First impression of painting of the nine immortals
The below review is of a Xianxia story, so I'm not going to complain about the MC being crippled initially, him getting a super OP treasure, beauties popping about every now and then, etc because these elements are intrinsic to the Xianxia genre.
Plot:
Spoiler
Our MC who can't cultivate works as an alchemist's assistant among many other odd jobs he does to earn his livelihood and desperately tries to find ways to enable himself to cultivate, although he is brilliant he is not valued in his clan due to him being cultivation-disabled. When he tries to buy an elixir which could awaken his 'inner eye' (something like sharingan, byakugan and rinnegan, but this novel contains 104 types with the 104th type being the weakest!) as a last ditch effort with the help of the alchemist who he works for, he finds a resonance with one of the awakened souls residing inside a painting in the pavillion which sells elixirs. He discovers that the awakened soul is of a person who is described as the 'Legendary Alchemist' without whom the alchemy wouldn't be as advanced as it was today, from the awakened soul he learns that there are still another 8 souls in the painting which are in deep slumber!. The soul also makes a shocking revelation to the MC about his condition and agrees to help him provided he becomes it's apprentice and the MC agrees..... which is the start of a great adventure....
The plot unfolds at a breakneck speed, so you don't really pay much attention to the mistakes. I think this novel maybe similar to 'The nine Godheads' and 'Sevens', although I haven't read either of those novels. Also I feel this novel contains taoistic philosophies and it maybe explored more deeply in the future arcs.
MC/ Characters:
Wow! the MC is crippled here because of some powerful ppl's schemes, some really powerful ppl have sealed MC's heaven defying talent...... the reason being..... huh... well... apparently because the MC has heaven defying talent (I'm guessing MC has different origins and his parents who are dead may not be his real parents). The MC is Loyal but not kind hearted although he doesn't seem to be a bad guy either
Spoiler
infact when the first beauty showed up and was being pursued by two rapists, he didn't involve himself in the incident due to his lack of strength until he was dragged into the problem by the beauty
MC seems like a cautious guy who keeps a low profile but he has heaven defying luck which rivals his heaven defying talent!. Apart from MC, other characters who showed up haven't got a lot of importance as of yet. Well the first beauty seemed like a good although mischievous person and the second beauty seemed naive and innocent.
The OP treasure, Cultivation system, and powerups:
Well the main OP artifact/treasure MC has is the '9 immortals painting' and he got a part of another treasure called 'six samsara' or something which can set a rule or something when all parts are assembled. Cultivation realms seem similar to other novels but in alchemist levelling system in this novel, the realms go in descending order.
Powerups in this novel are slightly different to other novels I guess, well there is the 'inner eye' that I mentioned before, and there is something called Dan essences in this novel which I have not come across in other novels before, these essences help the alchemist in becoming OP and different essences have different powers
Spoiler
The MC gets the 4th ranked 'execution eye' as soon as his first seal is released by his master it temporarily increases his cultivation, summons a sword, etc has more powers which are to be explored but it also causes a backlash on the MC after certain duration and his master gifts him a dan essence which is so OP that it can detect the ingredients used in a pill and it can also warn the MC when he is making a mistake in pill cooking
Cons:
The novel seems to contain boring one dimensional villains who seem to think it's alright to bully people who are weaker than them.
Verdict:
I didn't feel bored during the first 10 chapters, so I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend this novel. Hopefully this novel's quality doesn't deteriorate much.