The Legend of the Meta-Defying Smith Who Saved the Kingdom

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Everyone knows of the Legendary Smith Who Saved the Kingdom.Most know that he struggled to rise to power.Some know that he struggled just to survive.Few know just how foolish was the choice he made.

In a world where a person can only choose two Classes and can never change them, common sense is for at least one of those classes to be combat oriented. This is the story of James, who defied the meta of the world and chose to be a Smith and Enchanter. This is the story of a son, a slave, a servant, a specialist, and a savior.

It is also a warning.

Make your choices carefully, for you will have to live with the consequences.

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This is the first work I'm publishing, and I'd love feedback!This is a LitRPG with Classes and Skills and levels, but numbers are kept to a minimum. It's not "crunchy." It's also a light deconstruction. What happens when a person chooses classes that are weak in the meta? Are they doomed? Can they turn things around? How do they deal with the power differentials?James goes through some very hard times, and chapters with exceptionally disturbing content will be marked [Mature]. Profanity is present, but minimally. No sexual content. Slow burn. Chapters range from roughly 1000-2000 words.Yes, the title of my novel is a spoiler, so what?

Volume 1 now on sale on Patreon and Amazon!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/legend-of-meta-1-133358566https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0FGJZL8K5

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2025
Author: Author Artemis

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 356
Views: 182,891

Chapters(181 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

StubertRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really enjoying this. Crafting focussed with the MC working within his restrictions, you can see the path to becoming an OP MC but doesn’t get there super fast or by accidentally gaining a massive boost. Good pacing and writing starts fine and improves as the story progresses. Looking forward to further chapters and will check out Patreon.
Svensker94Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Great book!
Really love the ratio between crafting and combat, I hope we continue to have as much focus on the crafting in the rest of the story.
Really like the MC and the way you hold him accountable for his actions.
Bit of whiplash in the start(in a very good way, and we were warned) that kept me engaged.
Can Really see that you're progressing as a writer to, keep it up!!
ColdWater14Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I was immediately drawn to the concept of the story based on my love of crafting and defensive preparation in games like Skyrim. The MC here follows the path well and it's a very fun story to devour. The writing is average, but I haven't been able to stop reading it until I read all the available chapters.
The author does a good job of writing the character in a fairly consistent method. There are some funny intersections from the perspectove of the in-world story writer (@author do more of these! They're hilarious, and help develop the world building from a second perspective.
The story does rely on some tenuous and contrived circumstances to flow. Without spoilers, there are things which appear to be common knowledge to most characters but the 'discovery of that knowledge by the MC becomes a major plot driving element. Also the antagonists so far have been very one dimensional. My last criticism is that while injury healing times feel appropriate, the time skips for them are quite bland.
That said, I cant get enough of the story. It's fun to see the character grow and develop, to try and anticipate how the underlying rules of magic might function, and see what will come next.
If I could have more things I would want to see more loot, more opportunities to develop, the magic systems, and for the MC to have some internal dialog reviewing lessons learned and planning ahead.
I cant wait to read and buy the whole series for my bookshelf. Great work here!
mino_Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I really liked the story itself and as a litrpg it is really refreshing to see this amount of attention put to giving the character time to learn skill and turn them into [skills]
The one thing that made me put five stars is the structure by which the story is told: as a twice revised manuscript, that lets us understand the actual scope of the MC accomplishments or his errors.
The prose is good but nothing spectacular, but that it doesn't remove anything from the quality of the story.
CTKRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I find the history very balanced between the exploration/combat segments and the crafting ones. The crafting focussed MC who have to figure things out and achieve power through sheer experimentation as he doesn't posses any real knowledge is really refreshing.
The history got a nice pace, however i think it slows down a bit at the third quarter of the first book but quickly recovers.
Fully recommended, if you have the time give it a shot.
ForevermanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
[Spoilers Ahead!]
As it says in the title, it's a great dungeon exploration story. From the perspective of somebody who is accustomed to picking up every item and exploring every nook and cranny of most dungeons in most games I come across, the main character gets an absolute A+ in the survivalist and obsessive completionist classes.
The beginning 20 or so chapters exist mostly as the bad consequences of the main characters choice of class. The next 60 are the intermediate to good consequences of his choice of class. While James lacks a bit of characterization in the dungeon, the author does the best he can with what he has, as the latter 3/4s of the story is just devoid of other characters, unless you count the monsters and the arbitrary and frustrating magic bag. I look forward to subscribing to Patreon, as there is also 10 extra chapters available and now that I'm caught up I find myself still craving more.
telcharRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Starting with the good. The second part of the book is really well done. The combat and learning cycles are reasonable. The MC doesn't become a smith god and starts producing epic tier gear over a couple of chapters, which is the main pitfall of crafting stories. The struggle of a non combat class in fights is well portrayed. All in all stellar work.
Now the bad. The worldbuilding and the premise doesn't make sense. I nearly dropped the story in the first few chapters because of this. The fact that one HAS to pick a combat class for safety makes sense only in an apocalyptic scenario. Roles in a stable society are always divided by specialization. There are fighters, managers, farmers, healers etc. Also, just picking a combat class does not ensure safety in any way. There will always be someone higher levelled and more skilled. On the other hand picking synergistic crafting classes would improve productivity and create a better support for the fighters. My suggestion would be to pivot and make it a religious directive or a strategy for control by the nobles.
In a similar strain, the slavers do not make sense either. They have a group of starved sick MAGE kids mining common iron in a mine full of magical ores. They have access to enchanted and expensive gear like mana collars, wards and what looks like a magic bag with unlimited capacity. A level 10 miner would be able to do better work than all the slaves combined.
I am giving a high rating here because the work shows real promise. I just hope the author would take some time to revise and rewrite.
Master AioRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
A straight forward story that follows a familiar path. But then, a well trodden path is followedso often because it can lead to a good story. I've followed the story thus far, but it is starting to drag. Basically the smith goes down a level, forges new armour, beats the boss, and then goes to another floor. Hopefully, there will be a shift outside soon. Otherwise, I'll walk another way....
LOLsuitRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
In this world, you only get 2 classes, and you can never change. So the prevailing wisdom is, if you choose a non-combat class, you MUST also choose a combat class.
The MCs parents give him this advice, somewhat lightly, and after he ignores it, more strongly with much weeping and paranoia now that its too late. The narrator is the MCs brother, and he repeats the dire warnings in vague fashion. And wouldn't you know it, after the MC takes his 2 non-combat classes, entranced by the synergy they offer, a bandit sucker punches him to take him away from under the nose of the baron to be a slave. But not without a chapter devoted to torture first. Got to keep those new slaves in line, and reinforce the lesson, NEVER take 2 non-combat classes. Of course, the bandit could have done the same to any level 1 character, but no, this only happened because the MC was foolish according to the world.
Its preachy. And its so obviously not 100% true. But it sure looks like everything is set up to keep telling us, its true. Bandits lurk unseen. Barons are ineffective. People are routinely kidnapped, though the MC had never heard that before. And the MC never got a chance to craft a magic weapon to equalize himself with a 1/2 combat class.
This story will live or die on the tone going forward, and whether you personally like that tone. Will the MC become Ironman, escape, ever become awesome, or will the author insist on "I told you so" tragedy?
Edit: Its really only 1 chapter that bothered me. The slavery arc goes on a long time, but the MC slowly starts doing some smithing stuff around camp. Once he gets to the dungeon, things really start to pick up.
Edit 2: And then the end of book 2 is disappointing in several ways. I guess I'll say, the action is inconsistent, and then the author uses a great big hammer on the MC.
Edit 3: The 3rd book happens in a city. Some of it is nice, some people are rude, and a whole bunch of time gets skipped to go from good 1 on 1 to OP o
BoNeKrAcKeR181Royal Road
★★★ 3.0
I like the story but I feel like also I wish I was more like it wasn't somebody reading his story because like it seems like the person really eating it is ridiculing him and then everyone hates him but apparently he saved the kingdom but they went around destroying all of his books right after he saved the country that's a little weird I really like your story but I also feel like it's like the person is more ridicule in him the whole time