A healthy mind in a healthy body

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

288 A.D, he was born.

297 A.D, he realised he had evil impulses.

298 A.D he heard of Anthony of Egypt, and sought to follow his example to learn how to suppress his impulses.

303 A.D, he saw his people be persecuted.

306 A.D, his world changed thrice, the persecutions ended forever, this fact and his hermit lifestyle brought him peace which came with strange abilities, and through them he joined the Hidden Side of the World, back then not yet hidden.

307 A.D, he sought for a way to cure myself, yet he stumbled across something more. A reckless ritual connected him to a well of knowledge, driving him insane and immortal, causing him to be treated as a commodity in the supernatural community, an Oracle.

2019 A.D, its been 1712 years, and the lusitanian has ended up in the other side of the world in less than wholesome hands, a place which may have answers about the mysteries of his abilities, when an unexpected event cuts the connection and his sanity and mortality return.

Gaius Atiius Quadratus will not forget this kindness.

The MC is based on the monk class of many rpgs, but the story isn't Litrpg. Also he will gain non monk abilities after a while.

Fair warning I don't understand the rating system but I'll say M-rated just in case. This is my first story, I accept criticism but I would like the critic to explain the reasoning behind it. Also I'm still figuring how this site works and I have no schedule so updates may be sporadic, at least once a week.

Not a native speaker but in the practices, too lazy to actually get the diploma, I got an average of 9.7 out of 10 at the Cambridge C1 level, the CAE, second highest european level for foreign languages, so it should be no problem. Foto taken from Wikipedia. Cover made by me, excuse my utter lack of artistic talent.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2019
Author: reluctant writer

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 147
Views: 58,512

Reviews

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Community Reviews(3)

TheLoserEllimistRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This guy is supposed to be a devout christian monk? He's not only cursing left and right, but calls his Sabbath / Sunday a day where he has nothing else to do? It's not one he spends in devoted prayer?
I really like the idea of the story, and even some of the plot but dear god the character development. Please stay true to your characters. They need work. And devotion.
(Also, some of the more rapid-fire back and forth conversations could use some help at least in terms of informing the reader of who the speaker is - but this annoyed me less than a christian monk cursing and not praying on Sundays when he still considers himself a "good christian" and defines that very... strictly when it comes up in covnersation).
I don't want to leave on a sour note so I'll add that the world building and details of magic are very well thought out.
memahaloRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Been pretty good so far. The storys about a devout, catholic, used-to-be hermit, monk from the past in a hidden supernatural society. Very little focus on the hidden part and focus more on the mc's story doing things and growing/learning within his group. His transition to current day society is also a big factor, but is not done in a traditional way (whats this talking box?).
Abouy one spelling error every chapter that I remember. The start is a bit weak and the characters personalities take a bit to get developed with the mc's personality taking the longest to show. POV changes just kinda happen, but they are usually understandable of whose pov its from from context. All that being said, the quality personally feels like it has increased over the story so far (ch 32). The details put into the religons/magic definitely feels like a heck of a lot of research has been put into and the way the author works these details into the story is phenomenal. All of the characters (eventually) have a defined personality, though they may feel kinda... flat(?) at times. Not sure how to describe it. However, it definitely has potential and I will personally be reading future releases.
Spoiler: Spoiler
Also those extras have some really cool concepts
StenDuringRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Take one sixteen hundred year old monk from Rome and insert him in a Japan filled with magic and supernatural beings. What do you get?
Some serious slapstick.
This review is valid as of chapter 18.
This is a supernatural slice of life with a little action thrown in from time to time. We follow a Roman monk recently awakened from insanity as he tries to adapt to everyday life in a magical society in an equally magical city in modern Japan. Did that make any sense?
Maybe not, but that's the premise, and we just have to roll with it. As a setup you could do worse as a reader, and it's not really a problem. There are, however, quote a few problems with the story.
First of all the pacing is all over the place. When there's action there's no brains, and when there's infodumping you literally get them by the chapter. I didn't know it was possible to make an already slow slice of life grind to a halt.
Secondly the English used is a mess. The story is riddled by grammatical errors and non standard dialogue tags. Add oddities with formatting and you have a visually problematic read.
Where I left off after eighteen chapters we've progressed from the begining of the story to the early middle part. Character interactions are in place, they have settled into their respective roles and by now they are ready to experience whatever awfulness that author is about to throw at them.
The story is written in third person limited point of view in the past tense. It mostly follows the standard for that format, and for the most part we're with the main character. This is done perfectly OK, and I have no complaints here.
While huge chunks of the story is allocated to verbose descriptions of the setting it's strangely absent whenever it counts. It's more like I vaguely rebember having been told about this building where the characters walk rather than experiencing them placing one foot ahead of another listening to the echoes of their soles.
Now for the stars.
Style: Three stars. It's uneven,