Dungeon Delver: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy

Victor of Tucson, Book 2

De: Plum Parrot

Narrado por: Robb Moreira

Unlikely hero Victor discovers the realm of Fanwath is even deadlier beneath the surface in the rollicking sequel to action-adventure fantasy Pit Fighter.

Suddenly transported to the land of Fanwath, Victor had a hard time adapting to a reality controlled by an omniscient “System” that rewarded strength, skill, and savagery with increased “Energy,” which was necessary if one wished to continue breathing. Then, after some truly surprising success as a gladiator-slave, the teenager ended up doomed to a life in the brutal mines along with a menagerie of fantastical beings possessing even worse luck than him.

But everything changes when Victor finds a way out—or rather, down. With the aid of a magical portal, he soon finds himself in a fabled subterranean dungeon-labyrinth, where his wits and combat prowess are the only things keeping him alive. OK, so he’s found a companion in the strangely alluring and witty Shadeni warrior-woman Thayla as well as an amulet housing a guiding spirit named Gorz. But even they won’t be able to help him now.

Because there are things lurking in the depths more deadly than Victor can possibly imagine. And if he ever does manage to escape the darkness, some very powerful—and vengeful—nobles will do anything to send him back underground. About six feet underground, to be precise . . .

The second volume of the hit LitRPG adventure series—with more than 750,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Plum Parrot (P)2023 Podium Audio

I was hooked from chapter 1 book 1

Great story, I love the character development and overall storyline I recommend this to anyone.

Great

I got this right after the first one and loved it, can’t wait for the next and hope victor can meet with some of his old captors for vengeance.

Good Story with Fun Progression

This had an excellent story and I really like the main character.

There is cultivation aspects of the novel with cores and skills. Its more focused on the story elements and character progression then actual cultivation.

Loved it

I really enjoyed the second book
The narration was perfect
Already purchased the third to keep going

Not Bad

I guess I have some complaints but overall I feel like the books is fairly good. The issue I have is that it feels like he always has the exact perfect challenge where he takes on something approximately 1.5 - 2x his own power and just narrowly edges out a win. I get that it comes somewhat with this genre of book but it just doesn't feel very natural. I guess in a sense I would rather see a larger gambit of things where he comes along some completely trivial things at time and at other times sees something horrifying that he narrowly hides / runs from rather than everything just being in that perfect outclass him but through using every single freaking tool in the bag he overcomes kind of situation. I know some of this comes with this genre but there are also other series that do a good job of making the MC run away / hide / really consider what and where to engage rather than just feeling like the MC scripted walks into the perfect fights. Technically he does run away from one fight in this book but with a lot of asterisks in that he maybe already proved that he maybe could have taken it. Its important to ask why there are varying threat levels of individuals and monsters in different areas of the world and ask how the MC has a progression that isn't just getting stepped on by a lvl 10,000 giant in chapter 2.

One other small note of dislike I had but the book ends very suddenly at the end of a conflict. Personally my own taste is to wrap up the conflict and do some slown down of final gains, congratulations, partying and such. It just feels like it ended very abruptly and I think another chapter after the final conflict with some wind down would have been good.

Five star

I love this series. I can't wait for the next book. My only complaint would be that it isn't long enough.

Enjoyable

I think the listening audience will find this book enjoyable. The audience will also appreciate the writer's attempt to make the characters well-rounded, which some litrpg books sometimes lack. At any rate, this story is worth the credit.

Still Good with Some Criticism

Fair warning, some examples may be used from the story, so spoiler warning.

I'm going to have some criticism, but I enjoyed the story.

The biggest problem with this story is the same problem you'll find with all netbook stories in which the author doesn't re-format for publishing since netbooks are written chapter to chapter without any real management for a book's start, middle, and ending. With that said, I agree with some of the criticism that this book should've had an aftermath chapter. It just abruptly ends and it likely seemed like a good ending, but the book needed more closure.

Also, the book needed more focus. It starts with one big bad and ends with another big bad that you may not remember although the second big bad is connected to something that happened in the first book. It's again, one of the problems you'll find with authors of netbooks who don't revisit it for publishing in novel format.

Another complaint I have. The severely forced platonic relationship between the two main characters. They spend a hefty amount of time together and share some intimate moments (not that kind, get your mind out of the gutter), but the author goes out of their way to forcefully push them into a more sister and brother relationship. There were some hints dropped by MC of a physical attraction in the first book coupled with some hints that he also didn’t see the main female character that way initially, but given some of the things that transpired, they’d have undoubtedly, at least, approached the topic of a deeper relationship. I understand that Victor is still mentally a near-post-high school teenager, but at the same time the author was trying to show his maturity levels growing due to his experiences on this planet. Yet, I could tell the author was doing everything to shy away from any type of romantic relationship between Victor and Thayla, or Victor and any other female physically present in favor of Victor and another character I won’t name that’s kind of revealed at the end and I won’t get into it so as not to spoil anything.

I realize that for some LitRPG fans, they hate romance and I realize some authors don’t feel good writing romance. I’m only addressing it as a complaint because I could tell the author was forcing their relationship to NOT be a romantic one while dropping lines from other characters midway into the story as misunderstandings that Victor and Thayla were a couple and having them react, supposedly comically, mostly Thayla, about how they weren’t a couple. Just felt a little forced. Not a big deal to call the book bad or give it a low rating.

Lastly, I can agree with some others about the fights and struggles the author puts Victor through. He only ran away from one fight, and it wasn’t because he felt he couldn’t win it, but because he didn’t feel he could win it and protect Thayla. I’ll leave it at that. Every other fight, regardless of the stakes and the skill, rankings, whatever that put him at a disadvantage, the author forces Victor into the fight and forces him to win. The other part of this, is that the author forces Victor to forget new skills he just got in favor of spamming older skills. Which could’ve made for more interesting fights by way of maybe having a new skill have an in-the-moment setback, but none of the skills until now have come with any setback, so we’re at a point where we should be aware of what we’re getting.

With all of that said and I know it’s all criticism, I enjoyed the book. If you didn’t like book 1 much because Victor spends most of his time enslaved or as an indentured servant, book 2 moves away from that and has Thayla and Victor go on a few adventures. As I said, while there are plot points that the story follows, it still feels mostly random as there’s no overarching plot yet. But that’s not primarily a problem of this series. It’s a problem of LitRPG as a whole genre given the way the stories are generally told.

good mc, good comraderie, good system

an actually likeable mc, a male/female friendship with good banter that doesn't delve into romance. pretty unique system and cultivation. this is an improvement over 1, which I also liked,

A good following title after the previous book.

Did not disappoint. A bunch of action and things never got stale. I'm looking forward to the next one.