Full Verse Review: Sky Pride by Warby Picus

Let’s not pretend otherwise—Sky Pride is a cultivation novel. You know the type. Through the chrysalis of pills, potions, and martial training, the meagre caterpillar transforms itself into a mighty butterfly… who can casually toss mountains into the sea. Progression is the aim of the game—body, mind, spirit. Progression in clearly defined stages. Some cultivation novels call them ranks. Others call them stages. Sky Pride uses Realms—but it’s all the same: ya start small, ya get less small, ya get bigger, ya get big. Typically in pursuit of the Disney dream of Immortality.

Sky Pride doesn’t rework the model. It leans heavily into its tropes. You get your flying swords, your cultivation pills, your stages of progression. You get your face-slapping, arrogant masters, and all the sort. No, Sky Pride is not a revolution of the genre—but it might just be an elevation of it.

I won’t bury the lede. I enjoyed this novel. So much so that when I reached the last chapter, F5 got the finger more times than Kyle and took a harder pounding than Kyle’s mum.

(Go to Hell, Kyle. He knows what he did.)

What gripped me?

What grabbed me?

What sank its claws in and refused to let go—leaving me spiralling late into the night like the endless queue of gentlemen-callers stretching from Bangkok to Kyle’s mum’s waterbed?

(Seriously Kyle—f**K you!)

It all started with the…

CHARACTER & VOICE:

The story follows the tale of one, Tian Zihao. Discarded as a child, he came of age in a junkyard. Suffering starvation, deprivation, and having his finger gnawed off by rodents (yes—that’s an actual thing that happened in this novel) Tian didn’t exactly have the most ideal start to life.

“Disease had ruined his body before he had left her womb, and he hadn’t gotten better.”

At the tender age of six, Tian is found maimed, malnourished, and medically cursed. He’s got a weak immune system. Severe, infected burns. Kidneys holier than a drunk priest. And just when you think the suffering bingo card is full—bam! Cancer.

Because of course he has cancer. Why wouldn’t he?

And yet, he survived—his willy don’t work, but he survived.

Saved by a fortunate encounter with his ghost grandpa, the worst of Tian’s ailments aren’t exactly cured—and his life doesn’t suddenly become better—but they’re suppressed, and he endures.

“I’m transmitting a set of exercises and breathing techniques to you. They won’t let you cultivate, but they will let you digest the energy in your food better, fight infection better, and clean out toxins… They will also keep the cancer in you from progressing… much… You aren’t alone any more. You were never trash. You will soar.”

So then, what makes Tian so compelling as a Character?

It’s his innocence.

He spent his early childhood alone. Well, that’s not completely true. He had the rats at his knuckles, the wolves at his throat. And people? People looked at him and threw stones.

“AHH! Unclean beast!” … “Go away! Scram! Come on, you throw rocks too.” … “No need, it’s run off. What do you think it was? Some kind of diseased monkey?”

In a genre full of soulless murder-hobos who wouldn’t balk to boil a baby in his brother’s bone broth for the slightest, most fleeting power-up, you’d be forgiven if you thought this was the origins of a villain protagonist.

But not so.

He doesn’t want revenge—at least not at first. He doesn’t want riches. He’s not looking for a Harem. He’s not even after immortality.

He just wants to survive. And maybe, someday, live a kinder existence.

“I don’t know. Enough to eat. A dry place to sleep where animals can’t bite me… I’d want to do whatever got me that.” … “No. They are scary and throw rocks. I don’t think I really want to be a human.” … “Not being hungry is good.” … “No, that’s a terrible idea. Hurting forever sounds bad.” … “Grandpa, I don’t understand any of that.”

As the story progresses and Tian gets older, smarter, and wiser, you’re pulled along for that journey. You’re there when he navigates that strange surge of pubescent attraction to the unfair sex.

You’re there when he forms attachments beyond the ghostly gramps that lives in his head (technically, he’s in a ring around one of Tian’s few remaining fingers). You watch him like a parent does a child—astounded by his growth, and yet protective of his naïvety.

He is naive. His life was cruel, but having grown in isolation, he wasn’t exposed to more subtle cruelty. He doesn’t even know when he’s being insulted.

“Aunty, can I blind him? His dog eyes violated me. He is one of those toads you mentioned, hungering for swan meat.” … “What does ‘worthy’ mean? Also, if she is so brain damaged that she thought she was a swan fighting a toad, should she really be let out of the house?”

It’s moments like these that make Tian impossible not to root for. Not because he’s cool.
But because you know what he could become—and you’re desperate to see him become it without losing what made him precious in the first place.

The stage is filled out by the rest of the cast. There are sect brothers in the monastery Tian goes to live. They answer his questions, teach him kindness, and—naturally—train him in the fine art of subduing women with rope and knives.

It’s a delight to watch Tian interact with his brothers and, later, sisters. Forge bonds and friendships. Be mentored and inspire others all the same. The character of Tian is what elevatesSky Prideabove many of its genre. It’s why I carve out the time to keep up with the story long after I’d read enough for this review.

Narrative & Structure.

You follow every beat of Tian’s maturation—his growth isn’t rushed, skipped, or hand-waved. The story makes space to breathe, and more importantly, to philosophise.

“Laws, ethics, traditions, but most of all laws… Laws are what let large groups do great things… But here’s the thing. As you get older, you start seeing the limitations of the law… nothing is perfectly fair… The law matters, but the law is enforced by people… And some people, despite everything… are rock throwers… It’s not right. It is very human… we are very, very human.”

That isn’t to say it doesn’t scream with action. There are moments where it wails almost as loud as Kyle’s mum.

(As if that were possible…)

You get your obligatory dose of high-octane slaughter. You get your heretical cultivators and their armies of killer insects. There are battles. There are wars. There grudges—petty and otherwise. There’s enough bloody-murder to keep the stakes high and your blood pressure higher. ]

Exposition is eked out through context and dialogue. Portioned out just enough, just when it matters. You never feel lost—and the story is always moving. Not always in terms of plot. It can linger on a single note. But the way that note teaches Tian endless lessons about music—

That’s why there’s no loss in momentum.

The chapters flow nicely. The story progresses coherently, with one event leading naturally into the next—each moment building on what came before.

You hear about visiting sisters arriving for a martial competition? That competition unfolds exactly as forecast—no rug pulls, no delays. There are whispers of an endless war at the fringes of civilisation? You get dropped right into it. But only after the story has earned the right to bring you there.

Everything happens when it should.

(Unlike Kyle, who shouldn’t have happened at all.)

There’s always more that could be said—maybe I’ll say it, if I revisit this for a full Bardic Feature. But for now, what matters is this: yes, there is progress; yes, there is action. Sky Pride is coherent and logical, revealing what you need to know exactly when you need to know it. But it’s not about any one arc or explosive event. It’s about watching Tian grow—and cheering when he does.

World Building & Themes.

For those familiar with eastern-inspired martial cultivation stories, the world of Sky Pride is instantly recognisable. Societies are stratified—there’s the secular world for regular folks like you and me, and then there are the cities where the chosen live, basking in privilege and power.

“Each generation removed from a cultivator is afforded fewer and fewer special privileges by the Monastery… They must rely on their own achievements in the secular world if they wish to prosper.”“Secular?” Brother Fu tapped the ground with his foot. “Concerned with mortal things, tied to the mortal world.”

You’ll find the usual trappings here—flying swords, floating ships, heavenly stages of cultivation—all that jazz and more. It’s a vast world, and even now (latest chapter at the time of writing), it feels like we haven’t dipped more than a toe into the wide, wide ocean.

This stratified world of sacred mountaintops and mortal plains isn’t just geographical—it’s metaphysical. Those who cultivate don’t just rise in power. They ascend, step by step, toward something more. And to get there? You train.

Practitioners develop both style and physique. They train rigorously with ancient weapons and martial arts, infusing each movement with cosmic magic—vital energy, or qi—to give their blows more bang for the buck.

(Must’ve picked that up from Kyle’s mum.)

The world of Sky Pride is fascinating and beautiful. But ultimately, it’s a backdrop. It’s the stage upon which the drama unfolds—but the star of the play is the underlying theme of growth. Determination. Rising above one’s lamentable beginnings to forge a life unshackled—link by link—from the traumas that could easily define them.

Don’t get me wrong: the worldbuilding is perfectly serviceable. Nothing feels out of place. Everything flows naturally. But it’s not breaking the mould—and that’s not a bad thing. It’s a perfectly fine mould. No need to be messing with it. In fact, if the world were more novel, it’d likely distract from what this story is really trying to convey.

Craft.

If Sky Pride has one major flaw, it’s in the craft.

Don’t get me wrong—the prose is fine. It’s clear. The dialogue and narration shift from humorous to poignant and back again without missing a beat. It’s largely written in a tight third-person limited perspective, giving us an intimate look into Tian’s inner world and experiences.

However…

Those early chapters, yo.

The paragraph spacing is all kinds of messed up. Between each line is a void nearly as wide as Kyle’s mum. The author acknowledges this themselves, and later chapters mostly correct the issue.

Hopefully, in time, the author will go back and fix the rest.

In fact, Warby Picuss, if you’re reading this: not to speak for the Almighty, but I’m pretty sure He agrees with me.

(Or the universe. Or the Buddha—if you’re a filthy HEATHEN.)

Edit the paragraph spacing.

Edit the paragraph spacing. Do it now. Like right now. Seriously. I’ve seen sect massacres less messy.

Closing Thoughts.

I liked it.

But seriously, I did. The world doesn’t break the mould, but the characters do. Their depth does. Their philosophical discussions do. The story is heartfelt. It’s heavy at times—reflecting some uncomfortable truths about our lives that we often take for granted.

Since starting this website, I’ve watched my free time vanish like smoke. I wake up. I go to work. I write for my own projects. I read for review. I sleep three hours. Then I get up and do it all over again.

Time is my most precious resource—and I fully intend on investing more of it in this story.

p.s. Kyle, if you’re reading this, please reach out. I miss our friendship.

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