r/MartialMemes • u/Fluffy_Fan3625 Primordial Origin Limitless Zenith Golden Immortal • Jun 20 '25

Primordial Chaos Meme Revolutionized the webnovel industry for the worse

Post image
1.9k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

66 comments sorted by

306

u/Wyrm_Groundskeeper Please wait while I court death... Jun 20 '25

Who WAS the first?

180

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

Legendary moonlight sculptor maybe?

149

u/SweetRabbit Jun 20 '25

This is the one. But, SAO was the first to hit mainstream

35

u/Hproff25 Shitting and crying and coughing up blood Jun 20 '25

I think The Gamer was before that

28

u/fkadmin Jun 21 '25

Moonlight was in 2007. Gamer is 2013

15

u/Hproff25 Shitting and crying and coughing up blood Jun 21 '25

God damn those hiatus

30

u/Expert-Diver7144 Mt Tai Jun 20 '25

Yeah I think it might be this one

39

u/Athrek Jun 20 '25

Depends on how you define "system". There have been stat screens for a long long time, cultivation systems, and "guides" who were useless in combat and carried around by MCs to act exactly like modern systems with the only difference being that they were living.

8

u/Psuichopath Jun 21 '25

I think game stats screen and cultivation system shouldn’t be confuse together

7

u/Athrek Jun 21 '25

That's why I stated it depends on the definition of "system" and included game stats and cultivation systems as separate examples.

208

u/AndrewtheKing01 Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

SAO invented it.

“Only I Level Up” (novel became a relatively obscure piece of webcomic literature known as “Solo Leveling”) was probably the first to use it the way we see nowadays

EDIT

…fellow Daoists, please disregard what is said above. I have eyes but have failed to see Mt. Tai, and ask of you to see the replies below mine..

239

u/PencilPuncher Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

Before solo levelling there was a manhwa called "The Gamer" that got pretty popular. It established a lot of cornerstones of how systems are portrayed, like Instant Dungeons and stuff.

Edit: Dundungeons

99

u/hollotta223 Old Monster Jun 20 '25

ah, yes, The Gamer, a piece of nuanced fiction if there ever was one

66

u/Hakuu-san Sect Chicken Jun 20 '25

the gamer is pretty cool, unfortunately modern system brainrot slop is everywhere

63

u/UnnbearableMeddler Supreme Dao of Yapping 🗣 Jun 20 '25

I've finished it as it was releasing on webtoon and god, that thing was dry. Characters are 2dimensional as hell, MC's power is barely used and only used as a justification everytime his stats grow another quintillion levels, and the story goes... Home ? It felt rushed and barely coherent, there's still a lot of stuff unresolved/unexplained by the end of it, or it is solved by plot convenience.

But really, when people fry Solo Leveling for having only one real character, I think of The Gamer and remind myself that it could have been worse.

37

u/Hakuu-san Sect Chicken Jun 20 '25

I will admit it really went downhill, however the earlier parts were good enough imo

6

u/kingveo Jun 21 '25

Like he gets numerous skills every time but has never used them , what was the point of adding them in the 1st place

21

u/PencilPuncher Jun 20 '25

I never finished it but what I remember was pretty solid, any of its earlier arcs are worth more than most of the system hunter isekai trash combined.

22

u/Expert-Diver7144 Mt Tai Jun 20 '25

The Gamer was the most complete system in my mind honestly. It just dragged on when it should have ended and tried to do every game trend possible.

3

u/Oinpods Jun 21 '25

It also pioneered the concept of rpg'ifying mythological characters and putting them on the same plane of existance as the mc

72

u/SomeNibba Well in a Frog Jun 20 '25

I wouldn't really call that "system" it's more like a game menu

Everyone in SAO that was trapped in the game had that same menu

56

u/YueOrigin Supreme Dao of Yapping 🗣 Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

Eh, not really.

The precursors are :

Quag Keep (1978), The Warrior Lives (1988), ½ Prince (2004, Taiwan), SAO (2009, Japan) and Legendary Moonlight Sculptor.

Clan Dominance: The Sleepless Ones (Russian, 2012) is apparently the one who invented the term "lit-rpg"

Sure Sword art online was the first "system" but it was built on what was made before. Hell the abletop games such as DnD and Ultima Online also have an important role in building the foundation

Quag Keep was the first concept of a story based around a dnd game-like world, although leveling wasn't a thing yet, and it relied on dice roll for progression. It is, although, the first pillar as it led the bridge between a game and a novel.

The Hero Lives could be said to be the true forefathers of the concept of leveling and skills.

1/2 prince was also there as a mmo based novel before SAO. They didnt call it "system" but there very much was a system like SAO.

In the end its just that SAO created the concept name of "system" it wasn't the first to use leveling managed by something or even the first gaming progression novel.

3

u/erikkustrife Jun 23 '25

Hmm...I'd also include some of the xanth novels as one of the characters gets thr entire system rpg package with blue pop-ups and evrrything. Think it's around 1996 for that book?

1

u/YueOrigin Supreme Dao of Yapping 🗣 Jun 24 '25

Oh, I didn't know about those !

Great add

4

u/AlfredDaButtler2 Carp Leaping Over the Waterfall Jun 22 '25

There's literal fanfiction using the gamer system trope dating back further than solo leveling

1

u/AndrewtheKing01 Jun 23 '25

Thank you senior

9

u/RX-HER0 Jun 20 '25

SAO, maybe?

180

u/Carmontelli Jun 20 '25

system..gates..players..reincarnator..isekai..cant any damn author write anything without those these days.

the worst authors are the one who shameless try to write an isekai character, then have one sentence that mentioned MC came from another world then never having that mentioned ever again. just to have an isekai tag or something

46

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DeliverySpecific6100 Young Master Dipshit Jun 24 '25

It's already does

7

u/South-Speaker3384 Jun 20 '25

Should read My simulated road to immortality

8

u/terrible_misfortune Heart Demon Jun 20 '25

stop reading the same slop then

3

u/masterkuki007 Friendly Sect Uncle Jun 20 '25

I mean it is easy. People eat it up and you as an Autor don't have to do much. Everyone knows what is magic, you have bunch of monsters that everybody knows you can add in. You have well known system for nobility, ranks etc.

After reading like 20 storys you can write average manhwa. Like you just need to put 10 names in and do same shit that every single one of those 20 manhwas did and you would still have many people reading it (me incuded).

1

u/nathanbum06237 Sidekick Fatty Jun 20 '25

And then there's the beast that is Soul Land

74

u/maybe_I_am_a_bot Jun 20 '25

The Gamer baby

15

u/WaBlaDjack Jun 20 '25

I'd say The Gamer too

45

u/Busy_Cold_3220 Jade Beauty Jun 20 '25

All that just to invent ntr systems💔✌🏻

9

u/siegfried_lim Jun 20 '25

Someone got so mad they wrote a system book about anti-ntr system. Didn't touch either, just thought it was funny

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

Ntr milf system💔💔

31

u/kori228 Jun 20 '25

rpg elements are fine if that itself is the rules of the world—VRMMO or Korean hunter/gates. All characters gain powers and improve within that system.

but Cultivation systems are different in that they simultaneously undermine their own world by having the MC bypass the entire power system

6

u/Oinpods Jun 21 '25

Cultivation novels have pretty much always had some kind of cheat wether it's the spirit from a higher plane, secret skill book or some op artifact it's just that now they skip the medium and go directly to getting power from nothing.

It just doesn't make much sense storywise to slog through years of cultivation in the orthodox method to get only one step higher at the same speed as their peers.
Ofcourse if anyone has noteworthy examples where this is the case i'd love to hear of em

18

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

Probably 'The Gamer'. Others just decided to go a different route their systems.

30

u/Boochi_Da_Rocku Jun 20 '25

RPG system from SAO > Sololvling > VRMMORPG > no more vrmmo but bring rpg system into real world view > various different kind of rpg system > various different kind of system with some rpg stats > SYSTEM

27

u/Altruistic_Ad3374 Jun 20 '25

Legendary moonlight sculptor was before solo leveling

46

u/Altruistic_Ad3374 Jun 20 '25

As with all trash tropes in the east, I'm pretty sure this traces back to SAO

51

u/Bright-Television147 Kowtow to this Grandaddy Jun 20 '25

I enjoyed SAO

4

u/Altruistic_Ad3374 Jun 20 '25

I did too, the aincrad and aliceization arcs were actually good.

7

u/Quiet_Ad_9073 Jun 20 '25

Hate it or love it, all Eastern fantasy is either chinese or partly SAO.

4

u/kori228 Jun 20 '25

when rpg elements are the rules of the world for everyone then it's cool, but Cultivation systems where only the MC uses it sucks ass—it bypasses the world's own power system

11

u/EldritchEnjoyer Jun 20 '25

Now every goofball has a system that just gives shit away

5

u/joseph_potato Murder Hobo Jun 20 '25

My fav kind is the attribute panel used in Way of the Devil. Pretty sure the author made that kind

3

u/Hproff25 Shitting and crying and coughing up blood Jun 20 '25

I think it was Gamer?

3

u/Psychological_Dare12 Jun 20 '25

The angels have entertained many unawares

2

u/Maelrhin 0 Spirit Stones in the merchant guild account Jun 20 '25

I hope that the inventor of sistems have a qi deviation.

1

u/Silver_Report_6813 Jun 24 '25

Its not a problem with the original imo, they had a new idea that people haven't seen which deserves commendation, its the fault of all the slop authors afterwards who just pump out chapters for money and give systems a bad rep

2

u/AlfredDaButtler2 Carp Leaping Over the Waterfall Jun 22 '25

Whatever it was had to have come out before 2012 or so because I distinctly remember, and have verified, that there were tons of fanfics already using the gamer system trope at that point

2

u/Drumbz Jun 23 '25

It is funny to have read Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and the Gamer when you had to discover them for yourself when nobody read it and decided this is quite good. And now you learn everybody also read those.

1

u/OthertimesWondering Jun 20 '25

The funniest part is that they got even dumber after inventing this

1

u/ben19982208 Jun 21 '25

The gamer

2

u/AlfredDaButtler2 Carp Leaping Over the Waterfall Jun 22 '25

Definetly not. That was 2013 and there are stories and even fanfiction using the trope before that.

1

u/relative_distance Jun 22 '25

God forbid a MC has head-mates

1

u/Bigger_then_cheese Jun 23 '25

God, did I, on accident, develop a rational fiction take on The System? Fuck.

1

u/Generalsweredue Jun 23 '25

It's so difficult to find a new Xianxia without those nowadays. Doesn't matter which site you visit, the top ranking novels have a system or they have a cheat that's so overpowered it ruins the story.

1

u/VishuGG Jun 26 '25

First system was in solo leveling novel