I think it's pretty good. World building is cool and interesting, I've seen some complaints about the main character being a wimp but that's part of the point of him being a small fish, figuring out what people want from him and how to placate them without hurting himself too much, while later arcs focus on being less passive and growth. That's a bit of a rant but given how some people talk about this main character you'd think he's lacking the boots of anyone who passes by when he's... more>> trying to stay on most people's good side in a magical setting which a heavy focus on different groups and factions. It's not perfect though, biggest complaint would probably be towards his master who's a total bit*h even if she is super powerful, she straight up bullies and hits him and the novel almost treats it like it's completely normal. It makes sense for the medieval magic setting but it makes me uncomfortable how the writing almost justifies her actions (and part of that is the main character realizing he is nothing special).

It's not really a novel if you want an intimidating/powerful main character but it's interesting to see. An earlier example would be

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one of the arcs is him siding with a noble in a vote to remove another examee, a witch who is hated by the noble, its interesting to see the power dynamic and logic of the main character of why he would do that.

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Also it's pacing can be slow at times so beware <<less

There's literally full 4 chapters of back story...... I want to rate this as a 2 due to all this backstory dumping, but I didn't get far enough to read the main plot... so decided to give 3. It's also confusing to tell if he actually went back in the past as it's said he went back 20 years, or if all this backstory is before he Reincarnated which it seems to be.

I started skimming after a while as it was very repetitive, you're just reading countless paragraphs on his... more>> training, why he's different and special, why he's tr*sh, his accomplishments, his life story, et cetera. If you start reading this, I suggest just reading from c5 honestly, as the beforehand chapters are just all endless prologue to set the story up, that you frankly prob don't even need to know <<less

This is the most sentimental iteration of this genre, and I'd say it's the best one. The main character is cold and dispassionate, and you can see why in his backstory, but he's sort of developing a way from this in a way that's vaguely touching, if usually silly. The other characters are also coldly ruthless but you can see their humanity struggling against it. This is probably tangential but I like it.

As for the worldbuilsing? It's good and suitably impressive, improved greatly by how weak the protagonist is relative... more>> to everything else. The power system is a sophisticated soft magic system which I applaud and the plot is fine. <<less

It's disappointing. Overall, the novel seemed interesting, but I'm abandoning it because of the main character. He's terribly spineless. I can't bear to look at his sycophancy and the way everyone looks at him like he's a piece of meat. You can spit in his face and he'll thank you, that's how bad it is. This psycho professor has repeatedly torn his soul apart and put it back together, but even after that he remains just as pathetic. It doesn't make sense, considering how painful it is, judging by the... more>> description. He had to either pull himself together or break down. In the last chapters, there was hope that he would grow a spine, but the author took it and tore it right out of him, and then stuffed it into a new doll that mocks him. His own doll, doesn't put him in anything....I can't keep reading this. <<less