I am looking for stories which have System, be it due to playing a game or otherwise, but the main character grows slowly. This can be done in one of two ways, either the System only allows them to grow (level up/skill up/other similar improvements) slowly, OR it happens quickly and each individual growth is insignificant. If we compare it to video games, the first is properly played D&D, where it takes months to reach level 5. For the second, meanwhile... the closest comparison I have is what Disgaea would be like if it was the story presented in Disgaea was how it played. That is to say, level 9999 is the max, the top tier/end boss is around level 1-2000, truly strong individuals are around level 3-500, and the strongest local bully is probably around level 50. Please note, I am NOT going to include stories that have MC being a broken super-human at level 50, but continues to become more broken and the levelling system just keeps on continuing to level 1000+. That isn't slow growth, that's just lazy writing using System Growth, and the writer not being willing to pace their character's growth at the beginning of the story. Nor am I going to include stories where the MC manages to practically keep up with the obsessive players while playing casually due to their play-style being different. In other words, while Only Sense Online & Toaru Ossan No VRMMO Katsudouki are decent novels, they aren't what I'm asking for here as all the characters, including the Casual Main Character, manage to grow too quickly for this request.
There's The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor , in RRL The legend of randidly ghosthound, well ELLC too but idk if it counts as slow growth but it's good. These days novels with slow building are rare since require good amount of skill to keep it up and holding the interest.
History’s Number 1 Founder has to cultivate the normal way but he does most of it in slowed Time of 100 to 1. Plus no killing everything required.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/world-of-warcraft-foreign-realm-domination/ it is kinda fast but battles and story are ok for me.
Way of the Devil perhaps? MC can upgrade his learned skills through his Deep Blue system. But he can't just upgrade skills recklessly cause he would be damaging his body as a side effect. After an upgrade, MC needs to consolidate his foundations. As of Chapter 50, MC is already strong compared to humans ONLY. But he is still struggling to fight the series' main antagonists (demons,ghosts, monsters, etc)
Most of my recommendations won't be on NU, but are probably more worthy of a read. Awaken Online series by Travis Bagwell The Dark Herbalist series by Michael Atamonov The Way of the Shaman series by Vasily Mahanenko The Land: (Founding.. etc.) series by Aleron Kong The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor The King of the Battlefield I can think of loads more, but they're the cream of the crop and keep you going for a good long while. PS. The series that I mentioned can all be listened to as an audio-book if you like that format.
It's only slow for relatively brief periods. Most of the time, it's lightning fast, which the story acknowledges fairly frequently.
I think this counts because he is just playing the game... only he got the 'MC gets wrapped up in happenings' sickness... A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log
Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and Randidly Ghosthound both have the MC growing far to quickly at the beginning for me to accept them. LMS has the MC train for a week, manage to fight against opponents dozens of levels higher than him, and gets to level 70 shortly after being able to leave town. Randidly Ghosthound, meanwhile, manages to become about as powerful as an entire town that gained System Assistance in about the time it takes him to find the people of said town. I have no idea what ELLC is, so I can't comment on it. I haven't read this, but I suspect that the growth is too quick to fit my request. It it wasn't, the Author would be unlikely to borrow off of Naruto for their fiction. I might check this out. Not sure if it fits my request or not. I've honestly been putting off looking at some of QI's series, like this one, due to them being split across sites. Your comment confuses me. Is the story's pacing fast, or is it the MC's Level-Up/Stat Growth? Because different answers affect if this fits this request. I tried to read this once. I couldn't get very far into it. But I do feel like it likely fits my request. Not sure how to respond to this one. I did read a bit of it, but I skipped a lot and can't be certain that I am remembering it correctly. Not sure how to respond to this one. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. MC gets a System Cheat that gives him whatever he wants, including beyond max level stats, and you say that they grow slowly? Why? "Because they're stuck at level 1". They've already grown to the peak, what would the point of increasing their level be? Thank you for giving me details about your recommendation. The Upgrade/Recoil aspect of this story suggests that it might fit my request, so I'll look into it. Thank-you. For your non-NU recommendations, I will need to look into them a bit more before responding. I have already responded to LMS up higher, however, and King of the Battlefield has a time-slip to the past mechanic, which usually results in the MC growing insanely fast due, in part, to their future knowledge. So I suspect that your recommendations don't fit my request. Yeah, I'm not certain how to respond to this one. Sure, the MC spends literal years at a time training at some points, but then comes out of that training and rapidly murders things to jump up a significant amount of levels. It's basically like the time spent training is comparable to coiling up a spring to jump up the next significant group of levels. So his growth is typically slow, JUMP, steady, slow, JUMP, steady, repeat. Also known as Toaru Ossan No VRMMO Katsudouki, and very similar to Only Sense Online. That last paragraph where specify that I'm not looking for these novels where the MC manages to keep up with hardcore players despite being a casual player is there for a reason.
True, but the parts where he spends years (or even centuries) training are generally covered in 1-3 chapters with montages and time skips. From the reader's perspective, it's still very fast. Or were those the jumps you were referring to? If so, then I'd agree. Still, he spends a lot of time in any given zone being so OP that no sane person would bother him, and his growth rate is never less than abnormally fast by the natives' metrics, even after accounting for his obsession with training and personal growth. It's a fun series, but I don't think it really matches the request.
The "Jump" I was referring to was him going up 50+ levels after those "stated to be lengthy" training sessions. In referring to the character's in world training regimen, he spends a period of time (a year to five) training his skills without really leveling at all (the Slow), leaves and immediately manages to go up a bunch of levels (the Jump), and then steadies around a new level and starts to plod along at growing at a decent pace (the steady). Then he runs into an issue he can't deal with, and starts "the Slow" again. Given your arguments, however, I have to agree. Max Level Newbie doesn't really fit my request.