[Story] Sylver Seeker

Title: Sylver Seeker
Author: KingKennit
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Tags: LitRPG, Magic, Male Lead, Reincarnation
Audience: – (contains Gore, Profanity, Sexual Content, Traumatizing content)
Main Lead: Male
Status: Ongoing
VB Assessment Score: PDE 2 CDD 2 SWB 3 || TQ 3 SV 3 || Overall: 13
Number of Chapters: 32
Chapter Length: Medium
Reading Level: High
Date of First Release: September 19, 2020
Date of Last Update: November 11, 2020
VB Reviewed? No
Available on Platform(s): Royal Road
Number of Views: 503K
Number of Reviews: 60
Synopsis:
After fulfilling the duty all arch necromancers are tasked with, Sylver Sezari was not expecting to ever wake up again.
But he did.
And after crawling his way back into the land of the living, he’s alive once again. In a strange land, a strange time, and with a strange floating screen in front of his new face.
Either through plan or chance, he’s alive again, and planning to enjoy himself to his heart’s content.

Review(s)

jxlegend: Brains, brawn and strength and good looks/badass look, sex-appeal, good at everything, defeating enemies 30+ levels ahead of him (what do levels even mean lol?), charming and funny, everyone likes him (or at least powerful people immediately like him), immediately successful at everything he tries…
Where is the tension?

123whothatbe: Its written well enough, with some interesting ideas and good grammar but the character interactions and ambitions come off stilted and strange. The inital few chapters are very weird with quite a few character dying and the author trying to explain why we should care by just stating things that they’ve done. Within the first few chapters alone it seemed like the author was creating magic rules to allow his character to be portrayed in a good light and avoid hard decisions.
I think this will be great for anyone that wants to read about an angsty overpowered necromancer in world filled with people with oversimplistic ambitions.

Coerb: I’m struggling with this one. The nuts and bolts of the writing are mostly fine, but the overall structure suffers.
MC is an op, mature master wizard from a previous life, but you wouldn’t know it without the prologue because his actions and ‘voice’ are any generic mid 20s isekai protagonist. Maybe this helps people who want to self- insert but it pulls me out of the story every time I remember he is supposed to be an extremely wise and powerful necromancer who even had his own apprentices.
There is no driving goal so far other than get strong(er). MC can do op magic and physical combat and facerolls everything, so there is no tension. He never feels even slightly close to in danger.
The interactions with other characters are limited so it’s basically just a generic wizard investing inconsequential points (because he can already fight very high level monsters and do all the spells he wants) and cruising effortlessly through a few action scenes and gathering money.
I think with a stronger driving force behind the narrative, a more thought out character, and more balance the story could have a lot of potential but right now I have to say pass for everyone but the worst power fantasy types.

msng: The style and grammar are ok. Some of the sentences are phrased ambiguously in that they can be interpreted to mean different things. There are also some spelling errors, but most of them seem to have been found and mentioned in the comments and corrected by the author. Being willing to read and act on these comments meant I gave the book an extra star on the style score. I am a little ambivalent about the flashbacks that sometimes occur. They add some colour to the story, but I am not sure they add anything necessary to the story to detract from how they interrupt that main plotline. Maybe they are adding important details or Chekhov guns, but if they are, I have yet to notice any.
The story is interesting and different enough from other RoyalRoad stories to benefit from the novelty factor. The MC has clear and believable long-term and short-term goals, which help drive the story and evolve as the plot progresses and more information is revealed. Decisions made are explained convincingly and without becoming too preachy or becoming a boring lecture.
In terms of characters, I especially like the main character. He has a set moral code but does not pretend that he is some morally righteous person. He will put his life above those of a stranger, even a possibly good person, and he will not sugar-coat it or play it off as being morally righteous. However, he will help those he deems as good people, even if they cannot repay him. Just not at the cost of his or his friends’ lives. In terms of side-characters, they seem interesting and not total stereotypes, but few of them have had sufficient screen time yet to really interest me. However, that is fine for now as they fit well within their currently limited roles and we get to spend more time with the MC than possibly less interesting side-characters. And I really like the MC so far, so its not a negative for me that we spend more time focussed on him than anyone else.
TL:DR version – You should read this story. It’s not perfect, but I found it entertaining enough to spend my time writing a relatively long review on it to encourage other people to read it.

TotallyNotEvil: The MC is riding on a horse so high he can barely see the ground.
He is at the same time a heartless mass murderer that won’t hesitate to do inhuman experiments on you if you so much as steal a loaf of bread, but will also go through great lengths to save some little girl or “protect those who are his”.
In essence, your standard murderhappy-but-righteous Xianxia MC: it’s perfectly fine for him to commit what he considers makes others not even human, which largely involves being in his way in any form, but he isn’t scum like his targets because… he is the MC, I suppose?
Either own up that you are evil or be actually good. Don’t keep dispensing moral judgment while rocking up the evil counter to the max.
More xianxia elements include how everyone in his way is a murdering rapist and he has yet to fail to punch way, way above his weight class, and levels don’t really matter to him.
The worst part is that this all drags down some pretty interesting elements. What’s up with this system? Who’s the woman in white? Why can’t he recall Lola? What’s the needle? How did he survive? Was the system the end of the world the traitor reincarnator was trying to stop?
But the little bits of that we get are amidst extremely stilted character interactions.
Characters are divided in two categories: friends of the MC and unrepentant scum of the earth. The difference isn’t in actions or character, it’s just in how much he likes you and in how much one could threat his Chad-ness.
To sum it up, there are hints of interesting things going on, but it’s largely Xianxia MC with a coat of paint. The interesting bits were enough to keep me hooked till the
Spoiler: Prison arc
But the faults in the writing started showing more and more: modern words and terms and analogies, stilted dialogue and interactions, flat or highly confusing descriptions (the fuck was going on during the whole climax of the cat arc? Who knows), one-dimensional and repetitive characters we don’t care about, spelled out know-that-you-know dialogue, little to zero tension, others being massively dumb, the MC acting like a generic 20 year old edgy Isekai instead of a calculating old man, etc.
But it did keep me going for some twenty-something chapters, so hey. There’s something there, just need to cut away the inconsistencies, edginess and give characters some depth.

starvingsloth: If you need encouragement, just start reading! You won’t be disappointed!
This review contains a minor spoiler of the earlier chapters.
Plot Summary – Overpowered Necromancer – Sylver was an 11th-tier necromancer that gets resurrected after a long time has passed since his death. We follow his adventures as he gradually learns the new magic system of the world and tries to crack the mystery of what happened after his death. Being one of the high-tiered necromancers in his previous life, he’s very overpowered in his early struggles. However, we still get to see him solving problems in creative ways because of his current body’s limitations. We were also promised lots of things when he eventually regains his peak body capabilities, and I can’t wait to see when it happens!
World Building – Mysterious New System – Sylver ‘wakes up’ in another continent in the future, with a new system on top of the traditional magic he knows. Everyone seems to be normalized with having the system around, which implies many years has already passed. One thing I like from the story is that Sylver realizes early on that many mysteries are surrounding this new magic system, and he points it out for us readers to acknowledge the mysteries out loud with him.
Character – Evil, but Kind – Often in stories, necromancers get the stink-eye just for being a necromancer. In this story, a necromancer is just another job. There are still some oppositions, but it’s only limited to the overzealous religious group. Necromancers are also often portrayed as evil sorcerers, and even though Sylver was no holy saint, I get the impression that he is a very refined, polite, and intelligent gentleman. He approaches things with a no-nonsense attitude and is willing to sacrifice evil people for the greater good (*his greater good). However, he’s not selfish, and quite generous with what he has, and his attitude towards his allies is quite trusting. That’s refreshing to see, for a stereotypically evil lich to behave like that.
Grammar and Style – Multiple POVs and Narrative Tricks – There are multiple point-of-views in the story, but it’s not distracting. I’d say it’s great enough, and even refreshing, as Royal Road doesn’t often have many stories with multiple POVs. Once or twice, I read a passage, and I have to reread it from the beginning because what I read up to that point changes the feel of the chapter. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I still enjoyed it a lot.
Conclusion – I kept thinking of adjectives like ‘refreshing’ and ‘enjoyable’ throughout writing this review, and that’s what I think of this story. If you want an overpowered necromancer and morally grey protagonist, you should read the story! But if you’re squeamish or don’t like gory things, maybe you should not read this. You’ll miss out a lot, though.
Final Score: 10/10. A masterpiece in its genre!