Solo Leveling (Volume 3) – Job-Change Quest
Jinwoo beat Cerberus, survived the Hunter Killer, and outsmarted a snooping recruiter, but now he faces his toughest challenge yet. The system has decided that he’s ready for the Job-Change Quest!
Solo Leveling (Volume 3) – Job-Change Quest
What happened?
Jinwoo fought Cerberus with everything he had and almost lost. It told him that he wasn’t ready for the next stage of the quest so he teleported out, resolved to return when he was ready. He needed to level up. He needed more quests. Then, his phone notified him of a gate nearby in need of Hunters. As he arrived, he was surprised to find that Chiyul Song and Joohee Lee had also responded to the request. However, it was Song and Joohee who were the most surprised given how much Jinwoo had changed since they last saw him. Even stranger was the fact that the other two survivors from the Double Dungeon were there. The last four members of the party were three convicts looking to lessen their sentence and their supervisor, Taesik Kang from the Surveillance Team.
Jinwoo had a bad feeling about this and tried to convince Joohee to leave, however, she refused. Once inside the dungeon, they came to a three-way split in the path. Jinwoo, Joohee, and Song took one path, Taeshik Kang took the prisoners down another leaving Sangshik Kim and Jeongho Kang to take the remaining path. As soon as they were out of sight, Taeshik killed two of the prisoners and began to torture the third. However, the paths looped around and he was interrupted by Kim and Kang. Naturally, he turned his murderous intent on them. Jinwoo sensed what was going on and hurried back, however, he was too late to save them. Taeshik then revealed that he would kill them too. Luckily, he had no idea just how strong Jinwoo had become.
Chiyul took the fight to Taeshik but was easily outmatched. Then, when Taeshik went to finish him, Jinwoo stepped in and revealed his strength. Taeshik remembered him from the Double Dungeon incident and realised he must have had a second awakening, however, he would never have guessed just how much Jinwoo had changed. He defeated Taeshik and prepared to have his secret outed. However, Chiyul told the Surveillance Team that he beat Taeshik with Joohee’s help, protecting Jinwoo’s secret. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before someone else figured out that Jinwoo was hiding something. Sangmin An of the White Tiger Guild believed that he had worked it all out and tried to recruit Jinwoo, but he couldn’t afford him and Jinwoo had no intention of walking away from Jinho’s offer.
And, it was during one of Jinho’s that Jinwoo received an invitation to a Job-Change Quest. He cleared the next day’s gates by overselling them to An and then began the quest. Before going in, he remembered that hadn’t cleared the daily challenges, however, he was confident that he would have time later. Unfortunately, for Jinwoo, it was going to take a lot longer than he expected. However, it worked in his favour, giving him a break at an important moment and allowing him to recover his HP, MP, and lower his fatigue, all while fighting the giant sand centipedes. He returned to the Job-Change Quest and defeated the mages who were sending an endless army of Knights at him. Having done so, he was offered the job of Necromancer. At first, he tried to decline, but the system told him it was a hidden job class. He accepted!
What did you think?
This volume was pretty much everything the second half of the first season of the anime covered. The end of the season will no doubt occur at the beginning of the next volume and then, I’m venturing into a brave new world. It’s pretty exciting. I’m not going to lie! Anyhow, back to this volume. The first thing that I noticed was that the fight with Cerberus wasn’t nearly as exciting as in the anime. I also remember Cerberus knocking away his teleportation crystal and then it happening again in the Job-Change Quest, and thinking that it was daft to have it happen twice. Well, it only happened in the Job-Change Quest in the manwha and that makes much more sense.
Another moment that didn’t make it to the anime was after Jinwoo killed Taeshil Kang, Joohee and Chiyul made their way outside while Jinwoo took on the boss. Well, the prisoner who Taeshik had been paid to kill was still alive, just pretending to be dead. Jinwoo picked him up and took him to face the boss with him. Once the boss had killed him, Jinwoo quickly defeated the boss. That was a nice moment for Jinwoo as he battled to hold onto his humanity while also recognising that he couldn’t let this guy live and that he really didn’t deserve to live either. The fight with Igris the Bloodred was excellent, but once more the anime really took that to the next level. I feel like rewatching a couple of those episodes to get the most out of the fights again. I love the manwha as much as I loved the anime and can’t wait for more.
Volume highlights
Series Information
| English Title | Solo Leveling |
| Japanese Title | Ore dake Level Up na Ken |
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Fantasy |
| Demographic | Seinen |
Manwha
| Series | Solo Leveling | ||
| Author | Chugong | ||
| Artist | Dubu | ||
| Volumes | Ongoing | Chapters | Webtoon Chapters |
| 1 | The Weakest Hunter of All Mankind | 1-3 | 1-12 |
| 2 | The Lizards | 3-5 | 13-26 |
| 3 | Job-Change Quest | 6-8 | 27-44 |
| 4 | Unless You’re An S-Rank! | 9-10 | 45-63 |
| 5 | May I Kill All of These Magic Beasts? | 11-13 | 64-81 |
| 6 | I’d Lost My Cool Too! | 14-17 | 82-97 |
| 7 | Everything Will Be Fine! | 18-21 | 98-110 |
| 8 | One-Man Guild! | 22-24 | 111-122 |
| 9 | It Was War! | 25-27 | 123-134 |
Anime
Season One
And may I guess you bought this physical copy of this volume once its English publishing company released on its premiere date? Nevertheless, I still like Solo Leveling due to the concept of not using the “power of friendship” trope though I still use this trope in specific chapters, but for plausible reasons, of my ongoing LitRPG series.
I believe it’s okay to like both versions of this series since I still like how the webtoon’s character designs and some of the action scenes are still cool(?) to look at. I heard that last surviving prisoner scene was cut from the anime due to the webtoon version being too edgy, but I think the tone felt fine given that Jinwoo is becoming more apathetic to those who don’t feel any guilt or remorse.
Unsurprisingly, I consciously made a major character based on Jinwoo though my female protagonist is getting bits of his current personality. I surprised myself this week with “seeing clearly” on my newly-made arc (#7) that’s not inspired by any SoLev arc (though the mining scenes partially inspired it), and the main reason why I’ve yet to publish my latest arc.
I actually borrowed them from the library. The Solo Leveling books are surprisingly expensive because they are full colour, but I’d be tempted if I see them go on sale anywhere. I think the friendship trope is fine if used effectively.
For sure. I often end up watching the anime, reading the manga, and then reading the light novel and while all often have slight differences, they can all be enjoyed individually or as a whole. If you love the world and the characters, why not get more of it.
That’s cool. You should take inspiration from any place you can. Keep at it!
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