Title: Metaworld Chronicles
Author: Wutosama
Rating: T (no official rating)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Status: Work in Progress
Fandom: Original Fiction
Published: Sept 22, 2017
Pairings: None
Link: Here, First Chapter
Summary: Gwen Song awoke in a new world where all that she was familiar with had disappeared and she must begin from zero. A 21st-century tale of an Earth ruled instead by magic, where humanity lives in enclaves shielded from magical beasts and otherworldly beings. Follow Gwen as she struggles to once again rebuild her life in the new world, a tale of companionship, adventure, and Spellcraft! Grow with Gwen as she grows from high school to university, and finally onto the real world, discovering the secrets of a real-life world made unreal by magic and Mages.

Inspired by the spell system of classic Dungeon and Dragons, but set in the Modern World.

~#~

A few days ago I noticed a story called Metaworld Chronicles had suddenly appeared on the number 3 spot of TopWebFiction.com. Interested, I decided to check it out and I am glad I did.

The story is hosted on royalroad and that is where it belongs. It hits all the tropes royalroad loves - LitRpg elements (minor in this story), reincarnated in another world, common RPG activities like hunting monsters and dungeon delving being actual activities, etc. Despite that, it implements them in a much more interesting way than normal.

The setting plays a big part of that. It is mostly modern-ish day and set in Australia. That instantly gives it a more unique feel than medieval fantasy kingdom serial number 4421. So the story? Modern girl from 2017-ish is reborn in her alternate world duplicates body circa 2001. The biggest change, though, is this world runs on magic and due to some pretty heavy bias for magic users going on, the main character has to play some very fast catch up or risk being rendered a second class citizen.

First chunk of the story is her playing this catch up. Then she makes some friends, has some adventures and the meta-plot kicks into gear. This culminates in a twist I did not see coming at all.

Writing wise, the story starts off a little rough. Mostly there’s some really odd word choice, here and there, that breaks the flow. That gets a lot better, though, and by the latest chapters the writing is really good. It’s no Shakespeare. Your not going to stop and wonder at some wondrous twist of prose. But it competently conveys the characters, emotions and plot and once you get into the work, you’ll be really wanting to know what happens next.

It is also really long - sitting at 759,374 words as of this post.

Rating wise… Start of the story is properly a 3/5 but once things get going, it will drag you in. I think by the end of the first arc it is sitting comfortably at 5/5, so that is what I’ll be rating it as.

 

As a D&D fan boy I decided to give this a go. I read through the first chapter and find the writing mostly acceptable so far. It's a very cliche opening, but I'm going to give it a continued reading. I'll report back with an edit when I hit chapter 20 as is recommended by the author.

EDIT: I've read 25 chapters now. The story improves around Chapter 18, and so far has gotten to entertaining territory. The story is clunky, and owes a lot to the actual mechanics of D&D for a major amount of inspiration. Even with a rewrite of the first 20 chapters the grammar, structure, and flow remain just ok. It's readable.

I'm enjoying the main character, and the side characters are very interesting. The whole reset aspect of the story is a bit... Strange? I guess. Writing a 30 year old among 15 year olds is a very strange mix when it's hard to discern the difference. Also the least interesting parts are that contrast. The magic, monsters, and politics have been the most interesting parts so far.

I think it's a solid 4/5 if you enjoy YA fiction.

 

I've been quite enjoying this so far (up to about chapter 55 now), although this does have some downsides.

The biggest downside, albeit one I'm willing to overlook, is how little is different to the 'real world'. Characters and places are the same, despite (you would have thought) centuries of magic having some alterations to this. Even if the actual PoD was WW1, the fact that the direct family members are the same, and have the same interactions, threw me off a little, and continues to do so.

The magic system seems pretty fleshed out, although a lot is cribbed from DnD. The intersection between school, element, and alignment offers a bunch of interesting ways to flesh out different spell libraries, but people still fall into very similar categories, which are backronymed into being sensible (Damage Per Spell, which is then never brought up again).

The writing can be clunky, both from a flow and technical point of view. It might be because I'm reading on my mobile, but there's a lot of linebreaks in random places, and missing linebreaks where they should be. Also, a lot of the time the writing feels slightly haphazard - it swings between extremely descriptive and deep, to a pretty shallow skim.

Gwen's references are dumb, as is the fact that people think she's a genius for quoting the pokemon theme.

I also quite like that the characters all feel to have agency. Several times, the story's gone on a minor diversion that doesn't add much, but fleshes out side characters. Or characters follow their own paths, which fouls up whatever Gwen's doing. Or they are quite honest about trying to ruin her day. And whilst she's an overpowered protagonist, she still has to do some work for it.

The biggest draw, so far, is that I'm not sick of it.

That sounds really bad, but I've tried to get into a lot of the top stories from topwebfiction, and invariably I end up dropping them because they screw up simple things, or they fall into 'monster of the week' shenanigans.

4/5 so far, and unlikely to go higher.
--- Post automerged ---
Second post:

So I'm now ~20 chapters further in. This still continues to be mildly amusing, and definitely have some high (and low) points.

But it dawned on me that a lot of it feels like it's been written by a pubescent teenager.

For example, a teacher just woke up a student by "slapping [her] across the chest in the manner of a man playing a pair of bongos". Every woman is described in terms of her lips, breasts, and legs... Even when we've already met them - someone will walk across the room, 'jiggling as they step', or everyone will stare at their cleavage, or their 'pale white legs' will cause people to walk into walls.

I mean, I get it - I too think women are attractive, but there is a limit.

 

That's exactly my issue. I'm on chapter 84 and everything feels one step away from breaking into an orgy, also the casual way family members seem openly attracted to the Main character.

It's like D&D by a horny 16 year old? I'm not sure how to describe it honestly. I'm enjoying it, but it's in a similar vein as to why I enjoy Shokugeki, High School DXD, or Overlord. Interesting ideas with ecchi style drapings I could do without.

 

I've read all of this now (168 chapters), and I think it's a really solid story so far. My biggest complaint is that the characters feel a bit objectified throughout. The main character has had more time dedicated to describing her outfits, hot as, and her companions hotness than any other written story Ive encountered in my time. It's written like Twilight or ecchi light novels, but has a sufficient hook that makes me want to read more. The D&D parts are a great take on how a modern society could form. The setting is very interesting, and some of the characters have amazing moments.

It's just wholly inconsistent, and usually unnecessary description sections that ruin the flow.

This story will come down to how much you can tolerate the amount of beautiful people ogling beautiful people, and describing how beautiful some other people are.

I love the D&D parts so much that I'd give this a 4/5 easy. The biggest issues are in the pacing and just overall focusing so much on the appearance of the characters made me a bit uncomfortable.

 

This is kind of a struggle to get through. It's just barely good enough that I'm staying with it, but there are times where it's just not.. good?

The sexual stuff just doesn't seem necessary most of the time, and when it does come out it feels incredibly unrealistic. The writing style seems to try to emulate light novels every once in a while, and it just comes across as awkward and stilted.

It's just very middling for me. For every interesting story element, there's some part of the author's writing style that detracts and makes it annoying to read.

3/5, maybe.

 

Definitely a solid read, the odd sexual aspects notwithstanding. The pacing is pretty insane though, which at least keeps things moving and different but the story moves from highschool drama, to a tournament arc,

Spoiler

to an invasion arc, a rescue mission

then back to school again and the tonal shifts from lighthearted fun to life and death struggle are a bit jarring.

The DND aspects are great though, and the worldbuilding is pretty interesting.

 

Just a bit of information, because RR isn't completely intuitive.

Story updated yesterday, but even if you 'follow' the story, you might not have received the notification.

You can automatically get the push notifications if you sign up for a premium account (for some strange reason). Alternatively, you need to 'follow' the story, then go to your bookmarks, and check the option for email subscription. This is on a story-by-story basis, rather than account wide.

Speaking of, this passed the 'first update test'. I remained interested enough in the story to go read the update soon after getting the alert, and the update came relatively quickly, so I didn't need to re-read.



It's really weird, going back to read this story having finished what was originally available. It's actually pretty rough - a lot of mildly incorrect word usage, typos, and similar errors are scattered throughout. But most issues are minor, and easily skipped over for the content of the story. It's a shame, because I honestly think that with a beta reader or two, this could nail a 5/5.

 

Been working my through this for past day or two, so far it's pretty solid. The magic system and how its changed society is interesting. The protaganist has growth in their magic and character without feeling too insane about power levels or overly dramatic changes in personality chapter to chapter. There are errors sprinkled throughout and they are noticable, but I don't feel like they detract too much from the overall reading experience to the point where I'm pulled away from the story.
Though I do feel like there's something of an odd fixation on breasts and the attractiveness of the main females, almost to the point of it being a problem. They're attractive, which is fine. But it's brought up in what feels like every second or third chapter. Gwen and her long pale legs, Yue with her supple asian breasts, Elvia with her near preternatural cuteness.

The gals and their looks leaving the poor plebs spellbound -pun intended- is the real magic of the story.

For a webnovel from RoyalRoad, I have to say that this is overall an incredibly fun story to read, even accounting for all of its flaws. Like Thaumologist said, if it could get a solid beta reader to look things over and clean things up - it could pretty easily hit 4.5-5/5 territory for its genre. As it is right now I have to rate it a bit lower at 3.5-4/5.

Give it a chance, might just grow on you.

 

I'll confess that I didn't like this story for the first 100 chapters or so. The ecchi/light novel elements are legitimately challenging to get through. We get it; the MC is attractive. We don't need to be reminded of it every paragraph. If the author put as much effort into moving the plot as he did describing the characters' clothing, the story would cover twice the ground it already has.

Fortunately, these elements are done away with almost entirely. The most recent chapters are tighter, less objectifying, and even genuinely funny. If I had to guess as the author grew up, they moved away from these ideas as they matured as both a person and a writer.

Some things remain the same, however. Gwen is still an intensely flawed character. She is arrogant, materialistic, naive, and unwilling to take ruthless action when required. This isn't to say that Gwen doesn't grow as a character. She has definitely become more likable, but the pace remains glacially slow. Gwen also backslides reasonably often, especially when it comes to her sometimes insane refusal to resort to violence (Sometimes she refuses to kill in self-defense or defense or to protect innocents). Other times she seems utterly psychotic as she massacres entire populations. A little consistency would be nice.

The greatest strength of this story has always been the world-building. Every little bit is fascinating from the idea that North Korea became a nation of undead necromancers during the Korean War to the way magic has replaced, but not transcended technology. I love how Gwen is slowly reintroducing magical versions of technology that exist in her old world to this one.

Another excellent part of this story is the power levels. Despite Gwen's incredible skill at magic, the author always manages to have reasonable challenges for her. When I'm reading a fight scene, I'm constantly at the edge of my seat. The writing in the fights, especially later in the story, is a joy to read.

Lastly, Gwen's power level both progresses at a reasonable pace and is sufficiently justified in-universe. She was an exceptional person in her past life, and it makes sense for her to be similarly gifted in this one. Another point in this story's favor is that despite her strength, she is far from the strongest in the setting and is trounced relatively often.

3.5/5 rounded up to 4. I'm probably going to raise it to 5 eventually if the story keeps improving.

TL;DR: Did you like the world-building but hate the perviness? Stick it out, and you will be rewarded as the bad parts of the story mostly vanish as it goes on. Try to get past the Sydney arc before you write this story off.

 

I'm at chapter 40 right now and I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop this.

It's just a bit too written by a teenager for me? The obsession with how characters are dressed, how attractive they are (especially the main character who definitely looks older than she is) is just kind of creepy from my perspective. I don't particularly care for the fact that she seems to get sexually assaulted every to other chapter.

It's actually pretty ridiculous at this point. Whenever she goes somewhere - like literally including the uninhabited monster infested wilderness someone pervs on her or molests her (it happens at least twice in that wilderness btw).

It just all feels a bit cheap mindless filler? The bits in between with the actual magic and plot that isn't from a cheap bodice ripper are what interest me. The worldbuilding is pretty good, but I just find the little bits waaay too off-putting. I don't particularly care for Gwen either.

Overall l'd give it 2/5? I can see why people might like it especially if it cuts down on the elements I dislike later, I just don't feel like reading 100 chapters to get to that point.

 

I've just re-read this and caught up, so feel I should drop in and give a mini review.

I agree a lot with the comment PugBread made above - if the author ever rewrites the first 100 chapters or so to have less page-long odes to Gwen's outfits and general beauty this would probably let people get past the weak start of this web novel and get into the good stuff.

Once you get past that, the story completely leaves that stuff behind, and starts becoming a genuinely interesting and enjoyable read. The world and setting of the story is truly interesting and is well-done, and after the first 100 or so chapters the writing and plots get tighter and feel planned rather than just meandering about the place.

I also feel that the story is getting stronger and more enjoyable as time goes on, with the plot and Gwen's character becoming more interesting the deeper you get in.

In terms of a rating, for my personal enjoyment it's a 5/5, but I don't think that objectively it can be much over 4/5 due to the weakness of the beginning section, where it's pretty clear it was barely planned out and the writing is a bit masturbatory.