Mark of the Fool

A Progression Fantasy Epic

By: J.M. Clarke

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

The gods chose him. He said no.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry....

Fate, however, had another plan.

On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

Rather than die or serve other Heroes like past Fools, he takes a stand, rejects divine decree...and leaves. With his little sister, his childhood friend, and her cerberus, Alex flees for the university, hoping to research the mystery of the Ravener. He’ll make lifelong friends, learn magic from mad wizards, practice alchemy, fight mana vampires, and try to pay tuition.

There’s one small problem. The Mark insists on preventing the Fool from learning and casting spells, while enhancing skills outside of divinity, combat, and spellcraft...that is, unless he learns to exploit the hell out of it.

Explore a coming-of-age magic academy fantasy with a weak-to-strong progression into power, a setting inspired by D&D, detailed world building, and magical science, action, comedy, slice-of-life, and GameLit elements.

With nearly 10 million views on Royal Road, this popular web serial has been completely revised and relaunched into this definitive version now coming to Audible, narrated by Travis Baldree!

©2022 Aethon Books (P)2022 Aethon Audio

What a surprise!

This is a winner. I wasn't sure whether I would like it when I read the book details. But, this was one of the better audible book I have purchased. The characters seemed realistic and the storyline was good. Can't wait for the next book in the series.

Love the idea

This was a great book. I didn't like how the main character is so weak and will likely continue to be extremely weak for a long time. Also that ending was too abrupt.

great start

really solid story, detailed MC with realistic thoughts and goals. no overpowerd crazyness or a MC completely idiotic around women. just a solid story that gives all in it a good solid base for amazing adventures to come

Good start but some things need to be expanded on

It’s a solid start, anyone who likes progression fantasy should give it a try. The MC turns a disadvantage into an advantage and works hard to better himself and protect his sister.

The ending isn’t exactly satisfying but I wasn’t upset enough not to continue the series. I guess I was hoping for a more of a finale style ending. This was more like, well I guess it’s a good place to end the book. This is the downside of writing chapters by chapters on royal road with no framework for an actual book. The author needs to work on that.

Spoilers ***

The book is labeled as a progression fantasy but I’m not sure what the progression is, is it the magic tiers? This needs to be explained.

I know some criticize the MC as doing everything “right” but I don’t mind. It’s a matter of preference, I hate books were the MC is an idiot and keeps on losing. This being said, I do think he fails, as evidenced by pages and pages of failures written in his notebooks. But he keeps going and I can understand the motivation, for himself, his homeland and most of all, he has a 10 year old relying on him and he has limited funds. The motivation makes sense.

What will determine the success of this book is whether the author can successfully expand on the larger world. Is the whole series going to occur with the MC hiding at the school while his homeland burns or is he going to find a way to go help the other heroes while keeping his independence? Maybe making use of teleportation; to go back and forth or something else entirely. The groundwork is there, the author just needs to guide the book and not let it become boring.

good story

This is a good story but most suitable for the teen or young adult crowd.