RAZIEL [Progression Fantasy/LitRPG]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Note 2/2/2025:I haven't forgotten about this story. Raziel's story isn't over, and will be continued one day. I ran into an issue where, while I loved telling the story, it wasn't going in the direction I had initially planned. In my outline, we were supposed to be out of Bramblebog within 20k. As you can see, 70k words in and we aren't close to that point. I don't have any intention of doing a full rewrite of the story, but what will probably happen is that I finish this arc and leave it as a "prequel" and start a new story about Raziel's adventures further into the future.

As the village outcast, Raziel yearns to be one of the revered [Hunters].

But then his cousin disappears.

In Raziel's quest to become powerful enough to bring the village elite to justice, he finds an inheritance ground that his legendary ancestor left behind. Welcome to a new bloodthirsty world of arrogant nobles, dungeons, conspiracies, tenuous alliances, & academy life at the Royal Institute of Dragon Warfare.

A Slowburn Dark Fantasy Adventure Story

Expectations (Spoilers):

+ MC is a child in the first arc, then there will be a time-skip

+ Spell Cards (limited amount of skills&abilities / similar to the Reverend Insanity gu system)

+ Xuanhuan/cultivation flavored setting

+ Weak to OP morally gray MC + extremely OP dragon

[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon Challenge 2024]

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2024
Author: Selethe

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 1,289
Views: 153,907

Chapters(31 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

AgayekRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Stumbled on this earlier today, and I've gotta say, I'm intrigued. It's early days yet, obviously, but it's got the hallmarks of a story going places. The steady dripfeed of fascinating tidbits and strong character voices have hooked me, with subtle hints of stolen souls and forgotten mysteries. I'm not usually a fan of card systems, so we'll have to see how that one plays out, but there's implications to what little we've seen so far that suggest it won't be nearly as random as most such systems.
The characters and prose only deepen my appreciation for it, honestly. Personality oozes out of the page, with character voices so clear and distinct they can be identified at a glance. It's very well done. Even the child narrator, a common trap of less-experienced authors, is compelling and interesting in his own right. I'm not sure I'd like to remain in his childhood forever, but it's certainly not going to wear out its welcome soon. The sense of... purity innate to children is portrayed so well, and it's such a breath of fresh air in the litrpg space, that I find myself enjoying it in spite of my usual tastes.
I did not come in expecting to enjoy this even half as much as I did, but now that I've read it, I must say that I'm really looking forward to where this one goes.
Contrad2Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
What happened? Is the author coming back anytime soon. Really loved the story one of the best written stories on RR. Hope you are okay/well Selethe. Love the story so can't wait to see what happens in the story next hope you can really get back to writing, I know sometimes real life stuff comes in the way but I hope you can get to writing thus wonderful story.
Edwin HamelRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Phenomenal. Exceptional writing, it flows. The story seems like it could be out of any star writer's notebook. I spent the morning reading that and I didn't skip a page, which is almost unheard of. Hat down, good job to the writer.
I never leave reviews but I had to help that story get more attention.
PyrazaelRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Off to a good start, the main character is likeable and strives to do what's right, the int interactions are fluid, the pace is steady, and the conversations flow.
I haven't read a card collector tale for a while and the authors holding steady with a simple but detailed system. Magic and cards and stat's. What more could you want?
I'm looking forward to seeing what comes
Ya BoyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm not usually a fan of LitRPG/Xianxia fusions. One always seems to consume the other - either it's a cultivation fic with a few text boxes that give the MC an edge and nothing else, or it's a system fic with a cultivation core that gives the MC an edge and nothing else. This story isn't either of those things. The setting is incredibly Xianxia, but the LitRPG system is also surprisingly well-realized after just under twenty chapters as of this review. It doesn't feel like either one is stepping on the other's toes, and that alone is an unexpected plus.
The style is very distinct. The protagonist is still young, and campy in his mannerisms, but the plot events themselves are very dark at times. When I describe it like that, it sounds dissonant, but in execution it works very well. The dark moments, and the pervasive sense of mystery in the early chapters, really make the protagonist's personality pop. The story touches on a few surprisingly deep/dark/depressing topics, but it doesn't wallow in them. You never feel like you're suffocating, or worry that you'll cut yourself on the edge, while you're reading.
The story's grammar is solid, well above the webnovel standard. What few mistakes there are, the author promptly resolves once they're pointed out. The prose is clear and eminently readable.
The story itself had a slow burn start, but it immediately hit its stride in Chapter 12 with the beginning of the Spirit Society arc. The narrative promised by the title, synopsis, cover art, etc. really starts to make itself known from that point on, and the atmosphere doesn't change so much as it zooms out to give the reader a glimpse of what's to come. And so far, it's looking promising. I wasn't expecting spirit hell, I'll be honest, but I'm also not mad about it.
As for the characters, they're carrying a lot of this story's charm on their backs. In many ways, they embody the cheesiest Xianxia tropes that every cultivation weeb holds close to their heart. But they also ha
lungsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story is set in a swamp.
Of course, I mean that both literally and metaphorically.
LitRPG is a warm, cozy mire that's easy to sink into. It is a genre that thrives on being comfortable and accommodating to a reader. It is a genre that solves annoying problems during the writing process for the author.
Swamps stink - of rotting plant matter that will soon be peat, that will probably never become diamonds even with a few million years of time. They stink of sulphurous gases that pollute the air for miles around, ground that never manages to dry and good ideas that never manage to reach their full potential.
I generally avoid entering swamps and reading LitRPGs. If someone should ever try to lure you into a swamp, you should probably fear for your life.
Now, with all of that being said, Dragon Riding Battle School is a "progression fantasy deckbuilding LitRPG" set in a swamp. Despite all of its immutable disadvantages, such as being titled Dragon Riding Battle School, being a progression fantasy, being a deckbuilding litrpg (which is a subgenre I wasn't aware of until I read this), and being set in a swamp, it's really good.
It passes the most basic litmus test easily - no easily noticeable mistakes in grammar or spelling. This is kind of a binary category for me. If there are noticeable problems, it's unreadable. There's nothing wrong with the story in this regard.
Stylistically speaking, I think this story is a delight. The prose is evocative and pretty, but also tightly measured. The prose is highly detailed, but never dense. Just within a few chapters, the hallmark of the author's writing is immediately obvious - scene setting done via frankly enviable turns of phrase that are concise but vivid. There's always at least a few sentences in every chapter that, as an author, I wish I wrote.
It's still early in the life of the story, but it's clear that the style of writing extends to the character work. The characters are, on a whole, sharply defined. Many works o
HaltWriteRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Usually for these LitRPG / Xianxia hybrids, there's a tendency for one to consume the other. Do text boxes reign supreme, or does the cultivation core?
And Selethe has done a great job avoiding that here. The story seeps with Xianxia, but the LitRPG elements aren't subsumed under it.
The protag is a young, campy fellow representing some of the best types of protags I like. None of this grimdark BS that pervades stories nowadays. This isn't to say the world is all sunshine and roses --- the story is incredibly dark at points, but Selethe executes it well. This is metamodernism at its finest, never hiding that the world can be ugly, but never taking an almost perverse joy in wallowing in the misery.
Grammar is solid, well above standard. Few mistakes if any that I noticed, and doesn't really take away from the reading experience. Nothing much more to say about it other than it does its job well, and really what more can you ask for from grammar?
The story starts slow, but when it hits its stride, man it hits. It all starts coming together without really abandoning the charm of the initial chapters. It's a very satisfying payoff to the wait. This is extremely promising and one of the few stories I look forward to for updates!
And finally, of course, is the characters. Characters are key, they're central. Characters determine if I love or hate a story. And the characters here slap. So much of the story's charm is built on the characters, and it's not to say the other aspects are bad, but rather that the characters are just that good. You see all the cheesy Xianxia tropes anyone from r/martialmemes would be readily familiar with, but they're also very human still. Not mere caricatures, but having gone past that, reached behind the curtain and have layers to them.
Give it a shot, you won't be wasting your time
ProtoFire8Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Reading the synopsis, I thought it sounded a lot like the new dragon rider book I'd been seeing other authors post about, just with cards. Instead, it's the same book but like Selethe mentioned a few chapters ago (from my posting this), the new title RAZIEL better captures this story. While it is the name of our protagonist, it also feels right for this story because there is so much less there and our boy Raziel is fairly simple and straightforward like the new title.
What really brought me to this story wasn't even the dragons, I passed over the story before when it was named Dragon Riding Battle School, but was instead the hope that someone would finally be able to do a good job with incorporating cards into a magic system since I enjoyed Shinzo and Yugioh when I was younger, but no one I have found can write a good story involving cards, which is a big ask anyway. But even this early into the book, the magic card system seems to be good and should be sustainable.
This is all supported by the strong writing style. It is written well and doesn't make me cringe every page or two because the author can't keep their own ideas straight, switching up what things are called that don't make sense. Instead, the continuity is there, and like many good stories it seems more like Selethe watched this play out or actually lived it, and is simply putting words to the page.
PhantoxicRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
actual review: 2.5/5. I don’t like giving very negative reviews on up and coming novels as to not discourage the author.
Writing this review at 2 am so forgive my lack of cohesive thought
Summary: This story draws the most parallels to “All the Skills.” Basically describes a prepubescent boy on his mission to gather some cards and ultimately (I assume) bond with a dragon.
Criticisms: much like what the title of this review says, there is genuinely a lack of substance.
I think the biggest thing that pissed me off is the new advent of novels such as this one that claim to be inspired by Reverend Insanity yet hold little to nothing in common at all.
The plot meanders and there is no drive to keep reading. You can likely skim through an entire chapter reading a total of 5 sentences and still understand the plot. Additionally, characters and dialogue are rather stupid. Some parts of the conversation don’t feel real and characters lack any defining characteristics or adherence to ones established.
Finally, this is a double edged sword but the author is ambitious. Attempted to use a Western mana system + a heart card slot system + isolated village medieval time period + cultivation inheritance and alchemy system that while unique, is poorly executed and likely highly confusing for individuals that did not read the litany of titles this novel claims inspiration from.
Grey HoundRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Giving a 3 star cause it's alright but the moment we went to some other dimension type crap lost me in a heart beat, just......no, would have been a 4 for first review but stories where you just pop to another dimension is just not interesting enough for me to even want to read it, funny thing is I was actually enjoying this story so far then bam dream dimension or some crap with ghouls having a political marriage.......just what? Is this a story or a fever dream?