The First Peak of the Force

The Heavenly Throne, Book 3

By: Yuri Ajin

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's Summary

Those who follow the noble art of cultivation know that there's no place for evil in their craft.

All that matters is reaching the Heavens, but to do that, one must unlock their Force. 

The Fallen Star Sect's expedition to the mysterious cave ended in tragedy. Hundreds of their most talented students lost their lives in the dark tunnels. No less horrible was the fate of those who had found themselves at the imperial palace at the time. Nobody could've predicted such a turn of events. 

The empire is on the brink of collapse. The moment of civil war draws nearer. But Kai won't participate in any of it. That's all behind him. Instead, he has set off on a new adventure that'll lead him far east, where he'll have to find a way to heal, become stronger, and finally find his place in this merciless and cruel world.

©2021 Yuri Ajin (P)2021 Podium Audio

One disappointment after another

Just to be clear, I was not expecting much from this book. The first book was passable, but the second one was much less interesting. Going into this book, I expected a few interesting fights, and not much else. Sadly, the book didn't even give me that. Here is a list of my problems with this book

1) The timeskip problem of the first two books is much more prominent here. Whenever the Mc is too weak to fight someone, he vanishes for a year or two, getting stronger completely off screen. This gives us no chance to guess how strong he is, and the Author only reveals the Mc's power increases when he's in the middle of what would have been an impossible battle before the timeskip. It always feels like the Author is saying "See how strong the other guy is?! now check this shit out! because the Mc killed a god, and drank his blood, he can destroy this dude like its nothing! isn't he so cool!?!?!"

2) The info dumps don't feel natural at all. Characters talk like this whenever the Author wants us to get extra info on the situation. "Ah! I see what you did! For the past 40,000 years, you have been putting your soul into the body's of your sons, giving you a kind of immortality, giving you the power to rule the clan form the shadows!" "You fool! you think knowing my secret will help you beat me?! to kill me you would need all seven of the Holy Sword Spirits! and I know you cant have them all, because I have two of them myself! w-what?! what happened to my Holy Sword Spirits?!?!" "You fool! they are my Holy Sword Spirits now! and I will fuse them into the ultimate Holy Sword Spirit! I bet you didn't know that was possible! hahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

3) Characters are randomly killed off just to make the Mc mad. At one point, a girl from the 2nd book shows up just to be killed off 3 paragraphs later.

4) The MC ia way too strong for any fight to really matter. Even when he's having "trouble" in a fight, he pulls a new, broken ability out of nowhere. It never feels like hes in any danger.

unfortunate

This not as good as the first book.

One major problem is all the antagonists are completely psychopathic, raving caricatures instead of characters. The prevalence of this issue calls into question the very stability of the world building. If everywhere you go there are insane demigods who throw their power around without consequences it's unlikely there would be any kind of functional society.

The returning villain was also a huge letdown. We knew he was going to come back after the epilogue of the last book but I was hoping the author would have made his return interesting, but instead he's the same raving psychopath as the other antagonists just with some extra powers.

Heyborne is good as always, I kind of got rhe impression that he felt ridiculous shouting some of the stupid dialogue the antagonists would spout before getting utterly obliterated, and never mentioned again.

I don’t think the author looks at what he’s written

A lot of thoughtless stuff, sounds like non-sense. Like the MC reaching into his chest to pump his heart because it stopped. That’s in there and has zero impact on the story. And the power levels are all over the place. One moment they are breaking the sound barrier and the next a 100 ft drop will kill them. They’ll bunch through stone and crash through stone and then their head cracks on a regular tree. Just annoying thoughtless stuff like that. And the never ending near death fights that you later realize were only so close cause the MC didn’t want to take off his training weights or show his “real” techniques. Just dumb.

emotional detachment

I liked the story well enough but the character changing and lack of real emotional loss or lack there of is very disconcerting the main character does not seem to care for the death of friends at all when someone does die it ends the chapter and moves on there is no rage or tears nothing but the next chapter or part of the story it makes you as The reader or listener not care about any attachments that the main character might develop with anyone because you can see that there's no points in having emotions if it's not displayed written or cared about

not good

I had low expectations, and this still couldn't meet them. I listen to a lot of low quality drivel, but this is has to be the worst.

Just another installment

While I didn't hate it, the story seemed like a wash, rinse, repeat of the first two books. Talented protagonist fights, talented antagonists to overcome current limits. I could watch One Piece, Dragon Ball or any shonen to get a better story.

so so

a bit washed up cultivation book, with system but lack of cohesion, and mostly rigged towards MC.
still, wort the credit, but dont have many expectations.

Wow. I really enjoyed this one

The author reminds me of Kirill Klavanski. The story is full of surprises and great characters. The battles were jaw gripping. The narration was great. I had a hard time putting this one down. looking forward to the next installment.

loved this book

I don't get why people make so much detailed reviews on the 3rd or fourth book it's like we've got this far into it this book was good really good great series

Enjoyed both

So I waited for the third book to listen to both and really enjoyed both it is kinda odd having a book read to you by Fred if I had a complaint it is that so many throw away characters get names. Asian names are hard enough for me to keep straight without that not a real issue both just some constructive criticism if the author reads these and I look forward to the next book you write

amazing

cant get enough of this series. such great stpry telling. jam packed with adrenaline. cant wait for book 7

awesome.e

Great series love this book great narration and I can not
wait for the next one

Loving the book great listen

I am loving the series. This is awesome can’t wait for the next one. Hopping for progressive character development as story progresses