TLDR: Needs work but it is still better than most novels on WN. Don't pass it up!
This review will be written in three parts, first is an analysis of the story, second will be on the writing style, and third will be the conclusion.
Story:
Aside from some cliches, and a generic fantasy world, the story is quite enjoyable. Cliches are cliches because people like them, right?
I will completely look over the fact the author turned the MC into a 12-year-old boy, though, because it will provide the MC with four years to grow their pool of MP.
The MC used Fireball and Inspect, but when creating a "bo", no spell was used. It felt weird. Saying the MC used water magic, nature magic, fire magic, or earth magic (you get the point) without showing us how also comes off as lazy writing. It might be better to remove fireball completely if the author intends to have magic-users in this world directly influence the world by using mana rather than using 'spells'.
I do, however, like the fact that magic isn't learned like a list of spells in most novels like this. You have to get the spell right, and your mana takes care of the rest.
Within five chapters, the author skipped over the MC learning a lot of magic as well. There were several leaps in time where we could have gotten to know the main character and their new friend over another chapter or two, but that possibility was removed when several months or so were skipped.
Now, for the writing style:
As I say, with many of the novels here on WN, we need less telling and more showing. To explain quickly: using had/have/was will either be an easy way to avoid showing the reader what's happening, add unnecessary words to a sentence, or create sentences with less readability. So much telling.
The more 'glue' words in a sentence, the longer it is, and usually, the less information it provides to the reader.
Reading the MC speak and then move straight into internal monologue is pretty jarring, and there's no need to put extra thoughts within brackets and quotation marks when everything else is the MC's thoughts. Cutting out the thoughts within the internal monologue would make sense.
Many words could be replaced with much more impactful ones, sometimes making senses feel a little flatter.
A couple of times, the author used the present tense, and the novel is written primarily in the past tense. Using words such as 'now' or 'is' outside of dialogue can create a jarring moment.
Conclusion:
The Author is new to this, it's easy to see, but they have potential. The world they are creating is forming nicely, although slowly, throughout the chapters, and I enjoyed what I read. The main character could feel more his age since he was at least in his thirties, from what the prologue provided. With a decent amount of structural editing and copyediting, this novel could improve greatly. I would like to come back to this novel in the future and update my review with a more favourable one.
