Spell Breaker

A Progression Fantasy Adventure (Arcane Academy, Book 2)

De: A.P. Gore, Patricia Jones

Narrado por: Matt Hicks, Erin Bateman

He's Not Just Breaking the Rules Anymore. He's Teaching a Masterclass in It.

A reincarnated evil lord knows the value of a good tool. At the Arcane Academy, Daren Morin has found a toolkit of broken misfits, and he's ready to start building his arsenal.

His goal isn't just to survive his second life; it's to dominate it. He offers them secrets and forbidden power, demanding a price they don't yet understand. Then, the game changes.

A routine competition becomes a deadly dungeon crawl—an unexpected trial by fire.

For everyone else, it's a fight for survival. For Daren, it's the first battle in the war only he knows is coming, and a chance to see if his investments will pay off.

As they grow stronger under his cold guidance, they begin to see him as a savior. A dangerous mistake. Because when the time comes, Daren Morin will cash in his investment, and the entire academy will pay the price.

Join Daren in his journey to power once again. For fans of Progression Fantasy, Magic Academy, and cunning Antiheroes who play to win.

©2025 A.P. Gore and Patricia Jones (P)2025 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Just Freakintastic! I love Daren as he powers-up in this tale!

Ohhhh! Man! Freakintastic! I've actually given up trying to categorize Daren... he a complex 18 year old with a two hundred year history. Get the series, you'll figure it out! I don't believe he's as evil as he makes out. He's just a student and beginning to trust some of the other kids that have asked for help due to his own unique abilities! And yeah Daren is a bit of a jack to those that have been bullies. He won't take guff from anyone including teachers. And wow do I love auctions! There's just something about the high stakes and high energy that happens at an auction. Then yeah there's the tournament... and this year they've included students from a rival academy... boy talk about gearing up the pulse-pounding edge-of-your-seat action. Get the book better yet grab the audiobook because it's all there for y'all. And you'll definitely need to dive into book three!

Really enjoy it

The evil has a good side and he doesn’t even know it. Worth the listen looking forward to next installment

interesting plot

progression feels like a spin-off of Chinese cultivation. but hey, better than a bunch of numbers being read off every other chapter. voice actor is great

Good enough

Magic system is extremely interesting, the characters that do have any flushing out are pretty interesting but I’ve found that most of the characters fall flat and feel pretty one dimensional. Plot has a lot of potential. Dialogue feels a bit awkward most of the time and could use some polishing. Overall decently satisfying read

Dialogue reads like Machine Translation.

No allegations of AI writing; I actually felt like the narrative prose was alright. It’s just that all the dialogue reads like a translation that never went through a localization team-straight machine translated. Every time someone opened their mouth, the book felt stilted, uninflected, and clunky. Every conversation was awkwardly on-the-nose, like a storyboard draft used to structure a scene but never rewritten into actual prose. Except it was every scene.

The narrators did solid work and offered an admirable range. But even their best efforts couldn’t breathe life into these characters; it would’ve taken a miracle for me to feel invested in any of them.

I would recommend this novel to anyone in the mood for an arrogant, vindictive, and overbearing MC. It wasn't quite what I was looking for when I read it, but I imagine it would be satisfying to read after an obsequious MC story. It's a villain regression story, albeit with little charm.