Transcending Dreams

Transcending Dreams, Book 1

By: S. C. King

Narrated by: Kyle Tait

He thought death was the end. He was wrong. His death was the beginning of a path with the potential for infinite power.

One moment William was at work, and the next, he was surrounded by lunatics wanting to sacrifice his soul.

He had never been a man who believed in the fantastical, but he had no choice after he found himself in a much younger body in another world. A world that had things like soul extraction and demonic cultivators, and if nothing was done, his soul was next in line to be reaped.

Thankfully, a man with a special hatred for demonic cultivators saved William at the last second.

The man also left him a tool. A system that would guide William to the heights of cultivation.

©2023 S. C. King (P)2024 Tantor

Amazing for a cultivation series

This was a blast! This reminds me of nano machines web novel because it’s also a cultivation series and the mc has nano bots that recreate a system to help him cultivate just like this one. Looking forward to the next book!

How not to do a litrpg

So, I'm torn on this review. I really did want to like this book...and its an okay pop-corn litrpg if you turn your brain off especially when it comes to stats...which is where I have my issue. The book is inconsistent in its own system to a vast degree. I can handle suspension of disbelief and some minor things here and there but this was just too much. For example, when the user gets experience, the next level is progressively harder and harder to get. Additionally, each level adds 5 health to the MC. By level 10, he somehow has 800 hitpoints. And he goes from 5 to 10 in one sitting. The damage he took during this encounter should have killed him. There wasn't even mobs for him to have made this much progress given the increase level requirement and decreasing xp gain for the same enemy. Yet...its not a problem for our MC. Because. Plot armor.

Also, the primary issue for the MC is his soul damage where his stats can be reset to 1 anytime they increase before lvl 10. That sounds like it'd be super hard to overcome, right? Actually, it turns out to be super easy; barely an inconvenience.

Lastly, the stat fluffing is absolutely maddening. Every time there's a stat increase and even when there hasn't been, we get the stats read out...again. Couple this with the odd narration that really does sound like AI when the narrator talks, but the voices are decently done. This really, really baffled me because I ping-pong between "this is AI?" and "no, that's definitely being narrated" depending on if narration is happening or a character is speaking. 1.2 speed helps, but this thought never goes away.

P.S. None of this even takes into account the character himself. He's okay, but I'd like to see some development. Right now, he's comparing everything to the web novels from his world and using that as a guide, which gets really annoying because he doesn't treat that as a hypothesis, but just assumes that's the way it will be and gets mildly aggravated when its not that way.

Final verdict...it might be okay for a $2 sale or something if you have nothing else in your queue.

Good one

Honestly I liked the book and found it entertaining but there were some really annoying things with the MC like how we are told repeatedly that he is am adult on a 13 years body but he keeps acting and thinking like said 13 years old instead of as an adult then there's the thing that he assumes that all the fantasy stories he read about cultivation are firm truths now that he is on a world of cultivation and a few other things but overall I enjoyed the story

the MC is just too bad

the main character is just way to much of a coward and just doesnt change. its one thing to use your brain but its quite another to just be constantly risk adverse and paralyzed by fear. I had to stop midway because of this. the narrator is decent but has a lot of room to improve.

Love the character and the Story

This was a great cultivation novel! It really scratched my itch for a good new cultivation novel. Sects, cultivation, alchemy, martial arts skills and more.

The main character is fun to listen to.

The narrator did a fantastic job.

Boring, and slow

So boring and slow. It only gets interesting towards the end of the book and even then its only cause im invested after more than half the book. All the action is towards the last parts of the book. The first half of the book is boring and slow.

character has to work hard to be OP

This book is one of if not the best cultivation books I've read so far. It doesn't have the MC OP straight out or anytime soon and lets him work towards it. Enough said no spoilers definitely worth the credit

just a easy listen cultivation style novel. feels Western and not overly dense or gruesome.

adequate character development, could have been a bit more but would have been wordy at that point. pretty good development, some standard littpg mixed with standard cultivation and adequate world building. definitely first in a series. will get the next one.

It's OK could have been better

Mc comes from todays world and is transfered back to a teenager so why was he being taking advantage of all the time when he literally has experience on his side but if you can make it past the beginning it's a pretty good listen just aggravating as hell... Saying all that I just bought book 2 😭😭😁

ok but…

It’s a decent example of western cultivation there’s a little to much internal strife that seems unnecessary or easily over come that continues to be a problem through the whole and it really messed with my immersion