class citizens, still treats them humanely.
As someone who only read the tl;dr, the latter 2 sound like rip-offs and the first boring. I would never read the first, but if one of the latter 2 came out really well I might read it.
I think of all of these, #2 has the most promise, but it needs lot of work if you want to set it apart from most other similar themes (powering up through farming). I suggest the following: Ditch the stone in the river, especially if it is destroyed in the process. Unless you're hiding some secret need for the stone to be a thing in the story, it's just a played-out cliche and you don't need it, even as an oblique satirical reference. In keeping with the theme of hard, honest work getting the cultivation results, have the character create the technique himself without realizing it's value initially (until the bandits show up). To him, it's just a better method of farming, and he mistakes his growing health and strength as a result of the better food he is eating. Have the protagonist's inspiration for the cultivation come from a notebook of farming instructions, dates and seasonal cycles and planting tips, left to him by his grandfather or another ancestor, almost like a cultivation manual, but just a normal farming almanac-- until he starts adding his own notes and observations to it. Rename the story to be something along the lines of "Protagonist's Cultivation Almanac" or "Godly Farmer's Almanac" (...or you can make a truly oblique cross-cultural reference and call it "The Mud Cleric") When the protagonist flees, it is because he denies other's claim that he's a cultivator, due to the misunderstanding you've already stated The heroine has to convince him that it is a real, mystical cultivation technique by betting him she can practice it as well, which will lead to many humorous scenes of a proud, weak noble doing onerous farm chores. In keeping with your description of the farmer-cultivator, make plenty of reference to his knobby, calloused hands and rough skin, which contrasts with the typical smooth, jade-skin hands of protagonists across the cultivation world. This can even be a key reason why the protagonist denies that he is a cultivator for so long, because his hands never get any smoother or more noble-like. I hope you find these suggestions helpful.
While I appreciate the advice, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding, his cultivation technique is not powered up by farming. Rather it is cultivating that makes him better at farming, not the other way around. Simply put the cultivation he uses dramatically increases his vitality and life energy. This not only makes him stronger, and increases his stamina, but infuses his bodily fluids with vigorous energy. This has two effects on his farming, first, he can accomplish the work of multiple people due to his increased physique, second, the sweat he sheds nourishes the soil, and is infused into the plants he grows. As for the rock, yeah it is cliche but a lot less cliche than other cultivation troupes, (Grandpa in the Amulet). The reason I went with a shattering rock was that I did not want something with a physical form he could just disregard or sell. While simultaneously I did not want some sort of medicine or demon core that would instantly transform him a cheat. With a cultivation technique, it is entirely up to him what advantages he takes from it, and it's not like the technique is something legendary that will instantly make him into a god.
It's not a misunderstanding so much, I just don't find that to be an interesting premise or otherwise outstanding. You've obviously found something interesting in it yourself to have come up with so many details, but if you're asking for what's interesting, then without some changes I can't say I find it to be so. What you've described is a basic character-vs-fate conflict situation, with a subtext of power and responsibility. Protagonist is a magician, but doesn't want to be. Farming is just the color you gave it, but it could just as easily be topiary sculpture, or flower arrangement, or bread-baking, for the effects and results are basically the same. With what I proposed, you would be tying the occupation of farming to it's synonym, cultivation, and because the protagonist is dedicated to it, he finds in passion for farming, his dao path and gets the magic to go with it. The conflict changes to character-vs-self instead of character-vs-fate, with the subtext of finding of the self. With intertwined themes, you reduce your reliance on a continuous influx of ideas and concepts (i.e treasures, techniques, shadowy organizations), the beer-belly that forms on many lengthiest cultivation stories, slowing them down like middle-age. But it's your story and you should write what you feel needs to be written. Just be clear to yourself about what is the primary conflict for the protagonist, and how he'll grow as a result is what matters to any story.
It's cultivator not magician, your thinking the other story. The idea behind The Reluctant Cultivator was not to create some sort of unique method of cultivation. Rather it was a reimaging of the traditional cultivation story with a new protagonist. Almost every cultivation story I've read has featured the same cardboard cutout protagonist. It will be some crippled trash, mistreated by everyone around him, who eventually rises up as a genius, and tramples on the people who mistreated him. Even after he gets his revenge though there is no deacceleration, he just moves from one group to the next, offending someone, beating someone up, killing someone else. It is a forever accelerating slew of near death, violence, and face slapping. The Protagonist in The Reluctant Cultivator is different though, as he does not have that mindset of a cultivator. He goes not want to pick a fight with someone just because he doesn't like the way they looked at him. He is not willing to destroy half an ecosystem just to advance his cultivation by a few years. Yes, the story will have the Protagonist dragged deeper into the world of cultivation, but he will never sacrifice who he is, nor will disregard his sense of ethics and morality. He is the cultivating villager, not the village cultivator.
I don't care much for either 1 or 3, but the second one seem like the type of cultivation story that I want to see more of, at least if it stays less over the top and more logically grounded than the typical ones. At least the summary you wrote gave me the impression that the cultivation itself wouldn't be the focus, but rather the world and characters that are affected by that cultivation, which is something I would welcome.
Personally, I think number 2 is the least cringy and while I won't read it (because of the C-word), I think it is the one that will most appeal to readers. Anyhow, it seems like something you have been thinking a lot of about. So go for it. Just because I won't read it, doesn't mean it's not going to be good. I'm sure you can make it good. I simply won't read anything with c-word in it. Also, tensei is too overly used. A lot of writers just write it because it's popular but never put into thought the philosophy behind reincarnation.
Yeah, I get the whole conundrum behind reincarnation. What is the point of living, when your life is just one in an infinity? Does anything matter when your life is nothing more than a character in a play, and your soul the actor? Orc Sage was meant to be stupid from the start on top of being my least developed idea, so I don't really care about creating a deep extensional crisis. With First Magician though I originally had no rebirth. I wanted the tone to more serious, and for the protagonist to have an actual hard goal. So he was going to discover a lost form of magic in an ancient ruin, left behind by an even more ancient lost civilization. This, of course, created a slew of other problems. First, why would he know how to read ancient ruins, second why would he even be in ancient ruin? Also why the hell is he the only person to have figured this out, Gnomes are supposed to be a repressed people, if someone from a slave race can figure out arcane magic, surely someone else can. So I just decided to use rebirth, it allowed me to give him the single piece of knowledge he needed, and even shape his personality a little. Seriously though appreciate the feedback, it has really helped bring me back to reality. Oh was the reincarnation the part you found cringy or was it something else?
Basically, yes. A lot of authors these days write about reincarnation, transmigration and game system stories willy-nilly without putting any real thought behind it. It's so overused that just reading about another English original reincarnation is using reincarnation (which doesn't exist in western lore) a little cringy. Please take note that I'm not saying your work is cringy, I'm just saying it's overused and if there is a way to make the plot fit without using foreign tropes, it should be explored. Perhaps instead of reincarnation in another world, you can make it so that he was born in the same world 2000 years ago or something. Back then, maybe he was a dragon (there is actually a translated Japanese novel about this) or a fairy and this ancient language was common back then. He was betrayed by a close friend (maybe another dragon or demonkin, preferably a long-living race, it can even be an elf like Sauron) and his soul was shackled inside an old ruin (which wasn't a ruin back in his day). And this gnome just so happen to dig a little too deep and fell into the ruins (which is covered by soil, like all good ruins do). He cracked his head on the container and to preserve the gnome's life (and exact revenge) the protagonist decided to inhabit the comatosed gnome's body. Well, just a suggestion. It's what I would've written if given the plot. Feel free to use it if you like it or discard it if you don't think it can work with your story. In my opinion, reincarnation, transmigration or game system type of stories should not by itself focus on these themes. They should only be the vehicle to carry the story forward like the merkabah that carry the sephirah, but the focus of the story should be on something else, such as forbidden love, social conflict or philosophical opinions.
It's not entirely correct that western lore lack reincarnation, the ancient celts supposedly believed in a form of reincarnation and greek thinkers at the very least considered it as a philosophical concept, with Pythagoras and Plato being possibly the most famous examples. Perhaps not nearly as widespread as in eastern lore, but still if reincarnation wasn't already a concept in western lore we likely would be using a indian or chinese loanword in english rather than a latin word to describe the concept.
I honestly do not see much of a difference between reincarnation, transmigration, and possession. I mean reincarnation is you get a new body, that is just born, and that body is probably in another world. Transmigration is you get a new body, but it already had a life or it is magically created, also it is probably in another world. Possession is you get a new body, which definitely already had a life, and is definitely in the same world. I am not trying to contradict what you said, it's just how my mind sorts and classifies these troupes. You did give me an idea though, which is to make the transformation accidental. I've always liked the idea of elemental sprites, small creatures that are basically lumps of magic with a consciousness. So it could be sprites of the four elements are a well-known phenomenon in the world, as they exist in areas where their element is abundant. Arcane sprites though are unheard of, because they barely ever leave the earth's core, where magical energy originates, or something like that. So perhaps our protagonist stumbles across an arcane spirit and gets zapped by it. The arcane power from the attack enters his core and causes the transformation. Alternative it could be in this world mages eat sprites to become more powerful, and someone has stumbled across an arcane sprite, and not knowing what it is has been conducting tests. So far everyone who has tried to eat the sprite has died, so he has a gnome slave eat it, while not really expecting anything to happen.
You know literally everything is a rip off right? Hell Harry Potter is a blatant rip off the Lord of the Rings. "A group of friends that go on a dangerous mission to destroy the source of a dark lords power/immortality?" I honestly only included the TLDR section as a joke and made it deliberately inaccurate and simplistic to see if I get a few laughs. You guys aren't actually taking it seriously?
No, it's too long to read. I can't comment based on Tl;Dr, and I can't read it, so I'll refrain from commenting.