Dennis Vanderkerken

An Elder learns cultivation to rescue his towns children.
The beginning is loooooong - and I was bored. It take a third of the book and I nearly dropped the book.
But then the cultivation part began and it gave cultivation an interesting twist. Enjoyed that part and the fighting part a lot.

A transition book. Our MC spends 5 years gaining powers while using his unique cultivation to pay for it and make friends. Followed by a school arc of another 5 years to end up at the same level as he started as.

Then the real plot of the book starts near the end to setup for the next book. I assume you can skip this book and just see it as a training montage.

Not sure why the characters keep changing their names and making a big deal out of it - most of the book was training montage and nitty gritty character development until the very end with a huge battle with a big baddie.

6/10 Very unique take on the series, but mostly garbled and non-sensible from my memory