Climbing the Ranks

A Tower Climber Cultivation LitRPG (Climbing the Ranks, Book 1)

By: Tao Wong

Narrated by: Jamie Zubairi

When the Towers arrived, without warning, without communication of intent or indication of reasoning, chaos ensued . . .

Decades later, enchantments from the Tower and mana cores from the creatures within power the most advanced technologies in the real world. What was once a puzzling mystery has become a necessary part of economic growth.

For Arthur Chua, the Malaysian Beginner Tower has always been his objective. Climbing the Tower is the only form of escape available for one without money or connections. He's not looking to be a hero or famous, just a survivor.

Fate, on the other hand, has other plans for him. At long last, the reason for the arrival of the Towers will be revealed, and humanity will once again experience a seismic shift when the truth appears.

Of course, Arthur's going to have to survive long enough for that to happen . . .

©2022 Tao Wong (P)2023 Tantor

okay we get it, the main character is Malaysian

this book is painfully average at its best moments and the main character is very annoying, constantly making little inane nonsensical rhymes that he and other characters often comment on how bad and annoying they are. that does not somehow excuse these annoying rhymes.

i should first point out the obvious, this book is 90% in English but the main character and others often switch to speaking Malay or other Asian languages or dialects like Mandarin and Cantonese.

when this happens you're either left in the dark with no idea what's going on or the characters speak in Malay then they or the narrator explains it again in English anyway. it's just annoying as hell, it almost feels like propaganda, the main character can barely go a paragraph without mentioning that he is Malaysian.

it's really hard to believe tao Wong wrote this, the thousand Li series is just so much better written.

there are a few words I didn't know

I say there's few words I didn't know but it was still an amazing book and you could always look up what that word means and find out what animal they're talking about love this book great cultivation Great Character interaction highly recommend this book hope you all enjoy it as much as I did

Was hoping for a little bit more from this one!

Pretty good narration from Jaime Zubairi, not much to complain about on that front. Story is a lot of mehhh, MC doesn’t have much of a back story, the mandarin and Indian slang doesn’t work for me (though I’m sure there are plenty out there that would enjoy it) but for me it makes the story caught between languages, the MC is a pretty obnoxious know it all even though he gets his ass handed to him in every serious fight. Not sure I’ll make it to the end of this one.

Cultivation Tower Climbing at its Finest

This is a huge book, but still feels like just the beginning. it's broken into small chapters for easy consumption. if you are a fan of cultivation it's well worth checking out.

I don’t get all the hate.

This was a solid four star book for me, I like that it was written from a culture that I’m not extremely familiar with. It had some minor issues but overall I would recommend it.