Title: Zenith of Sorcery
Author: nobody103/ Domagoj Kurmaic
Rating: T
Genre:Adventure/Mystery
Status: WIP
Word Count: 32,868
Fandom: Mother of Learning
Links: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3368346/1/Zenith-of-Sorcery
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/71045/zenith-of-sorcery
Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/nobody103

Summary: Marcus, a powerful mage with few equals, is returning home from his long exile. All he wants to do is reconnect with old friends, build himself a house, and maybe train a successor or two, but strange things are happening in the world and not everyone is willing to let go of the past. Classical fantasy with some xianxia elements and a complex magic system.


Looks like nobody103 is back in business.

His previous story Mother of Learning was about a teenage mage, Zorian, involved in a time loop mystery. This time our protagonist, Marcus, is older and more experienced. There is a lot of worldbuilding done in these chapters (especially regarding the magic system) and suffice to say the world seems really different from MoL. On the mystery aspect, this is only the beginning but it seems that Marcus will have to investigate an incoming catastrophe that might happen on his world.

Knowing nobody103 we can probably expect a new chapter every three weeks or at least one chapter a month when faced with delays.

Not enough chapters to rate it but I was hooked immediately. For now Marcus reminds me a bit of Zorian in his attitude but we'll see how it turns out in the long run. There was also just a hint of xanxia element but thus far I can't say much about it since I don't know the genre that well.

 

very early plot wise still, but high quality of writing (as to be expected) so I suspect it will be very good as it continues to grow

 

Note that the category for this should be Original Fiction - it's connected to another original work, but its still original.

Seems far too early to rate. I will check it out, though.

 

Hasn't really managed to grab me at all yet and the written almost feels like he's regressed a little as an author? Or perhaps my memories of his last pieces are just too rose colored

 

I noticed the same, but maybe he’s out of practice, or trying something new.

Will have to see how it reads after there’s some more content.

 

Looking at the date, this post was after just around 3 chapters? I just started reading and read the 7 chapters that are there right now in a sitting.

While the writing and story has its minor hiccups in the very first chapters, I attribute that to it being a completely new world. I don't think any author gets strong in creating something completely new until they have done this a dozen times.

Comparatively the story hooks you more and more when the story does start rolling in. I must say, I am already invested in Marcus. He is an active character, but feels like he has done the Hero Journey already. Which brings him into the phase where you think he can deal with most things, but he doesn't really have the need to prove himself anymore. The interesting parts come in by him returning to a society that has progressed and changed in his abscence and they have clearly not forgotten him.

So, even though he knows much more about the world than we do, he knows as little about the current happenings and we learn with him. I do like that aspect.

The supporting cast is being built up slowly and I already see potential in some of them. The Main Character is likable. The world is interesting enough already and promises a deep lore to learn about.

So, I won't rate it yet - but it does seem as promising as Mother of Learning. Just with less of a hook in the beginning, but with a more interesting Main Character right away.

 

It's at 17 chapters plus an interlude now, and...honestly, I would have a hard time telling someone what it's about, except "a high-level mage does a bunch of things." There are so many things going on that could be the major plot, I'm not sure which one(s) it really is. Or maybe they're all parts of it, but in that case I'm not sure how I would describe the whole picture.

The very first chapter gives Marcus a vision of catastrophe, which might well be what the story is about overall. But it's then hard to see how all the recent chapters about choosing students for his new academy - most of whom are thoroughly average - fit into that. Or his discovery that he can embed pieces of his soul in other people if they're either willing or too weak to notice, and the fact that he has enemies who want to kill him for knowing the technique. Or the orphan girl he rescued and brought along to become a student. Or the stranger who wants Marcus to look after his ward for a while. Or - you get the idea, there are a lot of apparently disparate plot threads.

That said, the prose quality is solid and the characters are being developed well. At the grassroots level, it's good. And the author probably does have a clearer idea of what the top-down picture looks like. I just feel like it meanders a lot.

 

As of chapter 20, most of the background setup is done.

Something about this chapter really made the whole story "click" in place. While I used to merely read chapters before, now I starve for new ones.

 

Really?

I found chapter 20 to be as exhaustingly boring as the last few, just more world building dump dressed up as education. At this point I'm sticking around for the novel premise and hoping the author pulls up from this nose dive.

 

I have to concur with @Paradise here. School fics use classroom scenes as infodumps, and some authors abuse it to the level that it reads like a wikipedia article with some dialog tags thrown around to badly disguise it as character interaction. That's exactly the case here.

For me that chapter was a dreadful slog, but I see how someone eager to know more about the magic system mechanics could enjoy that kind of read.

 

The chapter was info dumpy, but it served to tie together everything from the previous chapters and set us on a new arc. It is not the chapter alone I like, but in the context of the entire book, it clears up a lot.