Listen, I saw the cover of book 1 and 2 (2 has a gun), I saw the title. And I was expecting the typical Urban Fantasy story.

But.. it wasn't. The MC isn't in the military. The MC isn't kicking ass or investigating anything.
.. The MC is literally a recruiter. (yes I missed that part of the name)

And I kind of loved it. It was very slice of life. It was a human getting thrown into the supernatural world and getting steeped in it. There is a little more action in book 2 than in book 1, but the MC is still a non-combatant. Her being curious about some monsters and accidentally getting into a fight (where she did literal nothing but scream) didn't change the narrative to suddenly "I'm going to solve this!"

Nah, Julie went back to paperwork and asking people if they'd like to join the Para-Military (which is both police, government, and military)

A slight annoyance is that there is multiple potential love interests in the story, (I'm counting 3), and they all do tiny hints that something COULD happen. But the hints are TINY and they never get bigger. It's.. annoying because it's giving me the vibes of potential romance without ever taking the next step, but it's too hinty for you to be secure enough to say that will be an non-romance urban fantasy. (I know they exist with male MCs, but I've never really encountered it with female ones)

Chelby has the emotional maturity of a 14 year old. Which became a huge disappointment. It had an interesting start but it went downhill pretty quickly.

Not only does her mood, and suspicions, go back and forth like crazy but there isn't a lot of logic behind it. Like "My one trainer didn't defend me against the other trainer when that trainer was scolding me for something I didn't do" Yes? AND? It's a coworker, and you did something that was against the rules. Of course you're going to loose points for it (they were doing a point system), it doesn't matter if you weren't at fault. You wanted to be an army brat, you know how these things go. It's about discipline. And then getting super mad at said trainer when that trainer told another trainer to test her on magic. Like.. YES? THAT'S WHY YOU'RE THERE NO?? To learn your magic and kick ass? (and let's not forget the repeat "oh no I can't do this thing with magic even tho I did it earlier")

And let's not forget the super hot super asshole dude she's drooling over, where she constantly goes "why is he so mean to me? is it because he thinks I'll take team leader?" repeat that 5 times. With an added of "oh he's not so bad" because being an asshole out of competition makes it okay?

And then said dude does a 160 in attitude change and now is going around BLUSHING at her with absolutely nothing happening between them for him to change his mind.

(he also had the emotional maturity of a 14 year old, kept giving her hateful looks for.. random ass things. Like a horse choosing her over him. Like that's her fault)

And let's not forget how this tomboy who didn't do make up, and was never the pretty one got double dared to go to the spa and pretty herself up and of course she did. Without blinking. Even got a bikini wax. Because not only was her ugly self hidden behind a glamour and she's really beautiful, but she needs that makeup for.. reasons. (yes it was the hot jerk who dared her, and I don't understand it. He goes from making fun of her for looking like a homeless elf to then later mocking her for being too dainty??)

There was very little consistency in this story, which was a huge disappointment. It's like the author wrote scenes at random and then just glued them together without actually reading the whole thing in one sitting.

A huge improvement over the previous books. Ruwen still did some reckless and arguably stupid things. But they were often based on a lack of information rather than being immature and stupid.

We also get to see some cultivation done in this one which is interesting.

A little disappointed at the end, because we knew we were going there. It was very very obvious, a little too obvious. Tho, the exact betrayal was one I didn't exactly see coming. (which isn't a spoiler, it's literally the title of the book)

I liked this book despite its glaring flaws.

It features an sophisticated AI who portals himself into another universe in a human body. The author could have played up the humour of just-gotten-a-body and dont-know-how-to-be-human, there was some but it could really have been explorer more.

I enjoyed the nano technology giving the MC a boost, I also enjoyed that his previous experience as an AI made mindless grind and other boring work a cakewalk for them. Tho I was personally annoyed at the lack of knowledge about the nano bots, there was absolutely no information about them. Nothing about how the MC communicated with them and gave them orders.

My biggest issue however was the pacing and the skipping. I understand that with how little gains there were in the book, that reading about the MC grinding out dungeons could have been boring. But it peeved me when the book would skip days, weeks and sometimes even months of work and progress because of this. I would have preferred a slower read, giving me time to get invested in the MC and the people around him.

There is also the fact that the MC came from a place that was vastly superior technologically than where he landed, and the only thing he decided to attempt to implement into this world was guns. He has hundreds of years of technology advancements in his head, there are countless things he could have tried to implement that would have improved peoples lives that he just.. shrugged off.

It felt like a huge missed opportunity imo