Spice! [Progression]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

About the story: Slice of life, progression fantasy (no litrpg nor ranks), superheroes, character-driven, strong to stronger, side-character growth, alternative modern world, individualised powers in a flexible power system (think JJK & HxH). MC starts at age seventeen. Power system is first explained in chapters 11.1, 13.1 & 16.1. It will take a while for the MC’s progression to kick in (about 100k words), with slow worldbuilding that expands from arc 2 onwards. We begin in a military-esque setting—a bit melancholic and introspective. Rest assured, we won’t be staying there. Posting 2026: 2 chapter drop every mid-month(ish) totalling 7k-12k words. I’m Australian; some of the terminology & spelling will be funny. One month after graduating from one of the most prestigious Will Academies in the world, Maeven Riel’s repertoire of super abilities vanishes into thin air.Left with nothing, she joins the military. About the writer: I like personality, diverse arcs and open worlds, slightly faster-paced writing, characters hanging out and doing what they want (perhaps not getting what they imagined), choreographing action scenes using my definitely very accurate knowledge of UFC—um, I mean MMA. I wanted to write in a world of superpowered people, but not so much the capes and call signs. I wanted to zone in on the journey of an MC that I don’t see portrayed a lot, at least in the mainstream media; that is, an introverted girl with remarkable capabilities but almost no desire to flaunt them. I love writing this a lot. If you stick around, thank you.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2024
Author: waterlily

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.7/ 5.0
Followers: 749
Views: 117,404

Chapters(51 total)

What readers say about Spice! [Progression]

“I love this story so much! The world is so creative with the mix of realism and powers. Maeven is also so unique, it's refreshing to see her alternative perspective as we progress through the story. I was honestly hooked from the first chapter. I'm a friend…”
unnowneonRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Let me get this out of the way first. This story is about a character with depression. They will not be an active, driving force in the story for a while. If you can’t stand reading a passive main character, even if just until they’ve developed, this story…”
The Young PyromancerRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

unnowneonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I love this story so much! The world is so creative with the mix of realism and powers. Maeven is also so unique, it's refreshing to see her alternative perspective as we progress through the story. I was honestly hooked from the first chapter.
I'm a friend of waterlily's and im blown away by everything she writes. I'm sitting here already looking forward for the next chapters to come out!
The Young PyromancerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let me get this out of the way first. This story is about a character with depression. They will not be an active, driving force in the story for a while. If you can’t stand reading a passive main character, even if just until they’ve developed, this story is not for you.Now that those people are gone, this story is fantastic. It’s extremely common for Royal Road stories to be inconsistent in quality. There’s a lot of things that start well and even make it to Rising Stars off of a strong opening, then quickly deteriorate because the author hasn’t thought things through enough. Other stories have fantastic moments that overshadow and obscure a more general mediocrity, like Magical Girl Gunslinger.With that in mind, this story doesn’t have a strong opening. It doesn’t have any super peak moments. Instead, it’s just quietly consistently written well. There’s no plot holes, poorly paced segments, lackluster characters-none of that. I can’t point to a single aspect of the story that’s objectively bad*. Atop a base of reasonable prose and multifaceted characters, it’s slowly developing a compelling tale that’ll be absolutely fantastic when complete.The only reason I rate Story lower than the other categories is that it feels like we’re still in the rising action stage of the story. The plot’s kicked off, but things are more or less on the rails. It’s only when things go off the rails and the characters are forced out of their comfort zone that I can give this 5 across the board.*I have one gripe that isn’t objective. The protagonist has lost her willpower-based magic because of (presumably) depression. This is an established thing in setting. The problem is the protagonist has it worse than anyone else ever has, apparently. Now, if this is because there’s something funky going on, I’m perfectly happy with that. If there isn’t, however, this is harmful. It would be saying a somewhat severely depressed character’s struggles are the worst that anyone has ever had. Of course
duaunrahRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really like the characters in the story, they feel humane, and I want to know more about them and what makes them tick. In particular Maeven, who is so very much relatable. Even though she has some super Will, it is nice to have a MC who is dealing with the same difficulties we are all dealing with, trying to find her path.
Also, I found that the where everyone’s Will originates from quite interesting. For once. it doesn’t feel like superpowers come out of nowhere.
I’m looking forward to the rest of her journey! For all interested, give it a read.
All the best to the author!
memskksRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really promising start that has me hooked. I really enjoyed Maeven’s interactions with eyeshot and I think they have a very interesting dynamic so far. The power system is very interesting and I look forward to seeing how progression ties into it. I hope you choose to continue because I’d love to read Maeven’s story. Thanks for writing!
noctRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The content is solid. The ideas and concepts are fun. The problem comes when it comes time to execute them. Show don't tell is good, but only up until a point. There's times when the moment comes to tell, and this book doesn't.
There's a few shakes on verb tense on the first few chapters where it dips into past, but those shake out.
The whole book reads like an epistolary fic. Honestly, was kinda surprised when it wasn't someone's diary. Might want to lean into that in the future.
Characters are good, concepts are fun. Growth is a bit too slow for my taste, but ymmv, I'm a fast paced kinda person. Tbh the biggest issue is that I just don't know why any of this is happening. There's no motivator and no goal. Sure, that happens irl, but this is a book. If the mc doesn't have a clear goal, I struggle to root for her.
For all that, it's a good showing! Easy prose to read. Flows well.
Good luck.
Lovely-Cosmic-IcicleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I was warned beforehand the early chapters are not as superhero related as the later ones. As I am doing an earlier review, I did not reach these moments yet.
So far, the writing style is good but noting super eye catching, though I think the second chapter was much better than the first in this regard. I’m confident the writing only improves as it gets further.
JastolusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Normally I stay far away from incomplete stories with a 'hiatus' mark, but something about this one made me want to give it a chance. I'm guessing it was a combination of the cover image, the description promising something novel, and the story not being 5k pages long already.
And well, I don't regret investing my time here.
While this story has been inspired by Shonen mangas in terms of power systems, and in some cases also carries the Shonen typical tendency to prioritize story telling over the world being perfectly reasonable, it is also far more than that.
This is in large part a psychological story about the main character and her growth as a person due to new experiences. And because in this system, powers derive from a persons fundamental personality and desires, her struggle and change is directly tied to her (for now) lost powers and the path to regaining them.
Going by content, the story so far doesn't actually contain a lot of fighting. That mostly happen towards the end, once characters and world have been set up more. But tbh, I don't find that to be an issue. I even kinda prefer the more character heavy writing of the first two thirds, as they made for greater emotional investment and satisfaction.
Corwin6765Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Spice is an interesting story set in a modern world with super abilities. The characters are well flushed out with revealing backstory as it progresses. The only flaw so far is a couple of scenes that left me not clearly able to visualize what occurred. The story is worth the read. I’m sure it will get better and better as the author settles into the world they are writing.
InkBladeRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This story is pretty interesting in ideas. I love the idea of "wills" being tangible forms that can interact with the environment, very cool. However, the author doesn't explain almost anything about how they work, such as how they develop, why some people are better at using theirs than others, how the different aspects work, and how the will block comes about, and a million other things. The micro chapters-within-chapters are jarring and difficult to follow, as the author uses hard transitions between with not a lot of buildup. Most characters are just introduced, or not really explained at all, making it hard to relate to them. Overall, I like a lot of the ideas, but I can't really enjoy the story due to its strange structure.
furball tigerRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
TLDR: a very promising start and an interesting, unique world.
The world and the MC are probably the two biggest draws here; both are plausible, unusual, and engaging.
The supporting chars are a mixed bag in some respects. I feel they are realistic but insufficiently evoked. The style here hews so hard towards minimal descriptiveness that what would be extraordinarily lifelike supporting chars become confusingly vague placeholders. It would really, really benefit from more shown cues; habits, mannerisms, accent/speech pattern, appearance, etc. I think the many, many supporting chars are unique, but are underdescribed so severely I lose track of them. It doesn't have to be appearance, but any consistent unique tells that help the reader keep track of / keep separate / fully develop the support chars would really help. They do seem plausible, it's just the style doesn't give me enough handles to keep them separated sometimes.
Grammar is ok, it could use another editing pass in places. A little below average for RR, but livable for me.
The pacing is (imho) quite good.
Action sequences are clear, easy to follow, and interesting.
Dialog is very good, generally.
The writing style is mostly very good, although (as mentioned in my little soapbox about the supporting chars) it leans quite a bit further towards minimalism than I prefer (very, very few descriptions, or supporting sensory input (colors, smells, textures, sounds, kinetics, etc). There's a trend in modern storytelling to not specify anything and let the reader imagine whatever they like; I'm not a huge fan of that, and this goes far enough that way I'm losing track of chars as noted, let alone maximizing the reader's experience of the MC's adventures. Again, prefs vary.
The MC is a young person who finds herself in an unexpected position; her plans thrown out the window and her sense of who and what she is a bit in flux. She's a very serious, determined young lady who is well aware (overly so) that she's not a