One of the most 7/10 novels to ever exist. It gets better once some of the more interesting side characters are introduced. The author has a couple of innovative ideas (though not many), and the world the author builds is fascinating in how un-apologetically mean-spirited it can be while still being a lighthearted slice-of-life story. If the story was written from the perspective of just about any other character in the story it'd be classified as dark fantasy. Overall, its a decent time killer that could've been a genuinely good... more>> story if the author was more experienced. <<less

A not very serious slice of life academy novel with a magic/witch theme disguised as a high stakes magic battle novel

Basically just Yuri bait except there is no Yuri because MC is in love with herself

Not very good writing but it is gripping and enjoyable in a way... in short doses (daily reading a chapter or two)

... more>> There are darker themes like the interaction with her mother, but that isn't explored and her mother tries to be a good parent suddenly

Gotta agree with inzill, strong potential start that went downhill - it can still be salvaged but idk if I'm gonna be around for that 3.5-ish <<less

Honestly considered giving this 5 stars in spite of its flaws, but then it went full nonsense.

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Spoiler

Basically, the protagonist is told "if you don't want to live as I command, then go for it. But I'm going to destroy everything you build up and force you anyway, " and the protagonist goes "aw shucks, I don't want to be forced into wars and very likely die fighting a pointless battle, but I do owe them (they don't)... so I'll be even more affectionate now!" Worse is that they pretend this has a deeper meaning when it's just pointless hostility framed as charity.

[collapse]

Aside from that, the story is 95% introspection and exposition. That's the greatest flaw with it, though the spoiler'd section is responsible for my rating this 2 stars instead of 4. There are conversations that take multiple chapters, because someone says one sentence, and then the rest of the chapter is exposition followed by introspection followed by more exposition. This is being set up to be an academy story, but if it continues as it has for the 40 chapters I've read, it could very well be another 40 chapters for a single day's worth of classes.

It's a story that begins with a lot of potential, shows a lot of world-building work to the point of being a detriment, and then takes a sharp downward turn for seemingly no reason. It's still possible for it to salvage things... but it's set what should be a major future plot point on some pointless stakes and pretends an obvious antagonist isn't as bad as it has openly showed they are.

Actually reading the interaction I hated, you might come away thinking it's not nearly as big a deal. But when so little happens in any given chapter in favor of trying to tell us everything about the world as quickly as possible, I'm not interested enough anymore to trudge through it all. I like a lot about this story, it's just the execution that's the problem. <<less