One of my favorite kingdom building novels provides a good combination of detail on building the kingdom, and the main character does have a cheat ability but it only helps him a little bit. The MC still feels balanced in the game where a lot of the reasons, why he is strong, are because of his intelligence and a little bit of luck. His main ability which is strong in the desert is only a C-level ability at the beginning.
The MC named Richard is a driven MC who is trying his best to survive and get stronger by building his kingdom. He is someone that takes any opportunity he gets and tries to squeeze the most amount of benefits, oftentimes thinking outside the box to make it happen. His cheat ability allows him to upgrade the barracks he has to a stronger level of champions. It also will give him hints about how to best use items and how strong dungeons will be. This definitely is handy, however, it’s not as much of a cheat as you would imagine. He has to pay for the upgrade with resources, and other kingdom leaders can buy better barracks with the same amount of resources later in the game. So it helps to give him a good head start but after that, it’s about what he gains with his own abilities.
The MC is sent to a new game world that was supposed to be a game and each person is a city leader. He starts in the desert with a low population but with his cheat ability and trading resources like a water fountain that magically produces water from nothing is able to make an initial foundation where he focuses on his military.
The story focuses on the MC but as a host of side characters such as a female centaur that treats the MC as her dad which sounds a lot better than it sounds. The MC is always staying busy and has a path forward throughout the story that is logical and doesn’t feel random like many stories. There isn’t much of a romantic relationship and more just a hint of it with the interactions with female characters around the MC. Overall I enjoyed the story and it’s my favorite kingdom-building novel I have read in a long time so I am going to give it 5 stars.
