ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Himeko Inaba wrote:I read that fictionpress version through chapter 3.

Tell me, how do you judge a good book if you've only read its first few chapters? Seriously. I wonder how I had fared if I tried that stunt when I was at school: "Teacher, I read only 3 chapters of the book but I feel perfectly capable of making sweeping judgements about the WHOLE book!"

Please people, if you are going to criticize, at least read the whole thing for Heaven's sake!

Himeko Inaba wrote: That may seem harsh, but if nobody103 has a story worth telling, he should be able to ensnare readers with it right away.

The very best stories I have read in my life had slow starts because every good story needs to laid a foundation and a background. An example may be this very series, since Mother of Learning has a small cult following among LN readers. I have frequently seen it being discussed and recommended in the Afureta/Re:Monster/Mushoku Tensei communities and when onizuka-gto brought it to baka-tsuki I wasn't surprised at all since it's a title with recognition among the LN translation community.

Personally, the only thing I really dislike about Mother of Learning is that I have to wait a whole month for the next chapter. I understand that when the story is this good that kind of waiting time is more than reasonable, but when a story is this addicting the waiting time feels like an eternity.

Thank you for releasing this as I'm loving it!
Mr. Author you write in a very pleasing way and I appreciate you not explaining every little detail like some professional writers out there, as this just gives me extra time to imagine my own stuff.

I hope you won't end this story with the end of the time-loop as you have created a very nice world. Sure you have a LOT of things in it but remember it's not over after the coming The End but don't drag the story out for too long though. Moderation. Think of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, the first book ended but he managed to continue with the story line and it didn't suck!

P.S. Good luck and don't give up, I'm rooting for you!

You're lampooning a statement I never made. Of course it would be absurd to judge a whole book by the first three chapters! What I typed is:

I wrote:And, when you get down to it, you have to decide whether you want to read a book by its first three chapters. You can hardly judge it by the last.

Notice that it refers to "whether you want to read a book." Not the whole book.

I read the first three chapters, thought they were extremely boring, and decided that I didn't want to waste any more time on it. Maybe it does get good later - maybe it gets as good as Homer's epics. The beginning still needs much improvement. It's useful information, and true no matter what comes next.

Now, it's obvious that every book begins somewhere. That's so basic it's not even level 1. I am not criticizing these chapters for slow pacing or for giving the reader information he'll need later, but for being lame. The characters, the magic system, the setting, and the presentation have so far have been (I've already explained). I wanted the author to understand why a genre reader could quite reasonably drop his story. Not spite for the him or LN community but goodwill. I began reading on OGTO's recommendation - because of his position in B-T - and if someone is willing to tell me when the time loop starts, I'll pick the story up from there.

This book is pretty good, but the fun only starts by the end of chapter four. I feel that the author could have summarized all the three chapters in one chapter, but I believe it is hard to do that well. Honestly said, a lot of what happens in the first three chapters tie in with the time looping. Without the first three chapters, the time looping would not make much sense.

The author needs stuff to loop on, right?

I agree that the author needs stuff to loop on, but I also think the first few chapters are rather dull.

Perhaps it could have been better to start from the second loop, with the author inserting references to the first loop? The first three chapters are quite ordinary, chapter 4 is good; the story could be more engaging if you start from chapter 5 (the mystery and all that), albeit with some more info inserted from the starting chapters. And have chapter 4 as a prologue.

I start reading this around 2 months ago and then I keep waiting for updates every month. At first I saw someone in animesuki mention this and then I search it. I start reading to kill time.

The early chapters were rather boring, but I keep on reading because I'm interested in the world and magic system. I also noticed that the author deliberately explaining small details that might be important later. Since I know from the synopsis that this will be a time loop, I try to pay attention

The chapters are dull until the invasion scene, and that's where the fun begin. And then the loop happen. and it keeps getting better. Nice to see MC progress little by little.
And then the mysteries were revealed one by one. About why MC keeps avoiding crowds. What are the weird rats. Why the imouto is so annoying. Why Akoja did what she did. What is the purpose of invasion.
But still some of the mysteries are still hidden. And then we got to the end of the 1st arc, a massive cliffhanger and another big mystery. Funny that almost all the readers weep for bunch of spiders at the end of the chapters.

So yeah, I think the author level up along with the chapters. I think MC need to train more under Xvim , I want to see Xvim's limit in teaching magic

I immensely enjoyed the novel, considering it appears to be written by a novice. So Kudos to the author.

I'm actually interested in the little girl he met during the first loop and the probable tie-in in chapter 12 with the cat.

Hoping the author is going to elaborate on the girl's fate ... especially if he doesn't help her, although it is implied what happened to her in chapter 12. I'm also quite interested in Zorian's romantic endeavors (guess I am somewhat of a romantic in my heart)
Akoja Taiven Ibery Ilsa Tinami ______________________________________________________________________
Zach? Xvim Chao ______________________________________________________________________
I do hope Novelty didn't share the spider's fate, she is a rather interesting character ... returning her to the story seems difficult, the author seems to have written himself into quite a dilemma ... makes me look forward to the continuation About the spiders perpetual death across restarts: In essence, what I'm wondering about: the significance of the girl and the bike, the fate of Zorian's romantic endeavors, and what the bloody hell happens next

this novel requires the reader to take notes

I made a tentative one for the characters here
http://pastebin.com/C1JhHiuS

After compiling that note, I notice that the author has been building up Raynie for some reason. I suspect that she will be the main love interest in the future.

Raynie
Female. Red hair. Beautiful. Nickname: red-headed goddess. She can detect winter wolf 5 minutes away. reserved, polite, extremely attractive, a good student

Who knows!?!?!?!?!!? Need mores.

I don't think the beginning could be shortened all that much. Sure it's kind of dull, but it establishes a baseline of sorts before everything starts going wonky. It's also sprinkled with little goodies of information that become relevant later even though they seem inconsequential at first. I love that.

The way the story pokes fun at Zach(the standard shounen idiot hero character) is hilarious. He has incredible power, but so what? He's only one person. To contrast we have Zorian, who is intelligent but not that powerful(yet). He thinks things through in a realistically paranoid fashion, so the reader doesn't end up facepalming. Now who would you bet on? It also helps that he actually matures in more than just power throughout the loops. Turns out some of those people he wrote off as annoying actually have their own problems. Who knew? He's still not really a people person, but he becomes much more empathetic and less abrasive. Zorian's character development is just as interesting as the loop itself here.

GunSeraph wrote:

Spoiler! :

as far as I understood the spell: the souls are returned to a fixed time, exactly one month ago, probably using the mana well as a power source, so by destroying the souls, the third time traveler destroyed the very thing that returned to the past, and body with no soul = dead in subsequent loops

bludvein wrote:I don't think the beginning could be shortened all that much. Sure it's kind of dull, but it establishes a baseline of sorts before everything starts going wonky. It's also sprinkled with little goodies of information that become relevant later even though they seem inconsequential at first. I love that.

The way the story pokes fun at Zach(the standard shounen idiot hero character) is hilarious. He has incredible power, but so what? He's only one person. To contrast we have Zorian, who is intelligent but not that powerful(yet). He thinks things through in a realistically paranoid fashion, so the reader doesn't end up facepalming. Now who would you bet on? It also helps that he actually matures in more than just power throughout the loops. Turns out some of those people he wrote off as annoying actually have their own problems. Who knew? He's still not really a people person, but he becomes much more empathetic and less abrasive. Zorian's character development is just as interesting as the loop itself here.

GunSeraph wrote:

Spoiler! :

as far as I understood the spell: the souls are returned to a fixed time, exactly one month ago, probably using the mana well as a power source, so by destroying the souls, the third time traveler destroyed the very thing that returned to the past, and body with no soul = dead in subsequent loops

Spoiler! :

That doesn't seem to be the case, or else everybody would find their magic power increasing even if they didn't retain memory. It's also said in an earlier chapter that it is impossible to destroy a soul(although it's also impossible to time travel, so there's that). It can only be manipulated and altered like what the lich tried to do to Zach and Zorian. Something is up with Red Robe's claim, but whether the aranea can be brought back or not is a mystery.

Mhm. Too bad the writer has stopped writing to a crawl form. I think the weakness of the time loop is that unless he can figure out how to bring someone else with him: romance won't happen, he'll never fully get more powerful.

Shuiko wrote:Mhm. Too bad the writer has stopped writing to a crawl form. I think the weakness of the time loop is that unless he can figure out how to bring someone else with him: romance won't happen, he'll never fully get more powerful.

I agree romance is a little difficult to do in his situation, but what does that have to do with becoming more powerful?

I've made PDFs for arc 01 here: https://mega.co.nz/#F!lpRCBAiR!go3oLQXTIxJHK-d5D1MIDQ
Facing-page version targets computers with 14+ inch screen. Single-page one targets mobile devices with smaller screen (my own phone, to be precise ).

Some screenshots (facing-page version, in Adobe Reader) Edit:
- Updated v2.3.

I love this series but romance is not its strength. Zorian barely seems interested in women. Which I find unrealistic, but whatever.