Road to the Crown

Political marriage, war taxes, subsidies, a tribute… All those terms sound nice when one juggles... Read more Political marriage, war taxes, subsidies, a tribute… All those terms sound nice when one juggles them from behind the screen of his trusty computer!Junk food? Check. Sugary drinks that will cause me diabetes? Check. Two weeks of leave from the work? Check. A fresh copy of the newly released game finishing downloading as I’m going back from the grocery store? Check.Oops! My emotions got better to me, and I tripped on the stairs. I’m so silly!Then…Why the hell am I kneeling in a throne room, watching the marriage and coronation ceremony of the King, dressed in the noble robes with the game itself only flashing in the corner of my eyes? Collapse Kingdom Building, Wars, System, Game Elements, Politics, Gore, Kingdoms, Weak to Strong, Male Protagonist I really like the novels of this genre, but it made me unbearable to continue reading this novel. And that in the quality of writing is well above average, see the following list, there are every horror but it was very pleasant to read:-Release that Witch-Black Iron's Glory-Tales of the Reincarnated Lord-Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece-Tyranny of Steel-Iron Dynasty-Magic Industry Empire-Enlightened Empire-I am the Monarchearly paused/abandoned:-The red lands-Rise of the Lord-Black Corporation: Joseon-The Founder of the Great Financial Family I’m going to need the author to continue the story I'm prefacing this by saying I'm only just read past 150 chapters. This novel is confusing for me and dissapointing. It is a genre (kingdom building, system, no stereotypical Chinese MC) that I usually like, the author's writing abilities are also good. But it still feels dissapointing to me.Pros:1) As I said, the author's writing ability is really good (at least comparatively on Webnovel).2) Author put a lot of effort into general research and historical accuracy.3) MC doen't fool around when it comes to romance.4) Most of the characters are fairly well fleshed out as well.Cons:1) The MC. It feels like the MC is kinda like those people who love the sound of thier own voice. It's annoying. MC also keeps going on and on about how the Modern times are inferior to the past. If he referred to it once or twice, then it could be possibly be agreed with, or ignored, but he just keeps preaching all the time. It's quite irritating.2) The detail. While it's nice the author has done a lot of research for accuracy, I also don't want to constantly read historical trivia/factoids when its usually irrelevant and/or boring. Don't want to read 10 chapters about the intricacies of the steam engine either. Ok perhaps the actual length of these is not that long, proportionally when compared to the rest of the narrative and the length of actual chapters and the book itself, it feels too long.3) The pacing. For me its quite confusing, as its simultaenously too fast and too slow. In world, he spent just over a month to make pseudo-Gatling guns, concrete, steam engines, blast furnaces, new beers etc. (BTW, no one questions this. Looking at all of these very disparate inventions, barely anyone even asks how he knows all this shit). Its a bit hard to describe, but it feels like there is an incredible amount of detail and conversations on the nitty gritty stuff whilst at the same time, everything is happening so fast! So I feel a bit bored and feel like I'm missing things out at the same time.4) The chinese qualties. As in things like some light verbal sparring being shown as some 4D chess game with each sentence having to be dissected to get the meaning.5) The constant overly polite/formal speech patterns also get a bit annoying. Especially when it bleeds over to the general narrative. But it is understandable considering it all revolves around nobles.6) System is almost non-existant and feels a bit arbitrary. MC can autocraft beer and blueprints but can't get information and craft other things? It gets a bit confusing as the system's ability is never made very clear.7) This one is a personal gripe, but I think we as readers can really use an index for all the polish terms like currencies, measurements etc. When it comes to chinese novels, most of us have read enough of them that we understand all the small terms used throughout. Unfortunately I am not as familiar with the Polish equivalent.So I got to chapter 150, its been barely 2 months in-story and the MC has accomplished all things described above. Then I see the novel ends in 330 chapters. For me any sort of kingdom building needs to be done patiently, this all just feels highly rushed. At the same time, I dropped it there, because it was, honestly, a bit boring. Too much detail as well nothing much happening. I skimmed the ending quickly after this and that also seemed dissapointing as well. With all that being said, this novel is still signficantly better than most of others on webnovel. I guess the reason I'm ranting here is that my expectations were not met and I started to lose interest. But others might like this, so it might just be personal taste. I guess one just has to give it a read to find out.