Delve

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Summary – Level 1:

Delve is an isekai litrpg that follows an average guy who just happened to wake up in a forest one day. He wasn’t summoned to defeat the demon lord or to save the world or anything like that, at least as far as he can tell. The only creature there to greet him was a regular old squirrel.

Soon enough, he meets other people, only to discover that he can’t speak the language, and that not everybody immediately trusts random pajama-wearing strangers they met in the middle of the wilderness. Things generally go downhill from there, at least until the blue boxes start appearing.

Delve is a story about finding your way in a new, strange, and dangerous world. It’s about avoiding death, figuring out what the heck is going on, and trying to make some friends along the way. It’s not about getting home, so much as finding a new one.

Did I mention that there will be math?

Summary – Level 2:

Okay, but what are you in for, really?

Well, this story is supposed to be realistic, or at least, as realistic as a fantasy litrpg can be. The main character doesn’t instantly become an all-powerful god and murder-hobo his way across the universe. Delve is, at its heart, a progression fantasy, but that progression is meant to feel earned. The numbers in this story actually mean something. Everything is calculated, and if you find a rounding error, I expect you to tell me about it. That said, if math isn’t your cup of tea, there is plenty more that the story has to offer. Characters are meant to feel real, and progression isn’t only about personal power; it’s also about allies, connections, and above all, knowledge. Figuring out how the system works is a significant theme.

...

What, you want more details? Okay, fine, but this is going to get a bit spoiler-y. Are you sure?

Really sure? I mean, this summary is practically half as long as the first chap–

Okay, okay!

The main character becomes a magic user, but he takes a route that is not very popular in adventurer culture, namely that of a support. There is a full magic system with various spells, skills, and abilities, but our MC decides that aura magic is the way to go, and that the only stat worth investing in is mana regeneration. Most people at the Adventurer’s Guild think that this makes him a bit of a dumbass, but he’s playing the long game. We’ll see how that works out for him, won’t we?

Because of his build, the MC levels up fast, at least compared to normal people. There are no cheats, though, and he is limited in other ways. There are some clear and pretty obvious downsides to his build. That’s what makes it fun, no?

Morals? Our MC has them. Again, we’ll see how that works out for him. Realism, remember? Would you be okay with killing someone and looting their body? I sure hope not.

POV? The focus is on the main character, but there will be occasional varying perspectives from people around him, or involved in the events related to the main plot. It isn’t going to jump all over the place.

Tech is standard medieval stasis. No smartphones, but the MC does have a technical background. Computers and their programming might be involved. There might even be a bit of uplifting down the road, who knows? Anyway, it isn’t the focus. He isn’t going to invent the gun in chapter 1 and change the face of warfare.

Romance is not a major focus. Friendships are more the name of the game, though there will be some characters in romantic relationships.

There is exploration, though not as much of the geographical nature as you might expect. It is more about exploration of the system and the culture.

The pace is slow and detailed, sometimes verging on slice-of-life. The action is meant to be realistic and grounded in the numbers, and it is intended to have meaning beyond simply punching things until they stop moving.

The general tone of the story is grey, and some parts can get quite dark. People die. Sometimes, people with names, but not anywhere near GoT level. There is plenty of light, too, though, to balance the darkness. The world is dangerous, but overcoming that danger is why we’re all here, isn’t it?

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far through the summary, you clearly like words. I hope you enjoy the story!

Cover by Miha Brumec

Summary Updated: 2020-06-14

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2019
Author: SenescentSoul

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 52
Views: 15,017

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

InvictosRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I had my doubts in the beginning considering how idealistic the mc was but sticking thru and seeing him slowly starting coming to terms with how things must be handled really brought up my opinion. Great so far, considering I finished all 200 chapters in two days. Cant wait for more chapters now that I'm hooked !
CyberskinRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So far this story delivers on all it's promises from the summary. If you love DnD, then this story is for you! I'm really surprised it's taken me this long to find this hidden gem after it's been out for over 3 years...I'm really looking forward to bingeing the rest of the story....so far it's rocketed into my top 5!
HoloSolRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Finally Royal Road gets a decent story about a pure mage...not another magical swordsman with a harem. Currently, this story reads as a slice of life. The MC is just slowly cultivating his abilities and exploring the world, while questing/doing side jobs to sustain this life style. I can definitely see the story diverging from this route once he can become more useful to other adventuring groups. I’m excited for when his build will start to come to fruition.
AzrageRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This story is great. It's well written and well edited, the characters are realistic, and the world building is solid. The only issue is that the story is pretty slow, although it feels like it might be switching back from building relationships between characters to progressing the plot right now. Should note that from about chapter 80 or so (if I'm not mistaken), the story started to focus less on the litrpg and math elements, but again, it feels to me that those elements are going to make a comeback soon enough.
twigthe1stRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Love it. Interesting world that has a history, unique characters. System and how local perceive it also good. Love the use of maths, sometimes it gets complex! Also the use of the different languages and missed in translation scenarios. Would strongly recommend. Interested to see what happens next.
MoonspikeRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
So far the story is pretty good if a bit slow. The main character is a min maxer trying to get everything he can out of his skills so he spends a lot of time going over them and testing synergys.
Mild spoilers ahead
I only have two problems. One is that the story seems to have no direction beyond getting stronger. We are only 30 chapters in and just met some new characters though so maybe that will change soon. The other one is with his teleportation, we get no explanation for it at all. As far as I can tell this isn't something that happens occasionally in the story, there is no evidence that an experiment with teleportation went awry, and no mention of divine intervention at all. He just gets teleported for no ryme or reason and I think that hurts the cohesion of the world building.
They are the only things I have really noticed a problem with and it's likely that it's just to early in the story for either of them to be resolved yet.
SyntheticAberrationRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I've currently read up to chapter 98 and I stayed because I really like the idea of someone who primarily uses auras, I've always enjoyed passive abilities and aura skills.
It's getting harder to read though because MC is a pushover, he's too nice and spineless. A good amount of chapters is math that's almost irrelevant to the story so that doesn't make it any better. I guess I've just been powering through hoping for him to harden up but it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen.
I think he's just going to stay as an MC who blushes when a female touches or talks to him.
forgedRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The writing in this story is great. The main problem for me is that the magic system is just that. The system. There is no nuance in learning how to manipulate mana or deep cosmic mysteries about anything. All magic amounts to is pushing a mental button, and growth is just hoping a special monster shows up but doesn't kill you. It is infuriatingly shallow. Also, the magic route the main character takes is currently quite awful. The story started strong, but got stale for me. Just not my cup of tea.
CiceroRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
Delve starts with tight, clear writing, an interesting premise, and good plot and system progress by the protagonist.
Unfortunately, it steadily gets bogged down by navel gazing nonsense in a soul/dream-world, awkward sociological/political tangents, dozens of random minor characters that we're expected to remember and care about, and the silliest Number Go Up minutiae by the protagonist.
The plot pacing goes from brisk to wading through frozen molasses, and thus commits the cardinal sin of any web serial: getting real boring. I'd recommend against reading unless you're eager for high hopes followed by grinding disappointment.
JarbleRoyal Road
★ 1.0
Overall a frustrating mess of a story.
Painfully lacking in ANY description. One of the most integral characters in the story is introduced as a blonde girl with a backpack. Then finally tens of chapters later we get the description that she has squinty eyes and tan skin. This happens continuously throughout the story.
Ever wanted to be trapped in the mind of an ADHD bum. Non-stop meandering thoughts. “I could spend my point to do this, or this. Maybe this.” Just tell me the result and the why. I don’t need 10 paragraphs of drivel to clutter the narrative. It’s so bad that you can completely skip these internal monologues and easily follow along with the story. 60% of the content could be cut leaving the story better off.
Shopping lists of objects. Do ONE thing at a time. Constantly the narrative is distracted by the main character getting distracted and doing something completely irrelevant to what he started.
No progression. 3000+ pages and the MC is still pathetic. This is an Adventure so why the author is purposely stunting the narrative by keep the character hostage in one city is beyond me.
World building is lacking. Again almost no description just a very generic overview. Good thing the author added those 40,000 words for useless inner monologue instead of actual building the world.
I feel my time was wasted reading this story. I hoped for it to improve but the core inadequacies remain.