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The Desolate Era
Type
Web Novel (CN)
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Rating(4.2 / 5.0, 2053 votes)
5    61% (1245 votes)
4    18% (364 votes)
3    10% (211 votes)
2    5% (107 votes)
1    6% (126 votes)
Language
Support Book (#ad)
Author(s)
One entry per line
Artist(s)
One entry per line
N/A
Year
Example: 2012
2014
Status in COO
Status in Country of Origin. One entry per line
45 Volumes / 1450 Chapters (Completed)
Licensed
Yes
Completely Translated
Original Publisher
One entry per line
English Publisher
One entry per line
Release Frequency
Every 253.8 Day(s)
Activity Stats
[Graph]
Weekly Rank: #9735
Monthly Rank: #2000
All Time Rank: #5
Reading List
[Graph]
On 19224 Reading Lists
Monthly Rank: #25
All Time Rank: #45

Description

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Fate had never been kind to Ji Ning. Wracked by illnesses and infirm his entire life on Earth, Ji Ning knew early on that he would die as a teenager. What he didn’t know was that there really was such a thing as life after death and that the multiverse was a far larger place than he thought.

A lucky twist of fate meant that Ji Ning was reborn into a world of Immortals and monsters, of Ki Refiners and powerful Fiendgods, a world where Dynasties lasted for millions of years. A world which is both greater… and yet also smaller… than he ever could imagine. He would have the opportunity to join them, and in this life, Ji Ning swore to himself, he would never let himself be weak again! The Era he was born into was a Desolate one, but Ji Ning would make it his era.

Associated Names
One entry per line
Age of Desolation
Mang Huang Ji [Donghua]
Mãng Hoang Kỷ
Records of Barbarian Ji of the Primeval Era
The Legend of Jade Sword [Drama]
العصر المقفر
莽荒纪
Related Series
N/A
Recommendations
Coiling Dragon (23)
Stellar Transformation (12)
I Shall Seal the Heavens (10)
Swallowed Star (9)
The Nine Cauldrons (8)
Tales of Demons and Gods (7)
Recommendation Lists
  1. My list
  2. Peak...in multiple ways
  3. The Origin. (Cultivation)
  4. Good Stuff
  5. Recommended Novel

Latest Release

Date Group Release
03/08/15 Wuxiaworld v1c18
03/08/15 Wuxiaworld v1c17
03/07/15 Wuxiaworld v1c16
03/06/15 Wuxiaworld v1c15
03/06/15 Wuxiaworld v1c14
03/05/15 Wuxiaworld v1c13
03/05/15 Wuxiaworld v1c12
03/04/15 Wuxiaworld v1c11
03/04/15 Wuxiaworld v1c10
03/03/15 Wuxiaworld v1c9
03/03/15 Wuxiaworld v1c8
03/02/15 Wuxiaworld v1c7
03/02/15 Wuxiaworld v1c6
02/28/15 Wuxiaworld v1c5
02/28/15 Wuxiaworld v1c4
12
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199 Reviews sorted by


ysers
ysers rated it
January 16, 2021
Status: Completed
Plot: +1.5

Decent plot. Didn't have many twists. Path of cultivation was average with only two primary methods. Not many realms. Good translation. (+0.5)

The passage of time was odd. A chaos cycle (10 trillion years) was supposed to be huge, turned out, thousands of chaos cycles went by in a "blink of an eye". The distance was ridiculous, travel billions of kilometers in seconds, but the max speed (at 2/3rd into the novel) was only 100x the speed of light. (-0.5)

Descriptions of various realms and universal laws were... more>> good (+1)

Introduced many philosophical ideas that made sense, relating to today's religious beliefs. (+1)

The ending was abrupt. Too easy. No cliff-hanger. Not effective (-0.5)

Main Character: +1 - Consistent, reliable character.

Challenge: +1 - Main character had many difficulties. Not overpowered. Very different from other stories in that the MC in this story was often on the losing end and had to cooperate with others to overcome challenges.

Romance: +0 - No romance. Romantic partner betrayed him but the story made it seem like she was noble.

Emotion: +0.5 - Many losses but no one was important.

Comedy: +0 - No comedy.

Overall: 4/6 (Good series) <<less
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AnimeQueenIvy
AnimeQueenIvy rated it
November 19, 2020
Status: v45c17
Finally finished it! I really loved this novel😭😭😭 I was completely attached to Ji Ning and those he had befriended and his family. Now that I have finished, I feel so empty/full (you know that feeling after finishing reading/watching something good).

I honestly don't know what to do now😂😂😭😭

Thank you author and translators for the hard work👍🏾 xxx
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Blazinnfl
Blazinnfl rated it
August 27, 2020
Status: v1c1
like with most of these light novels, its the stereotypical Asian character. I'm starting to think these light novels have been written by virg*ns that dont know how to interact with people.

The MC died at 17, reincarnated, and the story picks up when he start going on adventures at 11. The thing I dont get is your technical in your 30s (when it get heavy vol 6), but you act like a 6 yr old. Why is that? Why do these authors make the MC act like little... more>> kids, they don't even act like their in high school.

It gets real old to see these novels not make a character act like a normal person. No body is this s*upid. Even if you are not good with women or a virg*n nobody would act like this.

The s*upid choices and the way of thinking the MC has is cringe worthy. Like why you are acting like a little girl, your a grown man. The character mentality doesn't change. He doesn't grow at all mentally. He from modern earth but our worst could easily do better than him. Pick a bum off the street, he will do better.

Now the good. The lore and the world building is great. This is what iet does best... thats about it. Its basically the same as other light novels. Its mostly mental maturbastion for the author. Fulfillment. Its sad yhe genre could be great. I'm getting tired of it. I'm done. Wish a regular normal author wrote these stories. You can tell a lot dont have life experiences. It make asain people look bad when you see the stereotypical neet or the virg*n that only thinks of b**bs character constantly.

Its a good read to pass the time if you like fantasy setting. Like I said good lore and world building. Its just the unbelievable one dimensional characters with no growth and no common sense that makes you go crazy. <<less
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baelar
baelar rated it
July 9, 2020
Status: Completed
I just completed this novel, it is one of those novels were the MC will have many last moment power-ups that save critical situations and where the MC is OP and has godlike luck..

The story was good all the way until the end, I feel that the ending was rushed and the story cut short. I rate it as 4/5 since it is good but I rate the story as not as good as other novels like Warlock of the Magus World, Reverend Insanity.
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Peanutonaboat
Peanutonaboat rated it
June 18, 2020
Status: Completed
I've read a lot, and I mean a lot, of web novels. I prefer books with clever, scheming main characters. They can be morally good, like in Cuttlefish's books, or evil like WMW.

So why then am I giving Desolate Era, which has a character whose intelligence is at best average 5 stars? Simple: this is by far the most complete web novel I have ever read. For 46 volumes, IET kept completely consistent. Yes, he was consistently just above average, but at no point did I find myself bored.

Let's talk... more>> about the flaws first. The book is very flat. What I mean by that not only are the characters one dimensional but so is all the description. There isn't much to picture, not that this ever really bothered me. After all, I have yet to find a web novel capable of describing a fight scene well.

Of course, the biggest issue some people have is that this is a very cliche Chinese novel. The MC is OP, he's a genius from birth (although it actually makes some sense here which is nice) and he basically suffers no setbacks.

Luckily, there isn't much of the arrogant young master trope. I remember it happening once, though I must admit it was so horrendous that I almost dropped the book.

So, there is no description, the characters suck (as usual) and the MC is OP with s*upid enemies (as usual).

So, what's good? The cultivation system. It is the best cultivation system hands down. It's not original in any way, but IET has perfected the doa system in this book. That alone could get you through a few hundred chapters.

But, as I said, it gets 5 stars for consistency. The power scaling in this novel is phenomenal. It actually gets better as it goes. It's satisfying, you feel the MC has earned his growth... Most of the time anyway... and he's never overly strong or overly weak. Also

Spoiler

when the MC out grows his world as usual for novels of this kind the book actually gets even better

[collapse]

Oh, and the ending was actually quite satisfying. And let us not forget that this taught me more about Chinese folk lore and mythology than all other web novels combined.

Look. This is no masterpiece. You want fantastic read something by Cuttlefish, read Warlock, read tr*sh of the counts court, read reverend Insanity (well maybe that last ones not quite a masterpiece). But if you want something that is consistently good and really long, this is it. <<less
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dopfeen
dopfeen
June 2, 2020
Status: Completed
One of the few novels that I actually finished. Best cultivation system I've read and great world building. Kept me entertained for sure.
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ydim
ydim
March 16, 2020
Status: Completed
I've read this a while back, together with Stellar Transformations and Coiling Dragon before it.

The pros of every IET work is it's quite decently put together, the text mostly flows great (no doubt thanks to the translator) and repetition, while present, is kept at an acceptable level; this is NOT painful to read as certain other "novels" are with their endless drivel and nauseating repetition. Additionally, IET does know how to build interesting locations and problem-situations, though world-building or is not quite the focus. It can be a bit contrived... more>> and whatnot, but an undeniable skill of IET is to hype the reader up, to anticipate and excite. Objectively speaking, those skills are nothing to look down upon and certainly a huge part of what makes his novels popular.

The cons are the general blandness of characters. Characters are interchangeable, serving only certain functions and barely anything more. If you're expecting deep character drama and meaningful human stories these novels are not for you. These are straight-forward, somewhat Dragon Ball Z-like journeys through power levels. The battles are also fairly generic as well, with recurring patterns. And that touches on a core issue: everything is recurring and repeating. You'll basically read the same novel a few times over, stopping and starting anew at every new "realm" of power. The "characters" get refreshed even more frequently.

The biggest weakness of this novel, really, is its length. If IET just let the novel end earlier on, it'd still have some more personality, but as it goes on and on and retreads the same ground again and again, it all starts blurring together and becoming quite forgettable. In the end, it is all quite meaningless.

Coiling Dragon still remains the number 1 for me in IET novels, perhaps in no small part because it ended so soon. The number one complaint I read of CD was how the novel started falling into that trap after about the mid-way point, so I'm guessing that's a commonality in IET's novels; they lose their novelty. <<less
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iamnotahater
iamnotahater rated it
June 5, 2019
Status: v40
This the worst novel I have ever read. I am not someone who likes abandoning things but after the failed merge I had to drop it.

The whole story is nonsensical the timewarps make no sense millions of years pass but people treat that as minutes. People wait for each other. The MC is the lamest ever waiting billions for a wife he barely knew (relative to his life) instead of moving on.

The author goes into deep expansive descriptions of items and skills. The fights take up entire chapters. How much... more>> actual plot development happens? Not much. I wish I never started it. Got to V40 but after reading all that drivel the MC fails. Don't start this novel unless you are a masochist. <<less
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brax
brax rated it
February 22, 2019
Status: --
Low effort. If I were to sum up this novel, as far in as the fifth book, those would be the most effective words. This is the first IET novel I've read, so maybe I was expecting too much considering how highly rated this is. But holy hell this is bad.

Firstly, the world building. I found this to be the weakest point, never once does he actually describe what a character looks like, he just uses words such as "handsome" or "beautiful" as well as sometimes adding words such as... more>> "exceptionally". I'm 5 books in (~100 chapters) and I don't even know what the MC is supposed to look like, all I know is he has black hair and is 1.7m tall. The world itself? Incomprehensibly large, providing a simple map of the surrounding regions would do wonders, but no because that would require more work than IET puts in when he writes half the novel.

Fights, maybe this is because I'm new to these novels in general but the fight scenes, especially later into the series are very difficult to actually follow. You know the main character has plot armor because of how talented he is and IET likes to let you know, every single time the MC is engaged with an enemy "h-how can you be so strong!?!" "oh my god he must train in the [INSERT SKILL HERE], a talent this extraordinary must only exist within the elite clans protected by immortals!" imagine that, but every fight.

Characters are 1-dimensional. "You killed my [insert relationship here]! Now I must kill you!" It seems like everyone in this book is like that. The main character especially. Despite the MC being young and constantly hailed as an extreme talent, when enemies see how young he is (which should give some credit to his talent) they always underestimate him, even though doing so would gain them nothing but satisfy their own ego whilst putting them in danger.

If you actually enjoy novels like this then by all means. <<less
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p_consti
p_consti rated it
January 28, 2019
Status: afterword
First I Eat Tomatoes novel I read and I loved it.

No repeatings or anything, a unique story. The ending was a little unsatisfying but not too bad a story.
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fvbwfth
fvbwfth rated it
August 9, 2018
Status: Completed
Yes exaggerated units leave a bad taste every time you see, his hands covered 3 million km.. Then what happened to everyone else there? Etc..

Yep author is obviously talented but it fluctuates too much one volume it's awesome another is tr*sh.

Classic face palm every time story gets exciting MC goes to another dimension, pagoda, reward world bla bla.. It's cancer..

Despite all these this novel has something different that is author unlike 90 % of chinese authors.. Has "integrity. I'm not going to go into details.. From 1-5 usual tropes that... more>> are unique to chinese novels and ruins those DE only has 1, that is going into another world, dimension etc and dragging it for 100 chapters. Could it be these tropes are forced by Chinese government and not authors' fault, if it is, why others and not IET? Did Chinese government imprison or torture him for not putting polygamy right smack to your face while you were enjoying reading and now you have to spit it out like rotten food? This novel despite its fault is different and I wish more authors would see DE as example. <<less
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Mortal Sage
Mortal Sage rated it
March 27, 2018
Status: Completed
This will be the first novel that I hopefully finish from beginning to end and is also my current favourite novel. I've been able to stick to it and not drop it like countless other novels. 10/10

(Edit)

I've completed this a while ago and have almost finished re-reading it. This is a great novel and feel that the vast majority of people will enjoy it.
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Daoist_Bliss
Daoist_Bliss rated it
November 29, 2017
Status: v30c26
This is my most favorite work of IET although romace is kinda bland it really is one of those books that you can't wait to read more. Specially the part ... more>>
Spoiler

where ji ning's mother died that it made me really sad makes me wanna cry a very heart clenching part hahhaha

[collapse]
oh ye speaking of those guys in the spoiler part if this is your first book of IET I really suggest you read Coiling Dragon first then Stellar Transformation the story is connected to this one. <<less
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niallronen
niallronen rated it
June 6, 2017
Status: v28
My personal favorite of IAE's novels (closely followed by Swallowing Star). However as seems to be common with IAE the system of cultivation is not developed and the once large scope of a planet, realm, universe etc. Is shrunk as the M.C powers up while his fighting ability/ capability goes up technically but is poorly described. However a quick release schedule and great translation makes it a good novel on Wuxiaworld.
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daovaree
daovaree rated it
May 27, 2017
Status: Completed
Great novel!!! Its an grat adventure! The enemys arent some brainless idiots who got offendet because they loss some minor face! The MC is truly likeable and cares for his friends and family. One of the best novels out there!

Just some minor con is that the side characters were forgotten later on. That wasnt at the beginning tho... Around the time of the birth of his kid. She for ecample gets almost no screen time. Same for uncle white qinqin his junior brother or autonom leef. And his fiendgod friends... more>> gets almost instantly forgotten after he became the manorlord... well its underdtandable cuz they are way weaker at some point but still its rly sad since they all got a good history and well build background.

Never the less great novel great story great character. Go read it <<less
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Kvothe_the_wind
Kvothe_the_wind rated it
May 9, 2017
Status: v45c17
It's my favorite novel so far. I eat tomatoes is an excellent writer but this one is the best.

The novel is well balanced between training and adventures. It's very easy to read but hard to stop.

It's good to have a hero who doesn't make enemies wherever he goes for no reason. People are reasonable in this novel (generally) and don't offend other people with no reason. He isn't treated like a loser even though he is very powerful for his age (I hate when the hero isn't viewed as a... more>> genius when he is more powerful than others his age) and most people try to be on his good side when there is no blood feud or things like that between them.

Of course there is a lot of fights because it's the law of the jungle so don't worry, the action is there. Treasures are precious and rare so the stronger one gets it.

What I like most is the cultivation, it's not just absorbing energy, you have to comprehend techniques and Daos (natural laws) to become more powerful. You have to be intelligent to be powerful, there is no shortcut to be powerful. <<less
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GusSan
GusSan rated it
May 7, 2017
Status: v26c46-47
Starts generic as hell:

  • Reincarnated person
  • Op cheat from meeting someone while reincarnating
  • Born in a good family of genius
  • Young genius
  • The family has a family feud
The history is generic, but is well narrated, so if you like these novels (and aren't bored of laways reading the same history) is worth giving it a shot. If you start reading it as I did it, without expectations, you will find it enjoyable.

After him growing up ot becomes better, problems end solved, ... more>>
Spoiler

A massive realm war

[collapse]
, love and betrayal... not original nor especially good but readable.

After
Spoiler

going to the void searching other realms

[collapse]
, you can stop reading, it's the same as before but without inspiration. <<less
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MangoGuy
Mango Guy rated it
December 29, 2016
Status: v21c21
An absolute beauty... great plot with planning and good execution. THE best translator and wonderful consistency.

A story which has a lot of darker subtleties, with NO harem. It is by IET, so you have the wonderful sudden enlightenment system of cultivation instead of water is power~~ There is some tragedy but it really feels natural.

A must read for anyone who wants to try out Wuxia/Xianxia...
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mfahd
mfahd rated it
September 20, 2016
Status: v45c17
After finishing DE. My heart feels a bit empty...

I love the story progress, even though it's a typical 'weak to strong'.

I'm just dissapointed with the romance. That's right, I don't like how IET make the MC strive power for the opposite s*x. The relationship is bad too, not much happen between the two.

... more>>
Spoiler

Ji Ning always cultivating power to brings back Yuwei from dead. Meanwhile Ji Ning disciple Su Youji, most of the time accompanying Ji Ning all over the place. And she for many years (thousand of thousand of years), likes (or loves) Ji Ning. Meanwhile Ji Ning regard it as temptation. He doesn't give a thought how she felt when in the end Ji Ning only think about his dead wife. Yes it is an unwanted dead, but it should be in the past. Ji Ning in the story shouldn't have a strong heart. Because he disclined to the past.

[collapse]
<<less
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Docnox
Docnox rated it
May 27, 2016
Status: v13c23
An enjoyable story, worth your time.

The characters have a bit of depth to them, cant claim they're nearly as one dimensional as the average. Most of them have clear and varied motivations if a bit simple. some are pushed to the side however and often are left just ever present in the background which is unfortunate.

the plot is solid, events lead smoothly along, strings get tied up nicely. there is a particular city in the sky that I would have thought would be interesting but the narrative noticeably steers away... more>> from it, kinda a let down. Some arcs feel slightly rushed while others drag.

Style wise this is one of the better cultivation stories, i've read alot of them. key point is that the author doesn't repeat the same damn expressions every few paragraphs *cough Against the Gods cough* excuse me. My largest gripe with the writing is the author seems to early on notice his weakness in writing fight scenes and over time devotes less and less page space to them, often resulting in lots of build up and very short anti climactic fights some even getting only a single paragraph. a whole page of peoples point of view towards the battle and then a brief mention of how the MC won already... similar to Martial God Asura as of late.

anyway I feel it's a solid 4/5 and do recommend it if you've got the time to read 13 volumes <<less
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