I really dont understand the high rating this novel has I can only hope it gets better later on. As someone who has played a lot of games myself its impossible to Take this novel serious as the author clearly never played any mmo.

The tactic MC uses to kill bosses is to just perma cc them which is impossible in every Popular game out there.

Somehow there is a lot of Focus on Hand speed which is supposed to be a measuremeant of how good a Player is. The top players... more>> are at 200 apm while the average Player is below 100. This May seem like a huge difference but it clearly doesnt matter since the Main character can only do 60apm and still win against everyone because the game doesnt require many actions as skills Take a lot of time to cast. This means the mention of Hand speed every 5 sentences is comletly irrelevant and just Breaks the imersion.

Fights are already multiple chapters long but just consist of cc skills with different names being chained together with some damage skills being mixed in during the cc which is rather boring as its always the same.

So far the MC is rather bland. The only defining Features are him being a smoker and getting kicked out of his team. He also doesnt really care about other people and just ignores them most of the time. <<less

Best gaming novel I've ever read.

MC Ye Xiu has the personality of someone who's beyond good (godly, even) with the self-assurance and mental strength you'd expect from repeat champion. Add to that his shamelessness that's on par with FOD's Wei Wuxian, he makes awesome focal point of the story. A good chunk of fun in this novel is from Ye Xiu's interaction with people in-game.

Grinding and the detailed fight scenes can get repetitive, but it's not so bad. Again, largely because Ye Xiu is literally God in game skills, he... more>> quite easily gets around situations... you can say it's like the staple faceslapping scenes, done in Wei Wuxian's shamelessnes. He's someone with lots, lots of depth behind the casual savagery hidden far, far, faaaaaar down inside it only surfaced every hundred chapters....

A very good direct quote from translation to illustrate Ye Xiu :

Spoiler

"To think you'd be able to pick up two players like this in the tenth server. With the blessings that the God of Glory has bestowed upon you, you'd better return to the Alliance and win that championship." Wei Chen puffed.

"God of Glory? You mean me?" Ye Xiu replied.

[collapse]

<<less

Remarkably faithful to being a gaming novel, The King's Avatar takes itself completely seriously as a story about professional gamers in the most popular VRMMO in the world, and it delivers remarkably.

Although there are some minor missteps, the whole series feels like a labor of love from an author who knows his MMOs, with a sympathetic MC who is driven and reliable despite the inherent immaturity in his actions in basically throwing his life away to play video games. He's faithful to his ideals and knows what he wants.

And the... more>> amount of logical plot progression and slow buildup into him re-entering the professional world is absolutely outstanding. Sure, he's ridiculously skilled and has practically a cheat character, but he needs them for the challenges he has to face. And the villains, while sometimes petty and going a bit too far for a game, are entirely believable as the kind of behavior you might find from people rather than some caricature of villainous behavior you so often see in other stories - their misdeeds towards the MC are because the MC is in their way of things they want and they're apt to pull back when they realize they're being a bit ridiculous or being a bit too unprofessional, or whatever.

The characters are remarkably memorable too. It isn't common that a story can convince me to keep track of both the characters and the video game characters they're playing, yet despite the absolutely huge cast of characters, they're solidly in my mind whether it's the reckless and s*upid Steamed Bun, or the old and humorously cunning and ill-tempered Wei Chen, or the entirely too devoted Su MuCheng.

Real world. Real people. Video games taken seriously. It's simple, yet wonderful. <<less

Right update, dropping it, the bad points of this novel outweigh the good points aka the character interactions, the novel is too boring to continue, I dont have a clue how it is able to be no.1 on the ranking list on Gravity as it is clearly not a novel that could be read chapter by chapter, I would assume people wouldnt care unless it was in bulk otherwise its even worse to continue... my suggestion is read Way of Choices/Ze Tian Ji and vote for it to be on... more>> top of the list because TKA is not really worth it...

I have been reading this for the past week and reached c275 and thought that it was about time to write a review, I will write another one when the story reacher c850 or something along those lines and include it here.

Very well I will begin saying that the writing for this novel is really good and is well structured the characters are enjoyable and main plot is also pretty straight forward.

But I will say this, if you are not an mmorpg gamer and find those sort of games boring and you are not really interested in character interactions than avoid it as it is very boring.

The biggest redeeming point that this novel has for me are the interactions between the characters whether within the game, them talking or outside the game between the MC, the boss lady and tang rou otherwise the grinding and dungeoning or even the quests become very repetitive to the point that I started skimming the chapters for the most part and only reading the parts where they interact otherwise if a chapter doesnt have any interactions I dont read them as I find everything that this novel has to offer (mainly playing a game) really tedious to follow as I find mmorpg games really boring past the beginning where you just need to level up. <<less

Overrated, who the f wants to read about a guy playing a game with keyboard&mouse, I can understand people watching gamers on Twich or youtubers... but this is reading about it and it ain't even a real game lol. Also the story is quite unrealistic, a guy getting a place to stay and food and money for managing a net caffe but he ain't managing shit, he just plays for the most of the day and despite being a pro gamer, he doesn't make money of it. Still if you... more>> wanna waste I don't know 100h reading this, it's not that bad, though first chapter made me cringe how childlike it was, give me your account loser! Grabs it, hah! Well every character is pretty shallow but that's too be expected of a web novel. <<less

In short, the novel does a good job of telling a story about an eSports pro league, but other than the main plot arcs, it is quite unimpressive most of the time and also longer than it probably should. Way longer.

The author puts a real effort into building a realistic world and atmosphere. There are no unexpected cheats, no all-powerful AIs trying to rule the world or secret government plot to train supersoldiers through the game, not even vengeful opponents going out of their way with crazy plots to take... more>> down the main character, and that is a good thing, the problem is it puts a lot of pressure onto the plot to try and build exciting scenarios from ordinary settings, and while some plot-driving arcs manage to do this, most of the novel feels repetitive and full of filler, especially so because of its length.

The game in the novel is a decade old and the characters already know every detail of it, so there is no excitement of discovery, becoming a tale of the grind. Since the characters and skills are realistic, the duels and battles are only as interesting as the strategies in them which can make the sometimes 20 or 30 chapters long battles very repetitive.

The lack of personal relationships between characters in the story, which might have given some sort of interest to their daily interactions, does not help either. In fact, it seems romance itself might have simply disappeared completely from the world, as there is not even a single couple, old or young, relevant or in passing, in the entire novel.

Spoiler

Seriously, I don't recall ever being an actual couple or marriage in the novel. Tang Rou's got a father, but no mother around, the main character has a family, but only the father is mentioned in passing in the last chapter, the female lead is an orphan, even the wife of the tea company guy who buys EE is dead. Did this story happen after an alternate version of the plot of Utopia?

[collapse]

Overall, not a bad novel, the atmosphere is good, the characters are likable and the main plot scenes are quite good, but most stuff in between feels like filler and some arcs are unnecessarily long.

Spoiler

The pro league arc has 38 games and lasts 100-200 chapters, which is perfect, the playoffs have 7-8 games and last over 400 chapters. Why?

[collapse]

<<less

One of the Kings of Webnovels.

The most satisfying Webnovel ending I've ever read.

I started reading in 2016. After catching up to the translation, I shelved the story. It was making me unhappy only having a few chapters to read.

... more>> I've come back after 4 years, and binge read through the novel in a week.

I'm so satisfied. This novel tugged on heart strings, the emotions packed into these characters that are briefly witnessed is raw and real. I sympathized strongly with the theme of resisting aging.

Thanks for a wonderful novel Butterfly, and most importantly, thanks dearly, to the Translation Team. <<less

Will edit once I finish, but so far:

This is a fantastic gaming novel, and it's refreshing to experience such a long novel with great characters and no romance! The characterization of Ye Xiu is lovely and his one liners will make you cackle at how shameless and shrewd he is. However it's not infallible either, there are bits that had me trudging through them.

If I were to be honest, if you have no interest in gaming or grinding, keep moving! No matter how good this novel is, you'll be bored... more>> to death because a huge chunk of the story is nothing but dungeon crawling, level grinding and material gathering. Binge readers might despair here too, because it's nothing but Ye Xiu killing this, killing that, getting exp, leveling up, literally raising noobs! It's very much a "GAME IS LIFE" kinda story.

that said, the characterizations are fantastic, and the interactions between each of them are realistic and authentic. It's the small things like that and bits of dialogue that give the story a fantastic flow that can suck you in. If you hang in there, there is certainly scenes that had me slapping the arm rest is glee or cringing in sympathy. Pro or con, you follow Ye Qiu through his journey back to the top and the story spares no details or scenes during his progress.

If you like or are prepared to go into a novel that's heavy on esports (game terms like ksing, level grinding and dungeoning) then you're in for a treat. Binge readers might despair, it's definitely a story that grinds on your stamina and requires breaks to clear out monotony. <<less

You know one flaw of this novel? It's a series that totally engross itself into the game, the competition. And.... Nothing else. Sometimes it makes the characters less real, less substantial, and only there to fill a role. A drama that exist, in some other world. Where an E sport game is so big it eclipses everything else.

It's a bit of a pity really, because the shining moments I have of this series is the earlier parts, the struggle YeXiu had, the warm nights he spent with a sneaking Su... more>> Mucheng, their New years celebration, etc etc. The game events and drama can fill the gap, with close interaction between members described, but then, lately, when they entered pro competition, it's filled with mostly synopsis, then match, then synopsis, like, truly boring stuff. The last fun I had was... When they mess around for bosses with he other gods in game. And that was a loooong while ago.

New members are here, but no new interactions with them, Heck even with Xiao Yifanand Bao Roxin there's basically no difference from them playing hundreds of miles away and here, only small chitchat and joking around then... Gone in the game again, no discussion, no zit.

It's fight and fight, I guess even TKA can't really escape the grind nature of Wuxia novel, It's a thing I never can get used to, I just can't enjoy reading someone's else endless struggle.

TLDR:Used to love the out of game interaction beside the in game adventures, but recent chapters only contain grind for championship, synopsises and no interludes, basically very very boring. <<less

I've started to read cause the anime, and it was just as so great. This was the very first webnovel I've ever read, and since then I'm searching for an another like this.

The things I've liked:

1. 1. MC is realistic. In other stories MCs are almost Gods, but here he has a pathetic self too. (Around retirement, and he doesn't have lover, money or good friends) And he has humanity too. As a hungarian reader, I'm always very frustrated, when the MC thinks he can kill cause he isn't in his World, or the other hurt his feeligs and pride. He doesn't strike too much upon revenge too. (With Sleeping Moon for example) In other chineese or japaneese or korean stories the MCs main objective is too often the revege. (there is a saying, that with too much revenge you will hurt only yourself)

1. 1. The dialogues are good too. I've always liked the realistic and funny dialogues between the characters, it brings them alive.
      Spoiler

      I espesially love when Ye Xiu and Old Wei speaks with each other, that's just too funny.

      [collapse]

1. 1. The side characters. They are just as good as the MC, they feel alive too. They have sides, personalities, preferences. AND not everybody are good in the game. For example Chen guo or the mathematitcian kid (Sorry, I can't remember your name) with Steamed buns.
      Spoiler

      I loved that that Chen Guo didn't start to kiss the MC's ass at the moment when she get to know he is her God, morover she just speaks to him like before (of course after the shock's effect disappeared)

      [collapse]

1. 1. The face slapping and the moments of identity revealing. Altough it isn't centered around this, but we get some good ones. It gaves a good humor source and the writer used the perfect amount so I didn't get tired meantime

1. 1. This DIDN'T have harem (or harem like setting where the main protagonist don't know that everybody loves him/her) I always feel a little disgust when I read a harem or a reverse harem novel and I don't understand the ones who are in the harem. (Doesn't you want to monopolize the one whom you love?) Altough this didn't have any kind of romance, at least where I am now.

Things I didn't liked:

1. 1. Too much game elements. Sometimes I felt like my head will explode if I continue the reading because the too much informations. Altough the cause may be that I've never played any kind of RPG or MMORPG

1. 1. It's a little bit too long. (Seriously, more than 1700 chapters. I don't even like the neverending shounens because they are just too long, and generally they stops around 300-400 chapters)

1. 1. The MC is just too good in this game, I feel there isn't any aspects of the game he isn't familiar with.
      Spoiler

      For example when he went to the Tyranny as a tanker. He was too good to someone who played an another tipe of character for ten years.

      [collapse]
      Oh, and he can play for hours in that kind of level. For hours.

1. 1. It's a little bit repetitive when he goes to grind. Couldn't the writer just skip that part?

1. 1. It's just too good. I've neglected my social life when I read this. Once my family (parents and siblings) said they tought I've died in my room, cause I shut myself in for nearly ten hours. Oh, and DON'T read this wen you are trying to prepare to the University exam, cause you won't be able to put it down (I did and I almost ruined my entire life because of it...)

Altough there are some bad points too but the good points are just too good, and I have the say there aren't perfect stories.

Oh, and it may be a nearly perfect novel /I gave five star/ but I decided to freeze the reading to wait for translation of the story, cause I hate that when I find a good story but there arent a full translation, and I don't know if the

translator drops theit or not. (Like now the Gravity tales did, and I don't even know where I was the last time when I read it)

I canonly recommend it. Just read it, it will pull you in to it's World.

So last but not least:

Ez egy nagyon jo regeny, csak ajanlani tudom, es csak hajra forditok!!! Alig varom a pillanatot, amikor egyszerre olvashatom vegig az egeszet. Oh, es remelem, hogy akkor nem lesz semmi fontos dolgom, mert nem akarom eljatszani azt, amit az erettsegi alatt vegig csinaltam. lol Nem vette be a szemet az ekezeteket....

Ps.: I'm really so sorry for this long review. I almost died during I wrote it so I can't even imagine what the reader feels. Oh, and the last paragraph is in hungarian.

Not going to lie, I'm an obsessive fan of The King's Avatar. Found the anime on MAL one day and decided to take a chance on a Chinese anime. It was super weird listening to a language I was actually familiar with instead of tuning out Japanese, but I was instantly hooked on TKA. Ye Xiu is the BEST. I love OP MCs and face slapping, and Ye Xiu totally delivered on that.

I've probably rewatched the anime like 5 times, and after 2 times I decided I needed more, so... more>> I picked up this novel. This was the first light novel I've ever read. I don't even play video games, and probably totally suck at it, but I found the esports scene really fascinating. These people are all adults, so there was no needless relationship or other drama, and the prospect of a literal gaming GOD training people and hiding his identity due to him finding fame unnecessary and honestly super tiring was really frickin exciting. I loved reading through his struggles and OPness in literally destroying his enemies, and decided to MTL the raws bc I couldn't wait for one chapter a day to be actually translated. Constant headache, but worth it. I would have liked for the book to continue past his win, but I'm happy regardless.

READ THIS NOVEL! You don't need to even like playing video games, and honestly it was probably better for me not knowing how to play so that I wouldn't be analyzing the flaws in the game. Read this for its slice-of-life-like personal life, face-slapping action, and most importantly Ye Xiu's sarcastic and hilarious personality and interactions with the rest of the gaming celebs. His confidence in his skills is just so satisfying. Honestly their interactions are some of the funniest and best parts of this novel. Also read this for the feels! So many feels! Real life sucks, and having a gaming career is hard, man. I would know, bc I've read TKA. <<less

Just my personal opinion but this is by far best novel bout gaming (2nd would be SAO simply because it's taking so long to have new chapter published : (, and NO I don't like LMS cos the main character SUCKS, liked its plot tho) . I finished this 1 throught machine translated (w a little edited) in Vietnamese (Yes, im Vietnamese so my academic Eng ain't that good). And here are my thoughts 'bout this novel.

The plot is not really sth new, a top tier pro gamer got betrayed... more>> by some of his teamates, got kicked out, formed a team then comeback. Quite simple and straightforward.

+ Pros:

What I like about the novel is the humorous way of writing of the author. There're good guys, bad guys, but they all have the same love for the game. And everything is solved ingame (which isn't very realistic but I like it), I mean the thing worst the bad guy can think of when losing to the MC is to go and cut off the MC connection and he still doesn't have the gut to do it xD.

About the characters, both the MC and the side characters (even the ones from the other team) are built very well, they all have their own characteristic & they do grow alongside the MC (well some, like Steamed Bun, doesn't xD) . The MC is a god-tier gamer that's also an oddball who only cares bout gaming. He never plans on revenging the people who kicked him out, but instead just wanna comeback cause of his love for the game. The side characters are funny as hell (the Godly Steamed Bun xD or the Sword Saint or w/e he's called) but lack the backgrounds to make things more interesting.

The novel starts out slow, half of it is about grinding but the grinding ain't that bad IMO. I meant if the author cut it short, instead of complaints bout the repetitive grinding, many will complaints how the hell does he get so strong, why do no 1 stop him from lvling, why does his team become strong so fast, etc... I mean id they DON'T grind and having some lucks but still have enough equipment comparable to the teams that are created YEARS ago I would stop reading this lol.

Things start heating up post 800+ ch (if I remember right), when the team started joining the pro league. It's not some bs like the team is super op and never lose, but instead starts out weak, getting owned, but growing in the process. And every1 has their own time to actually shine in different ways of their own, not just the MC.

+ Cons:

As some have already said, the 1st half is a bit too much grinding (acceptable but still a bit too much). The pro league is too short comparing to it... would love to expand it a bit more...

No real romance (Would give 10/5 if this was a harem >_<)

The translation is too slow (even in Vnese its still 1k, which led me to read the MTL version and its a pain)

+ To clarify some other complaints:

About the main character being un-esport like, being a shut in or w/e... they did say he's an old timer you know... pretty sure 10 years ago there's no real esport yet, like LoL, it started having official coaches and stuffs like 3-4 years ago, and this is a world where people still use keyboards & mouses so it's NOT a future world lol...

Overall, this is a good read for me. Would recommend it to any1 wanna try a whole new genre with an adult MC who doesn't fawn at every girl he sees, he is also not s*upidly dense tho and a great casts of unique side chars. <<less

1. Not the one of the Best gaming story there is.. Around second rate..
2. The story is about a super pro kicked from his team and his super super characters like an idiot.
3. The background is when game has reach lvl cap and most of the game has to offer obtain.. Those losers turn to pvp.. Idiots comes together making teams, club and tournaments, bind their characters to team.. And idiotic fans who got nothing better to do..
4. I guess this is As real can it get with current online gaming

Funny characters (Go, Steamed Bun!). This is the first novel that cracks me up. However, the story occasionally has its down period. There are some boring chapters that I skimped through in 1-2 minutes.

Update:

In Game Story gets a little repetitive later on. Real life character development / real life events are not very interesting.

If you like MMORPG & don't mind some slow chapters, it's not a bad novel to read.

As an eSports and gaming fan, and I am a sucker for any books about video games. TKA is my favorite out of all the eSports related books out there.

Some things I think stand out:

1. Compared to other gaming novels, TKA includes so much about the scene outside of the MC. Commentators, team owners, reporters, the in world competitive league: all of these are represented and discussed. It feels like the author is a big fan of eSports and discussed parts that are generally glossed over or underrepresented in other similar novels. Also, no romance, so gaming is essentially the focus.
2. For better or worse, this novel is about a game that doesn't exist. Obviously, the author has grand dreams about gaming and the amount of agency a player can have over a character that aren't exactly realistic to what exists in real life. It may require a suspension of disbelief if you compare to current real life MMOs or competitive games. Still, this isn't something that bothers me that much as the author makes an effort to create a set of rules and mechanics that are relatively internally consistent.
3. The matches are well written and exciting with strategy as a main focus. Of course since the author made up the game, he has a much easier time of coming up with these things, but he also committed to fleshing it out with map advantages, class differences, and play style differences between teams. Even the characters that are known to be the top players are all very different and distinctive.

Things to think about:

1. OP protagonist. While this is not false, for me, it's actually a plus point rather than a minus. As a fan of eSports, it hits such a satisfying story line of a legendary player who established a dynasty and represented an era returning to the peak. I feel like it actually parallels real life eSports in a lot of ways
   Spoiler

   (Faker/SKT? Or is it just me..)

   [collapse]
   and as a fan, it hits me just right. Still, it is true, and it will be very obvious from the beginning. It's not that there isn't growth either, but if that's something that puts you off, the novel doesn't try to hide it from you that MC is the best there is, in fact, that's the point.
2. This book is long, and it does not ignore the game at all. There is grinding and dungeon clearing and all of the nuts and bolts of an MMO. There is an argument that a significant amount of these chapters can be skipped without significant detriment to the understanding of the plot. For me, these are very nostalgic, and just bring back memories from my own experiences in MMOs, so I didn't mind reading them.

Overall, this is a book about gaming and eSports, and it doesn't hide it. Probably the most important is whether you like these topics enough to read in depth about them, and if you can suspend your disbelief enough to read about a game that doesn't exist. I feel like this book is written by a gaming/eSports fan and for similar fans.

I love this novel. It had interesting and engaging plot and characters.

My favorite characters in order:

1. 1. Huang Shao Tian - I don't know what made me like him so much. Maybe his simple thoughts and weird friendship with Ye Xiu. If he was a real-life esports player, I would go and fangirl over him on his matches, waving neon cardboard with 'I love you Shaotian' written on it.

1. 1. Mo Fan - I find this almost-mute to be annoying at first. However, it was exactly because of his... more>> personality that made him more intriguing as the novel progressed. His growth as an individual didn't amount to anything, but his growth as an esports player was significant. My most favorite part was that epic tree-cutting that lead to the eventual defeat of my number 1, HST. It was hilarious, but it showed a well-calculated sly tactic that cemented his reputation. He deserved the nickname godslayer.
      1. 1. Lu Hanwen - I was touched by the vigor of his youthfulness. It seemed like nothing can stop him. He treated every loss as an opportunity to learn. His view on his failures made me think of my own. And perhaps, I have this bias of Shaotian's successor haha.
      1. 1. Qiao Yi Fan - This kid didn't have a smooth start. Despite being in a champion team, he wasn't given the chance to show his ability. He was overshadowed by the brilliance of his bestfriend, and it was a shame that he was let go by the team in the end. What happened next was what I admired the most. When Ye Xiu advised him to change class, he was hesitant. How could he not? Every decision he makes will determine his career as an esports player. In the end, he gathered his courage, and one step at a time, he overcame his doubts and inferiority. He had the most amazing character development amongst them.
      I don't have much thoughts about Ye Xiu. At this point, I still don't understand his motivation. To become a champion? Maybe yes and no. He had been a three-time champion and I don't think he cared much about that. I'm more convinced of the reason that he wanted to become a champion on behalf of his deceased bestfriend. For Lord Grim to stand at the pinnacle of glory. But what I don't understand was why he retired after season 10. Well, I have to finish the novel for me to understand, but at this point, I should have an idea right? But I just couldn't see through his thoughts. He wasn't on my character favorite list because he's the standard MC. Because there are more interesting people around him and that's precisely why I loved this novel. It was not a novel that revolved only on the MC.
      ***Edit on my confusion about Ye Xiu's retirement***:
      Spoiler

      Oh, so it was like that. I didn't even think it was for that reason. I mean it was kind of touched about a thousand chapters before, that he would be going back when the time comes. I didn't think it that it was for that simple reason but it made a lot of sense, and no matter how reluctant he was to leave, he, too has his own responsibilities to shoulder. The moment he returned tho was kind of hilarious, but I could say that Ye Xiu would have felt relief too

      [collapse]
      One character I didn't like though (and often disdained) was Chen Guo. Her thought process was often naive, irrational, and without logic. I disdained the way she disdained about Ye Xiu at the beginning. I truly can't like her at all.
      Mucheng was like a warm summer. She has such a warm personality and her life pretty much revolved around Ye Xiu. Her bond with him was deeper than any familial relations. Honestly, I ship her and Ye Xiu. She's probably the only person in the world who truly understood Ye Xiu, more than he understood himself. I think, if I were Ye Xiu, her silent support, staying by my side was everything I need. <<less

I cried.

Not because this novel was sad, but because of how relatable this novel was to me. All the characters' drive for victory felt so genuine that I couldn't help but empathize. Step by step, you see Ye Xiu and his team's progression as you go through the novel: it's magical how the novel culminates towards the ending. It's the ONLY webnovel that I have read that actually depicts a realistic professional e-sports player rise to fame.

And it hits hard. It's amazing because Ye Xiu's persistence towards victory and glory... more>> are authentic, and it shows in the novel. Millions of other kids in the world would love to be a professional e-sports player. I know for sure I did, at least, and it's pretty sad once you know that you're just not talented enough to make it. I gave up any hopes in going pro in League of Legends just a year ago. I was getting old, and I was in college, yet I was still only making it to Challenger, rank 100 at best, and regularly demoting to Grandmasters/masters. When a 14 year old kid was rank 12 and already in a pro team's training camp and was better than me, I knew I wasn't good enough. He was better than me even though I've been playing League since he was 6! I gave up my dream of going pro in League after persistently playing since season 2. It's... demoralizing. Hopeless.

Yet, Ye Xiu's feelings of fulfilling his thirst for the championship title transferred to me, and as a result, also left me fulfilled, as if I was on Happy, fighting with them for the championship title. All other webnovels pale in comparison.

Overgeared, Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World, and even Moonlight Sculptor all are utterly childish when compared to the world The King's Avatar presents. You'd really think that any sane game developer would make a cheat class and not patch it a day later? That you would steamroll competition because of some random buff you got? No. You're s*upid. That's not how it works. If something is broken, it gets patched. It pisses me off when I read some random VR novel or something that has a person stomping through competition with random stat titles, unique classes, amazing weapons, and whatnot. Even if you have a good class, you have to have pro mechanics to even have a shot at beating any other pro player, even with an advantage.

And yes, I'll be the first to admit it. Ye Xiu's umbrella is this "unique" class advantage that I was just talking about. But going back to my previous point, as if he's a bad player. He's got talent and skill to back it up. He's one of the best, and having the umbrella wouldn't do you any good if you weren't one of the best. Ye Xiu makes the umbrella look broken because its HIM playing the character and using the weapon. Him winning three championships on a standard battle mage isn't for show. It doesn't really matter what class he plays, because he's bound to be one of the best regardless of which one he chooses.

Lastly, of course, let's not forget that this novel has flaws. Despite my high praises, it's obviously not perfect. Honestly, for an online game's fighting mechanics to be more complicated than a Xianxia novel or just real life combat, you know that this game would never actually exist in real life. Let alone trying to make this game a reality, just patching something would be a nightmare. It'd be impossible. But honestly, this is more of an upside rather than a con for me, since it just makes the novel that much more immersive. You get to know the mechanics of the game step by step. You know when a maneuver is considered "amazing." You know the combos, skills, and the strengths of weaknesses of each class. You get to know the actual real life cast very well. The slow paced of the entire novel makes this so much of a better read. It's much better to have details than not have them at all.

Plus, there are quite a few unrealistic things going on.

Bad players don't get replaced by better players in Ye Xiu's team, but that would obviously never happen in an actual professional team setting.

Pro players get "too tired" after playing a match. Ok, I get it if you're playing football. But man, its an online game. A few days rest is certainly going to replenish your physical fatigue, of course, maybe not your mental fatigue.

This novel is also obviously a "good guys win" sort of novel

<spoiler>

Ye Xiu is able to find amazing rookies that even other scouting camps can't do. They actually get good enough to make it to professional league after a year of practice. They win championships after winning Challenger league.

</spoiler>

Yet, just like how in Lord of the Rings where no one important dies and good guys win, this novel isn't bad because the ending is unrealistic. It's because the ending isn't really what you're there for. It's the journey there. Just like Lord of the Rings, the journey Ye Xiu makes towards the end is truly what you're there for.

The King's avatar is amazing novel, and no other VRMMORPG novel / e-sports novel comes close to what this novel will do. And if you disagree?

1v1 me in Arena. <<less

This sh*t's the real deal. Period. The comedy (stories with shameless characters are always the best in this aspect, esp if the MC's one of them), the world building, the plot itself, the characters, the freakin MC--everything's so well done, not to mention all the lessons and motivation the story has to offer.

This is my first time reading a CN web novel that has no romance (honestly, tis my first of this genre) ; I also avoid novels with such amount of chapters, but deym I read through it all... more>> like I've been deprived, all my life, of having to read such marvelous stories. I laughed so hard, I felt my heart melt everytime, I felt choked up at times; in short, you'll feel all sorts of emotion. But you know what? You'll feel pride like you've never felt before; no matter what your age is, you'll feel like a parent joyfully watching your children grow and finally having to witness them reach their highest, their peak, their fullest. And until I've read this novel, I never knew how great that feeling is. I honestly feel sad that I'd never been this proud irl ?

I'm done with the novel (though, got to wait for the last four chapters' translation, need to reread the ending without MTL lol), the anime, the drama... now on to the manhua ???? this sh*ts so deym addicting, believe meeeee <<less

This is a masterpiece. I'm not just saying this because I appreciated it, but it's truly superb. Let me explain.

There's a super popular MMORPG called "Glory". So the context of this e-sport is the PvP format of this game. The MC is one of the greatest players ever on this game. But because of sneaky superiors and for purely commercial reasons he was forced to retire.

First of all, I'd like to mention that this is a "real MMORPG" and not any VR bullshit. It's explained quite often that there are... more>> players, controlling characters with a keyboard and mouse. Unlike what it might seem, this setting, which is much closer to the real world makes the reader more comfortable with the story and they can ampathize more with the characters than in some unrealistic sci-fi VRMMORPG setting.

Okay, now let's start reviewing the contents.

This is not simply a story with characters doing this or that. Obviously, we follow what the characters do, how they act, how they grow and how they interact with each other... but through the MC's fall from grace and all his efforts to climb back to the professional world, and, when back in the professional world, all the efforts and trials he and his team had to go through to finally become champions the reader learns about e-sport. Not just the fictional "Glory" but the who industry behind e-sports. We are shown how teams are managed, the sponsorships, the tournaments, the behind the scenes training, the media and the relationship between all of them.

As mentioned earlier, the MC is one of the most experienced, most talented players in this game. So... What now? Is this another sory with an OP main character? Well, yes and no. Sure, he's OP, but everyone knows it. He's recognized as being god-tier in this game. Besides, he has 10 years of experience to back up his OPness, making him very different from all those other OP characters in other novels where they start as brats and show signs of how strong they are by skipping processes and evolving much faster than others. Also, his experience is the basis that allows him to be able to create a new team to become pro again. He has experience, as such he can train others, explain the details and quirks of each class and help them improve steadily.

That's it for the MC (anything more is a spoil). Let's see the other characters. Surprisingly enough, each character has depth. And by that, I don't mean the main characters, or even their rivals, or friends... Each and every single character present in this story has its own defined personality. Whether its a smart characterwhich is shy and has no confidence in its skills beacuse those skills are truly lacking rather than being good but unconfident; or if it's a talented and naive idiot, or a tragically faithful friend, or an MC who isn't so much arrogant as he conscious of his own level and many, many, many others (as I said (every, frickin' single one)... each of them has quirks, strengths and weaknesses. You may love them, you may hate them, you may find them annoying or you might have a soft spot for them, but they are so well developped that you will necessarily feel something towards them.

I'd also like to applaud the author for his style in the description of the characters: the narrator never describes what the characters' personalities are like; you can feel it through their interactions with each other. Doing it this way is risky as the reader might misunderstand sometimes, but he's made their personalities so strong that by using this methode there are much deeper ties and understanding of the character's psychs than with mere description. Bravo.

It might sound simple and obvious but... there are no plotholes. You might say that such a thing is to be expected in a story, but remember this one is 1.8k chapters long. Making no mistakes for that long is actually quite impressive.

And while we're talking about the technical details, there is no "luck" or "plot armor". When a character wins or loses, the reasons are clearly explained. What were his or her mistakes. What strategy was or should have been used etc. You don't get the feeling of "he won thanks to plot armor".

This story details the growth and evolution of each character. Be it their technique, their skills, their maturity, their knowledge or anything else, you can actually feel them grow from one chapter to the next. It's not some sort of "we need them to be strong from now on, so they'll be strong". Their training methods and the experience obtained through them are explained. Yet at the same time, not too detailed, thus managing to keep the reader from being bored.

Also, there's no romance. Yeah, that's it for this paragraph. But I thought I'd mention it since I was actually quite satisfied with not having some super handsome MC getting a harem or whatnot.

I might get lynched for this, but I'd like to contradict many people here. The ingame characters don't show emotions! It has been said many, many times that the ingame characters have blank expressions. What is described is the expressions of the players.

Now, this story isn't exactly perfect (I would have rather put a 4.5 than a 5, but it deserves so, so much more than a mere 4 that I chose to give it 5).

There are a couple faults that everyone has noticed:

That is to say that the fights are somewhat repetitive. But interestingly enough, even this fault makes the whole story hold together and strengthens the realistic setting. Why is that? Because this is a game. Of course there's a limited amount of moves to be used and players of a specific class will only use specific moves. What did you expect, that everyone would be able to move exactly how they want and use any move possible? This is a realistic story about a normal game.

The second fault is that there is way too much grinding. Again, this makes the story more realistic. Has any of you ever played an MMORPG? I dare anyone who has ever played one to tell me that at the very least, 60% of the game isn't grinding, grinding and grinding again to get better equipments and other stuff! Again, this is not a "mistake", but a "choice" the author has made in order to anchor this game in a realitic setting, showing how the ingame process of an MMORPG actually works.

Spoiler

Here's a detail. Finally, and quite surprisingly barely anyone has noticed this... but the game can't exist. At some times, during some fights, you would litterally need three hands to play it. It's just a detail and it doesn't remove any pleasure from reading it but... for finnicky, picky readers, I figured I'd mention it

[collapse]

And that concludes my explanation. If you're looking for a fantasy cultivation story some isekai or any other dime a dozen story, then don't waste your time here. But, if you want a somewhat realistic story with interesting characters who evolve in the e-sport community, then this is a must read. Or if you just want to enjoy yourself reading a well written and enthralling novel, then once again, you shouldn't miss this. <<less

It's far from perfect, but it is really really really good.

I started reading this after watching the anime, which I have recommended to countless people. I generally dislike super long 1000+ chapter stories because they tend to suffer from pacing issues, many details about nothing, etc. The anime helped me gain a quick understanding of the story and skim past a lot of the more boring parts (especially in the beginning when the author goes overboard with the descriptions of every class/every move).

The novel does suffer from pacing issues up... more>> to a certain point. The first time I read this, I quit during the Deception arc because it felt like 100 chapters of describing a couple hours of in-game events, which was dragging on and on. However, I couldn't stop thinking about this story and returned to it a couple months later. After making it past that section, the rest of the novel, especially the Returning League arc, has much better pacing and much less grinding.

Despite all of it's flaws, I haven't regretted reading this. The characters are all 3-dimensional, the world feels very real, and the reasoning for the game is pretty logical. (The complaints about APM and other mechanics described are true only towards the level of modern games we have right now; it absolutely has no bearing on the game in the story, which is more similar to Blade&Soul with more advanced mechanics. It's not like League or Overwatch.) It's completely worth the awards it won.

P.S. Everytime I read this, I get hit so hard with MMORPG nostalgia. Makes me want to pick one up again. <<less