Awakening Horde

Shieldwall Academy, Book 1

By: M Zaugg

Narrated by: J.S. Arquin

Against all odds, a defiant street rat takes on a ruthless empire.

Pax, a cunning street rat without a class, navigates life in a city constantly threatened by monstrous beast waves. He's dedicated to keeping his crew safe and fed, especially after his family vanished without a trace. But when his best friend is captured, Pax risks it all—even his freedom—on the eve of the Awakening.

Caught and thrust into the Astan Empire's war machine, Pax must adapt to survive the perils of the empire's elite mage academy. While struggling to harness the forbidden magic surging within him, he must avoid the attention of corrupt leaders determined to snuff out any hint of rebellion and maintain their iron grip on power.

With ancient secrets, and long-lost spells at stake, can Pax triumph against his foes, defeat fearsome monsters, and secure a future for himself and his crew?

©2023 Misty Zaugg (P)2023 Misty Zaugg

alright book.

decent story, the main character is a little annoying but the story's alright. worlds interesting but the magic restrictions feel off.

Loved the story

Once the story got to our main character I loved it. I want to know how Pax is going to make it through the school year

A good start!

The story is fairly basic. Street kids has unknown magic and all the problems that come from being in a crumbling corrupt society. The performance was done very well and had a nice verity of voices. The only problem I had was the time jump at the start of the book. It kept distracting me from the rest of the story while I tried fitting the future character with the 16 year old version. I will be interested in seeing where the story goes.

Street rats go to magic school

In a world with four-element magic, street rat Pax awakens a forgotten fifth element in the government enforced RPG Class draft. He's shipped off to magic school, where any deviation from the norm is Very Bad News, and has to disguise his magic to keep from getting caught. His closest allies are a himbo fire mage and cautious water mage.

If you've been craving a magic school story that actually focuses on how magic works and what happens in classes, this is a great choice. Pax quickly learns to hide system notifications until he pulls them up, so the LitRPG elements don't interrupt scenes.

Students are sorted by their elements as well as combat and support based on their power levels. There's also a wide social/wealth range, so there are some scenes of bullying but not as much as many school based stories. Pax makes more friends than enemies.

There is some monster fighting throughout and the awesome cover art does eventually pay off.

The narration is nothing exciting but it does the job. The two best friend characters have distinct voices, along with a few other characters. Some voices are reused for similar characters but it only got confusing for two "floaty noble girl" characters. I'm pretty sure they were two different characters, at least.

A few gripes: The prologue chapters are heavy combat without context, which I found off-putting. Most character descriptions include what mix of human-elf-dwarf they appear to be, but this never really matters in this book. Some repetitive word/phrases. I look forward to reading future books in this series and from this author.

Odd choices

The author made some of the characters so unlikeable and I don't understand why. It wouldn't change the story to make them reasonable but instead the other characters are fine with a char that hates everyone.

Pax

This was a very solid book. Loved the progression and pace. It's interesting to see that whole magic and makes, but society only lets people use one type of magic. There was no mixing and very stuck in tradition. Ren did explain that the males of old that didn't experiment and stay alive are the ones running society now. Doing so, they are very cautious and hold themselves and next generation back.
Pax goes through his trouble like a normal teenager would with him being a low born (aka Street Rat) but then also with fact he had light magic. He has to hide it from the start. Not only does he have light magic, but he can control all forms of magic. Luckily, he has two loyal friends he can confide in. I would love love to have a tamed animal.

Extremely well done LitRPG Can't wait for more!

All in all, This is probably the best first installment of a LitRPG I've seen yet. Perspectives were written well with each character having a unique psychology, and knowledge based on their background. Combat was engaging and intense without being too dense. Most of all, l can't express how well the descriptive writing was done. Arquin delivered as wonderful a performance as his other works, with most characters being identifiable while speaking even before the name was read, albeit with a little less emotional inflection in some moments than expected from his stellar work on The Path of Ascention, by C. Mantis.

Harry Potter meets LitRPG

Not bad but not great. A lot of commonalities with HP. I had a difficult time believing a "street rat" could do some of the bone headed things the MC and his best bud did/said. On a positive note, no profanity although some may say "flick" is a substitute for a euphemism for a common term used by many.

Good even with hiding powers

Usually with stories where the mc has an incredible power and is forced to hide it the story either falls flat or due to handicapping the mc or the mc has to be given random advantages to help him stay hidden or relevant. thankfully that isn't the case in this story sure it's slow at first but he isn't useless. he has smarts and actually feels like he was a leader of a gang of kids rather than in some stories where some MC's actively lose intelligence as the story progresses. Now there are some parts of the story where it really felt like the author had to give him a special advantage that without it would immediately make it 100% impossible to ever blend in and while it happened twice it does make sense or Pax would have been immediately figured out. and while it's never explicitly stated that the power Pax wields would get him killed the attitudes of how the world thinks about how magic is conducted would definitely get him dragged off. overall I'd say it's a pretty good story. Power hiding Mc stories aren't exactly my cup of tea but the story was engaging enough and everything felt natural that nothing except the excessive bullying really pulled me out of the story

First time reading a LitRPG book. It was great!

The LitRPG elements took some getting used to: HP, mana points, leveling up, etc. But the story makes it easy to lean into those elements as the characters awareness of their stats becomes a driving motivation for them.
The pacing of the book is great, with layers of mystery being peeled back, bit by bit, keeping you hooked, as the plot drives forward at a very quick pace.
The narrator does a great job with the different characters voices and is never dull.
Highly recommended fantasy book for any reader, even for those unfamiliar with LitRPG!