Mother of Learning
by nobody103
Zorian is a teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. He is a driven and irritable young man, consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, whom he resents for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, he has no time for pointless distractions or paying attention to other people's problems. As it happens, time is something he is about to get plenty of. On the eve of the Cyoria's annual summer festival, he is killed and brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take a train to Cyoria. Suddenly trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, Zorian will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery before him. And he does have to unravel it, for the time loop hadn't been made for his sake and dangers lurk everywhere... Repetition is the mother of learning, but Zorian will have to first make sure he survives to try again - in a world of magic, even a time traveler isn't safe from those who wish him ill.
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Mother of Learning is now available for sale on Amazon. The story will remain available in full here on Royal Road and on Fictionpress, but if you're more interested to read the story as a Kindle Edition e-book you now have a way to do that.
The audiobooks can be found on this link here. The physical edition is available through a Kickstarter campaign, which can be found here.
I will keep you all updated on that as things develop.
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If anyone is interested, I have a story-related worldbuilding site that can be found here. I don't update it as often as I should, but there is a fair amount of content there already. It also contains a page with all the fanart, fan translations, audio books and the like - you can reach it directly by clicking this link.
I have a patreon account for those kind people that want to give me money. It also contains info for those who want to donate via paypal.
The story was originally posted on fictionpress, back in 2011. When I reached chapter 91, I started uploading the story to RoyalRoad, one chapter per day. The Fictionpress version of the story can be reached by clicking on this link if somebody is interested, though at this point there is nothing there that isn't also on RoyalRoad.
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Nothing much to say except its amazing. The only timloop series where the loop does not get old at all at any point
Lovely story, really. The world-building surpassed that of many published books I've read, and the characters were about equal in development. At first, the main character seemed flat and a bit obnoxious, but he grew so realistically as the story progressed that it quickly became a non-issue. Every twist and mystery actually surprised me, and the system of magic fascinated me from beginning to end. The author's explanation of skills, strategies, geography, and the mechanics of certain magics is so well imagined that in some parts it reads almost like science fiction. It could almost be real. I'd call this series a true fantasy epic, and I look forward to seeing it in print.
I've been following this story for years on fictionpress. Sometimes, I'd impatiently wait the whole month for a chapter, and sometimes, I'd patiently stop reading for a year or two, just so I could forget the story and reread it all from the start. It's been a wild ride.
I would spend time between the chapters to look for more stories like it, but none had that same exciting fantasy magic feel while still maintaining a systematic view of it all, nor did they have a character like Zorian, who I've come to love and support with all my heart. It's an amazing story and I love it. I feel excited about the fact that it's now on RR and that many more people can enjoy it's charm. I hope the author publishes the story and also that he continues to write such amazing fiction in the future. I look forward to his future stories.
But for now, its time. Sayonara. It's been an amazing journey.
-The grammar is as good as it can be.
-The main character is the only actually well developed character, the rest of the cast varies from monodimentional to adequate.
-The worldbuilding is well thought out, but the setting is unfortunately 'been there, done that'.
-The magic system is pretty good
It's overall well done, even if i got bored around 80% of the way through. It's objectively good yet it lacks some flavor and character, as the review title says, it's just a boringly good novel.
Too many spiders.
Best book on the site for sure. The ending does seem rushed tho, in my opinion it would be well worth it to rewrite the ending when and if you find the time. It would greatly polish the work! The story of there being something behind everyone's actions and all the puzzel pieces coming together was just amazing.
The title is derived from the latin proverb "repetitio est mater studiorum" which means "Repetition is the Mother of Learning."
As you can guess, the MC is here to learn.
The time loop he finds himself in presents oppurtunities to master magics in a way normally unavailable. I mean, who doesn't fantasize about being in a time loop and able to master skills you never have time to learn and correcting everything that might go wrong in your life? And there is a lot going wrong here. A surprise enemy invasion, classmates being slaughtered, his city being destroyed, a world ending creature being released from its prison. It makes the perfect premise since it is a problem that will takes years to solve and time is something he suddenly has a lot of. But not as much time as he thinks.
What really sets this story apart from others is the incredible scope and how the MC handles it. The MC is great at breaking down the overwhelmingly massive problem of an enemy invasion into manageable bits that he can actually do something about. He uses the time loop to figure out what went wrong and try again. He is never overpowered compared to the forces arrayed against him but seeing his step by step solutions is incredibly satisfying. There is a serious mystery going on, and the character taps into his Sherlock side as he finds clues and makes deductions and then rationally applies solutions to the problems. The MC is no slouch at combat either and the way he shores up his own weaknesses with either training or by enlisting allies is well done.
I love his magical crafting and the clever inventions he creates to problem solve. He is able to train with different Masters who he normally wouldn't have access to outside of the time loop and the way he approaches their knowledge is different for each one. The time loop makes the story appear kind of "game-like" since the MC exploits the Magic trainers and min-maxes his resources at his disposal each time cycle. The goal of breaking out of the time loop keeps the character driven and pro-active.
The series is so good it is hard to believe it is a free web series. The author has been writing this series for over 7 years and it is very close to being finished. The author is at chapter 91 at the time of this review and plot threads are crashing together into a tsunami of climaxes. It is amazing.
For worldbuilding and foreshadowing nerds like me, this story should be considered as nothing less than like a king. Dozens of concepts, characters, monsters, and objects get introduced early on and woven into a truly epic and breathtaking climax. Though it's a long one with several infodumps, no chapter, character, or note feels like filler. Nearly everything comes back in a meaningful way. Not only that, but the plot and writing style is addictive, demanding that I continue reading until the very end. The readers learn of the world's rules alongside the characters, and have a solid chance of grasping upcoming twists or what characters are planning, for readers who love to make their guesses about the world's mysteries and what may happen next. For people like them, it will be akin to opening up a heap of birthday presents, finding a delightful surprise in each one. Can't recommend enough.
I have followed this book even before it came to RR, but switched here for the last few chapters because of the better reading experience compared to fiction press.
Somehow the main character, even though he is grumpy to downright unfriendly sometimes, wormed his way into my heart. I loved every moment of his journey through the the mysterious time loop.
The world building is top notch. Even though the world is heavily inspired by D&D, it has that much more nuance, that there would be space for a million more stories. The magic system is rather hard and science like, but never to the detriment of the story.
Why only four stars then? Well, there's the occasional strange sentence structure and some chapters would benefit from some editing, which could be caused by English being a secondary language for the author.
Overall this piece of fiction is definitely something you should read, if you are at least a little bit partial to fantasy.
I've read this story since it barely had a hand full of chapters (well on Royal Road at least)
As one of my favourite stories it is one that I've greatly enjoyed. (even waiting for the chapters).
I've always enjoyed time-loop plots, but this one has to take the crown. Although the character is always learning and quickly becomes powerful, he is never all powerful (even when repeating the iteration hundreds of times).
The MC's interaction with other characters is well planned out in the bigger picture and he is constantly striving for a goal of his own. This allows us to follow them through character growth (something often lacking in the time-loop genre).
Unfortunately, I occasionally found myself lost in the story, not sure where it was going, or what was happening.
The world building was great, however sometimes I found the descriptions to be a little lacking, leading to a blander picture than the scene deserved.
All in all well written and though out (although I found some parts underwhelming and somethings to be cmpletely missing).
A book that I would advise to anyone.
It's great. Definitely worth a try. If you don't like the beggining, though, I wouldn't suggest you read it. The ending is also sweet. Definitely worth a try.
I don't have anything more to say, though. so I'll just add some more words here. How do I do this? words words words words.