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Mother of Learning
Mother of Learning
1580 pages
First published June 30, 2011
68 people are currently reading
882 people want to read
About the author
Domagoj Kurmaić
9 books541 followersDomagoj Kurmaić (aka nobody103) is just your average accountant from Croatia who thinks way too much about fantasy and sci-fi, and occasionally puts his thoughts into writing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
January 5, 2025
A fantasy world with lots of magic integrated into everyday life. The MC is a teenage boy attending a highschool where students learn magic according to their future career plans.
A month into the school year he is begrudgingly participating in a school festival when suddenly the city is attacked and he is killed. However, after dying he wakes up at the beginning of the month. This marks the start of his struggles to escape the time loop.
It's really hard to describe a good book. Saying "it's written well", "it has great characters" or "it has great world building" doesn't convey the true quality of the book. Keeping that in mind, I'd say that the best qualities of this book are as follows:
1. The scope is constantly increasing. It starts out at a school, then moves on to exploring the city, then the country and eventually even other continents.
2. New characters are constantly introduced and explored to the extent that you could call any one of them your favorite.
3. The magic system is deep, logical and relevant throughout the whole story.
Moving on to my favorite qualities:
4*. This story is the best example of the Chekhov's gun principle and I can not find a single fault in it. Every little detail casually mentioned in the story comes back as an integral part. From the girl whose bike fell into the river, to the other passanger during a train ride.
5*. It really feels like the story was well planned out from the beginning, which is incredible considering its length. There are no irrelevant parts or lulls in the story.
6*. It's somewhat a power fantasy. The main character is relatively smart, which allows him to make the best of the time loop and gain immense knowledge and power, none of which seems cheap since you see where he picks up every skill that he uses later on.
Favorite quote: "Everything matters. You are what you do, and if I were to start doing stupid things just because there is seemingly no consequence for them, those actions would eventually come to define me."
If you decide to pick up this story I strongly recommend the audio narration by Jack Voraces. The voices add a strong personality which can be off-putting at first, but it really brings the story to life.
Strongly recommend. Sorry for bad english.
A month into the school year he is begrudgingly participating in a school festival when suddenly the city is attacked and he is killed. However, after dying he wakes up at the beginning of the month. This marks the start of his struggles to escape the time loop.
It's really hard to describe a good book. Saying "it's written well", "it has great characters" or "it has great world building" doesn't convey the true quality of the book. Keeping that in mind, I'd say that the best qualities of this book are as follows:
1. The scope is constantly increasing. It starts out at a school, then moves on to exploring the city, then the country and eventually even other continents.
2. New characters are constantly introduced and explored to the extent that you could call any one of them your favorite.
3. The magic system is deep, logical and relevant throughout the whole story.
Moving on to my favorite qualities:
4*. This story is the best example of the Chekhov's gun principle and I can not find a single fault in it. Every little detail casually mentioned in the story comes back as an integral part. From the girl whose bike fell into the river, to the other passanger during a train ride.
5*. It really feels like the story was well planned out from the beginning, which is incredible considering its length. There are no irrelevant parts or lulls in the story.
6*. It's somewhat a power fantasy. The main character is relatively smart, which allows him to make the best of the time loop and gain immense knowledge and power, none of which seems cheap since you see where he picks up every skill that he uses later on.
Favorite quote: "Everything matters. You are what you do, and if I were to start doing stupid things just because there is seemingly no consequence for them, those actions would eventually come to define me."
If you decide to pick up this story I strongly recommend the audio narration by Jack Voraces. The voices add a strong personality which can be off-putting at first, but it really brings the story to life.
Strongly recommend. Sorry for bad english.
June 2, 2022
Where to start? Amazing in every way. Hard magic system (personal favourite of mine) making the use of magic have rules and makes for a tighter story. The MC being a mind mage made it more unique then the majority of other mages in fantasy books. The character development of the MC was great to see. Time travel/time loop element was so well done - learning that I'm a big fan of progression fantasy as a subgenre.
The ending was extremely clever. The author mentioned he may write a follow up as an extended prologue that was more slice-of-life and I really hope that happens. Was truly a great story. Massive in length, but well worth the time
The ending was extremely clever. The author mentioned he may write a follow up as an extended prologue that was more slice-of-life and I really hope that happens. Was truly a great story. Massive in length, but well worth the time
January 26, 2025
5/5
This book is a first month at a magic school that is a groundhog day/edge of tomorrow/ time loop story.If you love time loops and magic schools then this book is just Amazing. Its biggest weakness is the prose also that the time loop leads to some repetitive and info dumpy sections.
It was originally a web novel so the writing is more in line with that but it also means it's free online. I read this book in the craziest way. Was gifted book one the read book2 right way online. I read first two books in 48 hours. I then did last 2 on audiobook. Of the 3ways I read the books I think audiobook was the best.
The first 200pages are the slowest part of the book. Once the time loop starts it is pure addiction. Later the world expands quite a bit as we get insight into the other characters. The story becomes much more of an epic and less a timelooply. This makes it less addictive and slower but the plot get even better.
The ending was good but the best part of the book is how fun it is. It feels more like a video game so as your reading you will just constantly be play on your mind.
One of the most fun reads I have ever had.
One of the most rereadable books of all time.
Just so rereadable
This book is a first month at a magic school that is a groundhog day/edge of tomorrow/ time loop story.If you love time loops and magic schools then this book is just Amazing. Its biggest weakness is the prose also that the time loop leads to some repetitive and info dumpy sections.
It was originally a web novel so the writing is more in line with that but it also means it's free online. I read this book in the craziest way. Was gifted book one the read book2 right way online. I read first two books in 48 hours. I then did last 2 on audiobook. Of the 3ways I read the books I think audiobook was the best.
The first 200pages are the slowest part of the book. Once the time loop starts it is pure addiction. Later the world expands quite a bit as we get insight into the other characters. The story becomes much more of an epic and less a timelooply. This makes it less addictive and slower but the plot get even better.
The ending was good but the best part of the book is how fun it is. It feels more like a video game so as your reading you will just constantly be play on your mind.
One of the most fun reads I have ever had.
One of the most rereadable books of all time.
Just so rereadable
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 18, 2024
The original is now titled "NOT A BOOK" on here. Here's what I wrote on that review:
I read this online via fictionpress (which seems to be where the author would post it).
This was a great story - Zorian gets caught in a one month time loop, and nobody is quite sure how to break out. Years pass. There's lots of other things happening as well, but so much of it feels like a spoiler that I'm not going to mention it other than that there is definite character growth. The Zorian we meet at first is, as mentioned, a misanthrope who dislikes his family (quite possibly with good reason). With time, he gradually mellows and matures, and a lot of the rough edges are sanded smooth.
And, there are dragons. And evil liches.
I think this is on Royal Road. Also, it's amazing. I would heartily recommend to anyone interested in the vague genre of isekai / litrpg though this is neither.
I've also edited my date on here to set it to what I had for "NOT A BOOK"
I read this online via fictionpress (which seems to be where the author would post it).
This was a great story - Zorian gets caught in a one month time loop, and nobody is quite sure how to break out. Years pass. There's lots of other things happening as well, but so much of it feels like a spoiler that I'm not going to mention it other than that there is definite character growth. The Zorian we meet at first is, as mentioned, a misanthrope who dislikes his family (quite possibly with good reason). With time, he gradually mellows and matures, and a lot of the rough edges are sanded smooth.
And, there are dragons. And evil liches.
I think this is on Royal Road. Also, it's amazing. I would heartily recommend to anyone interested in the vague genre of isekai / litrpg though this is neither.
I've also edited my date on here to set it to what I had for "NOT A BOOK"
September 23, 2022
Well, that was some read. Overall I enjoyed this immensely. I love the progressive fantasy genre.
My main criticism is that the end game set-up kinda got glossed over somewhat and given it was a first-person narrative the protagonist held his cards far too close to his chest. I also wouldn't have minded having two or three chapters dedicated to the epilogue either. But that is just a personal preference as I'd have liked to have read more of Zorian interacting with his friends at the end, a farewell tour of sorts.
My main criticism is that the end game set-up kinda got glossed over somewhat and given it was a first-person narrative the protagonist held his cards far too close to his chest. I also wouldn't have minded having two or three chapters dedicated to the epilogue either. But that is just a personal preference as I'd have liked to have read more of Zorian interacting with his friends at the end, a farewell tour of sorts.
May 21, 2025
yeah. progression fantaslop. could be worse! at least the characters managed to become distinguished after the first arc.
February 15, 2022
The arc tied up most of the loose ends around the story. Although the second ARC left more questions than answers, most of the answers are answered in this arc. The arc is rather long compared with the other two arcs, but the beginning was page-turners diving straight into answering questions.
I will not discuss further since due to the nature of this arc, discussing its contents are lead one easily to spoilers, so I will just recommend finishing the novel if you have already read to this arc.
I will not discuss further since due to the nature of this arc, discussing its contents are lead one easily to spoilers, so I will just recommend finishing the novel if you have already read to this arc.
September 24, 2022
It took me around 25 hours to read the book.
Wasn't bored for a second of it.
One of the best books I've read. It's definitely going into my favourite bookshelf.
Wasn't bored for a second of it.
One of the best books I've read. It's definitely going into my favourite bookshelf.
March 22, 2022
A ultra cool webserial.
It just ticks many boxes for me.
The protagonists actions are largely driven by logic, the world building is cool and special and the story itself is unique.
The ground-hog-day idea is really cool and the author really goes into depth about the countless possibilities in such a setting and how an intelligent person could leverage them.
By going for a more rational approach it just adds so much believability for me.
The characters are cool and I really cared for them and the author even managed to bring it to a satisfying ending.
Despite the long story, it really managed to keep the tension high and always had interesting new things.
I think it speaks for itself, that I basically read the new chapters every few weeks for two years, which I never did for any other book.
It just ticks many boxes for me.
The protagonists actions are largely driven by logic, the world building is cool and special and the story itself is unique.
The ground-hog-day idea is really cool and the author really goes into depth about the countless possibilities in such a setting and how an intelligent person could leverage them.
By going for a more rational approach it just adds so much believability for me.
The characters are cool and I really cared for them and the author even managed to bring it to a satisfying ending.
Despite the long story, it really managed to keep the tension high and always had interesting new things.
I think it speaks for itself, that I basically read the new chapters every few weeks for two years, which I never did for any other book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2022
Honestly, this is pretty good. The story has a plot and character development. It has fresh daring ideas and an easy writing style that are the true hallmarks of a well written web serial and the reason why I keep trying them out. It is completed.
But, the story suffers from the common web serial flaws as well. It is long, not because it has to be long, but because it is repetitive. I am on arc 3 and I find myself looking forward to finishing it already. The extensive usage of tropes is a con too.
I am giving it 3 -3.5*, because I think that this is a pretty good book that has potention to be on somebody's favorites shelf. But I personally cannot recommend it without hesitation and won't be rereading it.
But, the story suffers from the common web serial flaws as well. It is long, not because it has to be long, but because it is repetitive. I am on arc 3 and I find myself looking forward to finishing it already. The extensive usage of tropes is a con too.
I am giving it 3 -3.5*, because I think that this is a pretty good book that has potention to be on somebody's favorites shelf. But I personally cannot recommend it without hesitation and won't be rereading it.
November 11, 2022
For a book of this volume, this is as close to perfect as it gets.
Of course, there are stronger and weaker parts, but in a text that long slowdowns are to be expected and even welcome, as a set-up for a new wave of great. But the overall text is great: good story, interesting and relatable characters, the right mix of action and plot, and so on. No self-repetition, no piling up new crazy ideas, no ideological indoctrination. Good book, will read it again some day
Of course, there are stronger and weaker parts, but in a text that long slowdowns are to be expected and even welcome, as a set-up for a new wave of great. But the overall text is great: good story, interesting and relatable characters, the right mix of action and plot, and so on. No self-repetition, no piling up new crazy ideas, no ideological indoctrination. Good book, will read it again some day
January 27, 2022
What an amazing feat. A book that takes on a tough trope and does it right. I've been wading into more fanfic, web serial, and self-published works in the last year and am floored at the entertainment value.
4-stars as there is some editing to be done here, but I loved it for all 1800+ pages.
4-stars as there is some editing to be done here, but I loved it for all 1800+ pages.
April 15, 2022
All of the downsides of the novel are greatly explained by the author himself in the Afterword section. 4.7/5, it was a great ride and I would definitely read again in a distant future.
May 8, 2022
Up there with Sanderson and Rothfuss. Amazing ❤️
September 2, 2024
9.7.23 - 23.7.23
Tried something different this time, kept a running commentary. Failed a few times to maintain that split focus, when I was just trying to get it over and done with, and honestly I got a little sick of repeating myself and picking at the grammar, but it's not a terrible depiction of my quibbles. Gripes?
Totally valid and nonpedantic constructive criticism.
HEAVY SPOILERS!
1. Good Morning Brother
No one calls their brother brother, except in anime and porn when the connection is being emphasised for whatever reason.
It's a weird way to be woken up, being jumped on, especially for a 16yo guy given what's typically risen to meet the day.
The prose is a little clunky here - you don't need to describe how he pushed her off the bed or how he waited for her to drop her guard.
Zorian's oddly aware for a teenager who's just woken up.
I'm not sure about the authors background - what sort of influence has it had on the novel and how accurate is the culture if it's a transplant?
The language is a little odd - is English a second language? Ilsa says 'habit' - wouldn't 'policy' be a better fit?
Honestly, Zorian sounds a little spoiled - is he meant to?
From memory there's no real justification for why Zorian hates his family so much, he's just all angsty and shit?
He's got a bad attitude towards work, like with Xvim.
The sentences are fairly lengthy, could vary them a bit.
There's a weird need that litrpgs writers seem to have, to quantify things. Why does the mana well need to be listed as Rank 9?
Using that instead of who
Using a word twice in the same sentence
Starting a sentence with a preposition instead of using a comma or something similar.
Switching tenses right at the last line?
2. Life's Little Problems
'this place would keep him busy all year round' is a weird sentence.
Everyone's very middle class, I can't say I like it.
Odd phrasings that don't fit the feel.
I do enjoy learning new names and experiencing cultures through books, but I'm not sure whether this is coding or influence.
Still starting sentences with prepositions.
Tense switching again.
Oh no having to read a00 page book in a week the horror.
Tbf tho Xvims a bad teacher.
I feel like, if you're going to write a groundhog day story, then you go through the first cycle in detail and get to know everyone. None of these people we meet, apart from Zach, are part of the main cast, but that doesn't mean they should get nothing more than their name tossed out in the entire story.
3. The Bitter Truth
Clumsy foreshadowing: "He had a wealth of knowledge and a work ethic he hadn’t had at the end of their second year, far in excess of what could be gained through the normal passage of time."
Minuscule.
'Who' not 'that'.
Pessimistic Zorian - kind of a dick, self-absorbed.
I like Kael - Zorian doesn't even consider making friends with him despite Kael being polite, interested, and complimentary. They both have things that they could give one another.
4. Stars Fell
"he was quite adept at avoiding the notice of a particular person at a party without drawing attention from the other partygoers." Is this a nod towards his latent psychic abilities? It's quite subtle for nobody103.
'A full hour' before he ran out of constellations to name? Seriously?
Akoja seems a really good person - why doesn't Zorian pursue her or any other romantic relationship throughout the entire series?
I like the base of the story, I can't really fault it in concept, and this was good narrative discourse here where the artillery spell hits, the writing is tight and you feel connected. It's a contrast to the later chapters which I remember feel like a slog.
'Trolls... were able to reattach severed limbs simply by holding them to the matching stump for a few moments.' there's just something about this concept that feels wrong. Where does the energy come from? How is it so quick? Can it be done indefinitely? I've got a fairly powerful willing suspension of disbelief muscle but something here is twisting it.
Word choice continues to be occasionally incongruent.
Reckless stupidity is unnecessary and almost contradictory. This whole book is crying out for an editor to streamline sentences and cut boring bits.
Another example of verbosity: "an angry god out for vengeance' : a vengeful god; or something more specific and oblique like saying he rained fire, brimstone, and the occasional tapeworm down.
Of whom, not of which
Trouble with tenses again
Xvim's still a bad teacher even if he's got the right idea. Zorian's just being stubborn.
Does he ever do something nice for Neolu, as he promises to, or is that a frivolous thought.
6. Concentrate and Try Again
I like the way he sort of gets it wrong why Zach's there but it's a reasonable assumption based on the data he has.
These early cycles are a bit exciting with all the potential I can see.
Splinter Wars sounds really familiar - is it a reference or have I just read this too many times?
Ugh, 'Needless to say, ' stop it.
Retrospect seems an odd choice of word there, as opposed to hindsight.
If you're going to have a ridiculously long novel that repeats itself periodically why would you not detail the restarts as much as possible at the beginning and fade out later instead of skipping with 'it took four reatarts'. These earlier ones seem the most important and fresh, it's going to get boring through repetition. Why, also, is it not one chapter per restart?
7. Of Gaps and Pretending
"Fortunately, it seemed to tolerate Zorian better than most people," lol geddit
"the more he thought about it the more it seemed to him this whole thing was a giant opportunity rather than an annoyance." IT TOOK HIM EIGHT MONTHS TO REALISE THIS?!? There are definite blind spots when writing and this is a big one, not realising how people spend their time, not fully intellectually grasping what time means to a person. If he's intelligent then he would have considered the possibility of this being an opportunity within the first reset.
"there are plenty of magical disciplines where great shaping skills are an asset, but combat magic is mostly about power." Dude shouldn't be teaching magical combat.
This exposition is clumsy, seems contrived for Zorian to call something named The Old Alliance a country.
8. Perspective
Zorian refers to Zach as 'the boy' - they're the same age? Feels weird. Language difficulties or just age slipping through from the author? 'The guy' I think is a better fit here.
The grammar problems I mentioned earlier don't really go away I'm just so used to reading things with problems that I hardly notice.
9. Cheaters
"If Ibery thought to fluster Zach by pointing out the plural nature of his partners for the evening, she was going to be sorely disappointed." What.
It sort of skips over the deaths of students when they're caught by the winter wolves - not that I'm into gore or anything but it feels like avoiding the topic isn't the healthiest thing to do. It seems like the situation would inure Zach and Zorian to the deaths of these people and I'd worry about the long term effects on their attitudes towards other people. Knowing what I do about the 'time loop' and Zorian. #Westworld
It feels like there are two distinct influences or types of influence and one has a more grandiose vocabulary.
It feels like there's a fair amount of anime influence? I don't mind some anime but I find the attitudes and actions of the characters veer wildly into unrealistic territory sometimes, but then I'm not very familiar with Japanese culture.
10. Overlooked Details
The title of my blog on Doctor Who if I had one.
The repetition of that very first passage doesn't really do it any favours, just makes it seem more and more like a lot of work went into it.
Yes just buy an umbrella every time you need one. Ffs.
We don't really get to know Benisek very well over the course of the book - which is odd if he is actually Zorian's best friend at the start? It's kind of par for the course tho, right?
Aww poor little rich boy
11. Limiters
"the chubby boy was behaving no worse than his usual fare" fare an odd word choice again
"it gave him a rather… feminine appearance. Nonetheless, the boy clearly had no shortage of inner strength if he could move on after losing so many people to the horrible sickness." yes because woman are typically lacking in inner strength 🙄
It's easy to dismiss the assessment of others moods as intuition/observation, which I think is sort of well done, but maybe I'm just so used to that sort of lazy writing from everyone.
"“He looks kind of arrogant,” Akoja remarked. “And girly.”
“Well how judgmental of you,” Zorian remarked with a frown. “You come off as a bit arrogant yourself, you know?”" liking Akoja less. Is this out of character for her? It doesn't feel like it but idk her very well.
I like the word 'suddenly' less the older I get.
'pensive'? Or apprehensive?
"undermining other teacher’s authority like that could get ugly very quickly." There's nothing wrong with this on a literal level but it annoys me on a fundamental moral level, I think partially because the phrase Mother of Learning always makes me think of Maria Montessori who correctly states that teachers shouldn't be an authority to be feared pleased or appeased, but a benevolent director with a light touch.
The amount of understanding of magic seems odd for a world that's had intelligent people living on it for a long time - I think? The fact that Zorian, a relatively average person, is able to be so original, creative, and contributory to the field seems odd - though this could be a comment on a lack of connectivity and the havoc/stagnation strife causes to human advancement and knowledge.
Headcanon:
Zach: This is my familiar, Zorian. Say Hello, Zorian.
Zorian: (glares)
Zach: Awww is someone a grumpypuss today.
XD
12. Soul Web
Why did he have a crush on Taiven? Was it just looks, or?
Catgirl's mother lets her out in cat form?
Why is it called a dungeon?
Okay I lied about being inured to the faulty grammar.
Idiot, if he doesn't learn how to defend and protect himself then all the information in the world won't help him.
13. Any Second Now
lol geddit
""Girls-“ “…love boys who exercise, yes, yes,” Nodded Zorian sagely." Is Taiven dropping a hint that she'd go out with him if he bulked up.
He kinda reminds me of Pisces but without the character development.
14. The Sister Effect
"He was more of a parent to Kirielle than she and father ever were!" calling bullshit he hasn't got the parent attitude. Although maybe they are really shitty parents.
Who are the Gods? There's no descriptions of them in the entire text, that I recall. Don't even know their names.
Make up your mind OP is he her parent or does he not know her.
Who not that.
Sleeping in the same bed as a family member in the long term is weird right, like yes it could be a cultural thing and yes they used to do it in the olden days, still.
15. Busy Friday.
I think Xvim is right about giving students as much as they can handle and Zorian's just been coasting so far.
""Contrary to what various adventure novels may have led you to believe, ancient magic is almost always inferior to what we have available now." See, THIS makes sense with the way things are going.
"Kael is probably totally ignorant of his ancestral culture. " What. The fucking balls on Zorian.
16. We Need To Talk
Torso not chest. I assume.
17. Sympathy for the Spider
Bothers me when someone says t-thanks as a stutter rather than th-thanks.
Keeps using the word boy to refer to people Zorian's age.
The writing can be fairly stilted at times.
18. The Pact Is Sealed
I like the feel of the book - it can be a bit hokey for me sometimes tho.
""First of all, everything matters. You are what you do, and if I were to start doing stupid things just because there is seemingly no consequence for them, those actions would eventually come to define me. Secondly… I actually find studying fun. Well, maybe not all of it, but you get the idea.""
If Zorian finds a human mind mage then why doesnt he try to learn from him?
19. Tangled Webs
I mean it's not terrible exposition, just a bit much all at once.
20. A Matter of Faith
"They formed a crude sort of comic" this sentence has so much explaining to do.
I guess it's the same thing coming through in different ways; it's just not a believable story to me. There's a lot of good stuff, or at least, stuff that I'm not familiar with from elsewhere, and I enjoy it, but there are stories online that are on a whole nother level.
Op focuses on weird things.
21. Wheel of Fortune
Taiven seems a little shallow tbh.
22. Complications
Planar alignment and planetary alignment are different things.
It's weird that Spear of Resolve Striking Straight at The Heart of the Matter uses the word mindrape, right?
23. Lighting the Fuse
"Their super-secret defense plans probably boiled down to ‘collapse the entire tunnel on top of them’, anyway." The fucking arrogance of this kid isnt he supposed to be at most 18, technically.
I appreciate pirateaba so much because of the amount of pagetime each character gets and the depth that that creates. I realise not everyone has the time and inclination but i cant help but feel that Mother of Learning would have benefited hugely from a slower pace and fewer timeskips.
I get this sort of itchy feeling to rewrite stuff sometimes. Is that very insulting.
24. Smoke and Mirrors
Mmm gimme dat character development. But like, show me don't tell me.
I dont think Xvim's a good teacher but it seems clear the ideas his methods of practicing magic convey are valuable.
Zorian should come up with a mildly insulting and accurate nickname for Taiven.
25. The Unexpected
Idk if this is a clever chapter name or a bad one, it amuses me.
""Very earnest and straightforward, that boy. Quite unlike you and your rampant paranoia, I might add.] Zorian narrowed his eyes, gripping the stone disc in his hand a little tighter. Was that it? Was the matriarch trying to replace him with Zach? Someone more trusting and easier to manipulate? Was Zorian going to be next on the chopping block once the threat of the third time traveler was gone?" This is funny, though idk if its meant to be?
I feel like Ilsa wouldnt use the word 'targets' to refer to a subject of Zorians mind magic practise, it's a little cold-blooded.
26. Soulkill
Cult of the World Dragon isnt really a worthy enemy.
"He considered spying on them with a scrying spell but considering their conversation mostly consisted of Tinami fawning over Novelty and the young aranea feeling very smug about the attention, he really wasn’t losing much." Crazy thought, what if they decide to talk about something else once he's left the room.
Effectively wiped out? Ambiguous. Is he saying that all of the rats were killed and it was done effectively or that enough of them were killed to end them as a threat given that they need a quorum or whatever?
27. Cast Adrift
He doesn't get into more wide applications of mind magic this early on, which I find odd, and would seem to indicate that they haven't been considered and the nature of the mind hasn't really been accounted for. Like surely mental enhancements that only affect the mindmage would be fairly well-practiced amongst human mindmages, though top-secret obv.
28. Cauldron
He's 15? Thought he was 16?
29. The Hunters and the Hunted
Disagreeing with a scholar about his speciality. Arrogance.
How old does he look? How tall is he? How old are people before theyre considered adults? Does Zorian get leeway if he dresses as a mage or is Cwili just treating him as he is because of Zorian's competences? Other people seem to treat him as an equal rather than a child - is this a social class thing, a mage thing, or is he just at the right age - the equivalent of a university student irl.
31. Marked
Dude is attempted murdered and after a short break is right on to solving Zorian's problem. This is some mindblindness right here.
32. Alternatives
Welp not whelp.
He talks about his 'performance' when he'a referring to applications of his fighting abilities, as if it's a show or a hobby.
33. Gateways
34. Unreasonable Things
35. Mistakes Have Been Made
36. A Battle of Minds
I feel like a sense of mana shaping and magic is beginning to emerge, of delicate traceries and artistry and infinite variations. Its taking a while but this is actually a good thing.
37. Slow Burn
He's a year away from adulthood apparently - which is 16? 17?
Another reference to the low quality of Zorian's fictional reading material - a reflection of nobody103s?
38. Return to Cyoria
Zorian's a more competent person which means he can now do more for others and think it as trivial, or even more so.
39. Suspicious Coincidences
He's a little misogynistic? Or, at least, is used to a certain hierarchy in interactions, is inflexible.
You have to keep the reader informed of what's going on in each restart, as it happens, not as an afterthought.
40. Shifting Tracks
Its weird that a detective just casually discusses an investigation with a teenager he doesnt know, right?
I'm not exactly advocating for emotional damage but I have noticed that authors have a tendency to distance characters who are slated (by the author) to die, neglect them, fail to give them depth. Idk if it's a 'why bother' thing or a limit on the grief of losing a character or a combo, but I think it does the book, the reader, and the author a disservice. Maybe its meant to be representative of the book as a repetitive work, but that again seems like a failure of potential. The great thing about this book, is that you CAN experience the deaths of people fully, deeply, and healthily, and then next chapter they're alive through a firmly established and plausible mechanism. The space between page and reader is always going to distance the reader emotionally and you have to fight against that. I'm not sure nobody103 even acknowledges it; the majority of the time is spent with Zorian and he's only really half-likeable.
41. Myriad Clashing Motives
Rea had been a criminal? Doing what? Criminals don't think of themselves as criminals and middle-class people think of criminals as nothing more.
He's very concerned about proper behaviour and social backlash even if his mother's social climber attitude exasperates him.
He's a poor teacher if that first lesson with Kirielle is anything to go by.
42. Sum of It's Parts
He's supposed to be the subtle one. He couldn't come up with a better way to ask if Kiana knew Raynie was a shifter than saying "Does Kiana know about shifters?"
It's weird that the bear and the fox shifters tend towards tribalism - I'd assume that the fox shifters would be more like cat shifters, a semi-urban species but maybe that's me being biased.
Do they talk about conservation of mass, it'd be great to see a shifter turn into a human sized fox or rat or whatever. A lot of how inconvenient and 'boring' parts of the magic work in this book seem to be handwaved away. How does it work? Magic. Don't look at it too closely.
43. Overwhelmed
This is another one of those 'Is this a great idea or a terrible one'. This guys name is... Naim.
Show me don't tell me.
He's arrogant.
Very arrogant.
Taiven seems oddly fragile in this chapter? Has she really never met anyone better than her in her chosen field or is it the whole time loop thing.
44. A Show of Trust
I would have said repertoire rather than araenal - arsenal is for weapons rather than shields right? If you really wanted to go physical could have said armoury.
Tried something different this time, kept a running commentary. Failed a few times to maintain that split focus, when I was just trying to get it over and done with, and honestly I got a little sick of repeating myself and picking at the grammar, but it's not a terrible depiction of my quibbles. Gripes?
Totally valid and nonpedantic constructive criticism.
HEAVY SPOILERS!
1. Good Morning Brother
No one calls their brother brother, except in anime and porn when the connection is being emphasised for whatever reason.
It's a weird way to be woken up, being jumped on, especially for a 16yo guy given what's typically risen to meet the day.
The prose is a little clunky here - you don't need to describe how he pushed her off the bed or how he waited for her to drop her guard.
Zorian's oddly aware for a teenager who's just woken up.
I'm not sure about the authors background - what sort of influence has it had on the novel and how accurate is the culture if it's a transplant?
The language is a little odd - is English a second language? Ilsa says 'habit' - wouldn't 'policy' be a better fit?
Honestly, Zorian sounds a little spoiled - is he meant to?
From memory there's no real justification for why Zorian hates his family so much, he's just all angsty and shit?
He's got a bad attitude towards work, like with Xvim.
The sentences are fairly lengthy, could vary them a bit.
There's a weird need that litrpgs writers seem to have, to quantify things. Why does the mana well need to be listed as Rank 9?
Using that instead of who
Using a word twice in the same sentence
Starting a sentence with a preposition instead of using a comma or something similar.
Switching tenses right at the last line?
2. Life's Little Problems
'this place would keep him busy all year round' is a weird sentence.
Everyone's very middle class, I can't say I like it.
Odd phrasings that don't fit the feel.
I do enjoy learning new names and experiencing cultures through books, but I'm not sure whether this is coding or influence.
Still starting sentences with prepositions.
Tense switching again.
Oh no having to read a00 page book in a week the horror.
Tbf tho Xvims a bad teacher.
I feel like, if you're going to write a groundhog day story, then you go through the first cycle in detail and get to know everyone. None of these people we meet, apart from Zach, are part of the main cast, but that doesn't mean they should get nothing more than their name tossed out in the entire story.
3. The Bitter Truth
Clumsy foreshadowing: "He had a wealth of knowledge and a work ethic he hadn’t had at the end of their second year, far in excess of what could be gained through the normal passage of time."
Minuscule.
'Who' not 'that'.
Pessimistic Zorian - kind of a dick, self-absorbed.
I like Kael - Zorian doesn't even consider making friends with him despite Kael being polite, interested, and complimentary. They both have things that they could give one another.
4. Stars Fell
"he was quite adept at avoiding the notice of a particular person at a party without drawing attention from the other partygoers." Is this a nod towards his latent psychic abilities? It's quite subtle for nobody103.
'A full hour' before he ran out of constellations to name? Seriously?
Akoja seems a really good person - why doesn't Zorian pursue her or any other romantic relationship throughout the entire series?
I like the base of the story, I can't really fault it in concept, and this was good narrative discourse here where the artillery spell hits, the writing is tight and you feel connected. It's a contrast to the later chapters which I remember feel like a slog.
'Trolls... were able to reattach severed limbs simply by holding them to the matching stump for a few moments.' there's just something about this concept that feels wrong. Where does the energy come from? How is it so quick? Can it be done indefinitely? I've got a fairly powerful willing suspension of disbelief muscle but something here is twisting it.
Word choice continues to be occasionally incongruent.
Reckless stupidity is unnecessary and almost contradictory. This whole book is crying out for an editor to streamline sentences and cut boring bits.
Another example of verbosity: "an angry god out for vengeance' : a vengeful god; or something more specific and oblique like saying he rained fire, brimstone, and the occasional tapeworm down.
Of whom, not of which
Trouble with tenses again
Xvim's still a bad teacher even if he's got the right idea. Zorian's just being stubborn.
Does he ever do something nice for Neolu, as he promises to, or is that a frivolous thought.
6. Concentrate and Try Again
I like the way he sort of gets it wrong why Zach's there but it's a reasonable assumption based on the data he has.
These early cycles are a bit exciting with all the potential I can see.
Splinter Wars sounds really familiar - is it a reference or have I just read this too many times?
Ugh, 'Needless to say, ' stop it.
Retrospect seems an odd choice of word there, as opposed to hindsight.
If you're going to have a ridiculously long novel that repeats itself periodically why would you not detail the restarts as much as possible at the beginning and fade out later instead of skipping with 'it took four reatarts'. These earlier ones seem the most important and fresh, it's going to get boring through repetition. Why, also, is it not one chapter per restart?
7. Of Gaps and Pretending
"Fortunately, it seemed to tolerate Zorian better than most people," lol geddit
"the more he thought about it the more it seemed to him this whole thing was a giant opportunity rather than an annoyance." IT TOOK HIM EIGHT MONTHS TO REALISE THIS?!? There are definite blind spots when writing and this is a big one, not realising how people spend their time, not fully intellectually grasping what time means to a person. If he's intelligent then he would have considered the possibility of this being an opportunity within the first reset.
"there are plenty of magical disciplines where great shaping skills are an asset, but combat magic is mostly about power." Dude shouldn't be teaching magical combat.
This exposition is clumsy, seems contrived for Zorian to call something named The Old Alliance a country.
8. Perspective
Zorian refers to Zach as 'the boy' - they're the same age? Feels weird. Language difficulties or just age slipping through from the author? 'The guy' I think is a better fit here.
The grammar problems I mentioned earlier don't really go away I'm just so used to reading things with problems that I hardly notice.
9. Cheaters
"If Ibery thought to fluster Zach by pointing out the plural nature of his partners for the evening, she was going to be sorely disappointed." What.
It sort of skips over the deaths of students when they're caught by the winter wolves - not that I'm into gore or anything but it feels like avoiding the topic isn't the healthiest thing to do. It seems like the situation would inure Zach and Zorian to the deaths of these people and I'd worry about the long term effects on their attitudes towards other people. Knowing what I do about the 'time loop' and Zorian. #Westworld
It feels like there are two distinct influences or types of influence and one has a more grandiose vocabulary.
It feels like there's a fair amount of anime influence? I don't mind some anime but I find the attitudes and actions of the characters veer wildly into unrealistic territory sometimes, but then I'm not very familiar with Japanese culture.
10. Overlooked Details
The title of my blog on Doctor Who if I had one.
The repetition of that very first passage doesn't really do it any favours, just makes it seem more and more like a lot of work went into it.
Yes just buy an umbrella every time you need one. Ffs.
We don't really get to know Benisek very well over the course of the book - which is odd if he is actually Zorian's best friend at the start? It's kind of par for the course tho, right?
Aww poor little rich boy
11. Limiters
"the chubby boy was behaving no worse than his usual fare" fare an odd word choice again
"it gave him a rather… feminine appearance. Nonetheless, the boy clearly had no shortage of inner strength if he could move on after losing so many people to the horrible sickness." yes because woman are typically lacking in inner strength 🙄
It's easy to dismiss the assessment of others moods as intuition/observation, which I think is sort of well done, but maybe I'm just so used to that sort of lazy writing from everyone.
"“He looks kind of arrogant,” Akoja remarked. “And girly.”
“Well how judgmental of you,” Zorian remarked with a frown. “You come off as a bit arrogant yourself, you know?”" liking Akoja less. Is this out of character for her? It doesn't feel like it but idk her very well.
I like the word 'suddenly' less the older I get.
'pensive'? Or apprehensive?
"undermining other teacher’s authority like that could get ugly very quickly." There's nothing wrong with this on a literal level but it annoys me on a fundamental moral level, I think partially because the phrase Mother of Learning always makes me think of Maria Montessori who correctly states that teachers shouldn't be an authority to be feared pleased or appeased, but a benevolent director with a light touch.
The amount of understanding of magic seems odd for a world that's had intelligent people living on it for a long time - I think? The fact that Zorian, a relatively average person, is able to be so original, creative, and contributory to the field seems odd - though this could be a comment on a lack of connectivity and the havoc/stagnation strife causes to human advancement and knowledge.
Headcanon:
Zach: This is my familiar, Zorian. Say Hello, Zorian.
Zorian: (glares)
Zach: Awww is someone a grumpypuss today.
XD
12. Soul Web
Why did he have a crush on Taiven? Was it just looks, or?
Catgirl's mother lets her out in cat form?
Why is it called a dungeon?
Okay I lied about being inured to the faulty grammar.
Idiot, if he doesn't learn how to defend and protect himself then all the information in the world won't help him.
13. Any Second Now
lol geddit
""Girls-“ “…love boys who exercise, yes, yes,” Nodded Zorian sagely." Is Taiven dropping a hint that she'd go out with him if he bulked up.
He kinda reminds me of Pisces but without the character development.
14. The Sister Effect
"He was more of a parent to Kirielle than she and father ever were!" calling bullshit he hasn't got the parent attitude. Although maybe they are really shitty parents.
Who are the Gods? There's no descriptions of them in the entire text, that I recall. Don't even know their names.
Make up your mind OP is he her parent or does he not know her.
Who not that.
Sleeping in the same bed as a family member in the long term is weird right, like yes it could be a cultural thing and yes they used to do it in the olden days, still.
15. Busy Friday.
I think Xvim is right about giving students as much as they can handle and Zorian's just been coasting so far.
""Contrary to what various adventure novels may have led you to believe, ancient magic is almost always inferior to what we have available now." See, THIS makes sense with the way things are going.
"Kael is probably totally ignorant of his ancestral culture. " What. The fucking balls on Zorian.
16. We Need To Talk
Torso not chest. I assume.
17. Sympathy for the Spider
Bothers me when someone says t-thanks as a stutter rather than th-thanks.
Keeps using the word boy to refer to people Zorian's age.
The writing can be fairly stilted at times.
18. The Pact Is Sealed
I like the feel of the book - it can be a bit hokey for me sometimes tho.
""First of all, everything matters. You are what you do, and if I were to start doing stupid things just because there is seemingly no consequence for them, those actions would eventually come to define me. Secondly… I actually find studying fun. Well, maybe not all of it, but you get the idea.""
If Zorian finds a human mind mage then why doesnt he try to learn from him?
19. Tangled Webs
I mean it's not terrible exposition, just a bit much all at once.
20. A Matter of Faith
"They formed a crude sort of comic" this sentence has so much explaining to do.
I guess it's the same thing coming through in different ways; it's just not a believable story to me. There's a lot of good stuff, or at least, stuff that I'm not familiar with from elsewhere, and I enjoy it, but there are stories online that are on a whole nother level.
Op focuses on weird things.
21. Wheel of Fortune
Taiven seems a little shallow tbh.
22. Complications
Planar alignment and planetary alignment are different things.
It's weird that Spear of Resolve Striking Straight at The Heart of the Matter uses the word mindrape, right?
23. Lighting the Fuse
"Their super-secret defense plans probably boiled down to ‘collapse the entire tunnel on top of them’, anyway." The fucking arrogance of this kid isnt he supposed to be at most 18, technically.
I appreciate pirateaba so much because of the amount of pagetime each character gets and the depth that that creates. I realise not everyone has the time and inclination but i cant help but feel that Mother of Learning would have benefited hugely from a slower pace and fewer timeskips.
I get this sort of itchy feeling to rewrite stuff sometimes. Is that very insulting.
24. Smoke and Mirrors
Mmm gimme dat character development. But like, show me don't tell me.
I dont think Xvim's a good teacher but it seems clear the ideas his methods of practicing magic convey are valuable.
Zorian should come up with a mildly insulting and accurate nickname for Taiven.
25. The Unexpected
Idk if this is a clever chapter name or a bad one, it amuses me.
""Very earnest and straightforward, that boy. Quite unlike you and your rampant paranoia, I might add.] Zorian narrowed his eyes, gripping the stone disc in his hand a little tighter. Was that it? Was the matriarch trying to replace him with Zach? Someone more trusting and easier to manipulate? Was Zorian going to be next on the chopping block once the threat of the third time traveler was gone?" This is funny, though idk if its meant to be?
I feel like Ilsa wouldnt use the word 'targets' to refer to a subject of Zorians mind magic practise, it's a little cold-blooded.
26. Soulkill
Cult of the World Dragon isnt really a worthy enemy.
"He considered spying on them with a scrying spell but considering their conversation mostly consisted of Tinami fawning over Novelty and the young aranea feeling very smug about the attention, he really wasn’t losing much." Crazy thought, what if they decide to talk about something else once he's left the room.
Effectively wiped out? Ambiguous. Is he saying that all of the rats were killed and it was done effectively or that enough of them were killed to end them as a threat given that they need a quorum or whatever?
27. Cast Adrift
He doesn't get into more wide applications of mind magic this early on, which I find odd, and would seem to indicate that they haven't been considered and the nature of the mind hasn't really been accounted for. Like surely mental enhancements that only affect the mindmage would be fairly well-practiced amongst human mindmages, though top-secret obv.
28. Cauldron
He's 15? Thought he was 16?
29. The Hunters and the Hunted
Disagreeing with a scholar about his speciality. Arrogance.
How old does he look? How tall is he? How old are people before theyre considered adults? Does Zorian get leeway if he dresses as a mage or is Cwili just treating him as he is because of Zorian's competences? Other people seem to treat him as an equal rather than a child - is this a social class thing, a mage thing, or is he just at the right age - the equivalent of a university student irl.
31. Marked
Dude is attempted murdered and after a short break is right on to solving Zorian's problem. This is some mindblindness right here.
32. Alternatives
Welp not whelp.
He talks about his 'performance' when he'a referring to applications of his fighting abilities, as if it's a show or a hobby.
33. Gateways
34. Unreasonable Things
35. Mistakes Have Been Made
36. A Battle of Minds
I feel like a sense of mana shaping and magic is beginning to emerge, of delicate traceries and artistry and infinite variations. Its taking a while but this is actually a good thing.
37. Slow Burn
He's a year away from adulthood apparently - which is 16? 17?
Another reference to the low quality of Zorian's fictional reading material - a reflection of nobody103s?
38. Return to Cyoria
Zorian's a more competent person which means he can now do more for others and think it as trivial, or even more so.
39. Suspicious Coincidences
He's a little misogynistic? Or, at least, is used to a certain hierarchy in interactions, is inflexible.
You have to keep the reader informed of what's going on in each restart, as it happens, not as an afterthought.
40. Shifting Tracks
Its weird that a detective just casually discusses an investigation with a teenager he doesnt know, right?
I'm not exactly advocating for emotional damage but I have noticed that authors have a tendency to distance characters who are slated (by the author) to die, neglect them, fail to give them depth. Idk if it's a 'why bother' thing or a limit on the grief of losing a character or a combo, but I think it does the book, the reader, and the author a disservice. Maybe its meant to be representative of the book as a repetitive work, but that again seems like a failure of potential. The great thing about this book, is that you CAN experience the deaths of people fully, deeply, and healthily, and then next chapter they're alive through a firmly established and plausible mechanism. The space between page and reader is always going to distance the reader emotionally and you have to fight against that. I'm not sure nobody103 even acknowledges it; the majority of the time is spent with Zorian and he's only really half-likeable.
41. Myriad Clashing Motives
Rea had been a criminal? Doing what? Criminals don't think of themselves as criminals and middle-class people think of criminals as nothing more.
He's very concerned about proper behaviour and social backlash even if his mother's social climber attitude exasperates him.
He's a poor teacher if that first lesson with Kirielle is anything to go by.
42. Sum of It's Parts
He's supposed to be the subtle one. He couldn't come up with a better way to ask if Kiana knew Raynie was a shifter than saying "Does Kiana know about shifters?"
It's weird that the bear and the fox shifters tend towards tribalism - I'd assume that the fox shifters would be more like cat shifters, a semi-urban species but maybe that's me being biased.
Do they talk about conservation of mass, it'd be great to see a shifter turn into a human sized fox or rat or whatever. A lot of how inconvenient and 'boring' parts of the magic work in this book seem to be handwaved away. How does it work? Magic. Don't look at it too closely.
43. Overwhelmed
This is another one of those 'Is this a great idea or a terrible one'. This guys name is... Naim.
Show me don't tell me.
He's arrogant.
Very arrogant.
Taiven seems oddly fragile in this chapter? Has she really never met anyone better than her in her chosen field or is it the whole time loop thing.
44. A Show of Trust
I would have said repertoire rather than araenal - arsenal is for weapons rather than shields right? If you really wanted to go physical could have said armoury.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2025
The closest thing to a perfect novel I have ever seen throughout the interweb
I love this story and adore what it represents, a genre done right. Characters gain power at a good pace, characters are explored magnificently, plot pacing is heavenly and there is never a boring part or lull which would result in leaving the story to 'continue' it later.
A hallmark in virtual novels.
I'm going to be honest here, the beginning of the story was captivating, but a bit slow, however, the plot progressed and the author really displayed his skill and grabs your attention to the point where you find yourself blazing through the story in its entirety with a fervent passion akin to a raging inferno as it caresses a wooden house.
There are very few plot-holes in the story, despite its length and characters are flushed out so well!
This piece uses that small cast and does wonders with it, and from beginning to end its one hell of a ride becuase you learn so much through sk many different events. Every chapter is novel in some way and ALWAYS introduces some new element or piece of information to the story.
These additions are never irrelevant.
There are no great leaps in logic, no plot-convenience nor and McGuffins or concrete elements.
Power is balanced in the story and it goes through great lengths to clearly express to you, the reader, that regardless of power, you can die.
Beyond that, antagonists and protagonists, as well as the supporting cast, all have a sense of depth and while this depth may vary depending on screen time, it's done in a way that allows you to easily understand what you're reading and possible long-reaching consequences of various courses of action.
Also, the author is an expert at integrating modern ideas or references in a way that makes the world your ead seem foreign to what you know. Frankly, I'm impressed. No author I've ever read from gas managed to do it so thoroughly and so convincingly as this one has.
Also, there are occasional theory-dumps, but those mainly occur at the last few chapters and are quite small, the only inconvenience is that you won't understand how the very complex magic functions. And the author sometimes fails to properly integrate certain jargon or trips over modern terms. Though, this only occurs 3 times in the story. This story is 108 chapters long. I find that almost complete lack of errors/blunders, amazing.
Magic itself, is astounding in how well it's presented. The way its explored is astounding and the growth which occurs throughout the story is both believable and logical. That's a very hard thing to find in ANY story.
And in later chapters there are some grammatical errors, but I chalk that up to them not being edited yet.
Dear me, I almost forgot the fights! Nothing in battle is ever static and every single one is unique, never once have I grown bored reading a fight in this story, quite the opposite. I don't know what is going to happen and I cannot accurately predict how their new skills will apply. Also, the style makes the scenes very concise and to the point.
Redundancies are an extinct species in this novel.
All in all, despite some minor gripes with the story, it's a thoroughly captivating experience that I would recommend to everyone.
I love this story and adore what it represents, a genre done right. Characters gain power at a good pace, characters are explored magnificently, plot pacing is heavenly and there is never a boring part or lull which would result in leaving the story to 'continue' it later.
A hallmark in virtual novels.
I'm going to be honest here, the beginning of the story was captivating, but a bit slow, however, the plot progressed and the author really displayed his skill and grabs your attention to the point where you find yourself blazing through the story in its entirety with a fervent passion akin to a raging inferno as it caresses a wooden house.
There are very few plot-holes in the story, despite its length and characters are flushed out so well!
This piece uses that small cast and does wonders with it, and from beginning to end its one hell of a ride becuase you learn so much through sk many different events. Every chapter is novel in some way and ALWAYS introduces some new element or piece of information to the story.
These additions are never irrelevant.
There are no great leaps in logic, no plot-convenience nor and McGuffins or concrete elements.
Power is balanced in the story and it goes through great lengths to clearly express to you, the reader, that regardless of power, you can die.
Beyond that, antagonists and protagonists, as well as the supporting cast, all have a sense of depth and while this depth may vary depending on screen time, it's done in a way that allows you to easily understand what you're reading and possible long-reaching consequences of various courses of action.
Also, the author is an expert at integrating modern ideas or references in a way that makes the world your ead seem foreign to what you know. Frankly, I'm impressed. No author I've ever read from gas managed to do it so thoroughly and so convincingly as this one has.
Also, there are occasional theory-dumps, but those mainly occur at the last few chapters and are quite small, the only inconvenience is that you won't understand how the very complex magic functions. And the author sometimes fails to properly integrate certain jargon or trips over modern terms. Though, this only occurs 3 times in the story. This story is 108 chapters long. I find that almost complete lack of errors/blunders, amazing.
Magic itself, is astounding in how well it's presented. The way its explored is astounding and the growth which occurs throughout the story is both believable and logical. That's a very hard thing to find in ANY story.
And in later chapters there are some grammatical errors, but I chalk that up to them not being edited yet.
Dear me, I almost forgot the fights! Nothing in battle is ever static and every single one is unique, never once have I grown bored reading a fight in this story, quite the opposite. I don't know what is going to happen and I cannot accurately predict how their new skills will apply. Also, the style makes the scenes very concise and to the point.
Redundancies are an extinct species in this novel.
All in all, despite some minor gripes with the story, it's a thoroughly captivating experience that I would recommend to everyone.
December 27, 2024
Started reading this for a friend but ended up being amazed by the intricacy of the plot and world-building. There are quite a few grammar errors throughout the book so you know that if I’m still giving it five stars then it must be good.
January 17, 2022
Ok, so after finishing the first published arc and knowing there was more, I had no choice, obviously. And despite things piling up on my to-read pile whilst I was ploughing through this, I persisted.
I'm glad I did. It's nice when this sort of work has an end to the story, and although at times a few of the chapters were a little jarring, overall it was well worth reading. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I am very glad I persisted.
I'm glad I did. It's nice when this sort of work has an end to the story, and although at times a few of the chapters were a little jarring, overall it was well worth reading. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I am very glad I persisted.
March 30, 2024
There was an epic escape, an epic final battle, everybody was there, they live happily ever after. He didn't get a girl, everybody lost their memories, the antagonist had absolutely no scheme behind all that smoke. Goddamn.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2022
not enough spiders
Read
January 11, 2023Of all the books I've read. This one surely deserves a spot at the top. For at least making me complete it to put it lightly. Hell, it's a 3,000-page book. Who in their good mind would go about reading such a lengthy book? Though, it shouldn't be forgotten. This did deceive me for a bit. When I first started reading it. I thought it had an extremely big first chapter. I mean, who'd expect a single chapter to take more than 30 minutes to finish? I even dropped it two times. The first was when I was recommended this book by a person named @sekoj on Anilist. Then I tried to reread it four months later thinking it'll be the time I went through it. I again failed before even reaching three-quarters of the way. The third time tho. I really really wanted to read it. I don't know why but I really wanted to finish that single chapter. Remember we're still talking about the first chapter. This was before I even knew the whole thing was more than a hundred chapters long and way before I understood that the first chapter wasn't even that long compared to some of the longer ones this book boasts. With great effort, I managed to finish the first one on my third try. In that same read, I managed to get through a couple more at well. I was still only through around five chapters and I was already invested. It was then that I finally had the right mind to see how long this book really was.
So I was there on mobile. The chapter pagination list only showed around 5 or 6 chapters per page. It also showed that there were a total of a100 or something items. I simply scoffed at that number thinking it was at fault. That was only until I started hitting the next page button and it simply didn't end. I was just clicking and clicking, and after more than a dozen button clicks I was at the end of the list. I was literally looking at it in awe. How long even is this? By this point, I had a sense of how big the chapters were. It took me around 20-40 mins to finish a single one. Having already read around five and seeing that they mostly had a constant rate meant the rest of the other chapters were probably as long as they were as well. No matter how I looked at it. I knew instantly that this was one hell of an undertaking I'm thinking of pursuing. Considering I was already invested in the story made it even worse. Now I didn't want to let this go because I was honestly enjoying it. So I did what every sane person does when they're given a 3000-page book. I continued to read it!
After seriously starting to read. I didn't miss a single day. I always read at least two chapters per day. On some days, I spent more than four hours reading Zorian. It was quite a unique experience. I doubt I've ever read this much in such a short time period ever in my life. Even when I was reading the whole Witcher series, I sneaked in some breaks once in a while after reading a book. Zorian tho. I was literally addicted. Not that I wanted to stop either. The world is so complex and enticing it managed to fill my whole horizon in it. Everywhere I went. My head was filled with the magical basis of this world.
Zorian was the first time I has a taste of what hard magic felt like. I really don't like magical and fantastic stories. Especially because you can morph when into so many shapes that it loses any sort of tension within it. It's like with Rimuru. When his town got invaded and a good number of his closest subordinates died. He immediately got handed a free get-out-of-jail card in the form of; Become a demon lord and you can bring people back from the dead. This immediately tipped me off. The show used the deaths of those characters to build up so much of its plot for what? To turn back time and pretend it never happened in the first place? Now that's bad writing. Zorian's magic on the other hand. It was complex and it had serious limitations. It's these grounded limitations that drew me so close to the story in the first place. It didn't feel like Harry Potter with their wands and magic simply being conjured out of nowhere. This gave everything a reason. Even to the simple task of floating a pen (Xvim forever!). The level of detail the book went to justify its magic system was really astounding. I bet the book would've been much much shorter if it simply went forward putting character interactions foremost, and dropping the magic exposition.
The amount of time spent on explaining the deep workings of magic is one of the main pillars that holds what I think Zorian does much much better than most of the books I've read. Character arcs. It's because we know how the basic concepts of magic work that we can really appreciate how far Zorian (the character) grows throughout the whole story. From a little more than average 3rd-year mage student to Archmage within the whole time loop. The story is satisfying on a whole new level when we're literally witnessing a kid learn from his mistakes and become the archmage we all know and love. I'd say this sure beats overpowered characters by a long shot. The book really doesn't make anyone overpowered for no abnormal reason. Like, take this trope for example. Say you have a main character who's fighting a really powerful enemy. In the end, they beat them with the tip of the knife and end up allying with them. After that tho, the enemy is as worthless as a piece of stone. Their power simply doesn't matter in anything they further encounter. Now take Zorian's Princess for example. When Zorian and Zach first found her on their expedition with Damian she was a full-blown menacing Hyndra capable of levelling an entire army. Guess what happened when she was deployed at Iasku Mansion's front gate outside the time loop. She levelled hoards of undead like they were nothing!
All in all, everything I can say about this book is praise. I'm honestly happy I managed to finish it. Unlike a normal 300-page book, you usually read. This really was something else. It wasn't just a simple story per se. It was a saga. Like saga's I've read before it, notably ReLife. This one is truly... one of the best.
Honestly... I miss Zorian already, the world I mean not the character specifically. It's melancholic really.
Whenever I start a chapter. I always glance at its name and delve into the story. When I get back to it after reading the chapter I'm always struck by the realization; So that's what it meant! The same however can't be said about the novel's title though. What the hell does Mother of Learning even mean?
I think I figured out the title. Lemme just write the full quote;
"Repetition is the mother of all learning"
The book even got my dream fiction award. You don't see that often.
No matter how you look at it. The three I won chapters are one of the best endings I've ever read. Vayer's one especially sent a chill down my spine. It's scary and satisfying to see how powerful of an archmage Zorian had become. The epilogue is interesting but the ending is just... It felt right. Remember that one lord of the rings movie I watched oh so many years ago? Right after its high point or climax, it had a calm-down scene that was equivalent to watching a rock. It was as boring as it could ever get. Zorian however successfully cut at exactly the right moment. Heh, guess it truly was time for Zorian the character to rest.
So I was there on mobile. The chapter pagination list only showed around 5 or 6 chapters per page. It also showed that there were a total of a100 or something items. I simply scoffed at that number thinking it was at fault. That was only until I started hitting the next page button and it simply didn't end. I was just clicking and clicking, and after more than a dozen button clicks I was at the end of the list. I was literally looking at it in awe. How long even is this? By this point, I had a sense of how big the chapters were. It took me around 20-40 mins to finish a single one. Having already read around five and seeing that they mostly had a constant rate meant the rest of the other chapters were probably as long as they were as well. No matter how I looked at it. I knew instantly that this was one hell of an undertaking I'm thinking of pursuing. Considering I was already invested in the story made it even worse. Now I didn't want to let this go because I was honestly enjoying it. So I did what every sane person does when they're given a 3000-page book. I continued to read it!
After seriously starting to read. I didn't miss a single day. I always read at least two chapters per day. On some days, I spent more than four hours reading Zorian. It was quite a unique experience. I doubt I've ever read this much in such a short time period ever in my life. Even when I was reading the whole Witcher series, I sneaked in some breaks once in a while after reading a book. Zorian tho. I was literally addicted. Not that I wanted to stop either. The world is so complex and enticing it managed to fill my whole horizon in it. Everywhere I went. My head was filled with the magical basis of this world.
Zorian was the first time I has a taste of what hard magic felt like. I really don't like magical and fantastic stories. Especially because you can morph when into so many shapes that it loses any sort of tension within it. It's like with Rimuru. When his town got invaded and a good number of his closest subordinates died. He immediately got handed a free get-out-of-jail card in the form of; Become a demon lord and you can bring people back from the dead. This immediately tipped me off. The show used the deaths of those characters to build up so much of its plot for what? To turn back time and pretend it never happened in the first place? Now that's bad writing. Zorian's magic on the other hand. It was complex and it had serious limitations. It's these grounded limitations that drew me so close to the story in the first place. It didn't feel like Harry Potter with their wands and magic simply being conjured out of nowhere. This gave everything a reason. Even to the simple task of floating a pen (Xvim forever!). The level of detail the book went to justify its magic system was really astounding. I bet the book would've been much much shorter if it simply went forward putting character interactions foremost, and dropping the magic exposition.
The amount of time spent on explaining the deep workings of magic is one of the main pillars that holds what I think Zorian does much much better than most of the books I've read. Character arcs. It's because we know how the basic concepts of magic work that we can really appreciate how far Zorian (the character) grows throughout the whole story. From a little more than average 3rd-year mage student to Archmage within the whole time loop. The story is satisfying on a whole new level when we're literally witnessing a kid learn from his mistakes and become the archmage we all know and love. I'd say this sure beats overpowered characters by a long shot. The book really doesn't make anyone overpowered for no abnormal reason. Like, take this trope for example. Say you have a main character who's fighting a really powerful enemy. In the end, they beat them with the tip of the knife and end up allying with them. After that tho, the enemy is as worthless as a piece of stone. Their power simply doesn't matter in anything they further encounter. Now take Zorian's Princess for example. When Zorian and Zach first found her on their expedition with Damian she was a full-blown menacing Hyndra capable of levelling an entire army. Guess what happened when she was deployed at Iasku Mansion's front gate outside the time loop. She levelled hoards of undead like they were nothing!
All in all, everything I can say about this book is praise. I'm honestly happy I managed to finish it. Unlike a normal 300-page book, you usually read. This really was something else. It wasn't just a simple story per se. It was a saga. Like saga's I've read before it, notably ReLife. This one is truly... one of the best.
Honestly... I miss Zorian already, the world I mean not the character specifically. It's melancholic really.
Whenever I start a chapter. I always glance at its name and delve into the story. When I get back to it after reading the chapter I'm always struck by the realization; So that's what it meant! The same however can't be said about the novel's title though. What the hell does Mother of Learning even mean?
I think I figured out the title. Lemme just write the full quote;
"Repetition is the mother of all learning"
The book even got my dream fiction award. You don't see that often.
No matter how you look at it. The three I won chapters are one of the best endings I've ever read. Vayer's one especially sent a chill down my spine. It's scary and satisfying to see how powerful of an archmage Zorian had become. The epilogue is interesting but the ending is just... It felt right. Remember that one lord of the rings movie I watched oh so many years ago? Right after its high point or climax, it had a calm-down scene that was equivalent to watching a rock. It was as boring as it could ever get. Zorian however successfully cut at exactly the right moment. Heh, guess it truly was time for Zorian the character to rest.
June 8, 2024
I had to start this twice, years apart, but I didn't bounce off the writing style the second time, and I'm glad I stuck it out. While the prose is clunky throughout, it sometimes clunks in a charming way — you can feel the author's effort on the page, and for whatever reason I got the sense that I could actually see them typing away at a desk somewhere. (And of course, it's still well above the Royal Road average.)
Once you get past the prose, almost everything else is great! Lots of characters who feel distinct and human, and who get to play different roles and reveal different sides of themselves as the loops go on. (One highlight: A peaceable toddler is brought into a telepathy network, and becomes much more demanding because she now has a way to clearly express her wants.)
There are also lots of clever twists to zhuzh up powers that seem generic at first, like a cloning spell that lets the author explore how two identical people might drastically diverge over the course of minutes depending on the surrounding context, or memory-across-the-loop spells that one character deliberately chooses not to use because the knowledge will distract them more than it helps.
Aside from prose, my greatest disappointment was the ending — it felt rushed, and placed demands on our characters that didn't fit my understanding of their abilities or their physical locations in space (someone yells in a regular human voice, and people hear them clearly across multiple city blocks of intense combat — that sort of thing). But the other 95% of the story developed well, and it felt like the characters earned every win. This is where MoL diverges from most other power fantasies, and that may be because it isn't a power fantasy at all; the characters rarely indulge themselves without regretting it later, and we eventually get a ticking clock that forces everyone to push themselves to the limits of their abilities rather than basking in their own supremacy.
Should you read this? I'd put it well below Worm and Pale, and somewhat below Ward and Worth the Candle — but if you're the kind of rationalfic addict who's read all of those already (while somehow skipping MoL), or you like long stories but find Wildbow too dark, you should give MoL a try.
Once you get past the prose, almost everything else is great! Lots of characters who feel distinct and human, and who get to play different roles and reveal different sides of themselves as the loops go on. (One highlight: A peaceable toddler is brought into a telepathy network, and becomes much more demanding because she now has a way to clearly express her wants.)
There are also lots of clever twists to zhuzh up powers that seem generic at first, like a cloning spell that lets the author explore how two identical people might drastically diverge over the course of minutes depending on the surrounding context, or memory-across-the-loop spells that one character deliberately chooses not to use because the knowledge will distract them more than it helps.
Aside from prose, my greatest disappointment was the ending — it felt rushed, and placed demands on our characters that didn't fit my understanding of their abilities or their physical locations in space (someone yells in a regular human voice, and people hear them clearly across multiple city blocks of intense combat — that sort of thing). But the other 95% of the story developed well, and it felt like the characters earned every win. This is where MoL diverges from most other power fantasies, and that may be because it isn't a power fantasy at all; the characters rarely indulge themselves without regretting it later, and we eventually get a ticking clock that forces everyone to push themselves to the limits of their abilities rather than basking in their own supremacy.
Should you read this? I'd put it well below Worm and Pale, and somewhat below Ward and Worth the Candle — but if you're the kind of rationalfic addict who's read all of those already (while somehow skipping MoL), or you like long stories but find Wildbow too dark, you should give MoL a try.
November 26, 2023
4/5.
Solid, easy to read, and the pages just kept turning (or scrolling, in this case). Zorian’s singleminded determination to learn and improve kept the story focused and well-paced. The premise of time travelling in someone else’s time loop is fantastic, and the first chapters of Zorian remarking at Zach’s remarkable ability, and slowly figuring out the truth, is something I want to see more of in time travel fiction.
Character work was a bit light, and it was difficult sometimes to hear the different characters’ voices — although Xvim, Silverlake, and Kirielle had fairly distinct voices. Zorian’s own fear of not being able to connect to classmates could also be seen in the text itself not really giving much time to character interaction for non-plot purposes. His attitude toward Kirielle was the most character growth I saw in the story.
The magical system and battles were interesting enough for me to stay engaged. But I didn’t see anything that felt truly novel. Zorian not having Zach’s raw power did make it more interesting as we had to see him do more problem solving. But he did eventually become overpowered, and I would have preferred to see him have to take risks a bit more.
Solid, easy to read, and the pages just kept turning (or scrolling, in this case). Zorian’s singleminded determination to learn and improve kept the story focused and well-paced. The premise of time travelling in someone else’s time loop is fantastic, and the first chapters of Zorian remarking at Zach’s remarkable ability, and slowly figuring out the truth, is something I want to see more of in time travel fiction.
Character work was a bit light, and it was difficult sometimes to hear the different characters’ voices — although Xvim, Silverlake, and Kirielle had fairly distinct voices. Zorian’s own fear of not being able to connect to classmates could also be seen in the text itself not really giving much time to character interaction for non-plot purposes. His attitude toward Kirielle was the most character growth I saw in the story.
The magical system and battles were interesting enough for me to stay engaged. But I didn’t see anything that felt truly novel. Zorian not having Zach’s raw power did make it more interesting as we had to see him do more problem solving. But he did eventually become overpowered, and I would have preferred to see him have to take risks a bit more.
April 27, 2024
I have a feeling this is actually a bad book, but I loved it. The protagonist is absolutely unreal Marty Stu genius who can out-learn world-class experts in multiple very complex magical disciplines in just about 6 years, plan like Machiavelli and fight like an experienced soldier. The world clearly works on some kind of video-game logic. There are probably plot holes galore, though I managed to miss them all. Yet, despite all that, this book, or rather web series, is very fun and engaging, and I can't quite explain why. There is something irresistible about time loop iterations - you eagerly await how the hero will solve his problems this time, or what new information will he discover. I guess it's partially the same thing that drives rogue-lite genre of computer games: incremental progress over time that you achieve for your efforts (in this case, just reading).
While this review might seem like a faint praise, I must also add that the author managed on thing many other web creators fail at: a strong finale. Compared to e.g. Crystal Trilogy or even HPMOR, the ending is not a let down in any sense.
While this review might seem like a faint praise, I must also add that the author managed on thing many other web creators fail at: a strong finale. Compared to e.g. Crystal Trilogy or even HPMOR, the ending is not a let down in any sense.
December 14, 2025
Rating: 3 / 5
Overall Impression:
It was overall an enjoyable read but was let down by multiple key aspects.
What Worked:
The initial suspense and mystery regarding the time loop and the 3rd time traveller were well executed.
The relationships and development between Zorian and Zach were well executed and enjoyable.
What Didn’t:
Had interesting characters such as Xvim, Silverlake, and Alanic that had good moments.
Due to the nature of the way the timeloop is presented, the majority of the characters are left severely underdeveloped and seem to serve as small 'filler episodes' in separate loops.
The book really started losing my interest in the latter half once the 3rd time traveller exits. There is no longer any suspense present, and the loops are mainly repetitive.
The ending is what brought down the majority of the experience for me with the lack of a conclusion to multiple arcs and a last chapter that seems to set up a sequal that was never planned seems like a bizzare choice to me.
The main villain of the story was such a letdown, accompanied by no conclusion to the secondary antagonist. (The Lich)
Favourite Moments:
- First meeting of Zorian and Red Robe in the Aranea dungeon
- Taking the crown from The Lich
- Meeting of Novelty and Kiri
Overall Impression:
It was overall an enjoyable read but was let down by multiple key aspects.
What Worked:
The initial suspense and mystery regarding the time loop and the 3rd time traveller were well executed.
The relationships and development between Zorian and Zach were well executed and enjoyable.
What Didn’t:
Had interesting characters such as Xvim, Silverlake, and Alanic that had good moments.
Due to the nature of the way the timeloop is presented, the majority of the characters are left severely underdeveloped and seem to serve as small 'filler episodes' in separate loops.
The book really started losing my interest in the latter half once the 3rd time traveller exits. There is no longer any suspense present, and the loops are mainly repetitive.
The ending is what brought down the majority of the experience for me with the lack of a conclusion to multiple arcs and a last chapter that seems to set up a sequal that was never planned seems like a bizzare choice to me.
The main villain of the story was such a letdown, accompanied by no conclusion to the secondary antagonist. (The Lich)
Favourite Moments:
- First meeting of Zorian and Red Robe in the Aranea dungeon
- Taking the crown from The Lich
- Meeting of Novelty and Kiri
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 13, 2023
Mother of Learning is one of the best books I've ever sat through. The characters themselves are not what you think and the first few chapter remain slow. It goes through many of the standard beats of the magic school genre. That however is only for the first few chapters, but the story picks up and balloons into something much greater. The way Domagoj Kurmaić writes, makes it so characters are likeable and compelling. They play off each other in various ways and evolve believably despite the fantastical nature of the story. The way her links various story beats together to put together this grand puzzle is amazing. Also the explanation of the magic system is done really well, which is a bonus.
Overall, I whole heartily recommend reading Mother of Learning.
Overall, I whole heartily recommend reading Mother of Learning.
July 20, 2025
Mother of Learning was a very pleasant surprise. I usually steer clear of time-loop stories because, well… they can get painfully repetitive. But the author handles the premise exceptionally well. It never feels painful to re-enter the loop—at least not from the reader's side.
The story features the magical academy trope, which I personally find insufferable. (Cue the usual teenage rivalries, duels, and magical hazing… ugh.) But this book sidesteps all of that. Instead, we get a clever, layered mystery centered around a protagonist who has to unravel the secrets of the time loop while making the most of each iteration.
The stakes stay high throughout—even with the safety net of death being "just a reset." There’s solid progression: the MC grows more powerful and insightful, solves problems, stumbles, fails, and tries again. While he does get strong, he never crosses into overpowered territory—and that’s a major plus, in my opinion.
All in all, it’s a fantastic read and absolutely deserves the hype.
The story features the magical academy trope, which I personally find insufferable. (Cue the usual teenage rivalries, duels, and magical hazing… ugh.) But this book sidesteps all of that. Instead, we get a clever, layered mystery centered around a protagonist who has to unravel the secrets of the time loop while making the most of each iteration.
The stakes stay high throughout—even with the safety net of death being "just a reset." There’s solid progression: the MC grows more powerful and insightful, solves problems, stumbles, fails, and tries again. While he does get strong, he never crosses into overpowered territory—and that’s a major plus, in my opinion.
All in all, it’s a fantastic read and absolutely deserves the hype.
June 28, 2022
The ending was a bit rushed causing more than a few plot holes here and there but if you're like me who couldnt stop reading after silverlakes betrayal werent very obvious until you had time to fully absorb what happened.
The impact of Zorian's "death" was greatly dampend by the previous scene where zorian and the matriarch was walking through an illusion, which to me was a lost opportunity to cause atleast some emotional turmoil to the readers
As i was nearing the end a part of me wished that there would be more chapters to read, but alas, all good things must end, i am very happy that they gave a chapter showing what happened in the aftermath of invasion, im very interested in how long itll take for zach and zorian to get bored of school as they are very powerful and knowledgeable mages already.
On a final note, i am very happy to have stunbled upon this gem of a read, and i sincerely hope more people will get to enjoy reading it as much as i have had these couple of days
The impact of Zorian's "death" was greatly dampend by the previous scene where zorian and the matriarch was walking through an illusion, which to me was a lost opportunity to cause atleast some emotional turmoil to the readers
As i was nearing the end a part of me wished that there would be more chapters to read, but alas, all good things must end, i am very happy that they gave a chapter showing what happened in the aftermath of invasion, im very interested in how long itll take for zach and zorian to get bored of school as they are very powerful and knowledgeable mages already.
On a final note, i am very happy to have stunbled upon this gem of a read, and i sincerely hope more people will get to enjoy reading it as much as i have had these couple of days
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2023
So, so good. The concept of time looping always introduces interesting ideas, but rarely is it done so well. Magic in this book is treated like a science, and is extremely consistent from start to finish. Characters follow believable development arcs, and the excitement builds the more implausibly competent the main characters (and antagonists) become from loop to loop. I've re-read the series several times, and find it incredibly fun every time. In many ways I'd love it if the author wrote an extended epilogue of some kind, but in other ways it opens up so much to the imagination. If you like to daydream about the books you've read, this one fuels a lot of food for thought.
April 16, 2024
Mother of Learning was a breath of fresh air compared to the repetitive fantasy tropes I was encountering. This web novel boasts world-building that rivals the best of the genre. Each character introduced is not only unique but also driven by compelling motivations, actively shaping the plot's direction. The central mystery is utterly captivating, demanding your full attention as you piece together the clues. Every detail felt significant, foreshadowing later events. The story also served as a powerful reminder: true mastery comes from relentless practice. The more you dedicate yourself, the more you'll stand out from the crowd.
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