Hey, Which novel would you say kept you invested the most? I've read hundreds of novels and I am at a point where I can't find an interesting non-cliche novel. I am tired of the same dim-witted protagonists in Japanese novels, and the same slow cultivation tropes in Chinese novels (MC gets reincarnated into a sect or smth and then takes 1000 chapters taking to people while slowly gathering cultivation stones or whatever...). I don't have any other requirements, I just want the novel to be interesting and the MC not being a warrior of justice or a beta weakling. Thanks!
Lord of the Mysteries Godsfall chronicles Pivot of the Sky Seaborn My House of Horrors Mother of learning Super minion Spellgun Ouroboros Record Circus of Oubeniel The Girl Who Ate a Death God
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/41306/he-who-fights-with-monsters/ It's an English novel, but probably one of the best novels I've read to date. If not the best. Give it 10 or 20 chapters to get into it but once you do you'll be hooked.
Silver Overlord Top Management - abandoned by the author https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16946/azarinth-healer https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/14167/metaworld-chronicles https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21220/mother-of-learning - completed https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/2826/a-heros-war - on hiatus Fairly new stories that are worth a look: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28601/arrogant-young-master-template-a-variation-4 https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31837/everybody-here-is-a-cultivation-idiot https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/30737/the-humble-life-of-a-skill-trainer I'll also mention these, but their chapters are gone, so you'll have to use other means to read them. The Tutorial Is Too Hard Praise the Orc!
Any Grumpy Crab(author) novels like Please Confess to Me 2) Crazy Detective and Reincarnated as a cop that striked rich (don’t remember the exact name) 3) Not a novel but a manhwa, Legend of the Northern Blade
She Was Both Called God, as Well as Satan Ghost Hunt Twelve Kingdoms Tada, Sore Dake de Yokattan desu
Some of the more recently interesting ones have already been mentioned here... For me, some of the betters ones have been, in sequence by category: The Highly Recommended: There Is No Epic Loot here, Only Puns: Pure gold, the quintessential dungeon core story written with an incredibly Terry Pratchett tone. Highly original and endearing in terms of dungeon core stories, and the worldbuilding takes High Fantasy settings to its logical and hilarious extreme. Mother of Learning: The single finest self-contained fantasy time-travel story I've ever read. Internally consistent, well thought out, with a hint of horror if you think about and empathize too much. Praise the Orc!: Damn fine take on the 'Is this really a game?' trope of video game/isekai stories. One of the best even. Protag IS a warrior of justice, but it's so ham-fisted that it's charming. Also less justice, more honor. He Who Fights with Monsters: Very interesting and original fantasy setting, strong (in terms of characterization) protagonist, and volume 1 (24X fairly lengthy chapters) has just about finished. God of Cooking: Diabetes overload. Too cute, character interactions are just generally fun to read, even if they seem a bit... Staged, at times. Recipes also sound pretty good, on the whole. But goddamn that romance. Konosuba: One of very few LN's that have actually made me laugh out loud with some consistency, and the only one that managed that WHILE also being a worthwhile story. Bakatest is the other one, but that's basically brain bleach. The competent AND interesting: The Storm King: Normal fantasy revenge story, with a magic system that blends cultivation standards with western spellcasting. Stands out for basic competency. The Simulacrum : A deconstruction of shounen high school anime, with a wonderful OTT in my personal opinion. Highly self-aware, but still a proper story. Author being bad at coping with bad reviews would be my biggest gripe with this one. The New World: Skynet on an intergalactic scale decides to include Earth in its network to protect against practically Warhammer40k Chaos. Protag becomes a literal destroyer of worlds, from the looks of things so far, yet never seems invincible. Interesting worldbuilding, consistent worldbuilding, and interesting characters. World of Cultivation: The only Wuxia/Xianxia I've properly enjoyed. Relatively short, but contains a full story in a pretty unique setting for the genre, with a pretty unique protag. Not a perfect story by any means, but as far as this genre goes, pretty good. The newly interesting: Seaborn : A pretty new, but highly interesting take on game-mechanic-like worlds, where your status screen is practically your resume. Also follows a sailor, which is refreshing. Only two dozen chapters in though. The Humble Life of a Skill Trainer: Also kinda new. Follows a similar vein as in, Skills are well-known normal things. In this case, following someone whose literal job is teaching skills, in a world where guilds would much prefer to restrict skill acquisition to themselves. Interesting in terms of worldbuilding. Delve: Competent 'system' sword&sorc isekai with a highly unorthodox powerset. Caution: May contain copious amounts of math. Castle Kingside: Dark low fantasy isekai with a surgeon for a protag. Interesting story, but hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. Blue Core: Interesting dungeon core story, though it does contain smut as a component of some aspect of the plot progression. About 8 chapters of dungeon smut, marked with 'explicit' in the title. Protag is a good-natured dungeon core, and the first real arc basically finished recently at about 13x chapters in. The vaguely interesting: Apotheosis of a demon: Highly interesting story, but a bit... Out there. Very good, don't get me wrong, but the premise is a bit hard to buy into for me. Tsuki Ga Michibiku: Isekai with a genuinely sociopathic-but-unaware-of-said-sociopathy protag who does believe in normal morals, making his way towards the power of practically godhood by accident, without any of the self-awareness or intelligence to cope with said power and authority. It's genuinely interesting to see how a typical, unintelligent teenager would cope with being isekai'd, exiled before meeting anyone, and gaining ungodly power in the process. In recent chapters protag also seems to lose the typical beta-herbivore-ness of jap protags, which is a plus imo. Writing is... poor though. Kinda all over the place. I like it, but it's hard to properly reccommend.
Chronicles of Primordial Wars Instant Kill Lord of the Mysteries Mother of Learning My House of Horrors The Legendary Mechanic The Zombie Knight Saga
I've got ebooks I can share for those last two. And both are worth the read. Let me know if you want them. I'll be out of town for at least a week so if you do I'll send them when I get back
Lord of the Mysteries Kingdom's bloodline Cultivation Chat Group Reverend Insanity Elixer supplier The Godsfall Chronicles Tales of Herding Gods Trafford Trading Club(on hiatus) Gate of revealation(Slow Updates) Law of the Devil(Hiatus) Renegade Immortal Azarinth Healer Dragon King's Son in Law
Rebirth of the Urban Immortal Cultivator it's a second chance novel where mc reached the peak of the universe then trying to break through succumbed to heart demons from back when he was still a mortal and when he woke up he was back to being a mortal so he goes around dominating everyone and due to this taking place in modern earth there are no large sects or young masters and its mainly just face slapping and mc looking down on everyone due to the fact no one can stop him
The raws are in hiatus somewhere around chapter 1200 but the translations are at chapter 500 and are doing 2 a day consistently so hopefully by the time tls catch up raws will be off hiatus but I got no clue
I saw MTL in the 1800+ range and didnt they stop with the translation cause I haven't seen past 547 anywhere thats not a MTL.
Oh i guess i got the amount of chapters in raws wrong but no they haven't stopped translating as I have been reading the new translations daily since they were on chapter 40 and its been pretty consistent as just this morning i read chapter 581 and 582