Childhood Friend of the Zenith

I read this on another site. It was quite good, at least I liked it. The translator is not up to date on this site. Overall this is a 4.5 out of 5 stars for me

Well... This is good. Really good. A tip for the people reading this. Somewhere at the later chapters, I heavily insist you sometimes just take a short break before reading. Because spoiler alert, it's kinda information heavy. It WILL mess your brain if you've stayed too long reading. But it's ok, because it's worth it. Now the MC... Somewhere along the later parts, knowing people, they're gonna nitpick on the MC; Gu Yangcheon's personality. But bear with it, that's just his personality. That's his character. That's what makes him special. And another advise, is to have fun reading this. Because it's good! 

Fun - 26 Chapters in.

The story is slow so far, with a lot of mystery. The MC regressed, but I still have no idea what actually happened in his past life 🤔

While writing reviews for other novels which I've read, and reading new novels which I haven't before, I somehow managed to let this gem slip past my review-radar. Before getting into the review, I would like to mention that I do not know where the translation is coming from. I am reading from another translator and am thus at chapter 400. I hope novelfire adds that translation since they have already taken a couple of their novels already, and I cannot guess why this one is missing. So I am unsure if this translation is good or not, so I won't be mentioning it.

I am going to primarily focusing on four parts: Story, action, characters and romance. 

Getting into the heavy hitter, the story is phenomenal. It is about a martial artists, gu yangcheon, who during his life made many bad decisions and has garnered a plethora of regrets. He is somehow given a second chance in life and has regressed during his early childhood (I would guess around 12-14 y/o). He now has to do his best to gather as much strength as possible before rallying against his former boss? Owner? It's a bit too complicated and I have to go into spoilers to explain, so we do what we are best known for, turning a blind away😉. This is the basic premise, without explaining too much of his past life, because those flashbacks are treasure troves. Our MC truly had f*cking aura and he shows that. Although this sound generic, I promise you that the plot-twists that come after are amazing. This is due to one simple fact, the tag 'Unreliable Narrator'. Our narrator, Yangcheon, is sometimes clueless, othertimes entirely wrong about certain events and individuals. There IS a reason for that, which is explained much much later in the story. The 'unreliable narrator' is just a good plot device which keeps everything fresh. The author manages to make this seemingly overused and generic plot into something amazing. Regressor stories with murim settings have been done countless times, but this one might just be the best of them all. I've read more than enough of those stories, and usually they are the same story foretold many times. The author just managed to cook. 

The Action, precisely scenes and descriptions in this novel are very nice. They are detailed enough to make you visualise them in your head, and are not a mess of complex words trying to sound fancy. Usually, the action does not span over multiple chapters, maybe a maximum of 2-3 chapters on a generous day. However, action scenes occur frequently so we get plenty of action. Similar to other murim novels, the action involves martial arts, sword battles, brawl fights, qi, and so on. Later on in the story, we get to see more unique energies and techniques. 

Moving on to the characters, they have personality and feel fun to read. Their interaction are no robotic AI conversations but feels like humans actually trying to communicate with each other. Well... due to our lunatic MC whom middle name should have been 'violence', there are not always conversations to be had, but fights. Our MC is knows for his sharp and scary facial features and is compared to a praying mantis😅. Other characters originate from traditional clans such as the namgung, peng and tang clans. This is a bit standardized across all murim novels but it's logical since they did actually exist. Regarding the MCs family, his father is an antisocial dude, his mother is gone, his stepmom is expressionless and cold, his little sister has left the house temporarily, the middle sister is an arrogant brat with a superiority complex, and the only two individuals who show care to him are his eldest sister, and the second elder. In general, the Gu clan is full of mysteries and secrets which the MC is trying to uncover in his second life.

The romance is done rather nicely. There has been no rushing as of yet. Currently, there are 4 girls which are trying to snatch yangcheon for themselves. They have interesting identities personalities and traits. Due to the fact that yangcheon has past history with them from his first life, the progress has been rather slow, since he mostly dodges interactions with them due to guilt or annoyance. However, as of later chapters, he manages to acknowledge that he wishes for them to stay by his side, and is slowly trying to unravel his feelings while tossing away past guilt. Overall, this novel is definitely in my top 10. I have read it twice or thrice, and enjoyed it every time. It has interesting events, plot-twists, character interactions, action scenes and powers. If you are looking for something to read, I would recommend that you give this one a chance.  

It's peak all i can say is this is emotional, tragic and deep very deep it's like unraveling pieces only to find more and more pieces left to unravel

This story is very good and I enjoy reading it.This is my favorite novel. I hope new chapters of this novel will continue to come every day.