Of Hunters and Immortals, Book 1

A Cultivation Progression Fantasy

By: Shadowwing

Narrated by: Daniel Wisniewski

The path of immortals is a long one. Jiang doesn't have time to take it slow.

Jiang is a hunter in a quiet village far from the world of sects, spirits, and soaring swords. When powerful bandits destroy his village and steal his family, he resolves to do anything to get them back.

Even become a cultivator.

Jiang has three weeks to ignite his core—a feat that takes most years to accomplish. To actually join the sect, he must impress the elders, and none of them expect anything from a backwater kid faking his age to meet the minimum for admission.

Among immortals, he is a peasant. A child. A nobody. Until his prodigious natural talent becomes as difficult to ignore as his sharp tongue.

He’ll shatter expectations and limits—even if he has to go it alone.

©2026 Shadowwing (P)2026 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Excellent story

The pacing was perfect, not to fast not too slow. Amazing world building and original concepts with a base of familiarity. Honestly enjoyed this story so much I was upset to find there wasn’t a second book available yet. Well worth the cost.

Good MC

I liked the story and characters kept me hooked the whole time. Hurry up with the second book please

It was ok

It wasn’t terrible, although I have never understood the whole Asian names and English accents thing. The mc can be a little annoying but overall not bad.

This will take some time to finish.

The only reason I got this book was because someone said in the reviews that Wisniewski was pretty good in this one. However, I just started and I’m already wanting to stop. I’m sorry but I hate the way his voice gets so low and breathy. Please, for the love of God, talk like a normal person when you narrate.

Anyway, the story is fun and I like it so far. Hopefully I can stick with it, it might take a while though.

Ok, so I’m further in and I’m still really annoyed by the narration. There is a scenario where two guys are talking and they are far enough from each other they should be almost shouting to hear each other, yet they’re still talking in low a breathy tones. I’m just gonna skip as much as I can before I quit altogether.

Pretty good. Wiznewski’s performance was much less “EXTRA!” than usual and as a result I was pleasantly surprised.

It looks like I ended up writing a really long review… too much coffee. So in case you just want the facts I’ll summarize here and you can read the long review below if you’re so inclined.

This was a good cultivation novel though it wasn’t as cultivation’y as hardcore fans might prefer. The narration was much less obnoxious than many of this narrator’s previous performances. I was entertained and engaged throughout, though I think the MC’s misanthropy/social deficiencies were overdone to the point that I had to remove a star. Still, I will be purchasing the next book.

Also, I have no idea what that other reviewer is talking about… The ending wasn’t a masterpiece of modern writing, but if I hadn’t read that review I would not have given this book’s ending a second thought. Just sayin.


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Let me start by saying I’ve been an unrepentant anti-fan of Daniel Wiznewski’s over-wrought and unnecessarily dramatic performances for quite a while. Most of the audiobooks I’ve listened to that he narrated were impossible to listen to without bringing to mind a gaggle of theater kids attempting to out-do each other with their heartfelt interpretations of the stage version of “I know why the caged bird sings.” in the middle of a central hallway in my high school.

In previous performances, regardless of the context, Mr Wiznewski tended to deliver the most mundane sentences of any book with the intensity of a McG directed movie trailer.

With all that said, lately this narrator has managed to work his way to a considerably more subtle and selective delivery in some audiobooks. Does it still come off as overdone in places?… Yes it does. However, instead of it being a constant assault like his previous performances, it has settled down to the point where I can actually find my immersion in the story go unbroken for whole chapters at a time.

So if you have had the same aversion to this narrator’s style in the past, don’t let that stop you from giving this one a try.

Personal picayunes aside, this was a pretty good cultivation-ish audiobook. By this I mean that if you’re in it for the in-depth breakdown of the entire cultivation system or the non-stop, martial-fight, blow-by-blow descriptions then this one might come up short, however if you like a constantly evolving story and solid writing the you you should give this one a try.

The only thing that really forced me to pull a star from this rating was the problem that so many progression fantasy authors seem to be unable to get away from lately…

Why are so many authors basing their books around almost unbelievably anti-social/vaguely-(but profoundly)-spectrum-affected main characters. This has to be the 10th audiobook I’ve listened to that would have been so much better if the MC had an even slightly believable level of social incompetency. Instead they make the MC’s willfully dick-ish, personal interactions so egregious that, (despite many attempts to “explain” the behavior to the reader), it’s impossible to empathize with the extremely un-empathetic and near sociopathic disregard for how the MC’s behavior and thinking affects other characters.

The target audience for people who identify with this extreme level of uncaring indifference to others has to be severely limited. I just don’t get it. These authors could absolutely use aspects of social anxiety and interpersonal ineptitude in their characters’ personas without taking it to such an extreme.

So I guess this whole review is gonna be me complaining about stuff that goes beyond the scope of this book. Apologies… I must be in a fist-shaking-at-children-on-my-lawn mood today. To bring this to a much awaited end, I will say that I did enjoy this book and I will pick up the next. I was entertained, though I would have enjoyed it a bunch more if the MC wasn’t such a d!ck most of the time.