Zenith Academy

Zenith Academy, Book 1

By: Cassius Lange

Narrated by: Jessica Threet, Gabriel Michael

My name is James, but my mom’s the only person that can call me that. To everyone else, I’m JD — a struggling artist, working my fingers to the bone for my shot with one of the big comic book companies.

Oh, and I work nights, managing a dive called Judson’s Bar and Grill. I know: the dream life. Things were boring, disappointing, even. Until one fateful night when everything changed.

What happened first? An odd woman showed up in a booth while I was trying to close up for the night – rude, but on its own, not so weird. She was dressed in a kimono and had a sword in her lap; that part was a little strange.

What happened next? It turns out she’s a mistress at a magical academy, and she has been looking for me...(please pick up on my sarcasm here). Except then she proved it, and with just a few violent swings of her very real sword, she ensured that I didn’t have a job anymore. So, I more or less had to follow her into a scary, glowing portal.

Where did it take me? A surreal place called Zenith Academy, and a life I’d only ever dreamt of; a place I’ll learn how to cultivate mana and wield magic-like powers. And that is just the beginning. The tower imbues cultivators with visual prompts and game-like stats, making my new life feel like something straight out of a choose your own adventure novel. But it’s not all for nothing.

Evidently, they’ve been fighting a war for thousands of years, and I’ve just been drafted.

©2021 Cassius Lange (P)2021 Podium Audio

Nice

Decent Combo of gamelit and the other thing.
Has major growth potential, some tropes with the thirst of the MC.

Voice performances were above par.

Great first book

I liked this listen. The story flows and characters are detailed and unique. Bring on the next

Unique story

I like it, at first I thought it was going to be another harem based story but it surprisingly had a lot of depth.

highly recommend you check this out

the narration team is freaking amazing. I really love Gabriel Michaels work with skulduggery. Jessica three is in perhaps one of my favorite series of all times metal mage. neither of them do anything less than a fantastic job with this new book from Cassius Lange. as for the story itself we've got a bartender MC thrust into a not-so-nice world with magic and evil elves. something that you don't see so often in these kinds of I guess you'd call them portal fantasies is Lady human from the same world. I really did enjoy the story and I can't wait for the second book which is out now in ebook form to get the audio treatment. I'm going to go read the ebook now cuz I can't wait. there's also mention of a patreon where it looks like the author is working on the first book of two new series. so lots to look forward to. oh and while I was poking around I noticed that Mana born number two has now gotten the audiobook treatment. should definitely check that out I read it and that story was amazing as well.

Very well done!

The narration was outstanding. The character development within the story was good. It moved along extremely well. As proof of that, the book seemed much shorter that it actually was. I'm not a fan of the "reading of the stats" in a story, but this one seemed to not interrupt the flow of the story like some of these types of books does.
There's one other thing, I want to point out. The scenes (descriptions?) of intimacy between the characters was very tastefully done. I have experienced some author's descriptions in books, where these things seem like they were writing by a horny teenager. This was not one of them.
I found this very enjoyable and I am anxious to start book two!