“Did you think you were going to drift through life on talent and hard work? Get up. You’re hardly a failure. You only get to think that of yourself when you stop trying to win.”
Reidon Ward will become a god. He doesn’t know it yet, of course. Reidon was born weak, sickly and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him. His perseverance has not gone unnoticed, however, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly. Granted a CAD—a Combat Assistance Device—with awful specs but an infinite potential for growth, Reidon finds himself at the bottom of his class at the Galens Institute, one of the top military academies in the Collective. Along with his best friend, Viviana Arada, Reidon will have to start his long climb through the school rankings, and on to the combat tournament circuits that have become humanity’s greatest source of excitement and entertainment. So begins the rise of a god. So begins the ascent of the Stormweaver.
Well it looks like I have another series to obsess about. Haha
First off this book takes place at school AND there is a tournament. Those are two of my favorite book settings? tropes? Whatever you’d call them.
Aside from that we find ourselves in the 25th century where mankind has expanded beyond the reach of Earth and has colonized the galaxy.
The main focus of the book is a boy named Rei who was abandoned at birth because he had a disease where his muscles, ligaments, and tendons slowly turn into bone. This has caused him extreme pain and he has had to undergo hundreds of surgeries to help maintain a “bone free” body.
He still has had a dream of being a CAD user and to fight in the SCT circuit. CADs are essentially devices that allow the user to manifest cybernetic armor and weapons in order to fight and the SCT circuit is basically a gladiatorial fighting sport sponsored by the military.
This seems like a farfetched dream since being selected for a CAD involves very rigorous testing which doesn’t fit with Rei’s body that has been kept sickly and diminished because of his sickness.
So no one was more surprised than him when he gets assigned one, albeit one with the worst stats that exist……..
…..but one thing is unusual, his CAD has the highest growth stat that has ever been seen which means he has no cap on his potential strength.
What will Rei do and how far will he go?
SO BEGINS THE RISE OF A GOD.
SO BEGINS THE ASCENT OF THE STORMWEAVER.
The Shadow Library 