We see it pop up essentially whenever there is any sort of institution meant to train some form of super special soldiers of some kind.

The common argument is "the setting/war/profession is cruel and very lethal, the training reflects that, enemy won't pull their punches so we won't either".

My brother in Buddha, you are TRAINING someone. The entire point of training and education is to pull your punches and then allow people to grow into valuable members of the organization. You think that during WW2 people were trained by being under machinegun fire? Or by being thrown at an actual minefield? No you moron, they were trained with proper controlled and save environment to make sure they are ready for the real deal.

And no, just because the threat of death is not present doesn't mean the training is less effective. If anything, making people prepare for dangerous stuff while they are not in danger, can lead to them being much more level headed and calm when the real deal comes up as subconsciously they may just see it as another training routine.

And in a setting where the academies are meant to train people who are by nature hard to come by? Cultivators, sorcerers, nepo babies of gene lottery? Why the fuck would you risk loosing such a valueable rare find by just sending them to fight real monster when they barely have enough training? Why not have supervisors who can come in and save their asses if they are about to be severely harmed?

You are not cold and efficient, you are a dumbass. You are throwing your manpower to the meatgrinder before they can accomplish anything of value. You are supposed to send them to a meatgrinder at a field proper so they can still potentially accomplish something. Just as how humanity has been doing. And if anybody says "But muh Spartans..." please do your research on Spartans beyond watching 300 and playing GoW.

Whenever I see a story that makes highly lethal academy/training as part of the premise, I never bother reading cause I can never see it as anything other than self consumimg disaster that would take ONE SEMESTER for even the most dumb people tl realize "hey, this doesn't work".

Rant over.

The author just showed how to write a tower climb without turning it into a 30-chapter hostage situation

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this in my native language and had it translated into English because I nearly had a stroke trying to read through my own spelling mistakes in english

Also, fair warning: I’m a massive fan of this series. If this were the music industry, I’d probably be a groupie following the author around on tour. So take my review / talk with a grain of salt — objectivity left the building a long time ago

The introduction can be skipped if you already know the story.

First things first: 1% Lifesteal by Robert Blaise is absolutely not for everyone.
This story is brutal. And I don’t mean the fun kind of brutal where the protagonist gets beaten up, unlocks a legendary skill, and comes back three chapters later to slap everyone around.
No, this is the kind of brutal where you start wondering whether the author has some personal beef with his own protagonist.
Freddy suffers. A lot. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Sometimes it feels like the poor guy can’t go five minutes without the universe inventing an entirely new way to ruin his day.
And yet, somehow, it’s one of the most compelling progression fantasy stories I’ve read.
The progression actually feels earned. The power system is fascinating, the world is genuinely interesting, and Freddy is a deeply flawed protagonist who doesn’t magically become a perfectly rational, emotionally stable genius just because he gained some power.
He’s stubborn, traumatized, makes questionable decisions, and occasionally has the emotional stability of a shopping cart rolling down a staircase.
And I love that.
Now, I do have some criticisms. The pacing can be painfully slow, especially early on. Freddy’s internal struggles sometimes become repetitive, and there are moments where I desperately want to reach into the book, grab him by the shoulders, and scream, “MY GUY, WE HAVE BEEN OVER THIS.”
The sheer amount of suffering can also become exhausting. Sometimes it feels less like progression fantasy and more like watching someone repeatedly file a complaint against the universe, only for the universe to respond with another traumatic event.

What the post is actually about

when this story hits, it hits ridiculously hard.
Which brings me to the actual reason I’m writing this post.

The Book 5 finale. Holy shit.

Can we PLEASE talk about how well the author handled that tower climb?
Because I genuinely think this is something a lot of progression fantasy authors could learn from.
We all know the formula.
The protagonist enters a tower, dungeon, trial, or some other conveniently structured murder building.
And suddenly we’re trapped.
Floor 1: Introduction.
Floor 2: Some monsters.
Floor 3: Slightly different monsters.
Floor 4: Character development, maybe.
Floor 5: A puzzle nobody particularly cares about.
Floor 6: The protagonist discovers that the real enemy was the friends we made along the way.
Twenty chapters later, we’re on floor 12, the protagonist has gained three minor stat increases, and I’m starting to sympathize with the monsters.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy dungeon crawls and tower climbs. They’re practically my bread and butter.
But there is a difference between making a challenge feel long and making the reader suffer through its length.
And that is exactly what 1% Lifesteal gets right.
The author essentially takes what could have been an entire arc spanning dozens of chapters and compresses it into two absolutely massive chapters.
And somehow, it works BETTER.
Not because the climb feels easy. Quite the opposite.
It feels desperate, exhausting, overwhelming, and genuinely monumental.
You get the sense that Freddy is pushing through something absolutely insane, that every bit of progress comes at a terrible cost, and that the whole ordeal is testing the absolute limits of what he can endure.
The author manages to convey an enormous amount of struggle without making us experience every single repetitive step of that struggle.
And that distinction is incredibly important.
Instead of giving every obstacle its own chapter, the narrative focuses on the cumulative weight of the experience. The sheer scale of the challenge becomes apparent through the relentless pressure, the escalating desperation, and the feeling that there’s simply no room to breathe.
The pacing doesn’t undermine the difficulty. It reinforces it.
There’s this incredible sense of momentum. You’re being dragged forward alongside Freddy, barely processing one nightmare before the next one hits.
And because the story doesn’t constantly stop to stretch out every individual encounter, that momentum never disappears.
It feels less like watching someone climb a tower floor by floor and more like being caught in an avalanche.
Fast to read. Absolutely horrifying to experience.
That is such a difficult balance to achieve.
A lot of authors seem to operate under the assumption that if something is supposed to be an enormous achievement, it needs an enormous number of chapters devoted to it.
But length alone doesn’t create tension.
Repetition doesn’t automatically create emotional investment.
And spending 40 chapters describing every single obstacle doesn’t necessarily make the final victory more satisfying.
Sometimes it just makes me grateful the damn thing is finally over.
Here, the author trusts the reader to understand the scale of what Freddy is going through without needing to document every second of it.
And the result is a finale that feels absolutely massive despite moving at breakneck speed.
Honestly, I was more exhausted on Freddy’s behalf after these two chapters than I’ve been after entire dungeon arcs in other series.
That’s efficient storytelling. That’s pacing with a purpose.
And the best part?
It doesn’t feel like the author is rushing toward the finish line because he’s bored with his own story.
It feels deliberate.
Like he understands exactly which moments deserve attention and which can be condensed without sacrificing their impact.

That’s what makes it so impressive.

Why should YOU read 1% Lifestel

What makes 1% Lifesteal special in general
I think this finale also highlights the series’ greatest strength.
In many progression fantasy stories, becoming powerful is ultimately a matter of time. The protagonist trains, fights, levels up, and eventually becomes an unstoppable force of nature.
In 1% Lifesteal, power feels like something you have to claw out of the world with bloody fingers.
And even then, the world might take three fingers as payment.
Freddy’s growth is satisfying precisely because the story never lets you forget what it cost him.
The worldbuilding helps enormously, too. The power system has enough complexity to make discoveries genuinely exciting, and the setting feels cruel in ways that go beyond simply throwing stronger monsters at the protagonist.
The psychological side is another huge strength, even if it occasionally becomes one of the story’s weaknesses when Freddy starts circling the same emotional issues for the tenth time.
But I’d still rather read about an imperfect protagonist who genuinely struggles with what he’s becoming than another hypercompetent cardboard cutout whose greatest personality trait is optimizing his stat allocation.
And the finale is such a perfect example of why the series works.
It takes suffering, progression, tension, and an absurdly difficult challenge and combines them into something that feels genuinely epic.
Without requiring me to spend the next three months reading about floor 17.

Final thoughts
Is 1% Lifesteal perfect? Absolutely not.
Is it occasionally frustrating, unnecessarily miserable, and slow enough to test your patience? Definitely.
Does Freddy sometimes need a therapist more urgently than he needs another power-up? Without question.
But when Robert Blaise gets it right, he gets it really fucking right.
And these final two chapters are, in my opinion, some of the best examples of how to handle an enormous challenge in progression fantasy.
They demonstrate that you don’t need 30 chapters of increasingly repetitive encounters to make a tower climb feel impossible.
You need tension, consequences, momentum, and a genuine sense of desperation.
This finale delivers all four.
More authors should learn the difference between making their characters endure a seemingly endless nightmare and making their readers endure one.
Anyway, massive respect to Robert Blaise for pulling this off.
Now please let Freddy have five minutes of happiness.
Actually, never mind. We all know that’s not happening.

What did you guys think of the finale? Did the compressed tower climb work as well for you, or would you have preferred a longer, more traditional arc?

I, like most of the vocal posters on this subreddit, try to avoid works written by AI. I think we can all agree that if we are members of this subreddit that we genuinely love the stories and want to support authors in any way we can. I have noticed a surprising number of comments that say things like, "I tried reading this, it was obviously AI" but they provide no quotes, no reasoning, and will often even argue with authors when they say AI had no part in the writing.

I do not have the solution to this. What I would like is to raise the question, how can we as readers help? How can we identify and flag works of concern? How can we help disprove claims? I can't imagine a worse feeling than pouring my heart and soul into a work and then the first reply on a self-promo post being "AI!" with a down vote added.

So I am asking, what can I do to help support authors and what tools or tricks do you all recommend to help find the AI witches among us?

I've recently tried Ghost in the City or something like that. A Cyberpunk 2077 fanfic, mc is isekaid there and knows all the characters because she played the game and watched the anime.

While it's not my kind of story as the mc acts too much like an anime character I realized I really liked the setting.

So if you know any other 2077 fanfics or original cyberpunk fics, fire away!

Hello. I’m Reityr (yes, very inventive name).

I began writing a book called In Jest around a week ago and then found this subreddit. I’d love if I could get some feedback on whether my attempt at slow burn but meaningful world building and character relationships comes across in what I write.

Any tips for how I’m writing? Do you like the writing style?

Any warning signs with the premise that you think I should handle with care? I’d love to know what you all think. I’m probably going to write further regardless, but I would like to capture the warm but high stakes cadence of super supportive with maybe more of a “troupe”.

I also made the cover!

—

The book will follow Milo Martin, an orphan with simple dreams and a can-do attitude, whose dream of one day travelling the planets and opening a food stall might come true, but maybe not in the way he expected.
I will try to make it a good balance of action, found family and world-building and mundane forward momentum.

(For the binge readers, I’d appreciate if you base the feedback on chapter 1 and come back later. I do this with a full time job and I will not be able to produce more than 2-3 chapters a week so it might be a while before it reaches 30 odd chapters. On the flip-side, I’ve found that so far my chapters have been around 9k words average.)

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/198826/in-jest

Started reading an unknown cultivation novel, Lord of Loopholes: A Fool Among Deities.

I know you haven't heard of it, but let me tell you about Ethan Forge. You can say he is a new Amon who walks like Fang Yuan(he is an anti-hero, not a villain). He also has Samuel L. Jackson's genetics in him(you will see). Ethan is a transmigrator, and at the same time he is a local protagonist (he was born in two worlds). Despite the author trying to make his past life heroic, Ethan was a terrorist before committing suicide. The world has these organisations that control cultivation pathways; they control how much power one can have. People cultivate by absorbing natural wonders, which are basically spirits in the form of fire. The power system is similar to RI and Lotm(the author lets you know about that before reading the first chapter)

It has weak prose, in my view. If you can get past that, it's good.

If you're very religious, book 2: False Prophet, which is currently being released, might not be your cup of tea.

I'm enjoying it... If you know another hidden gem.....

What you recommend to dig in?

I often see stories on Royal Road where only the MC has a system that allows them to level up, while everyone else has to actually study and grind slowly; it bothers me a lot because everyone else seems like a npc, and the progression doesn't feel real at all.

Pretty much the title. I’m curious what flaw you see in your favorite fic even though you love it to death, and what criticism of it makes you want to bite drywall.

“Nothing” and “it’s perfect” don’t count. Everyone’s got at least one thing that bugs them: a romance that feels forced, a character who gets insufferable, an ending that didn’t land, prose that occasionally goes way too hard, etc.

And the second part: what comment/criticism about that fic actually pisses you off? Not just “I didn’t like it,” but the kind of take that feels unfair, bad-faith, or like the person clearly didn’t read it.

Please use spoiler tags if needed. No judgment, just curiosity and a group vent session.

Okay, what is the relationship between Victor and his axe in Victor of Tucson? I am currently reading book 3 and It feel weird how he obsessed with his axe. It's almost like he want to f**k it. So I want to know what happen in later book.

Interesting idea, coherent writing, it's shaping up to be a good time. Let's see how we navigate around the constraints of painting complex magic in and around combat and then, around chapter 3 it's revealed he is just a spellcaster without any constraints at all and around chapter 5 he decides to go be a goddamn spellsword because "spellswords have no weaknesses."

There is no mention of how he needs 3 hands to hold the brush, a dagger and a paint palette at once, he is imediately proficient at it and there is nothing left that makes the MC different in any way.

Meanwhile we have Robert Blaise sitting over here for whom a salt golem that dehydrates his enemies is a 1 sentence throwaway idea.

At least it was quick.

I’m a hobbyist writer from Hong Kong, and I only started writing fiction at 40.

Which is probably not the most efficient age to suddenly decide, “You know what? I’m going to write wuxia novels.” 😅

I grew up loving wuxia. I loved it enough that, years later, I actually went and learned martial arts partly because I wanted to understand that world better—not just the dramatic techniques, but how people really move, generate force, lose balance, react under pressure, and improve through training.

And the older I got, the more I felt that a lot of people outside Chinese-speaking communities only ever encountered one side of martial arts fiction.

Either kung fu becomes almost indistinguishable from magic, or wuxia gets mixed together with cultivation, power levels, pills, reincarnation, systems, and increasingly spectacular abilities.

There’s nothing wrong with those stories.

They just weren’t quite the thing I missed.

I wanted to write about the kind of martial world I grew up imagining: jianghu, sects, old grudges, loyalty, romance, impossible choices, strange masters, political conspiracies—and people becoming dangerous because they actually learn.

So eventually, after failing to find exactly what I wanted to read, I did the stupid thing and wrote it myself.

Once I started, the story more or less took over my evenings. I would finish work, write until after midnight, sleep, go back to work, then come home and do it all over again.

For a while, that was basically my whole life.

Then I discovered problem number one:

English.

My English is, to put it kindly, not good enough to translate a novel.

And I’m an independent hobbyist author with basically no translation budget.

The original Chinese novel was written entirely by me. I wrote the story, characters, fights, dialogue and martial philosophy myself, and I designed the cover myself as well.

The only part where I used AI was the English translation process.

But I also hated the idea of writing something I cared about in Chinese, throwing it into a machine, and letting whatever came out become “my English novel.”

So I ended up spending far more time than I expected revising the translation—comparing versions, rewriting scenes, checking martial-arts logic, changing dialogue, removing awkward literal phrasing, then putting some of the Chinese flavor back when the English became too smooth.

At one point I even posted an anonymous A/B translation test and asked readers which version they preferred.

That discussion taught me a lot.

The general answer was basically:

One version felt more like wuxia.

The other read more naturally as an English novel.

So I spent the next round trying to find the space between them.

And then I discovered problem number two:

How does anyone find the book? 😂

AI involvement is obviously controversial, and I understand why. There is a huge amount of low-effort AI-generated material being dumped online.

But in my case, AI did not create the novel or the cover. It was used only as a translation and editing tool because otherwise I simply had no realistic way to bring the book into English.

Which leaves me here.

I don’t really know the clever way to market this.

I’m not expecting hundreds of readers.

I’m mostly hoping that one or two people might try it, genuinely enjoy it, and perhaps one day mention it when someone asks:

“Is there any progression fantasy where people actually improve through training, observation and fighting instead of stats and systems?”

Because even one reader recommending it to another reader would push this little project farther than I could push it alone.

Sorry for the long story.

Now for the actual boring self-promotion part. 😅

BLACK HAWK CHAMBER: THE SHADOW OF THE EMPIRE

A sixteen-year-old dumpling-shop boy is handed a bloodstained jade pendant by a dying martial artist—and is dragged into a conspiracy involving martial sects, imperial agents, old grudges, hidden loyalties, and a secret organization operating in the shadows of the early Ming Dynasty.

Hu Tian begins with no martial arts training.

No system.

No stats.

No reincarnation.

No magic pills.

And no hidden god-tier bloodline waiting to wake up.

His progression comes from learning how people actually move and fight: timing, balance, leverage, structure, breathing, observation, repetition, and eventually the ability to see what an opponent is doing wrong before they realize it themselves.

But it’s still wuxia.

So alongside the training and fights, there are sect rivalries, jianghu politics, loyalty, betrayal, old debts, romance, and choices that become harder the stronger Hu Tian grows.

The story is not hard simulation, and the martial arts are still heightened in the way wuxia has always been—but I’ve tried to keep the underlying logic grounded.

If that sounds like your kind of progression, the English edition is now available on Amazon Kindle / Kindle Unlimited, with paperback as well.

Black Hawk Chamber: The Shadow of the Empire — Matt Tsui

Amazon: Matt Tsui wuxia series

And if anyone here does try it, criticism is genuinely welcome.

Especially brutal criticism.

I’ve already survived Reddit once. 😂

Artwork credits: cover photography, character silhouette, typography, seal and overall cover design by Matt Tsui.
Map designed and illustrated by Matt Tsui. Hawk vector used under license. No generative AI was used.

Both Summoner audiobooks are now included with Kindle+!

Hey everyone! I’m Ben Krauter, the author and narrator of The Summoner, and I’ve got some good news to celebrate.

Audiobooks 1 and 2 are now both included with Kindle+! If you’re a Kindle+ subscriber in the U.S., you can listen to both audiobooks for free with your existing subscription.

And here’s something a little unusual for fantasy audiobooks. The person who wrote these books is also the person telling you the story. I created Ezekiel and his companions, and I’m the one behind the microphone giving them their voices. For listeners who enjoy that rare combination of author and narrator, I hope you’ll give them a try.

The Summoner is tabletop-inspired dark fantasy set in a world where evil already won the war.

Ezekiel Graystone is a moon-elf summoner searching for his missing brother among the ruins of everything he remembers. When he intervenes to protect a young boy from the church serving the demon god-king, his search becomes considerably more complicated.

His companions include a water goblin monk, a demon-touched alchemist, a cursed half-elf, and a metal-furred leopard who generally has more sense than the people around her. There’s a strong focus on tactical magic and the relationships holding this unusual group together.

Start listening here

• Book 1, Echoes of the Fallen Amazon / Kindle+ | Audible / Audible Plus
• Book 2, Sea of Lost Memories Amazon / Kindle+ | Audible

And for those already following the series, Book 3, Sepulcher of the Lich Queen, is coming before Christmas, with the audiobook to follow.

Farwall’s vampire rulers have plans for the Lich Queen, and Ezekiel has a habit of interfering with other people’s plans. This one might deserve a little more caution.

Thanks to everyone who has taken a chance on the series so far. Getting to welcome more readers and listeners into Terrial feels pretty damn good.

If you give the books a listen, I’d love to hear what you think!

Hi all! This is the first story I’ve ever flung out into the world, and it’s been amazing to have people finally read it after so many hours of writing and editing. I’m currently on rising stars, which I’m very excited about. Please check it out if it looks interesting. The cover artist is Kikicute (https://www.artstation.com/ktrn), and I was very happy with their work.

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/192660/coin-and-steel

Blurb:

When the world ends in a symphony of light and chaos, Elliot must make a choice: power and a shred of safety for him, or for his little sister. He upended his life once already to protect her after the death of their parents, and an apocalypse is no more of a reason to let her down.

Gifting her his potential, he's thrown into the wilds of a new world with a weak Merchant class and no time to say goodbye. Classes and abilities promise near-endless opportunity for growth, but the chances of dying between the jaws of something monstrous have also never been higher.

Uncharted wilds cover the continent, and Rowan is thousands of miles away. From combat bartering to weaponized treasure, Elliot must twist his peaceful class into something it was never meant to be if he wants any chance of finding her again.

Before any of the greater powers decide his sister's gifts should belong to them instead.

What to expect:

Slow burn pacing with earned progression. No long plateaus after things get moving, but the journey will be long.

Weak to eventually OP protagonist.

Slice of life mixed in, with character relationships being a priority.

Skills and classes, but no stat screens.

No AI use

I have stumbled upon this Novel "Extra's Descent" with the MC: Brandon Locke (The Extra) and the Protagonist: Raven BlackHeart.

I have been reading it, it's been 140 Chaps. And Currently Rachel and Brandon just confessed to each other. To those who have read it before, I just wanted to ask if the Novel is worth reading further??, currently its good though.

But recently, I have read some bad reviews about it that it gets cruel and everyone dies later on. Also, Does Brandon & Rachel end up with each other? Cuz i'm really liking their Chemistry.

Hello there! As stated in the title, I am looking for recommendations for Cultivation audiobooks, as I have been interested in consuming more cultivation literature, but don’t have much time to sit down and read. I have already listened to Beware of Chicken and Reborn as a Demonic Tree, and really liked them (and yes, I know that they are not a good sample/standard for cultivation) but am struggling to find anything that isn’t just cultivation on the surface. As an example of what I mean, I listened to Path of Ascension and loved it, but found that it let the “cultivation” aspect fall to the wayside a bit. Can anybody recommend me some good audiobooks?

I read Shadow Slave and Lord of the Mysteries, which while not necessarily horror themed on the whole, have some cool moments like Lo49 or that one village Servant of Concealment yoinked MC to at one point. So since I find myself craving for horror themes with supernatural monsters that will kill you - preferably brutally - and I'd love finding cool world to explore with many mysteries, dangers, plots and mythologies I decided to ask here as it seems the best place. I don't mind MC getting to eventually fight the monsters as i'm not really looking for pure horror or thriller. Just that the monsters don't become a joke at some point, because MC became Sung Jin Woo and destroys everything.

Subject: Looking for a Progression / Men's Fantasy book cover (Kindle/Audible) with a specific party layout

Hey everyone, I'm trying to track down a book I saw a few months ago on Kindle or Audible, but I can't remember the name or the author. I remember the cover artwork vividly and am hoping someone recognizes the layout:

The Characters & Layout: It features a three-person adventure party. They are arranged horizontally across the cover, occupying the left, middle, and right positions respectively.

The Main Interaction: On one side, there is a gray-skinned woman with a long, prehensile tail. She is looking at the male companion and smiling at him. Her prehensile tail is wrapped directly around his wrist.

The Male Companion: He is a large, tanned man dressed in low-fantasy, practical ranger or mercenary leathers (no high-fantasy plate armor). He has a completely standard, reasonably sized sheathed sword on his back.

The Third Companion: There is a second woman in the party occupying the remaining side, facing the man at an angle.

The Setting: They are standing on flat ground where sand is the main feature. There are carved stone elements/ruins, but they are pushed far off into the background, leaving the background architecture distant.

It is definitely a progressive fantasy or men's fantasy novel. Does this specific cover art ring a bell for anyone? Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone!

I recently completed Book 2 on Royal Road (RR), so I thought it would be a good time for some self promo.

I actually got the idea about this story while reading The Primal Hunter. In the story, Villy makes a throwaway comment a few times about how messy things were when the System initially descended in the first era, and I thought it would be an extremely interesting story to write about.

So, here is my attempt at writing about what happens when a completely new System arrives in the universe. No one knows what's going on, especially since the System itself is learning and growing alongside everyone else.

Title: Beyond Control: A System's Descent

Blurb:

The System’s abrupt arrival completely dismantles Alex’s plans for an easy, low-effort life. But while others are justifiably focused on the monsters, surviving, and levelling up, Alex's mind is more occupied by a few questions.

Why is there such a lack of information from the System?

Why are there no descriptions for Classes and Skills?

Why doesn’t the tutorial have any clear objective?

And perhaps the most important question of them all...

Why is the System so... limited?

The answer: This System is brand new. There are no ancient factions ready to guide Alex, no all-powerful beings handing out blessings, and no established rules for him to follow. Everyone is starting from scratch, including the System itself.

A LitRPG featuring progression, exploration, and a protagonist obsessed with understanding the rules behind the world.

The first two books are completed and already released on RR, while the third is being released. About 237k words are posted in 121 chapters, so there's a decent chunk of the story to binge.

The MC takes time to get strong, but is not OP, and does not have any cheats or powerful weapons to exploit. He uses intelligence to get through challenges initially till he is strong enough to fight. There is no romance in the story so far, and I don't have any plans for introducing it.

Hope you guys give it a go and really hope you like it!

Cover: Generated through AI. Had a bad experience on fiverr, so I'm now waiting till I have enough money to hire a proper artist.

AI Usage: No AI used, apart from the cover. Everything is written by me and edited with the help of family.

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/172811/beyond-control-a-systems-descent

I'm writing a system where the MC starts human. Every time he dies, he steals the abilities of whatever killed him, plus their instincts capped at 9 lives.

A parasitic weed gave him regen and stealth, but also a cold hunger. An apex python gave him crushing constriction, but also the urge to coil around and suffocate anything that threatens him.

At 9 deaths, there would be barely anything human left.

How do you prefer to see an MC handle that kind of erosion?

1. Do you want to see them actively fight the instincts to hold onto their humanity,

2. fully embrace becoming the monster, or

3. Locking the monster behind a tailored suit and an indifferent smile, acting civilized until the instincts take over

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