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

It was great

This book was a lot of fun. It has some basic cultivation elements, but only for one character. The rest are magicians. There are no stats or levels, and it didn’t have the “everyone at the academy is a bully” trope. A refreshing break from LitTRPG for a moment. The MC wasn’t OP either…maybe one day, but not yet. He was more unique in his abilities, as opposed to broken. TB narrated it, and he’s always top notch. I highly recommend it.

A Very Engaging Story

This is one of the best stories that I've listened to this year (though, I would have preferred to have known beforehand that this is the first book in a series). I'm looking forward to continuing this story as it's very engaging. Good pacing, action, and characters that draw you in.

Travis Baldree's narration was excellent in this book, by far the best narration of the many books that I've heard narrated by him. He really outdid himself with this one.

Can't wait for book 2

Absolutely fantastic. A main character that has an advantage, but one that's not unreasonable. I was worried at first with how Alex seemed to find a simple way to overcome the limitations of his Mark, but I'm very glad that the writer seems to have realized that it could make Alex too good too fast and kept it from going there. I feel like it's a little silly how Alex keeps repeating "Think, adapt" as his mantra, feels a bit overused, but otherwise I really love everything about this story.

Enjoyable

Not to much graphic violence. I think my wife will enjoy listening to the story

phenomenal story

This story is riveting and one of the best stories I’ve ever heard. I really can’t wait to hear the next story. This is definitely a story to add to your collection if you haven’t already. If awards were to be given out for stories this would get one.