what killed it for me was when they had the last fight with the soul devouring beast and the appariton came out of gao yu and everybody else started dissing the MC. Like wadafaq. You're potentially dying here and you still have the mentality to show disdain. If it was a one time thing, I could've let it go but its recurring soo yeah.

Basically, it turns out MC is actually some reborn super expert and after he recovers his memory he's basically someone else. The real Qin Lie actually did die 300 years ago and this other expert purposefully took his body for the bloodline. After that he regains his millenias worth of memories so he's basically an entirely different person even though he wants to keep his prior relationships with friends/family. (but of course that can only be on a surface level considering he's actually as old as the universe itself)

The entire novel is actually just a tiny tiny portion of a enormous plot/scheme war between two super beings and the 'MC' we thought we were watching never actually existed.

Certain characters are built up so you expect them to be protected by plot armor until the end, except 2 suddenly die right in front of MC with no warning whatsoever. As expected, MC is utterly enraged, and knowing Ni Cang Tian you of course expect some bloody revenge. But guess what? all that build up for nothing, no revenge, nothing. The guy that kills them even becomes a semi-ally in the end. two of MC's close friends that were supporting him for a large part of the novel are forgotten just like that. Poof.

Did I mention the guy who killed them is a complete two-faced as*hole who tried to kill MC multiple times while blatantly denying it and pretending to be all enigmatic and shit? Then kills the two in a hissy fit like some toddler. One of the most dislike-able characters in the whole book IMO. Then everyone just forgets about it like it wasn't a big deal.

Also, he nearly kills Yushi, which usually throws MC into a blazing rage, but this time for no specific reason he just endures it and forgets it later on... And this is before he 'recovers' his millenium of memories, which supports my theory that the author just rushed it and threw character and plot to the f*cking winds.

Bloodlines... unless I've skipped by accident, I'm not sure how he actually resolved his competing bloodlines without tree of life. The whole bloodline system feels so... unpolished. He never even got the 5 bloodlines from his families...

His mother - never introduced

His promise to Enos and her father, and, in general, the future of the races related to his bloodline. There was too big of an emphasis on this so... it feels very sour to not see an actual ending in this field: no children or anything in this regard...

Some characters for some reason becoming forgotten/irrelevant... the ice phoenix, this dude with ogre rings, the guy who carried Indigo to the spirit realm

The whole artifact forging, soo big emphasis on it at the start, all these mysterious symbols and diagrams, I'd expect him to at least craft something on his own, I dunno...

Chaos blood world or w/e it was called. I'm not sure if he ever revisited his blaze world after rank8. Why?...

Romance. I dunno, typical case where his first and real fiance is someone who he ends up barely interacting with and two other girls being relevant for 200 chapters and then cya (I mean, they are still there, but kind of not there, I guess). For the first girl, I'm not sure if they even kissed once, I'm actually so frustrated that they never even slept together seeing how positive of an impact this would be on her. Instead he slept with some random soul s*ave. Just... so weird

The 300 years ago event and his age... confused me too much for me to even try to understand... I've just let it go.

Combat, especially mass-combat, felt very crudely done. It felt like in any many vs many it was just 1 guy fighting 1 guy in turns.

Dark Asura Hall is responsible for all the mu*derous conflict between Nebula Pavilion & Shattered Ice Manor, and their sub-Limestone tier subordinate families, because immediately after a bloody conflict with a lot of blood debts between the two groups, they station Nebula Pavilion at the same city as Shattered Ice Manor, thereby guaranteeing a vicious cycle of constant conflict and mu*dering. (Not a single person points this fact out, despite the information being given pretty straightforwardly)

Du Haitian lures all his rivals in the sect into a trap where they all get butchered- but it was his people giving them the information and everyone knows he's a psychotic conniving megalomaniacal mu*derer.

Liang Shaoyang, a known killer, tries to have someone literally assassinated in the sect and then literally just as they discover it was him, he comprehends one of the twelve pillars of the sect (which is absolutely ludicrous timing and if there isn't some trick behind it the author must be trying to top his own bad writing), gaining immediate immunity from all repercussions (plot armor for bad guys is another problem). Then he, surprise surprise, tries to have more people killed (one of which is someone who also comprehended the pillars) and somehow, through sheer ret*rdation she ends up getting punished and all the elders and sect master immediately ignore her and believe him, despite his reputation and the fact that she's been with them for years- though continuing the ret*rdation, she never thinks to mention that she never actually struck him and he's faking the event to cause problems- AND TO GO FURTHER, she doesn't even f*cking mention he literally tried to have her assassinated.

The sect master and the elders, acting like a bunch of drooling ret*rds, completely cast off the genius girl who's been with them for years for a new person to be the sect master, despite him being overtly evil. She has informed them of his assassination attempt and they, despite having knowledge of how he's a killer and would totally be willing to do such a thing to gain the sect master seat (therefore making him power-hungry and untrustworthy to others in his own sect and THEREFORE UNQUALIFIED TO BE SECT MASTER), completely don't believe her and then within like ten days they completely cut off all resources of the sect that she had access to. My suspension of disbelief is utterly shattered here, it's like the bad guys can just waltz in wherever they want and have total immunity from repercussions and gain power without having to do anything at all.

Thus far both major conflicts in the story (3 if you count the Du family trying to take over the Ling family, which is actually odd and kind of insignificant in hindsight, making it questionable why the relatively powerful Du family bothered with such a minor family) are specifically about evil people in a sect trying to kill other people in the sect to take it over. The author needs to be more creative and switch things up.

He finds out someone had a messenger killed and sent their own messenger, likely calling in their own forces to hush up the other groups here by killing them all? He does literally nothing for 4 days and acts surprised when it comes true at the last second.

He repaired two of his friends' weapons, making them far more powerful than they were before, but he doesn't remember to give the weapons to his friends when they're in life-threatening danger until someone else mentions how their current weapons are shit.

The sect has twelve important pillars and anyone who can comprehend anything from even one instantly gains the sect's full support and becomes one of their absolute most valued and protected disciples, so what does the protag do? He puts it off and never bothers to even attempt to comprehend them for over at least six months.

He never thought that (Girl A) would turn down one proposal after another for two years straight, seemingly waiting for him all this time.

He suddenly felt a bout of strange amusement.

Back then, he, a ripe greenhorn who entered (Place), was given no attention by (Girl A) at all. Moreover, he was often scorned against and attacked repeatedly by her.

But after he grew stronger at (Place B), experienced a breakthrough in realm and encountered (Girl A) once more, he only needed to switch a face and an identity to easily win (Girl A) ’s heart. He had caused (Girl A) to lose two years of her life in a false relationship; one that she was so deep in that she couldn’t walk away.

The two points of interaction between (Girl A) and him were as different as heaven and earth.

“Why is that?” Qin Lie thought to himself.

A long time later, he gradually came to understood why.

(Girl A) had never changed. She had always been the way she was be it in terms of identity, behavior, appearance, or realm. She had never changed.

But he himself had changed completely.

When he first entered (Place A), he was wooden, shy, weak and introvert. He possessed neither an outstanding identity nor any self-confidence.

The second time he encountered (Girl A), he was arrogant, brash, powerful and full of confidence. He had also picked up a brand new identity.

Although in both cases it was still him, his time at (Place c), his battles in the Realm A, and his experience as a foreign delegate had increased his charisma by leaps and bounds when he encountered (Girl A) once more. He was a far better man, which was why (Girl A) had looked favorably upon him and fell for him easily.

“Change and the improvement of one’s insight, mind and strength would naturally cause someone to exude a completely different aura. So that’s why...” Qin Lie abruptly came to realization.

It was at this moment he experienced a magical feeling of enlightenment, deepening his knowledge.

First of all, at the beginning, it isn't MC who acts like a ret*rd. He IS one, in a sense, because his cultivation technique makes his soul leave his body to a certain degree. Hence, his body only does what it was programmed to like a robot and nothing more. He doesn't have his senses in his state, but rather is cut off from the world and only finds out what happened once he exists this state -it's like reading the log of what happened despite not being there to supervise it. However, for most of the time of his "pretending to be a ret*rd", he is unable to exit it by himself. Later, he indeed gains that ability as well knows that is happening in real time and pretends to be a fool, but it is not to avoid responsibilities, but rather any attention. If he was to be found out, with his strength, he'd end up like Martial Asura or PMG where MC had to drive out rival families raiding their own families. Only, it isn't HIS family, he just stays there because of his grandpa's arrangement as he has a good place to cultivate there. It's like studying at a school doesn't mean you have to help the local bullies fight the bullies from another school, and if you show off you can fight well, they'll pester you to help them. Well, of course no one would pretend to b a fool to avoid that, just pretend to be an average guy. I admit that the author wrote a sentence or two around ch 20 where it sounded like it justified your claims, but if you can read between the lines and see all the bullsh*t that was happening there (those who think you can have the power to do sth and not have any responsibilities and expectations of other ppl once they know of it, they simply don't know life) that he didn't have to worry about coz everyone thought him a fool, and then read the novel as far as I did and see all that happened once others knew he wasn't a fool but one of the strongest amongst them, then you will understand what it was exactly that he wanted to avoid. He just wants to finish cultivating (as in, get to the next stage or sth), which will take him sth like 3 months at the moment he was found out if I got it right, and then leave this family as he doesn't rly consider himself one of them. And also about the thunder plot armor, it is indeed unlikely, but not impossible. It's like being baffled because it started raining during rainy season and you were about to go water your flowers in the garden, but now don't have to. I don't think it's because of your plot armor... Plus, it may be my misconception, but I felt like it was his power that attracted the storm and made it form faster. EDIT AFTER READING CH 71: in this chapter author provided reasoning for that thunder plot armor (though not explicitly), which shows it wasn't actually plot armor, more like a lucky bullseye. Dunno though if he was going to do it from the start or Chinese readers told him to do sth about it b4 he wrote it xD