The Trials of Descent

The Menocht Loop, Book 6

By: Lorne Ryburn, caerulex

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Ian thought two affinities was the limit of power. He was wrong.

After training for five years with Ancient Ash, Ian and Maria return to Karanos and the white faction. It’s finally time to put their plans into motion. It’s time to confront Achemiss.

The paranoid necromancer is secluded within a hidden plane, inaccessible to most.

Ian must attend the Hall of Ascension’s gathering for a chance at infiltrating the black faction and meeting Achemiss in person. He takes on a new identity, masquerading as a powerful monster leaving seclusion for the first time in millennia.

Ian, Maria, and a new companion are thrust into the limelight as unexpected competitors in the Hall’s newest game. Ian must participate while proving to everyone the validity of his new identity.

Ian must show everyone the power of an ancient.

©2023 Lorne Ryburn (P)2023 Podium Audio

Can’t wait for next one

This series is so good. Well narrated too. I am sad I’m at the last published one and looking forward to continuing.

The best one yet!

I'm kind of obsessed with this system of magic in the world. Every book has pulled me into the story and characters. Joe Hempel has been the perfect narrator for these characters. I absolutely love the developing dynamics of Ian and Maria's relationship, considering the mechanics of her being a lich, former queen, and older woman. I feel bad for Yuri but I'm on the IanxMaria ship all the way. The regalia aspects has definitely spiced things up, and I'm really excited to see how world reacts to Ian coming back to his world. A lot of things occurring and I love'm all.

The cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers!

This is probably one of the better books out of all of them so far. Thanks to Ian's beginning affinity he's now more clever and it shows in his actions. He follows through with ideas and concepts that are just so much more well thought out and planned. He's cunning now and it's wonderful! whereas in previous books you could sort of guess the routes that he was taking. Now you really just don't know what he's going to do next, but what he does end up doing is unexpected and brilliant. It makes reading about his adventures so much more interesting. When he meets up next with Yuri in the next book it's going to be one hell of a fun ride! As per usual the narration is spot on. I will warn you however, that the ending of this book is a massive cliffhanger. I can't wait until the next book comes out! Highly recommend the series!

not as much action but...

as one of the other reviews stated it does feel a lot like a filler, but it also goes a long way toward Ian's development with power and also the progression towards his goal with Achmus. Yes I know that's probably spelled wrong but who cares lol

Enjoyable

Like how we saw a ton of Ian’s development throughout the story. The overall goal of his progress bore a lot of fruit as well. Large lead up to the end with not the ultimate conclusion though all the events seemed to suggest it. So I wonder what will happen next. I really hope it’s not a Dragonball Z type of climax with an entire book involving a play-by-play action when real-world time is subsecond but they are ancients so we’ll see. Looking forward to the next (final?) one.

Half a book

I might have missed something but it feels like nothing happened. All the progress made was already there from the beginning of the book. I'll have to listen through again but it really read like filler with a half hearted tournament thrown in. The Ancient Black persona was supposed to be an untouchable new level of power but he just did some floppy defending and sucker punching without much of the wow factor and ingenuity he showed as plain old Ian or his (Skyren?) nom de guerre days. His world also felt like it had some development but it was all tell and no show. Overall I'm excited for more from this series and Author moving forward and would love to see more world and character development put on display that interconnects with the main plot while supporting it.

Narrator is a baller thats all I have to say about that.

Solid book fun read

Was good and I liked it. but this book ends on one of the most disgusting cliffhangers I've seen.