David North‘s Guardian of Aster Fall series has similar initial energy to Ultimate Level 1, just with a much heavier crafting focus.
The first four books are incredibly good, with the start being more survival focused while the rest chart the protagonist’s rise to power, but the fifth is a bit of a road block; the pacing slows way down as the setting temporarily shifts to the greater galaxy. If you can make it through that however, the following three greatly accelerate event development to basically resolve all outstanding plot-related issues in a glorious showcase of overpowered protagonist devastation.
With effectively all the conflicts resolved the upcoming ninth novel (High Artificer) looks like it will shift gears into a more slice of life-ish type of thing. We’ll have to see how that turns out, but I’m fairly optimistic at this point.