History Literature / TheRecordOfUnusualCreatures

Landlord, Imperial inspector, [[spoiler:Sun King,]] [[spoiler:Bomb-happy,]] [[spoiler:The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception,]] [[spoiler:Professional Grave Digger]] Hao Ren certainly knows that after the day he signed the contract, there is no coming back…

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The [[spoiler:Godslayer and World breaker swords]], both made out of [[spoiler:fragments of a universe and capable of cutting through space itself.]]

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, [[spoiler: Sun King,]] [[spoiler: Bomb-happy,]] [[spoiler: The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception,]] [[spoiler: Professional Grave Digger]] Hao Ren certainly knows that after the day he signed the contract, there is no coming back……

A ManHua adaptation (Chinese comics) has started in January 2019

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The [[spoiler: Godslayer and World breaker swords]], both made out of [[spoiler: fragments of a universe and capable of cutting through space itself.]]
* AdaptationalPersonalityChange: Captain 883. He is far more responsible in the WebNovel and ManHua 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 WebNovel/ ManHua 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.

* ApocalypseHow: Universal. [[spoiler: 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 Born]][[spoiler:or when the Denizen of the Stars come to help them]]
* CavalryOfTheDead: Two of them in one battle: During the Battle at [[spoiler: Spiral hill in the original version of the Collow Continent]], two undead army appeared. One is composed of [[spoiler: 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 [[spoiler: 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.
* ChekhovsGunman: 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 [[spoiler: 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]].
* CivilWar: One happened within the [[spoiler: Demon hunters]], where the [[spoiler: 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 headquarter]].

** [[spoiler: The Goddess of Creation dual wields the Godslayer and Worldbreaker swords in her first battle against the Mad Lord]]

* FantasticRacism: 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. [[spoiler: 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"]]

* HaveYouSeenMyGod: One of Hao Ren’s missions in the Plane of Dreams.[[spoiler: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.]]

* InsideAComputerSystem: [[spoiler: 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.]]

** "Hao Ren" has the same pronunciation as "good person" in Chinese

* NoSenseOfDirection: 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 [[spoiler: the civil war within the Demon Hunters]]

* PostModernMagik: Lots of these as much of the supernatural species on Earth are [[spoiler: refugees from the Plane of Dreams]] and thus as time goes on they have to adept to modern conditions as well.

*** 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 [[spoiler: Amantir]] when Hao Ren tries to reach [[spoiler: Salaman and his forces]], he sets up a battle module with the button “F2” and “A”. In ''VideoGame/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

* SmarterThanYouLook: Lily. Despite she acts like a dog (because she is a [[spoiler: werehusky]]) and always says the wrong words at the wrong time, she is actually very intelligent. She graduated from Peking University 4 times and [[spoiler: rallied all the beasts on the Collow continent into a Beast Tide with her strength, intellect and immunity to Chaos]].

* SuccessThroughInsanity: [[spoiler: 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.]]
* SuicideAttack: The plan of [[spoiler: Goddess of Creation]]. [[spoiler: 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.]]

* ThrowTheBookAtThem: The weapon of the [[spoiler: 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.

* ZergRush: 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.

* RealityEnsues: Many of them, considering playing many things straight in order to be PlayedForLaughs 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 [[spoiler: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' BottomlessMagazines, 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.

Started from July 2014, ended on March 2018, ''The Record of Unusual Creatures'' (异常生物见闻录)is a Chinese WebSerialNovel written by Yuan Tong

*** When Raven 12345 mentioned that the number in her name is important, Hao Ren start thinking about StarWars.

** The Aerym elves, after resettling to a new planet with the help of Hao Ren and his party, decide to set up a religion worshipping Raven 12345 in order to maintain social order and give hope to the people.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Averted, since gods do exist, and in addition to churches they are also at the top of many administrative organizations which are secular.

* AnotherDimension: The Plane of Dreams, plus countless universes ruled by the gods.

* ThrowtheBookatThem: The weapon of the [[spoiler: 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.

* ShoutOut: ''The Record of Unusual Creatures'' have a number of references.
** When Raven 12345 gave Hao Ren something to boost his combat strength, she took out a small pill, quoting ''Film/TheMatrix'' 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 ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration''.) 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 ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram''.
** 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 [[spoiler: Amantir]] when Hao Ren tries to reach [[spoiler: Salaman and his forces]], he sets up a battle module with the button “F2” and “A”. In ''VideoGame/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.

* Chekov'sGunman: 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 [[spoiler: 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]].