Rise of the Weakest Healer 2

By: Blake Alexander

Narrated by: Dylan Wheeler, Ellory Lane

The town of Nikorice burns and a rebellion simmers, risking the full wrath of the Goldmark Tetrarchy.

After a pitched battle, Ben and his party defeat the Matron and escape Nikorice, heading East to the Olerrak Marshland, on a quest from their newest party member to treat a disease ravaging the local water-drakes.

The leader of the water-drakes, however, hopes to leverage the presence of a third-tier healer in his territory and begins a rebellion against the Goldmark Tetrarchy. Ben and his party begrudgingly join his side, but as Goldmark infiltrators, and thus must not only help the water-drakes as they fight against the lightning-drakes that assault the marshlands, but also ensure their treachery isn't revealed.

Ben must push his healing and support skills to greater heights than ever before, his spells now essential not only to his party's continued progress, but to the survival of an entire army.

©2024 Blake Alexander (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

FANTASTIC

A great series, with loads of worldbuilding and fantasy.
Inticate skill system with loads of combos
Cant wait for more

captivating

an enjoyable series so far, if you enjoyed the first book you'll enjoy this one, it continues the story and continues his character progression, I recommend giving this book a try.

A good follow up to the first book

This was a good follow up to the first book and it progressed the storyline very well. The characters are likable, the adventure is interesting and engaging and the creatures are unique

Author is very intelligent, I enjoyed the premise and the depth of the characters.

2nd book in this series and I am really loving the originality of this story. well done, I look forward to the next in the series.

Another awesome installment!

I absolutely loved this book! I dearly hope the story continues in another adventure soon.

Great 2nd book.

This is a wonderful story and book 2, here, does a great job keeping it going.
The MC's harem gets bigger and he is growing in power and he is wanted as a slave or dead my all the surrounding kingdoms.
Great writing and narration.
I'm giving this book 8 out of 5 stars.

Why do authors do this?

The mc do not react to threats, disrespect and, violence. Makes the mc feel like he has a mental disorder. The mc flows through the story like a dumbass fearful of everything but accepting every quest for no reason when he can just walk away. Put his whole team in danger to many times by this.

The mc is just to lame to exist

Idk why the author thought the idea for this mc would be good but it’s just god awful. He has close to no spine and only lives cause of plot armor. Quite despicable.

Was lenient with Book 1, not so much this one

First, fair warning, some examples may be used from the book, so, spoiler warning!

Also, fair warning, I have a lot to say so this will be long. So, TL; DR version – Character consistency issues. Plot issues. MC is more irritating to me in this than in book 1. MC doesn’t work on his flaws, yes, even though he wasn’t a super soldier on his previous worlds, working on himself is still possible. Too much time in the story is spent on unnecessary things. I was most annoyed by the giant Chekov’s Gun that was never used.
I gave book one a somewhat generous neutral (Yes, I consider 3-stars neutral regardless of the algorithm), but I gave it a generous neutral rating citing my problem with the author leaning in a bit too hard on Ben’s (the MC’s) dependency on his party members and his lack of an attack or defensive skill.

It seems in this book that Alexander both somehow manages to double down on that and attempt to alleviate the problem which, for those of you reading, may seem like a problem in itself. Some may read this and just see it as a solution to the previous issues. But let me get to my explanations of my thoughts.

The problems of book 2 or any story for that matter will always seem more or less good, bad or meh depending on how well liked, or at least, tolerable one’s main character or main cast is. Some may argue that a good plot will override a character driven narrative, but the problem comes when both are tied together. I was understanding of Ben’s situation in Book 1. He was fresh on this world, learning about a new way of life, stricken with two curses that rendered his ability to survive on his own impossible, etc. While, as I said, Alexander tries to resolve some of the issues from book 1 surrounding Ben’s dependency on his party members, his inability to attack or defend, other issues arose.

He was constantly easily distracted by his musings or a need to amuse himself or appease his curiosity, yes, even during dangerous situations. Mostly, when he was pretty much supposed to the be party’s or whatever group of soldiers’ scout. Someone may try to defend this as a character flaw, my point here is about character growth and inconsistency. In book 1, he let his mind wonder while they were trekking through a dangerous wilderness only for a monster to sneak up on them and he admonished himself and after having a talk with his party, at that time Succubus Girl and Warrior Lady, he refocused his efforts to spot the creatures before it/they could ambush them.

His lack of situational awareness often times put them at a disadvantage. Again, I can see Alexander and fan trying to mount a defense that this is a character flaw and an example that the character needs to grow. I’d agree if the MC/Ben himself didn’t admonish himself for lacking said situational awareness a couple times when it happened and never positioning himself, mentally, to be prepared. While, yes, by the end Ben and company devised an actual plan to solve the whole situation, I felt this was inconsistent with not only his skillset, but what I said above about the supposed character growth in book 1 that was lost. One, he has a super high perception skill that with some forethought, if he used right, his party should’ve never been at a disadvantage regarding enemy positioning. He uses this skill constantly in favor of the rebellion/liberation army force, but when it comes to using it to help himself and his party, suddenly it’s forgotten?

He also falls into the I’m-OP-In-A-Certain-Area-But-I’m-Ignorant-of-Common-Sense-And-Think-That-My-Superpowers-Are-the-Norm-for-Everyone else trope, or I guess for short, you can call it the Everyone-Should-Be-Like-Me-OPMC Trope. This comes by way of him making comments about the weakness of healing spells, disbelieving what a seasoned healer says about healing in this world, thinking that she’s hiding something, or that the system or Goldmark is hiding something about healing spells when it’s been said before, directly to his face, that what he does is uncommon. This bleeds over into general support magic and how he’s told, again, what he does is uncommon, yet he will wonder if other support mages can do what he does? What? You were just told they can’t and you’re unique. Same with perception, he will wonder why other perception users can’t do what he does when again, he was told by one or all of his party as well as others, that what he does is unique. I felt this was pointless, to write him this way as if some things said to him go in one ear and out the other. It was even more irritating when an entire mini arc in the story revolved around him trying to find out what was the common thing to do in a situation rather than him just doing it.

He also fell into the I-forgot-I-had-OPness trope. This came later in the story when Dragon Lady got injured. I won’t say how so as to reduce the amount of spoilers. Suffice to say, something was done, something was eating away at her health. Ben could see it in the interface. Her health is slowly ticking down. For those of you who have gamed before, you already know the solution. For Ben, however, guess what he immediately has to do? Yes, you guessed it. He had to go to party chat and ask Warrior Lady and Succubus Girl, and the new Spear Girl, what to do before it clicked, and he remembered HE’S A FRiGGIN HEALER! (Caps for emphasis) Yes, for those who read this and know the context, yes, there were circumstances, but he wasn’t panicking over those circumstances initially, he was panicking over what to do after previously he’d just see someone was injured and immediately acted to heal them. I found myself wondering why Alexander wrote this scene this way as it was inconsistent with Ben’s character so far. This also highlights the fact that he still has dependency issues with his party to the degree that something he's supposed to specialize in, BEING A HEALER (Caps for emphasis) that he has to go to them for solutions?

Ben wasn’t the only character that suffered some inconsistency. Dragon Lady whom I previously said was adept navigating political waters, more so than Succubus Girl and Warrior Lady. Well, for the sake of plot…she was pretty much rendered useless in that area in this story. Were there reasons? Sure, reasons were given, but she could’ve at least been an advice giver to the party given THEY WERE DEALING WITH HER PEOPLE AND HER CULTURE. (Caps for emphasis)

Back to Ben. I found myself wondering why the party even respected him as the leader. He couldn’t make decisions in the moment. He barely could make decisions when he was fed information. He couldn’t bluff well in the face of an enemy. Etc. There was a moment when newly introduced Spear Girl pronounces her elation of being part of a seasoned party with an, and I paraphrase, “competent leader” that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

Last thing on the MC. The entire plot felt like filler when it’s revealed that they were, for the most part, stuck in the situation because Ben, who once again has an ability he forgot to utilize, didn’t utilize it to fully investigate the quest that was given to him in an unorthodox way. Once again, he lets the sort of indifferent and haphazard way of Warrior Lady and Succubus Girl persuade him from fully considering all avenues of a situation until it was convenient for plot. That’s all I’ll say.

In this story we’re supposed to be enthralled with the narrative weaving around the issue of a rebellion/liberation war of one faction and the oppressive/racist nature of another faction. The main problem is there’s really nothing there to make us care for either faction. The faction, the Water Drakes, whom we spend the entire story with pretty much forces Ben and his part to join them and despite speeches from the leader, does nothing to get the reader to feel conflicted about their plight. Or I should say, Alexander tells us what we should think and feel about the Water Drake’s views and beliefs, we never get to see if their views or beliefs are justified or disproven. Yet somehow you’re supposed to care enough to care about Ben and the group’s situation among them. Similarly, the faction the Water Drakes are fighting, Goldmark, you never see unless there’s a fight. There’s I think one scene from Goldmark’s POV and it divulges nothing to help the reader SEE if whether the Water Drakes’ views are valid or false. This made the plot a slog.

As I hinted at, Ben did learn a defensive spell, but it’s slow and is mostly used in big battles or in one situation, to trap someone. He later figures out another spell that could arguably be called an “attack” spell so long as he focuses on inanimate objects and surrounding life-forms catch the brunt of the attack. A more attentive person may still point out the inconsistency here with his “curses.”

Finally, three things and I’m done since this is getting long.

One, as with book 1, the author spends too much time on unrelated exposition. In this book, the author wastes time on what I thought was going to be a pretty big Chekov’s Gun, only for the author to seemingly forget about it in the end and go an entirely separate direction after building said thing up. When/if you read the story, you’ll know what it is by the end of the book. I kept anticipating this thing to be utilized in some way since such a big deal was made over it in several scenes only to think at the end of the book, “Well all of that fuss about that was pointless.”
Also, with the unnecessary exposition, we still have to deal with the parasite character, Pixyn, constantly giving comments at the end of each chapter. While this book reveals more about who she’s aligned with, most of her commentary at the end of each chapter still feels unnecessary and still feels like a way for the author to just drop/force exposition on the reader/listener about the world.

The relationships. A few reviewers were upset that Ben, and his lovers weren’t, I guess in my opinion, like other harem books constantly professing their love for each other, constantly talking about relationships, etc. and considered them to be friends with benefits. Unfortunately, like everything else, I can agree that we weren’t shown enough relationship development. Defenders will say that’s because of the situation, but I’d argue back that the situation allowed for Alexander to weave some decent scenes where the whole party grew stronger through interaction. Instead, we get a few R-18 scenes, Spear Girl is thrust into the harem despite initially being their enemy (yeah, there’s that), Dragon Lady – we’re told that she’s developed feelings and then get a scene about it, etc. So, I can agree that the story was lacking on the relationship development.
Lastly, circling back to character issues. While I harped on Ben, brought up Dragon Lady, Seo (Warrior Lady), Rain (Succubus Girl) and Nina (Spear Girl) have very little character development with Nina, arguably, getting the most out of those three and Dragon Lady getting the most of the four due to the plot situation.

Overall, I finished the story. Not sure I will get book 3. It’s not a bad story, it has its flaws, but I found that since I wasn’t as lenient as I was on book 1 that I kept pausing and taking long breaks in between listening and today finally forced myself to get through it as background noise as I worked. Still, I don’t think it’s as bad as one or two stars, so I settled, once more, on three. Your mileage may vary.

Rise of the Weakest Healer ???😮‍💨😞 när ska han RIse

Rise of the Weakest Healer ??? 😮‍💨 när ska han resa sej själv jag har lyssnat på två böcker och han har inte raise sej överhuvudtaget han är samma super Nerf character som tidigare som inte kan göra något överhuvudtaget så jag frågar när ska han resa sej för när han har rest sej och blivit av med dom där Nerfen så kan boken Rise of the Weakest Healer kan kanske vara värd att lyssna på