Reddit reviews Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1)

You must have a super strict definition of what you consider "progression fantasy" (vs I guess other fantasy that doesn't have strict RPG quantification).

Some other series that I consider progression fantasy and I enjoyed:

• Into the Labyrinth by John Bierce (two sequels are out, although these books tends to be on the shorter side). Like, this book is shockingly short. If I hadn't checked the length after, I would have sworn this was at least twice its 178 pages (which is probably good if the author is crazy like me and considers crazy stretch goals like "adapt this into a feature length film").
  
  
• Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe is a very western magic school progression series.
  
  
• The Fire Within by DK Holmberg is about a good friend that accidentally passes the test to get into magic school, then has to work his ass off to not get kicked out and forced to serve the school as a janitor. (6 books in this series right now)
  
  
• Hollow Core by Gage Lee is basically Wuxia/Xianxia High School (sequel comes out October 29th)
  
  
• Azyl Academy by Chris Vines is another Wuxia/Xianxia High School (sequel comes out November 8th) -- This book has two main weaknesses, the first is the author has way too much meta internal monologue that I think he uses as a "lampshading" trope to justify that a person positioned by a god has a lot of inherent talent (I mean, he already justified it by having a literal god intervene). The other is the lack of a coherent goal (MC just wants to "git gud" because a god told him he would be the difference between a good and bad outcome). But this series is admittedly aimed at "grade level: 5-12" (which seems like a big range to me).
  
  To me "normal" length book is 300-350 pages.
  
  > why aren't established fantasy authors rushing to deliver?
  
  New niche (niche-ier?) genre labels appear all the time, so there are probably a ton of fantasy stories out there that have that "progression" aspect to it that you are overlooking.
  
  Seriously, just climb down through Amazon's category labels to the bottom of fantasy limb and read there.
  
  The difference between "fantasy" and "progression fantasy" is how much the author details the main character(s) montages.

> There are an infinite amount of different aspects to mana, and the type that you cultivate will determine many of your abilities. There's the classics like fire, air, shadow, etc. but also more abstract types like gravity, energy, life, existence.

Like this a lot!

> The parts I have plotted out will take place on the Island of Paradise, an island rich in ambient mana but nearly unknown to the outside world, and the region of Gavel, a subcontinent defined by the constant war between the resident colonies of powerful kingdoms sent there to establish a hold on the land.

Cool!

> Kiro: a member of the lowest class on the island of paradise, he is one of the few people on the entire planet forbidden from using mana. Though he has above-average latent talent, a mishap in the test he was given has left him, in a practical sense, crippled.

Mm. You mentioned this being similar to Cradle already, and it is. It's just a super common xianxia trope in general, though. Sundered Soul, Hollow Core...you get the idea. It's turning into a really common trope, both in western xianxia and Chinese originals.

> Ok I just realized that he kinda sounds like a copy-paste of Lindon from Will Wight's cradle, but trust me he goes a completely different direction.

If a part of the premise or hero sounds so similar to a famous book that you feel like you need to defend it before you even write it, it's probably going to come across as too similar to readers as well. This doesn't mean you can't draw inspiration from other books - everyone does that - but you may want to have elements that you use to distinguish the story before you get into the tropes that feel similar to the existing books.

> Sera: born on the same day as Kiro, they were thought to be destined rivals. She grows up the prodigy of her generation, using wit and charm and overwhelming force to race up the ranks at record pace. And, instead of rivals, she grows up Kiro's closest friend. Lately, she has been training as a sect apprentice, hoping to gain even more insight on the path of immortality.

I like rivals, but you may want to change the name. This is the same name as the sister from Arcane Ascension and sounds very similar.

> Aetna: a long-forgotten saint of storms and wisdom, she has been slumbering for so long that she has fallen several levels of power. Still, she retains her immortality and hopes to find some treasures that will restore her to her former glory. Some new, not-dead-in-a-thousand-year-old-tomb followers also wouldn't go amiss...

Please just don't make her a thousand year old anime loli. Thanks in advance.

Overall, this book concept sounds cool, and I wish you luck with writing it!

Not quite a crossover between Harry Potter and Naruto, but I just finished reading Hollow Core and you could easily call it "Harry Potter and the Cultivator's Clique".

I'm not entirely sure I liked the book, mind you - the protagonist is too much of a mushroom for my liking (he's kept in the dark and fed bullshit for most of the novel), but it was entertaining enough that I finished the thing.

Edit: added a link, since the book's SEO is awful (apparently hollow-core slab is a kind of foundation used to build houses, who knew?)

Maybe Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1) by Gage Lee? Definitely "Another World".

Last week, Ethria, Soulship, Hollow Core, Dungeons of the Crooked Mountains, The Messenger, and of course Uncrowned.

I'm currently taking a break from new content and re-reading Challenger's Call, before I move on to God of Gnomes and beyond.