The Ruby Magician

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Wyn Thatcher was out of options. His disgraceful and dying father accrued far too much debt a simple farmer could repay, and the only option left was to climb the magical tower known as Alistair. Harm and death was as likely as fame and fortune in the tower, but Wyn needed money and he needed it fast. His plan to rely on his experience as a soldier could only take him so far as magic, monsters, and unexpected obstacles are around every corner. His first challenge comes right out of the gates with his Ruby Magician class, which he quickly learns is not only looked down on but considered detrimental.

Wyn doesn’t care, though. He just needs to survive and climb for his family’s sake. Proving to others that it's the person and not the class will just be an added bonus.

What to expect:- Varied and plentiful loot.- Tower climbing. Lots of it.- A rational MC who, like most people, sometimes fails.- A party dynamic.

What you won’t find:- Harem- Sexual content- Time loops

Release Schedule:- Regular schedule will be Tuesday and Friday chapters. Chapters are about 3-3.5k words.- Book123complete! STORY IS COMPLETE!

Information

Status
Ongoing
Year
2023
Author
DRHudgins

Tags

LITRPGACTIONFANTASYADVENTUREMAGICGAMELITPROGRESSIONDUNGEON CRAWLER

Royal Road Stats

Rating
4.1/ 5.0
Followers
1,375
Views
475,677

Chapters(171 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(10)

  • winnieandsherlockRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    Can not put it down. This book is very well written, creative, and descriptive with an intriguing and exciting plot. Absolutely love the characters and character development. Mark this author as a favorite if you enjoy danger and suspense in an excellent fantasy novel. I would recommend to everyone as a must read.
  • LitRPG AdventuresRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    This is a great start to a new story. You are immersed right away in the new world which is medieval in nature with magic and, obviously, the tower.
    Ardwyn (Wyn) is introduced right away as he enters the tower city. After a little world building he meets a character who will be instrumental in getting him started and learns of his new magical abilities. It's standard start of a series stuff and done well. It's not boring and you learn what you need to do. So, good job :)
    The style of the story is pretty standard for a fantasy story. The MC is pretty well informed on what he's getting into so there isn't a lot of questioning an self discovery. It makes it easy to understand without the confusion you sometimes get with stories where the MC is transported to a new real. Style score: 5 / 5
    The story is interesting and I look forward to seeing what kind of challenges Wyn and his team will face. They are starting on a standard "first quest" right now. Story score so far: 5 / 5.
    The grammar seems good. I'm far from an expert, but I do know what sounds right. I haven't noticed any issues so grammar seems to be good. Grammar score: 5 / 5
    I like the characters so far. I haven't gotten far enough to see a lot of development, yet, it's mostly just learning who the main character is to start with. Again, that's standard for the beginning of a story. I look forward to seeing Wyn learn and grow. Character score: 5 / 5
  • One Way JusticeRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    Very clean and good tower climbing story. Wyn is likeable and so you automatically root for success... I think the prose is very neat and well done, with proper paragraph breaks so it doesn't get too much to read in one block (somehow other tower climbers I've read recently cramp up the paragraphs idk). Nice progression overall, pacing hardly ever a problem!
  • The ChaliceRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    The Ruby Magician is an exciting adventure full of danger and mystery. While it does have a little of a slow start, it brings us into the tower at a natural pace as we follow Wyn’s preparations on his first day. These introductory chapters helped flesh out the world Wyn was throwing himself into and we never got bored as he was actually rushing his way forward with less preparation than most. Once we get to the tower it draws you in. Bound by a set of rules, it offers various trials, but these mean Wyn has to be ready for anything, whether it’s keeping his mind sharp or facing a foe with every disadvantage possible.
    Story: This was an easy page-turner for sure, and I’m sure I’ll be keeping up on it as the story develops. It plays on many litRPG elements, yet isn’t a typical litRPG. The way DrHudgins does this felt really unique and at the same time organic. From the way they transfer their magic to pages and cast it, or find and classify items from the tower, down to Wyn’s unique class. I found the intricacies of the world and magic really interesting to read about and built a nice foundation.
    Meanwhile, Wyn has his own internal struggles and those from back home. The way they drive him through the story, facing unknown challenges or people he meets, felt really natural and made for a rich progression. On that note, the ‘progression’ elements are nice as well, as we begin from square one of Wyn’s journey and despite the fantastical nature of his new environment, the challenges felt realistic.
    Style: Good pacing, natural progression. The prose naturally teetered between casual and easy-going, eager to make our way—to serious or tense, depending on what the situation called for. The reading went really smooth and held my attention with little effort. I don’t remember seeing any sentences that held me up or made me wonder what was happening, and the world came into view steadily with each description.
    Grammar: No real issues here. The story is well-manicured, and I spo
  • TyZomboRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    Overall:
    Beginnings of a great Tower series. The world feels rich with so much to explore and Wyn is a great vehicle to do that from.
    Style:
    Beautiful, tight prose and great dialogue. Very well written all around which makes it a joy to read. Everything’s clear and well presented. I felt like I was right in the story.
    Story:
    Immediately puts you into the story, with the protagonist facing the start of his adventure in the form of a tower. Engaging right off the bat, once I started I wanted to know more about the world and see Wyn experience it. The emphasized danger of the tower and the implied hardship his class will bring him raise the stakes and excitement, and it delivers.
    Character:
    Wyn is a likable guy. If endeavoring to jump into danger for the sake of his family isn’t enough, he’s also got dealt the underdog card and is determined to excel in spite of it. A little too naïve and overconfident at the start but he’s a multidimensional character. The side characters have real personality to them too and make the world feel more real and fleshed out.
    Grammar:
    Grammar is perfect as far as I can tell. No complaints here.
  • hajakujaRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 5.0
    If the author has a plan - and it seems like he does - I can see this becoming one of the great stories that come from this site. If you like hedge wizard or dear spellbook this is in the same vein. If you like manhwa like the tower of god this story has some of the same elements. It has resemblance with sufficiently advanced magic but so far this one is better (I don’t like sufficiently advanced magic). It even has something in common with marble gate, a very good web comic.
    it is shaping up to be a very good adventure fantasy story, I only hope the author has it planned out and doesn’t just wing it. I hope it doesn’t loose it’s way.
  • BootsRoyal Road
    ★★★★★ 4.5
    Solid start, if a bit slow to get moving.
    Grammar and Style
    There's not a whole lot to say about grammar. There's a few small errors here and there, but nothing to write home about.
    Style is generally clear, straightforward, and functional. The author does sometimes spend a bit too much time describing things that don't necessarily need it, or directing the reader's attention only to then describe them as unimportant. Eliminating these would go a long way to help things feel a bit snappier.
    Story
    The story so far is a fairly straightforward tower climb. There's magic, there's classes, and there's the lure of treasure. Solid premise with lots to work with. My only real complaint is how long it takes to get off the ground.
    The chapters themselves are fairly long, and it takes until chapter six to actually get to the tower. Then it takes until the end of chapter seven to actually enter the tower. Hopefully the pacing picks up moving forward.
    Character
    I think Wyn has a lot of potential. He's an ex soldier, and those experiences form both the basis of his advantages and challenges that he'll be taking into the tower with him. Good stuff.
    He's also not completely clueless. He's got some baseline familiarity with being a climber at the start of the book, which is something I'm always happy to see. I personally thing that "informed novices" are much better reader proxies than MCs who are completely ignorant when it comes to the world.
  • LurksalotRoyal Road
    ★★★★ 4.0
    I have overall enjoyed reading this story so far. If you like tower-climbing centric action, then I would recommend giving this a try.
    The story’s MC is competent and likeable from the get-go, without being unnecessarily overpowered. The cast of characters is nuanced and rarely feel one-dimensional (though there are outliers, but they get “fixed” as the story progresses). Style-wise, the combat scenes do begin to feel a bit repetitive in terms of how they are “resolved”. The combat isnt inherently bad, but the character cast and the world definitely carries a lot of the momentum.
    Now, my biggest nitpick - which honestly isnt that bad as long as you can look past it - is the execution of initial premise of the Ruby Magician class. White its percieved suboptimal nature comes up every so often, the class itself has almost zero actual implications for the MC and how he is able to strive in the tower and the surrounding world. Its partially explained by his background, but his military background would arguably give him an advantage regardless of his actual class. Dont expect the MC to be an underdog due to his class (though tier-differences is a different matter).
    That said, the story still hooked me in and I am still waiting for what more the author has to tell.
  • Dead_SlimeRoyal Road
    ★★★★ 3.5
    The Good:
    -It has some focus on mental health such as PTSD and represents it well. With it interfering with regular life.
    -Mc is interesting to listen to
    -World building is decent with thought out reasoning for climbing the tower and the economic implication e.g. sponsorships
    -Interesting premise of making a under estimated class powerful
    The Bad:
    -Acting out of the premise is bad e.g. People call mc class bad but always have bad reasoning or none at all
    -Power scaling makes no sense with strong people becoming weak when it progresses the plot
    -Characters other than mc feel a bit bare bones sometimes
    Overall: I find the constant trashing of the class for barebones reasoning like specialisation better than diversification to be silly. And also very frustrating when it is repeated over and over that everything about mc’s class is bad. When the skills have obvious powerful application. E.g. Dyadcasting a powerful mana intensive spell to get a double nuclear option.
  • SunquillRoyal Road
    ★★★ 3.0
    Good:
    Main character with a strong military background was cool to see! I enjoyed seeing him whip other groups into shape
    Magic system is fun! The different types of mages are fascinating, and the way the tower works gives the story more variety
    I was invested in the main party's journey enough to allow me to look past all the bad for quite a while. If I'm going to drop a book, it usually happens within ten chapters or so, but this one makes me feel just a bit bad about putting down even now because I do want to see Wyn and his buddies improve.
    Bad:
    Interactions with minor antagonists makes me want to bash my head into a wall. The way they're written feels very ham-fisted, with the extremely forced prejudice against Red Mages. This wasn't too bad for me until we got the actual explanation of why Red Mages weren't popular anymore. I was expecting something big and was instead underwhelmed and frustrated.
    There are grammar issues that appear more frequently a dozen or so chapters in. Some words are completely ommitted in fairly important places, or even swapped around confusingly.
    I feel like I'm missing things? There are some scene transitions where I have to read over again and to see if I missed something. Ex: Wyn and his companions continue to floor 2 for the first time. He just walks right through the portal after they clear the room without saying anything. I don't think the companions they picked up were ever told they were planning on going to floor 2 that time? I had to infer that they were told and were just fine with it but I think that's something that should've been covered, even just briefly in a sentence or two.
    Overall, I think someone who's a less scrupulous reader could have a great time with this book. My suspension of disbelief unfortunately can't take it though, and I think there's a lot of room to improve! 3/5 stars from me