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Started from July 2014, ended on March 2018, The Record of Unusual Creatures (异常生物见闻录) is a Chinese Web Serial Novel written by Yuan Tong.
Hao Ren is a down-to-earth good person, as his name would indicate. His dream for the future includes living peacefully as a benevolent landlord, not too poor and not too rich—at least before a bunch of supernatural creatures start living in his house. As if supernatural creatures are not enough, a labor contract from "God" has only made Hao Ren's life more chaotic and intense as he begins his adventure, collecting abnormal tenants on the way. Serving under a mysterious and seemingly omnipotent "Xiling Empire", Hao Ren, with his tenants, begin their journey as they discover supernatural races, myths, civilizations and uncover the deepest secret of an universe.
Landlord, Imperial inspector, Sun King, Bomb-happy, The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, Professional Grave Digger Hao Ren certainly knows that after the day he signed the contract, there is no coming back...
A Man Hua adaptation (Chinese comics) has started in January 2019.
A Donghua adaptation (Chinese animation) aired on Bilibili
from June to September in 2019.
The Record of Unusual Creatures contains example of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Godslayer and Worldbreaker swords, both made out of fragments of a universe and capable of cutting through space itself.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Captain 883. He is far more responsible in the Web Novel and Man Hua adaptation than his Donghua self. In both versions 883 engaged in a race against a Fairy Void Consortium cargo ship when bringing Hao Ren and his party to planet Pea. In the Web Novel/Man Hua version immediately after winning the race he put himself in solitary confinement since he broke the law, in the Donghua version he forgot about Hao Ren and his party who have to jump ship with a shuttle.
- Another Dimension: The Plane of Dreams, plus countless universes ruled by the gods.
- Apocalypse How: Universal. When the Goddess of Creation was killed by the treacherous children, most of the First Guardians went mad and try to annihilated every other species, only a few species survived through sheer luck when the Goddess of Creation order the few Guardians who did not go mad to start the security lock on the First Bornor when the Denizen of the Stars come to help them
- Cavalry of the Dead: Two of them in one battle: During the Battle at Spiral hill in the original version of the Collow Continent, two undead army appeared. One is composed of spirits of the devote members of the church buried under Fidelinopolis, who voluntarily followed the church to join the fight. The other is composed of what remains of the brave spirits army that helped the Wardens defend against Lockmarton's influence. They stayed behind when the Wardens evacuated and become extremely mutated by Lockmarton's influence, but stayed loyal to their cause. Both army joined the battle when the living forces start to ran out of momentum.
- Chekhov's Gunman: When Hao Ren retrieved Lil'Pea from the crash-landed cargo pod, Y'zaks points out that the cargo ship was shot down by a demon. Said demon was later revealed to be Lanina, Y'zaks' chief strategist who has been looking for him since he was taken by a Xi Ling Celestial. She had no intention of attacking the ship though as she was just very confused traveling through space by herself.
- Civil War: One happened within the Demon hunters, where the Godslayer sword killed the 13 sages and drove the Council of Elders, essentially the entire upper echelon of the Demon hunters, mad and start attacking anyone who isn't on their side. The Demon hunters have to retreat from all over the world to stop the Elders from breaking out of their headquarters.
- Clarke's Third Law: What most of the Xiling Celestials' technology seems to be for anyone that do not know their existence, or for anyone whose civilization isn't developed in the idea of science.
- Dual Wield: Hao Ren starts dual wielding as he gains more weapons. First he uses both his plasma lance (a spear with a plasma head) and his Inspector Gun (which is essentially a hand cannon), then he some times replaces his gun with the Spear of Gunguir when the gun is way too powerful for the job.
- The Goddess of Creation dual wields the Godslayer and Worldbreaker swords in her first battle against the Mad Lord.
- Face of a Thug: Y'zaks has a thug-like face due to his lack of skill in transformation magic, since he is actually a several meter tall demon king covered in magma. This combined with a exceptionally strong physique makes everyone in the southern suburb (where the cast lives) terrified when they first meet him, to the point of cashiers would automatically opening the cash register when he walks into a store, assuming he is a robber. A few veterans even formed a neighborhood watch to keep an eye on him. This gets even worse when he is walking along with his daughter Y'lizabet, as the police assumed he is a child kidnapper. Of course once everyone gets to know him they figure out that he is a very kind person, and he often helps out his neighbors.
- Fantastic Racism: Most of the supernatural species on Earth is innately hostile against each other. Even if two individual from two different species never met and grow up like normal humans they would still be hostile against each other the second they meet. The Demon hunters have an even stronger "hunting instinct" that can even be used to track other species. The Sin of the Divine Blood caused this hostility between species, and the corrupted Godslayer sword which resides in the Demon Hunter's headquarter "Coldpath" boosted the Demon Hunter's hostility to become the "hunting instinct".
- Giver of Lame Names: Both Hao Ren and Raven 12345 are this.
- Hand Cannon: Hao Ren's Inspector's Gun, a powerful pistol that can blast a crater where ever Hao Ren points it at. Its strength lies in that its psionic energy destroys everything within a certain radius, regardless of materials, energy shields, etc. The only thing that is resistant to it is any psionic technology or anything related to gods.
- Have You Seen My God?: One of Hao Ren's missions in the Plane of Dreams.The Goddess of Creation is killed by the treacherous children. Since prayer towards her still yield responses, it is likely that the Goddess is lying dormant somewhere else.
- Homeworld Evacuation: Hao Ren planned one for the Aerym elves, hiring cargo ships with Captain 883's connection since the Aerym elves do not have FTL technology. While the Aerym elves and their homeworld isn't in immediate danger, their resources have been mostly depleted in research FTL technology and there are no nearby planets and solar systems within 6 million light years.
- Inside a Computer System: The Zorm people and the First Born on their planet built a virtual reality system based on the First Born's brains, then the First Born disintegrated every trace of live on the planet after uploading the Zorm people's consciousnesses. They did this to avoid the wraith of the mad Guardians.
- Magic Versus Science: Both magic and science exists in the setting, and the Xiling Celestials don't care about using which to accomplish their goals as long as the magic/technology gets the job done. As gods they also likely have complete understanding of the magic/technology they are working with.
- Meaningful Name: A few of them
- "Hao Ren" has the same pronunciation as "good person" in Chinese.
- "Vivian Ancestor" indicates Vivian's status as the oldest supernatural creature on Earth.
- "Y'zaks Goodman" indicates Y'zaks's unique moral compass and that he wants other people to be good as well.
- Mundane Utility: The various tenants in Hao Ren's house uses their supernatural ability often in their Slice of Life moment.
- Y'zak uses his Super-Strength to change gas tanks for stoves.
- The sirens of the Nangong family uses their water controlling ability to act as humidifiers and air conditioners. They also transform into octopus so they can use their tentacles for a variety of chores such as mopping floors and washing dishes.
- Vivian can lower temperature as her vampire power, and she uses it most frequently as an air conditioner. She can also cast lighting via herself or her bats precisely at certain volts or amps. After discovering this none of Hao Ren's party ever use charger for their phones anymore...
- Hao Ren uses Lil'Pea's holy flame as a lighter.
- No Sense of Direction: Lanina suffers significantly from this, despite being Y'zaks' chief strategist. It was stated she could get lost in Helcrown while walking in a straight line. Y'zaks nearly thought it was a mistake to let Lanina lead the reinforcement army when they joined the civil war within the Demon Hunters
- Numerical Theme Naming: All the Raven gods are named just "Raven" with their numbers attached, such as Raven 12345, Raven 23333 and Raven 15431516836.
- Orbital Bombardment: Hao Ren pulled this with his ship's main gun on a First Born that is going to destroy planet Holleta after realizing it has powerful force fields that negated Y'zak's initial meteor attack.
- Our Gods Are Different: There are 3 major groups of gods: The Xiling Celestials, the Galacticus Lords, and the Xylons. These three god "factions" are peaceful with each other and combined they rule over a small portion of the known void. Hao Ren works under the first one which operates much like an empire, having a god overseeing each universe. They generally won't intervene in their universes unless there are some type of extinction event. It is known that the Xiling Celestials have ascended to godhood recently ("recent" as in tens of thousands of years) and the other two existed long before.
- Physical Religion: Raven 12345 has a religion worshipping her. The Goddess of Creation has one as well.
- Post-Modern Magik: Lots of these as much of the supernatural species on Earth are refugees from the Plane of Dreams and thus as time goes on they have to adept to modern conditions as well.
- Vivian states that before drinking someone's blood she has to check said victim's medical history to make sure she does not drink blood with diseases or other weird things in it
- While other vampire clans stick to their old ways, Hessiana arms her clan of vampires with submachine guns, rocket launchers, landmines, cannons, tanks and any modern equipments she can get her hands on.
- Retired Badass: Y'zaks, a retired Demon King after his failed attempt at Take Over the World in his universe.
- Science Fantasy: A mishmash of both sci-fi and fantasy. Hao Ren's tenants (adventure party) consists of vampires, werewolf, demons and many other fantasy races, the worlds they adventure in are sometimes fantasy worlds, with Earth itself as an Urban Fantasy setting. However, the Xiling Celestials can be seen as Sufficiently Advanced Alien with technology that can ignore laws of physics, and outside of Earth there are many civilizations composed of Starfish Aliens, Human Aliens and Rubber-Forehead Aliens with Faster-Than-Light Travel technology living under the Xiling Empire. During the main cast's adventures, worlds where robots, lasers and virtual reality exists are just as common as worlds where sword and magic dominates. Some worlds even have advanced Magitek, such as space stations powered by magic.
- Shout-Out: The Record of Unusual Creatures have a number of references. The manhua adds more references in addition to the web novel.
- Below are references appeared in both web novel and manhua.
- When Raven 12345 gave Hao Ren something to boost his combat strength, she took out a small pill, quoting The Matrix punchline "This little pill lets you see the real world...", of which Hao Ren immediately calling the reference out of date.
- Raven 12345 frequently carries around a Zankantou (signature weapon of Sanger Zonvolt's mech Dygenguar (Dynamic General Guardian) from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation.) which she stole from some other goddesses, who occasionally come over to try to take it back.
- Kerbalians from the Kerbal Civilization Sphere. They are big headed little green men with an insatiable thirst for space exploration, a clear reference to Kerbal Space Program.
- When unlocking his ship's main gun's safety, Hao Ren realize the code was "down, forward, down, forward, triangle", which in most fighting games will make the character do an uppercut.
- During the battle against Amantir when Hao Ren tries to reach Salaman and his forces, he sets up a battle module with the button "F2" and "A". In StarCraft, F2 means to select all units and A means attack. Hao Ren is just sending as much drones as he possibly can to overwhelm his enemy.
- Below are references only in the manhua:
- When Raven 12345 mentioned that the number in her name is important, Hao Ren start thinking about Star Wars.
- When Becky saw a advertising board, she mistook it for a wanted order asks about what it is about. In the web novel the content was not mentioned, but in the manhua the sign board shows an ad for the author's third book Sword Of Dawnbreaker.
- Below are references appeared in both web novel and manhua.
- Smarter Than You Look: Lily. Despite she acts like a dog (because she is a werehusky) and always says the wrong words at the wrong time, she is actually very intelligent. She graduated from Peking University 4 times and rallied all the beasts on the Collow continent into a Beast Tide with her strength, intellect and immunity to Chaos.
- Squishy Wizard: Averted, the most prominent wizard character is Inspector Anthony Alfonso, a powerful arch wizard. However his common combat style is casting as many buff spells on himself as possible and smashing any enemy with a spiked club. He also worships the Dark Valkyrie Bryndis, a goddess that usually only warriors skilled in brutal melee would worship.
- Success Through Insanity: In the L'Harrone arc, while everyone was stuck in Rheia's dream, Noobie was completely immune from it as she is a chaotic being and completely insane. This allows Hao Ren to use her to realize that this is a dream.
- Suicide Attack: The plan of Goddess of Creation. She built the Engine of Creation which can "delete" things with the "God" attribute in her universe, which include the Mad Lord, the Goddess of Annihilation, and herself. Using it will completely destroy the Goddess of Annihilation, the Mad Lord and herself in the process. This is the only way she thought that can work before Hao Ren come in.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Many of them, considering playing many things straight in order to be Played for Laughs is one of the theme of the novel.
- Despite being nearly superhuman and have magical capability, Demon hunters are still creatures that need to eat and live. Thus besides spending time hunting supernatural creatures, they also have to work mundane jobs for money and a place to stay, especially for those who are stationed away from their headquarter in the North Pole. This is first implied when they argue over who to attack Hao Ren since his shield disables the Demon hunters' crossbows' Bottomless Magazines, since they probably need to make their own crossbow bolts.
- Above is explored further when Hao Ren and Vivian meet the "reformed" Demon hunters again. In the first time they meet each other as supernatural creatures and Demon hunters. During the second time they met, Hao Ren finds out that two of the Demon hunters that attacked them are actually working at an electronic stores, one is a clerk while the other is a manager. One of them actually worked at a nearby cloth shop, but since Raven 12345 took them away to teach them a lesson for so long she likely lost her job there.
- Captain 883 raced against another cargo ship while leaving the space port. Although he won the race, he immediately puts himself in solitary confinement and prepares to pay the fines because racing another ship outside of a busy port while on an official mission carrying a VIP would probably break many rules.
- Throw the Book at Them: The weapon of the Dark Valkyrie Brynis, the "mother" of Rheia is a book used to hit people with. It is reinforced with rams and chains to be used as a flail.
- Vampires Are Rich: Averted with Vivian, she is extremely poor, have spent festive nights in caves eating rats, always loose money, and anyone who offers her help or partners up with her in business will bankrupt. This is because she embodies the malevolence of poverty
- Played straight with the vampires in the Fortress of Shadows. The vampire families own businesses and earn much wealth. The Lucas family use it to party. The Hessiana family use it to stockpile weapons.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Sirens, as elemental creatures essentially made out of water, are capable of forming themselves into the shape and color of anything. They typically stay in their mermaid form, but can transform into a human, various sea creatures such as sea snakes, fishes, mantis shrimps or anything in the ocean, from rocks, seaweeds and natural objects to man-made objects such as anchors, torpedos or entire ships.
- Zerg Rush: Hao Ren's combat strategy after he sets up his drone clusters in the Plane of Dreams. His drone clusters can exponentially multiply, and Hao Ren uses this advantage to swarm any of his enemies with sheer numbers.
