A pretty enjoyable novel all in all. It’s a very meta novel, where the tropes of typical cultivation novels are used deliberately and subverted. The novel has pretty much three distinct phases (each more-or-less in tandem with the three worlds they visit).The first phase is the meta phase where our MC is scheming and fighting against the various MCs of typical cultivation novels while collecting students who were the defeated villains of those MCs. Lots of meta humor here and typical tropes used to the MC’s advantage because of his knowledge of them. As a result, this is also the silliest and most light-hearted phase of the three. It’s pretty easy for this phase to catch the attention of those who are starting to feel some cultivation novel fatigue because of how derisive the MC is of these tropes.The second phase is the expansion phase where the students end up leading and collecting some forces of their own while waging a war against the biggest power there. The students more or less gain some independence here and we get to see them do their thing while the MC’s doing his. This is the point where the MC starts amassing mass forces of his own and becoming a true faction leader. Sorta like in One Piece where Luffy’s small group of 10 pirates end up gaining a huge fleet of thousands behind them under their command.The third phase is pretty much the mythology phase where the MC and crew are all fighting mythological figures in that setting to take ultimate control over the three worlds. Having some basic knowledge of the classic chinese myths and stories is helpful here as the author will not explain too much about them, so make sure to know the basics like who the Jade Emperor is, what the Chan, Ren and Jie schools are, the Heavenly Courts, the Western/Buddhist Sect, Pangu, Nuwa, Nezha, Sun Wukong, the Saints, primordial purple qi, etc.There’s an ending part that might’ve been a proper forth phase in another lifetime but it’s so short that I can’t really call it one. It’s pretty rushed and has a bit of a sad ending. There also a small implication of potential time travel that could make the ending loop back to the beginning of the story but it wasn’t fleshed out in that direction so I can’t really say that’s the case, so the ending is still pretty ambiguous.All in all it’s a pretty good 8.5/10 novel, only dragged by its ending and some repetition that happens.
