The Record Of Unusual Creatures Web Novel Review

The Record of Unusual Creatures is a hidden gem. This web novel has great world-building, story development, and character development. But the best part of this novel is the adventures and character interactions. There’s good humor in the story as well. This web novel has 1,773 Chapters and is completed.

The scale of the story is very very large. This novel has the greatest adventures ever. We travel from one planet to another, one civilization to another, medieval to futuristic worlds, and so on. Each world is written in great detail. Each world has its story to tell. The mysteries are well written as well. We travel with the main character connecting the dots, findings the answers, and solving many puzzles. The character development is great as well. All of the characters have personalities. This makes the interaction between the main character and other characters interesting to read.

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Read The Record of Unusual Creatures

Here’s a good review of this novel by u/NihilMomentum.

I’ve finished reading this masterpiece of a novel recently and, since then, I’ve been looking for more stories like this one. However, nothing has come close to it so far. So, I’ve decided to try my luck here, to see if any of you awesome people can help me and/or, at the very least, discuss the good concepts of this story. It’s a shame this novel is so underrated. Be warned, minor spoilers are ahead.

Related: Top 10 Best Web Novels You Must READ!!!

TL;DR at the end.

SO, FIRST, WHAT’S THE SCALE OF THE STORY?

The novel centers around the protagonist’s job as an “Inspector” of the Xi Ling Empire, a Super Civilization that controls countless universes in the Endless Void, which is one of the Three Great Phanteons and that is able to “mass-produce” True Gods. To help you get an idea of their power, the weakest attack of the Sub-cannon of a CIVILIAN spaceship of theirs is capable of annihilating anything within a radius of 200Km of the surface of a Planet. And I’m not exaggerating when I say, TRUE Gods. Here, there’s none of those bullshit false “Gods” from other stories (like, for example, your average Sword and Magic Fantasy story’s “God” of Light, “God” of Magic, etc.), which require Faith Power from mortal believers and are tied to a single Planet or Plane (a different dimension that is equivalent to a celestial body). No, in The Record of Unusual Creatures, every universe that is under the Xi Ling Empire is managed by a God that works on a universal scale, being able to create anything (Planets, Stars, Nebulas, etc.) seemingly out of nothing (creation ex nihilo), controlling everything, even the most basic constants (like the Planck Constant), and does not need any Faith Power, because a True God, as explained in the story, is the Source itself. They don’t depend on anything but themselves. Feeling the epic scale yet?

Related: Holy Roman Empire Web Novel Review (Kingdom Building Novel)

THE PROTAGONIST AND HIS ROLE:

So, how did our protagonist, Hao Ren, a “normal” human from modern Earth whose only description is that his name means “good man”, manage to get himself into this situation? Well, the story starts with him coincidentally becoming the Landlord of a werewolf and a vampire, after which he gets a call from a strange number (00012345), telling him to go to a job interview at an “import and export” company. As it turns out, that simple call came from the Goddess, called Raven12345 (No, I’m not joking), that manages the universe our MC lives in. She tells him that, because he accepted the other worldlings well, he is qualified for the job she is offering, starting with gathering more tenants like the werewolf and the vampire. And so begins the adventures of our protagonist with his team of unusual creatures, a journey filled with mysteries, myths, supernatural elements, high-tech elements, space/fleet battles, saving civilizations, and much more. It doesn’t take much time for the MC to realize that most problems can be solved with just the right amount of explosives, which makes his coworkers (other Inspectors) call him epithets like “Demolition Man” and “Bomb Maniac”.

So, what exactly IS and what DOES an “Inspector” do? Namely, they are demigods that serve as bridges between the local mortal civilizations and God. Each one of them gets a certain territory of the universe (measured in light-years) to take care of and their work consists of observing, recording, and preventing the annihilation of civilizations. They are the observer and responders to all living things in the universe. This here is one of the things I really like about the world-building of the novel: despite being so powerful, the Xi Ling Empire does not conquer/enslaves the many native civilizations of the universes they manage, like what happens in other works of fiction. In fact, they only show themselves (as the “Space Administration”) to civilizations that have reached the Interstellar Age, and their wish is for the natural development of diverse civilizations. In the case of the MC, despite being a rookie, he alone is assigned to the investigation case of the “Plane of Dreams”, a universe that suffered a catastrophe 10.000 years ago.

WHAT OTHER THINGS SET THIS NOVEL APART FROM OTHERS?

Another thing that adds to the world-building in comparison to other novels is the simplicity and, at the same time, completeness of the “science” of things (how everything works logically). According to the in-universe explanation, the Grand Unified Theory states that everything in the universe is constructed out of information. There is no boundary between material and energy, abstract and tangible. Information is the raw ingredient of materials, quality, temperature, density, hardness, and colors that form all things and from which all things can be formed. And where do the True Gods fit in that? Well, they are explained as Information Interference/Disturbance, the biggest bodies of information. If you think of the universe as a computer system, the Gods are the Super Administrators, with max security clearance and permissions. They can create anything, delete anything, change anything, because anything is, in its most basic form, information. Why is a God absolute in front of a mortal? That’s because the mortal’s flimsy “2KB” of information is nothing against a God’s insane amount of information, no different than a dying candle in the middle of a catastrophic storm. In a sense, to become stronger is to increase your system privileges, like becoming a demigod by signing a contract with a True God, or improving your lifeform by means of biological enhancement + absorption of divinity (the end year bonus of the MC includes all kinds of food filled with divinity). Also, Knowledge is Power!

Other things that are very interesting are the open-mindedness that comes from setting your eyes toward space and the vastness of the universe (instead of keeping your vision locked in “internal” conflicts on the Planet level, which just wastes resources and makes it harder for your civilization to reach the Interstellar Age), the talks with the Goddess about the nature of the relationship between Gods and mortals, the creators and the created (also in the case of the Executor Civilization and the Goddess of Creation), and Gods views on religion/prayers. These are just some of the things that you can find in the novel.

So, now that you guys have a good general idea about the world envisioned in the novel “The Record of Unusual Creatures”, I would like to ask for novel recommendations that are similar to this story. Discussion about the ideas here is also welcome!

TL;DR

Looking for a story in which the Main Character is a member of a powerful faction that is, at the very least, of the intergalactic level (but would be better if he can travel between universes with his spaceship), with many diverse civilizations to explore (magic-based, science-based, mix between the two, religion/mysticism based, etc…. something like the novel The Legendary Mechanic would do too), preferably with his own team, solving mysteries, dealing with all kinds of threats, having adventures and participating in epic battles (including in space)! The existence of Gods is also a plus.