For an extended period of time, let’s say 5 years at least, I have been daily consuming tons of web comics. Korean ones specifically, also known as manwhas. Lately, after a couple of scan sites got shut down, I have reached saturation on the available series. Meaning I can tackle new ones, but they feel exactly as duplicata from previous ones, where the craftman(wha)ship of writing a serie takes over with the actual artistic expression.
I have the highest regard for cratmanship, and I could go on and enjoy visuals and pacing from these standard format serialisations, but the dopamine release of new chapters and gimmicks starts to slow down.
That’s when I started reasoning on what I enjoyed most on my favorite series, and realised I could pretty damn well focus on stories, and try to move uphill: enter web novel.
Mother of Learning
I already started a couple of them, one I had to give up on because of the terrible hosting platform I found it on. Dozen of pop up per (relatively short) chapter. Another I reached the serialization, and the story has barely begun (max level archmage!). Browsing through the top rated entries, completed ones, I stumbled on Mother of Learning. It is not my first time getting stuck in a cycle of devouring some kind of media (binge watching, obsessive reading, pile of comics… you name it), but this time I am determined to share it with the world, hence this post.
The writing style is very smooth. It just flows, taking freedoms to skip boring section of characters lives and useless action scenes, focusing on the slow paced level ups and relationships developing loop after loop. No big spoiler there, the series is tagged as time loop, but you may want to cover your eyes if you do not like spoilers. I am 25 chapters in as of now, and things are starting to get juicy
Spoiler Section
Let’s start with a small critique, Zorian, the mc has changed a lot really fast. That can be ok, he is reliving the same experience over and over and he feel much more confident by knowing what is going to happen and increasing his magical abilities. But still, he went from being a shut in who sleeps half of the loop to a study machine to a party animal rather quickly. The author makes it very smooth and reasonable, even adding some soul bond affecting his personality as a possible excuse, and you can tell in the first few chapters they are going out of their way to make Zorian look hateful. A lot of resentment towards his own family and social status. But given some powers, he became some sort of paladin of good. Guess you need to appeal to your public, and immorality does not get you on the top of the charts.
The thing I like most is how magic is extensive and not just focused on fighting arts. Dedicating several time loops to become a proper librarian was a very nice change compared to the usual power ups of combat manwhas. He is of course leveling up magical martial prowess as well, but crafting and utility spells take a lot of his time, and this is good.
Setting the time loop start at the end of summer break also leaves some space for disbelief suspension, since he could have awakened some powers during the previous few months and people might accept this development as normal-ish, although going from shut in to class rep and teacher’s pet is rather drastic as a change. The side characters are also fun to meet again and again under different circumstances, with them changing along with mc’s skills. The library arc was fun, and meeting cute turtleneck girl over and over on the train always brings a smile with it.
That’s it for today, I will surely expand my summary with talks about spiders, trolls and dragon slaying soon. Now I’m off to read some!