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This is coming from someone who didn't fully enjoy solo leveling, TLDR; it was just very one dimensional with absolutely no depth. I don't want to go into the nitty gritty of that manhwa because this review isn't served for that. I began reading this with the mental note that this could potentially be on that same route of solo leveling, but I was CLEARLY wrong. Yes, it does have some elements that align with solo leveling such as the attributes system, the fighting of demons, etc, but the story is what I enjoy the most from this manhwa.

Kim Dokja at first ... doesn't serve as your normal protagonist. He ends up being enveloped into a novel-esque world based upon the book "3 ways to survive a ruined world". His knowledge of this novel allows him to traverse through the never-ending scenarios that are struck upon the characters. However, there is an ACTUAL protagonist aside from the main character that we see. Although Kim Dokja is not the protagonist of the "story", he slowly makes his way up to being immersed into being a protagonist. The supposed side characters all have their own unique attributes in relation to their constellations. I'm actually very fond of how they didn't power creep Kim Dokja and make him too invincible to surpass his peers, but instead, gave them reliable skills to fight alongside him.

The story itself is mesmerizing. And I can't deny that every good story does derive their ideas from other novels, because no matter what, as the world progresses, stories also mesh together and get influenced by other stories. Although this manhwa uses good ideas from other novels, it also has their own sense of originality, allowing it to live independently on its own. I'm giving this a 9/10 because it deserves high praise and I hope others can enjoy how this manhwa inevitably ends. I haven't finished myself, but after reading this and enjoying it so much, I will be switching over to the webnovel because I just enjoyed it that much.

Personally, I felt like the manhwa was entertaining in its own right. However, I feel like it's missing that depth in regards to the main character. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing a character develop as a story prolongs, but his development in terms of power and strength is just too overpowered. I wish we got more moments of jinwoo struggling to defeat an enemy and having to genuinely come back to them at a later time after a long training arc or just struggle more in general and realizing more about himself. I feel like the manhwa lacks the depth on that and ... doesn't really allow the main character to flourish without getting all these special buffs. Like in the beginning of the manhwa, we see s ranked hunters proving to possess raw power and abilities. But they suddenly become nothing but flukes and ants when compared to Jinwoo and their whole character gets downplayed so hard that it makes you think if they were really even that strong in the first place. As for the whole ant arc, it was really reminiscent of hunter x hunter. But with hxh, there was depth, development, an actual story that gets you feeling a rollercoaster of emotions, whereas with solo leveling, they just kill off a bunch of hunters, jinwoo swoops in, saves the day and that's that. Another thing is that they bring up his father who went missing, which also happens to ging in hxh, but they never gave us really any background on his dad or flashback to add some more dimension in the story. They just kind of make him seem as a tough guy who inherited the fragment of brilliant light and then he proceeds to die shortly after making a bigger reveal around chapters 160+. It doesn't amount to much.

Overall, I think some will enjoy it, some won't. There's not enough "flavor", it's more simple and straight to the point. I wish they expanded on certain stories a while longer, the beginning was really good in its own respective way. I liked the idea that Jinwoo was this weakling who amounted to nothing, and was the only one who decided to stay back in the temple to save everyone knowing that he is the weakest. If they were able to develop his character in a less op way and added more backstory it'd be a lot better because it just felt like they tried to do that in the very beginning with him being the weakest --> gets determined to being the strongest but then never lifts off of that and ends up just making him op every single chapter.

Honestly, if it wasn't so short I wouldn't have finished it. This manga, along with a million others, share the exact same main character, a girl who falls for the first guy she meets after she comes to a new environment. And not to mention he has NO redeeming qualities or out-of-this-world traits, but she just falls for him unconditionally for who knows what. The secondary guy character who clearly sees her struggles, decides to be there for her without any sort of expectation that she'd like him back. But just like EVERY OTHER MANGA that follows this trope, the main character inevitably goes for ... the guy she was previously infatuated with. This whole entire "genre" is so nonsensical and makes the female lead such a bore to understand. The one dimensional aspect of how she falls for the first guy she sees, makes me feel reclused to even try and be empathetic towards her character. Had the main guy had any sort of redeeming or astounding qualities, I would somewhat understand, but he didn't find that sense of affirmation that he liked her UNTIL he saw her with another man. Another thing to note, is how shitty of a friend this main character is portrayed. The entirety of the manga, she's full of self-pity, thinking she's doing the "reasonable thing" by closing off her feelings due to the fact that her girl friend is clearly in love with the main character. But in turn, completely ignores that and decides to confess her feelings for the male lead KNOWING how much it'd hurt her friend. The most hilarious part about this idea is that she goes to apologize to her friend, and RIGHT AFTER her friend gets rejected, she ends up going to confess anyways. Like how shitty of a friend could you be to do this shit LMAO. Not to mention this entire trope was so overdone around the 2000s, but to see that this was made last YEAR is incredibly disappointing.
This story just reveals how the main character has no sense of self-worth, is completely one dimensional in her way of thinking, has no sense of friendship, and instead of giving a chance to a guy who is willing to try for her, goes for a guy she has to chase.

To be completely honest, this manga had potential. But just as it did, it also fell off as you get dragged along a never-ending, prolonged set of plot twists that seemingly become more predictable as it goes on. Don't get me wrong, the beginning of this manga was fascinating BECAUSE of the plot twists. But just with plot twists, there should also be PLOT. We end up missing so much of the plot because of these nitty gritty plot twists that come over time, and at a certain point the author should've halted with the plot twists and focused more on the raw aspect of ... the manga itself. I really did like it towards the beginning, so I'd give an 8/10 for the beginning, but mid manga --> later half would definitely be a 5/10 or 6/10.

I'm glad that there are many who like this manga, given how predictable and dull it gets toward the more recent chapters, I just wouldn't recommend it for the long run. If anything, it should've ended a while back but the constant dragging of the storyline is what is still keeping it moving forward till today. It goes back to my point of creating more plot. It had too many twists and turns for it to truly be linear and the storyline just went everywhere.