The Devil's Cage

LV 11

thestatsguy

Website : qidian china Views : 1.26 million Rating : 8.5(338) Chapters : 1399 Status : ongoing Word count : 3.04 million author rank : lv5

LV 3

Fuyuru

this is gold!!. i vote for this novel when qidian tell us to vote for upcoming new novel to translate, to bad this novel had lower votes... so it started late... thus is my first time i read some gaming theme (but you can die)with modern combat like army thing, kinda remind me with jason Bourne (the legacy) and i love it!!

LV 3

Fuyuru

review till chap 37... MC is great, an alone wolf type, calm and intelligent ,no crap talking so kinda cool and have a great survival will, no OP MC here, he begin from scratch so we will enjoy his journey, the games is unique and in this stage he become Sherlock holmes , no heroin yet... and i hope never will, he as alone wolf is good enough,

LV 11

DodgeChance

I would first like to write that for some reason some words in this review keep getting censored for no reason even though most of them are not even bad words... Regardless, try your best to fill the gaps when necessary. This novel isn't bad so far and for fans of this kind of genre i would recommend it but i cannot see where the 5/5 stars are coming from, especially since many of the reviews i have seen hadn't even reached over chapter 100 before reviewing. I will go over some of the key reasons for my overall score of about 3.5, which i think is very fair for this novel at the moment. Translation quality. The translation is littered with small mistakes and grammatical errors, which although alone do not make any significant difference, pile up overtime to make it into a bit of a problem. The reason it’s a problem is that small misunderstandings can cause bigger problems in a mystery style story, which this one seems to have turned into after the first beginner dungeon. Each dungeon (a bit of a stretch to call them dungeons) at this point are 'solve a mystery in a certain time' missions and therefore to follow along with the mystery an excellent translation is essential so that you get all the details. Another problem is that i think some of the words aren't translated exactly to their correct meaning or at least some of the meaning from the original Chinese is missing. Now, i am unable to read Chinese and cannot confirm this so i may be wrong and it could just be bad writing, but either way it would lower my score. An example of this happening would be during chapter 71: Venture In, where the MC enters his first team dungeon. He reads the background which says "Alcatraz Prison has been experiencing some mysterious incidents lately. Your special expert team has been hired to solve the mysteries". And from this he says, "Terms like "mysteries" and "special expert" made Kieran think of paranormal activity or something along that line" and then goes onto state how it must be ghosts that cannot be killed by regular means before even getting to the island. How does this make sense? Since when has special expert or mysteries instantly meant that it must be ghosts or paranormal? Of course, he ends up being correct (because the writer obviously already knows what he will make happen) but him ****** random claims like that is either bad writing, the MC is retarded, or some meaning has been lost. At least in English mystery certainly does not mean it must be a ghost, which means that the translation is missing some information somewhere or the writer is just bad. Which could be either as i will explain. Story development. The story develops in a way that might trick you into thinking that it and the MC are smart, but neither actually are. Why? Because for it to be smart stuff actually has to make sense with clues given to the reader, things that can actually be picked up on if you're careful. If **** pops up out of nowhere, that isn't a twist or an amazing reveal in a mystery... it’s just bad writing and feels cheap as ****. And this happens in all 3 of the 'solve this mystery dungeons' (the animal one isn't as bad). Example of this poor writing. During the MC's second dungeon where the MAIN MISSION is to find a girl, he only finds her by coincidence at the end whilst completing a side mission. Now, maybe i just missed some masterfully hidden secrets and we should have known she would be with the gangster dude hiding in a coffin underground, but to me it just seems like a bull**** way to wrap up the mission because he felt like it was about time to end that arc. Just randomly bringing in characters out of nowhere isn't a twist, it's cheap. Another thing in the same mission is that the Duke dude is introduced literally right at the end... Who thought that's a clever idea? Introduce a brand-new character out of nowhere at the end. Again, not an enjoying mystery to read if it is literally impossible to try and figure out who the bad guy is. If **** just pops out of nowhere then what’s the point of following along? I thought the writer would trick us by ****** it a character that has already been established and has been trying to trick the MC, like Carl. Such as he was manipulating from behind the scenes, acting the fool but in reality, was in control. A kind of the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind sort of twist. After-all, i thought to myself, he won't just add a new character in out of nowhere at the end of the mission, will he? But then this Duke dude shows up with some of his goons and a captured police chief. Sure you sort of knew there was an army dude but him just showing up isn’t interesting at all. The story after the first dungeon turns into a solve this mystery game written by a guy who can't write a very good and compelling mystery story. You can put that down to lack of experience, poor translation or limited time due to it being set in a ‘dungeon’ but whatever the reason the mystery aspect doesn’t feel very fleshed out which is important for it to be enjoyable. Now about the MC not actually being smart. Perhaps that is unfair because he can say some reasonable stuff, especially near the beginning imo. But, some other stuff just doesn’t make sense and is similar to how he jumped to conclusions about ghosts and such mentioned previously (assuming that the meaning was translated correctly). He goes to Nobian’s place after killing him and sees a blackboard with 5 names on it with 4 of them crossed out, his name is also on the list but hasn’t been crossed out. Lawless comes and says that he knows the guy called Gibbon, saying he was strong. All that they know is that Nobian must have worked together with someone because even in ambush he couldn’t have taken Gibbon alone. They also say, for some reason, that “He seemed to be quite familiar with my information, something a man alone could not have achieved.” Which doesn’t make much sense. Why could a man alone not find out his information? It doesn’t seem difficult to ask around, purchase the information or simply watch the MC himself. But that’s fine because we have already established that he has accomplices anyway. So what information do we have. We know he has accomplices and killed four other players… Then the MC jumps to the conclusion “There must be a killer organization founded by a couple of players, an organization unknown to the public”. How does he conclude that with the information he was just given? It even states that Nobian might have been a psychopath, so he might have just been doing it for the sake of it. Or he and some people he knows might just PK together for extra loot, after all it was known that the MC was loaded, and so must Gibbon have been if he was a veteran. It doesn’t seem to make much logical sense to instantly say with so much certainty that it just must be some sort of secret underground killer organisation. Perhaps the translation has something to do with it, but I think it’s more likely that the writer doesn’t really know how to make a character solve mysteries and seem smart, so he just basically gives them the ability to see into the future instead. It would have made much more sense if the MC said that It MIGHT be an underground organisation instead of instantly being certain of it as if he already knew the answer when he couldn’t have. There are other examples of this too where the MC, with very little or no evidence, will say **** that doesn’t make much logical sense with the information given, but still ends up being correct because the writer obviously wants him to be. Another problem is the dumping of weapon stats when the MC doesn’t even use the weapon. It feels like a waste of time and seems to be there for no reason. It adds nothing to the story at all. I think it would be much better to only give detailed item breakdowns for stuff the MC will use or important items and enemies. Also, I don’t know if this is an issue with character design or story development, I think a bit of both, but the MC’s motivation and pressure of curing his illness is solved a bit too quickly imo. After his second dungeon you can already see how much money he can potentially make so any and all pressure about trying to save cash to cure himself is down the drain. It removes a certain amount of pressure for me because at this point he is ****** so much from a single ‘dungeon’ that he can pretty much cure himself easily. The beginning dungeon in this regard was my favourite because he was still weak, had to strategize more and the pressure of his illness was still looming over him. Another problem I have is that by ****** the ‘dungeon’ areas into these mysteries it handicaps character development in a sense. This is because mysteries are made good by interesting characters, thought provoking goings on and clues that you can follow along with the character. But by ****** dungeon missions into mysteries instead of what traditional dungeons are like it means that new characters must be made each time, ****** it hard to become interested in these characters, because you know they will be gone by the end of the story. This in turn makes me even less engaged in the mystery mission and is also part of way I liked the starting dungeon a bit more than the other dungeons. Trying to write an intriguing mystery is very difficult in the kind of style and format the writer is using. This is also why the fights are much more intriguing to read and is why I wish we would put some more focus on those instead. I also would have liked some more variety in the main missions given. More solve this mystery started to get tedious. I could go on and on about more issues I have but by then I will probably end up with 3-4 thousand words, so I will stop here with the criticism. Now you might be thinking that I must fucking hate this novel… but I don’t hate it, as can be seen from by score. I think a 3/5 is more than fair because despite all of the issues I could name if I wanted to the premise is still somewhat interesting and this story does appeal to a certain niche of reader. It isn’t terrible but is by no means revolutionary. I would say give it a read because if you can ignore some of the holes in the translation and story it can be enjoyable at parts.

LV 7

Willem

The story is a bit weak at the beginning however, it gets interesting quickly as the story progresses. It follows a good story line and makes a lot of sense when you read more into the book.

LV 4

Profoundtrucksama

Woow this story is amazing,i hope the translator updates many chapters a week coz.. cant wait for more.I also hope qindan put up a translation with 2 or more people translating to increase the speed with which chapters are updated!!

LV 5

CelesteLisana

Truly engaging with new sub-plot lines for every dungeon the MC encounters. The MC is quite the capable person and makes the best of every opputunity that may or may not come his way by diligent assessment of his surroundings; and the use of cunning and pure willpower to live on to deal with dangerous moments. The supporting player characters are individually intriguing in their own right. (Lawless is a particularly humorous side character pair with our MC-the straight man in this comedy duo) The natives to the various dungeons the MC enters are all spectacularly realistic during their interactions, leaving the reader terribly saddened by their short and limited show time. In conclusion, this is quite a thriller action-packed story with a level-headed MC worth investing in.

LV 6

Sin_of_Sloth

500 of all 600 chapters are behind a pay wall... and the chapters cost so much! Based on what you can but spirit stones for this book would cost 50$ at the least... and chapters are still coming out and once again getting locked... soon it’ll be 100$ for this book and maybe more... and don’t bother complaining to qidian... they already know they’re scamming the dipshits who don’t realize what they’re paying

LV 11

Lagrange7

One of the best Novels on this site, hands down. Great MC, great development, great fleshed out story, even better scenarios he dives in from the beginning. While he does very well in the dungeons it is actually explained in a logical way, not just BECAUSE HES THE OPMC OF THE HEAVENS. The supporting characters are well fleshed-out and actually contribute to the story in a meaningful way, which is way different from what you might have come to expect from light novels. This is an actual hidden gem and i cant praise it enough. Only annoying thing are cliffhangers, but these are fairly benign and from the comments you can actually see that most readers dont mind and just sometimes say they would keep reading this even without the cliffhangers. But if thats the biggest sin the author has committed this novel should rank among the top 3 overall on this site.

LV 4

EatingRegret

I dont know how qidian does calculation, but some ****ty novels are ranked higher than this gem , i totally cannot accept this, other ****ty novel are getting released 14-20 chapter every week , and this godly gem novel is falling behind, This novel is one of the best , based on character design, world background out of all the novels I have read

LV 15

Lebensohl

If you like VRMMORPG novels, make sure to check this one out. In this novel the main character visits all sorts of different scenarios, each one has its own tale to tell and an interesting mystery to unravel. This makes each arc fresh and exciting, and allows the book to move away from a standard wow clone. I don't really like the description, the description makes it sound like the novel is a dystopian survival novel, when its more like an exploring multiple words one.

LV 6

Sinfish

Read through about Ch. 105 so far. Great internal consistency in this story, and shockingly, a MC who is actually pretty smart, has a reason and motivation for his actions, and doesn't completely shun help when he needs it. Anyway, MC voluntarily joins a VRMMO death game in order to earn money for an operation (on himself), which gives him essentially a reason to risk his life. The VRMMO is set up into a series of self-contained missions, at the end of which he is sent back into a hub to prepare for the next mission. While theoretically he can log out, essentially he has no life worth speaking of in the real world and he needs to power up quickly to save his life, so for the purposes of the MC's story it's essentially very similar to VRMMOs where characters are trapped in the world. It's a little distressing he doesn't try to powergame and min/max his build given the free availability of a player trading system with very minimal account-bound items, he just kind of rolls with the skills he picked up in his newbie mission despite exponentially increasing costs to level them - despite their exceeding cheapness he hasn't ever bought a single basic skill despite the basic skill level at the lowest level is probably the equivalent of a very highly skilled normal person - basic skill in dagger and sneak has him OHKO assassinating street thugs by the dozen, and basic skill in light arms gives him one-shot headshot mastery of all light firearms. And he's never so much as checked to see what kind of skills he can pick up. Which might be more reasonable, except he's intentionally soloing missions instead of working in teams, so he has enormous skill gaps he doesn't really realize, and there's frankly quite a bit of plot armor that keeps him from being killed outright. For example, in his 3rd mission, he plays mercenary, and just as all the team is about to be poisoned eating a meal, he happens to detect it with a skill he coincidentally picked up in his 1st mission. Which is fine, but there's really no reason he hasn't died in any number of ways from soloing without being a jack-of-all-trades given the game's general unfairness. Or how he picked up a lockpicking skill recently, but up until he got the lockpicking skill, he's never encountered a locked door or chest or cabinet or anything, which is just a non-deadly form of plot armor. There are fun quirks that make the worlds fun; in his 2nd mission, he's basically Sherlock Holmes, and the MC alters his speech accordingly on the theory that playing his assigned character role will make the NPCs act more positively, which appears to be correct although it's not really proven either way. At any rate, the fact that he's essentially shifting to different settings allows the story to keep from getting dull, and the author is quite good at pulling off a variety of settings that feel significantly different. All in all, a well-written, entertaining and refreshingly different take on a VRMMO stat-based quantum-leap style world (apparently this is a sorta established genre in the Chinese webnovel world, but I haven't read others).

LV 5

NTE

The story keeps getting better and better. I like the fact that the MC has more missions in the same mission worlds unlike one world per mission. It gives author the chance to develop the world background. The side characters are unlike other cliche novels, where anybody can become the MC's friend only because they were their and had a good character. Also unlike other novels where side characters are all generic, the side characters in Devil's Cage and varied with depth to them. For example: The great witch, the alchemist, the lover in the SHAMAN WORLD. The historian, the muscle guy, historian's disciples in the ISOGU WORLD. The little dependent princess in another world. And many more. Also, the MC is always deducing and searching for clues which gives him a detective kind of style which seems much better than the guy in "Thriller Paradise".

LV 7

Great_Y

This is one of those stories where you like it at first but start to wonder why you are still reading it later. MC's life outside the game is completely ignored. The story just jumps from one dungeon to another and it gets irritating to see no real progress and character development. I hope it improves later or I would drop it.

LV 5

Navblood

I can't get enough of this novel man The main character is absolutely cool And it has no harem yay! Story is amazing it's like a different story per arc Other arcs are continuation of other stories World building is good The sidecharacters are not hallow. They feel like real people specially the first one. I missed one character in this novel The first side character introduced There is no romance atleast i think so. Translation is a bit slow because i keep reading and reading i can't just stop It has like 1000 chapters in the raw I wish i knew chinese

LV 5

System_Dex

This is a very good novel it takes a twist on the normal vrmmo novels with it being set in a underworld type of game! Personally I feel like it is very interesting because of the game mechanics and how the race against time is ****** him make un-normal decisions to make money.

LV 10

Simple_Otaku

Translation-okay,Updating stability-okay,Story Development-okay,Character Design-Okay,World Backround-okay.Well I was just thinking its about time I make a review for this good novel,1st its like Terror infinity and Ultimate evolution because of its entry based model but also different because in TI and UE the stories is based on movies,differrent because in this novel in every dungeon there is also story and its original made by the author not something copied from others,2nd as far as the story goes its good the MC is not that strong in the beginning he's power is earn through hardwork and challenging risk to earn better rewards he also know how to use all of his advantage,3rd ehhh im waiting for more!!!!!,for those who read this review right now i dont see anything wrong with this novel so I Highly Recommend it,thats all.

LV 15

CarefeeDaoist

It was good while it lasted. Now quarter of the chapters are locked. I know why you locked so many chapters but my gosh. You guys are killing me

LV 4

Moneybags

Translation is pretty good, very rarely are there mistake. Story is really great and the power up of MC is very well paced. MC has some people he can joke around with even if he doesn't consider them a close friend yet which is refreshing since reading novels with loner and cold MCs can sometimes feel a bit gloomy.