Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsGee it's great to be back home
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 4, 2022
This volume starts with Jason coming back to life on Earth a year and a half after he left it, though this time as a Bronze Ranker. The previous 3 volumes having taken place primarily on Pallimustus (the name of Greenstone's planet).
This volume and the next 2 will take place on Earth.
SPOILERS BELOW
<Spoiler>
Jason starts by equipping some clothes and then reviewing his system messages. He realizes that someone else came back with him, but doesn't know who or where they are.
He spends some time deciding what to do next and opts to visit the black sheep of the family: Uncle Hiro. As one might expect, he is excited to see his dead nephew. We also meet one of my favorite characters: Taika ("like the director, but I don't make films").
Jason some finds out that his Earth is not as magically devoid as he believed. Monsters from myth and legend are REAL and are "coordinated" under the Cabal. The Essence Magicians are under The Network, which is a fractured organization very much divided by region. Lastly, there are the EOA, Engineers of Ascension.
Uncle Hiro actually knows a vampire, Craig Vermillion, and has seen the EOA creeping into Sydney. Jason gets to know Craig and the Cabal. Warns the EOA away and then makes a deal with them (to buy out his Uncle Hiro) after he has to very publicly defeat some Cabal minions.
Craig facilitates a conversation with the Network, but unfortunately the Lyon (France) branch decides to come kidnap Jason and they send a Tier 3 (aka Silver Ranker). Jason has him on the ropes when the Network Assassin triggers an explosion. Being a higher rank, he wakes up first, collars Jason, throws him in a car with his confederates then gets to the closest healer - Jason's afflictions dangerously close to killing him.
Jason escapes (having done quite a bit of suppression training against collars) and slaughters the Bronze Rank Network associates who were attempting to extricate him to France, which is where the other Outworlder landed.
After unkidnapping himself, Uncle Hiro (now flush with cash), Taika, and Jason head to Jason's hometown to go see their family. Jason skulks around a bit, playing pranks on his brother (including painting his helicopter yellow and writing Thanos on it). He shows up to his sister's costume party as a dark Sith Lord. Then after everyone leaves goes to talk to her and Ian.
Jason eventually reunites with the whole family giving a handwaving explanation of what happened (mostly avoiding magic, for now). He, Kaito, and Amy still have some issues to work out, though that doesn't get resolved in this volume. Their betrayal in his old life still stings, though he does try to rise above it.
Jason finally meets with the Sydney branch. This time on his houseboat (Cloud Palace Adaptive Form). They come to a preliminary deal that is predicated on his getting the outworlder back. As they are closing up their conversation an incursion is detected and he is invited along. There they find out how useful his abilities are, specifically his communication suite (party interface) and looting power (that applies to all members of the party). After that one incursion, they realize how powerful an ally he can be and start putting as much pressure on folks as they can to get the outworlder to him.
The international committee works on that and an old friend from school, Asya, actually works for them. She becomes a friend (though she wants more) and gets him a picture of the outworlder (smuggled out by someone in the Lyon branch who grew a conscience.
It's Farah.
Jason erupts and has to portal away so as to not hurt Asya (who he later realizes has done him a huge favor in getting this to him), or anyone else. Asya continues to go to bat for him and gets him an invite to go to Lyon where the branch is being sanctioned. Unfortunately, Miranda (the one Sydney steering committee member who just wants to get rid of Jason) is working with someone in the Lyon branch, and plants a conventional bomb on the magic plane. As it goes off, she has someone she has tricked, let loose the Lyon Silver Ranker. She, he, and a portal user start to escape. She starts giving them a lot of guff and they shove her off a cliff. Meanwhile, the plane blows up, Jason manages to save a few people (including Asya and a Bronze ranker in his security detail) and then lands on the EOA Superyacht that was waiting to mop them up. He has to kill a few henchmen before they surrender. Once they do, he confirms that the Lyon branch's head, Adrien Barbou, put this all together. This was his last ditch effort to avoid punishment for attempting to get information from his Outworlder via torture; information Jason is giving freely, though in trade.
Adrien and his loyalists escape into a fixed proto-astral space (that no other branch knew about) and lock the door. Jason activates his World Phoenix gift evolution so he can enter. There he starts to kill and frighten everyone until he finds Farah...
