A Hacker's Ascent

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2021

Author

ARXK

• Chapter 7: Talk
  Aug 4, 2021
• Chapter 6: Social Execution
  Aug 3, 2021
• Chapter 5: A Game of Chess
  Aug 2, 2021
• Chapter 4: Confrontation
  Jul 30, 2021
• Chapter 3: Incrimination
  Jul 29, 2021
• Chapter 2: This is School?
  Jul 28, 2021
• Chapter 1: A New Beginning
  Jul 27, 2021

Reviews

Community Reviews(8)

• B.C. FaJohnRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I have to start off by saying I'm not sure why this story has so many critical reviews. I am finding it an absolute blast to read.
  While this review was for a swap, I can confidently say I will continue reading this on my down time (which is infrequent, sorry author!!). It's fun, interesting, and the gamelit/litrpg elements are super easy to follow.
  Style
  The style is fun and easy to follow. Sentence structure wasn't distracting or awkward, and the elements of litrpg/gamelit were integrated nicely. One of the largest downfalls to litrpg that hasn't been edited over is I often feel like the game-like elements are forced in. It breaks immersion, but luckily, this author has integrated with minimal distractions and the stat boxes feel like they belong there.
  Grammar
  I didn't really see much to complain about here! Good job.
  Story
  It should be noted that this is not an isekai. The author warned me about this prior to the swap, so naturally when I was reading it I was looking for any indication that would make readers think it was one... unsurprisingly, I agreed with the author. Many reviewers were wrong in thinking this is an Isekai! The character wakes up after dying, yes, but the elements of this story do not fall in line with a traditional isekai IMO.
  If you go into the story with that expectation, it is such a fun read. This world is interesting, dynamic, and fun. The elements of hacking and the MC learning their "Pgrms" as titled in the stat charts are AWESOME. The hacking elements to the story remind me of Deus Ex and I'm all for it - that's one of my favorite games so no wonder I found the story so fun.
  It's unique and complex without becoming confusing, which is an acheivement with a cyberpunky story revolving around gamelit and hacking.
  Character
  Bryan is dynamic. His fatal end is heartbreaking, and his confusion is apparent. He takes every aspect of getting that second chance and uses it to his advantage, and approaches a terrifying new experience head on. I e
• Edge ValmondRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Starts out common, but interesting I will say. While it is nothing new, I have to give credit. A person dying, then waking up in a game world? That is something worth a praise, but only a little.
  Anyway, this story seems to have two sides to it. One with the day to day life, another of the Dark Net. I gotta say, this actually has me a bit interested. The main character is some kind of hacker I believe, which for once, this is a fun thing to read through. Now, I do have one complaint. Just describe ‘BOOM!’ rather than saying, ir would contribute to the story part quite a bit more that way. Same with ‘CLICK!’
  Anyway, you get the point on what is not needed. Moving on, I think this story is covering before Bryan died. How he is reflecting on his life, a bully in his life, as well as how that bully is protected. I guess this is normal, and to be expected in all honesty.
  Overall, this story has a solid mix. While I am still not sure if this is reflecting on Bryan’s death or not. It has a balance between the world and the game-like feel. There is actually a story to it as well. I don’t think I have complaints here, if anything, can use a bit more descriptions. Though, that is all really. It is a GameLit I will recommend, also, had to fix a problem with the review. I made a mix up with the genres.
• Genuine55Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Right off the bat - I'm not a huge fan of Isekai, and I tend to dislike cyberpunk. Seriously, other than the opening line to Neuromancer, I think Gibson is hugely overrated. I'm also totally unfamiliar with anime, manga, and related tropes. So I may say things in this review that are wildly incorrect.
  Also, if I'm never quite sure if something was deliberate or not, I err in assuming the author is a genius.
  All of that being said - I hugely enjoyed this story.
  To repeat, and to sum up, I hugely enjoyed this story.
  Right off the back, I think this is a brilliant satire of isekai tropes. And like the best satires, I'm not even certain it is satire. This story involves someone being born into a body already partially through its life, getting improbable skills via a supernatural interface that only the MC can see, high school bully and pervert teacher drama, and a nascent semi-incestous romance with a step sister.
  And all of those are twisted from their usuall appearance. The body he's born into happens to live in the same world he originally lived in - he dies in one country and is reborn in another. The 'fantasy' world is basically an ersatz earth, with no major differences. The improbable skills take almost as long to learn as if he'd just studied them normally - it takes him ~4 months of effort and practice to become proficient at Java. The bully, teacher, and step sister are played relatively straight, though theres an over-the-top element to the prose that makes all the descriptions and interactions feel tongue in cheek.
  I also want to praise the story for not immediately forgetting the MC's past life. Elements from it crop up and inform the story, which is wonderful.
  Keep up the good work!
• BullerRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  Read the first few chapters without too many problems attached. Even if there were a few places with weird word choices, I couldn't see this as something bad inherently. Most of the stuff is well-written, with a style fitting the genre(which isn't an isekai. That fact is very important for the author.)
  The main characters do have some quirks to them that left me with a brow raised a couple of times. Not entirely sure what they were supposed to be at the start, though it gets better with time passing. Good on the author for that
  4.5/5 from me.
• TaxReligionRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  This is the story of a guy named Bryan that is isekai'd at death, or rather time travelled back to the same fictional world, taking over someone else's body and presumably supplanting their consciousness, killing the original owner of the body?
  The world seems a lot like our own.  High school drama, family drama, cellphones, internet, Java coding.  But it's not our world.  Bryan also now has a system that revolves around coding and hacking.
  The system surprisingly doesn't have much influence on the story so far in what I've read.  After all, he starts out at level 1, and so far it doesn't just hand him anything.  So far, I think the story is this fiction's strongest aspect.  Although I did find that people were too quickly impressed with the MC.  Such as him not being nervous going to the principal's office results in the principal being immediately afraid of him.  Other than that, the story is nicely dark, has a well-done setup and payoff, has interesting and relevant stakes, and is often surprising.
  The weakest part of this fiction is the grammar and style.  The grammar is pretty bad.  Missing words, wrong tenses, bad punctuation.  I highly recommend the author spend some time editing his work.  Look up how to use dialogue tags too, since that was a consistent problem I noticed.
  Also, there is too much telling, especially when it comes to the side characters.  When his step-sister is introduced it does into this long paragraph about how she hates him but used to love him because of this or that.  Basically spelling out her entire motivation where it would have been more interesting to learn it through her interactions with the MC.  This happened a few times with other side characters.
  Character: As I said, people seemed too easily impressed with the MC.  But the MC is an active character, proactively engaging with the world to achieve his goals.  He is not a cookie-cutter protagonist, he's an anti-hero that ventures into the villainous lead territory.
  I think with
• _Fowl_Royal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  Very webnovelistic start. The MC reincarnates inside the body of a "loser" with the same name.
  The MC has a hacker system. It vaguely reminded me of "My Vampire System". It works in a similar fashion. We see the MC with a personal system only he owns and can see.
  In the first chapters, he goes on using it to get revenge
  Now, a couple of problems I have with the novel reside in how the MC behaves. This novel is named "A Hacker's Ascent". Therefore, seeing the MC physically beat three goons in chapter four was a big WTF moment.
  This novel has some xianxia-like moments that are a bit out of place. The meeting with the principal could have been more suspenseful: if the author had placed it better in the course of the story and dragged it out a little, it could have had a massive impact on us. What I envisioned for the novel was sort of a hidden world slowly unfurling. However, the pacing is kind of screwing it up for the reader.
  While the style is not bad, it still feels desynchronized with the story. The principal thing and the physical fight are two highlights. If the author were less hasty, there would have been a totally different impact.
  The characters are fine; we don't see as many interactions as you would think, in the first part. However, they are still fleshed out and realistic.
  With an editor, this novel could go places.
• Blind SerpentRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  This story has great potential. The details that come up regarding the "system" in the world and the overall structure of things are quite intriguing. I always like an old brain in a new body type of stories.
  Why I say great potential?
  There are a lot of improvements to be had with style and grammar. The POV moves pretty frequently and while somewhat clear, it could be better - simply by adding "***" perhaps.
  The overall writing style needs some polish, but this is something that comes from experience. Which is why I didn't let it affect the overall scroll too much.
  Some of the manner things are described, repetition of words, etc. those could be improved too. There are occasional typos and sentence structure issues, but once again, that resolves with practice.
  The story itself is very engaging. High School life isn't my cup of tea, but I can still appreciate the story itself. The first Arc with one fo the teachers was good, the resolution was good and it set up quite nicely for the next Arc.
  We have some interesting characters popping up and the plot thickens - as they say. The MC also finds out all manner of intriguing things about his world, which I enjoyed.
  Character:
  The MC, being a teen, behaves like a teen. Narration also somewhat follows that "vibe", so I am not sure whether it's on purpose or not. The MC looks to have good potential as a character and I am pretty invested in seeing how his problems get resolved.
  The other characters... although flavourful, they are a bit tropey. The women are very similar - beautiful, attractive, and do what they do in anime. So perhaps thats the style?
  Anyway, a lot of things to polish, but the core ideas and story are really good, so it is worth a read, especially if highschool and cyberpunk are your thing.
• MusicarnaRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 3.5

  This story isn't my cup of tea for one major reason. The author's description of female characters frequently make note of their attractiveness. Granted, the male characters are described in great detail too, but considering this doesn't seem written with the intent of being a smut or harem novel, this seems odd to me.
  However, I was sufficiently hooked by other aspects of the story to carry on, and this review will cover those aspects in more detail.
  In summary - A Hacker's Ascent should not be treated as a deep novel with many intricacies to be unfolded, nor is it an action packed adventure with rapid paced plot.
  This is an isekai novel with a simplistic plot and cookie cutter characters, but with a few things that make it stand out from the sea of isekai. Read this with the mindset of exploring the author's take on a LITRPG focused around hacking.
  For starters, our protagonist doesn't have super powers. The system here grants him the ability to learn how to hack networks and in all likelihood, eventually become a cyberpunk 2077 style hacker.
  But it does not let him cast fireballs, stop time, or even just have stronger muscles.
  The world he reincarnates in an ordinary world by all standards, with the only oddity being the system that at present moment, only the protagonist is aware of.
  Also, the system is remarkably unhelpful, considering that Bryan still has to take time to properly learn how to code and program, a feat that takes several months... just for Javascript. A nice change of pace from systems wihich are all too eager to show the protagonist their built-in encyclopedias.
  So if you wish to try a different kind of Isekai, this is it. A solid first attempt at a novel by the author, who I hoped will not be discouraged by my review, or any others. For a first story, there is dedication to improving at work here, and I look forward to more.
  Style:
  I wish I could say it was okay. But there are many glaring issues here that detract from the reading experience q