Here I want to talk about some web novels (CN novels) I like which are not yet translated or only got a few chapters translated. Most of them are Qidian novels. And since the people here don't like hardcore CN culture, I will limit the topic to the Western/Sci-fi/Otherworldly/Xianxia genres. These novels are different from the stereotypical level-up cultivation novels that are often seen on NU. If you've also read one of the following novels, you are welcome to throw your thoughts in. 1. 龙王的女婿 Novel status: Complete Translation status: Not translated Possible EN title: Dragon King's son-in-law Synopsis: A highschool student accidentally saved Dragon King's daughter and was told that he had to marry her. In order to be the Dragon King's son-in-law, MC struggled to explore the magic world behind the daily life and tried to find out the meaning of his life. Features: A light slice-of-life story with quite solid world building. The theme is based on the famous "marriage with Dragon King's daughter" of Tang Dynasty. The story happens in modern China. MC is a highschool student. The setting is similar to JP slice-of-life stories, some may find it similar to Seto no Hanayome, but MC is less beta and there's of course cultivation element. The romance is harem-style, but with decent development. Why I like it: This is one of the first slice-of-life CN novels I read. The first one was another isekai novel about a highschool boy went into a six-gates-like world to save his girlfriend. This kind slice-of-life novels reminds me of some JP animes I like. The world building is good and MC's romance is treated properly (though harem). An easy-to-read fun novel. 2. 一仙难求 Novel status: Complete Translation status: Not translated Possible EN title: In search of immortality Synopsis: A disfavored orphan found out in her clan's ancestral temple that her ancestor was a powerful cultivator, and probably so was her missing father. Refusing to end up a poor humble maid, she left her home and tried to become a cultivator. Her first mentor turned out to be a cultivator trafficker, which gave her a negative first impression of the cultivators. Her past father's best friend had given orders to find her and bring her back to the sect, but she chose to run away. Struggled with her granduncle, a low-level cultivator artisan, she managed to get herself into a middle-sized cultivator sect, where she finally found the meaning of cultivation and her true love. Her real adventure to immortality thus began. Features: This is one of the few female-MC novels that I can keep reading to the end. MC's early personal struggle as a lone, sensitive quasi-self-taught teenage cultivator-wannabe is unique and interesting. And her independent, self-driven and decisive character makes her gender less important. The author stressed on MC's quest of the meaning of cultivation, not level-up maniac or faceslapping or cruel killing, which also makes the MC's gender less bothering for male readers. The MC's love interest came out quite early and their relationship was soon fixed (no love-triangle or harem) and the romance was not the main arc, thus from the middle of the story you can regarded it as a couple's adventure story. The background setting is MJI- : weaker than the MJI common world. No harem. Why I like it: This novel is one of the few xianxia novels that really discuss the nature of cultivation: why do people cultivate? What does immortality mean to the mortals and to society? How does cultivation affect the mortals and society? What should the cultivators really look for? What does power mean to cultivators? etc. 3. 诡秘之主 Novel status: Ongoing (200 chapters) Translation status: Just begin translation EN title: Lord of the Mysteries Synopsis: Hidden behind the age of steam and machine were those in quest of transcendancy. Hidden behind the veil of history and folklores were the unknown whispers that drive you to insanity. A young man woke up in mystery and tried to reveal the secret of this strange world he was in. The MC's soul went into the warm body of Klein, a history-majoring university student fond of occult who was probably murdered by supernatural forces. He had to find out why he was killed and who killed him so as to save himself from a probable second murder attempt, for his unexpected revival had apparently surprised many. To protect himself, Klein managed to join the Night Watch, the supernatural law-enforcing branch of the Church of the Goddess of the Night. At the same time, he discovered that the rite that had led to his transmigration could bring his soul to a strange place above reality which made him a step closer to the truth of the deities and other supernatural beings. Features & Why I like it: Great potential. Fascinating story. Real novel. Steampunk + Dark magic + unique cultivaton system. The author certainly has spent a lot on the background setting and the plot. The author has also made it clear that his goal in this novel is to bring up the exciting reading experience of discovering a new world instead of simply hasty level-up and world conquering. The pace of the story is not slow at all though. Events came one by one, revolving around the mysterious death of Klein. No info dump. The first volume is just completed and I dare say it's the best one I've seen this year. No harem so far. 4. 一世之尊 Novel status: Complete Translation status: Just begin translation Possible EN title: Overlord of an age Synopsis: Meng Qi was transmigrated into a little monk's body. He then found himself selected into a game by a mysterious being. He had to accomplish dangerous missions across different worlds and survive. As return, he could obtain amazing awards after the missions. Meng Qi made up his mind to escape this imposed fate along with his teamates, but he found out that things were more complicated than he thought and he had to do much more to survive from the biggest conspiracy concerning the entire universe. Features: This novels is quite CN culture involved, but you can still enjoy the whole story without prerequisites of CN culture. The main plot is based on the Investiture-JW universe, with a meticulously-designed power-cultivation system. This is one of the few transmigration novels that actually explain the cause of MC's transmigration. The game mentioned above ressembles Terror Infinity but with original worlds. No harem. Why I like it: The author made efforts to tell a good story with decent logic. There's not much plotholes and the transmigration and TI-game stuff all have good explanation. The subplots are interesting and add up in driving the plot. 5. 仙魔变 Novel status: Complete Translation status: Just begin translation Possible EN title: Xian Mo Chronicle Synopsis: The MC transmigrated into a strange world of warrior cultivation. He lived a boring childhood with an amazing secret supernatural power until he found out that he was not the first stranger to this world. The precedent transmigrator has the same supernatural power and has changed this world dramatically, but ended up missing decades ago. The MC went to the school founded by his predecessor to learn more about this world and this mysterious predecessor himself. Feature: Great plot that keeps the readers in suspense till the very end. The whole background story is epic. There are two main parts: the first part was about the MC learned skills in the Harry-Potter-like school and grew up with friends. The second part was about the MC defending the country against intruders, usurpers and the monarch and finally discovery the story of his predecessor and the truth of the history. The power system is MJI--: wuxia with entry-level cultivation. No harem. Why I like it: The plot is attractive as a whole, with all the suspenses. There are filler chapters but the overall story is great. And the author is dedicated to tell a good story. The side characters are full-fledged persons who interact well. No stupid challenging young masters. The main thread is clear and compact. Some parts may be sappy but the fight scenes and war scenes are fine. The romance is decently treated.
Try your luck and make pick ups threads for them. Maybe some of them will be translated. The fourth one sounds interesting for me.
Can I do the same thing with Japanese novels? 1. 英雄の娘として生まれ変わった英雄は再び英雄を目指す/Reborn as the Hero's Daughter, Time to Become the Hero Once More! Novel status: Ongoing (450 chapters) Translation status: Just started (12 chapters) Synopsis: One of the six people called heroes, Raid, fought alone against the Devil, and ended up dead. After meeting with a suspicious god, he woke up again and found out he has born again as a baby. Moreover, as a daughter of his former companions. In order to regain his former power, Raid/Nicole has to go through a life of hardships to reach the ideal he aims for. Features/Why I Like It: The MC was an assassin who was a member of a world famous party that defeated a dragon. The novel follows his/her growing up after being reborn as the daughter of his party's leader and healer. It's interesting because a lot of the novel is him operating from the shadows and keeping his identity a secret from his former . He's OP, but only in very specific ways. It emphasizes that he's not that strong when attacking head on, and specializes in killing humans, not monsters. He/she also has problems because he now has the body of a frail little girl, and has to rely on traps and other plans that don't rely on muscle. It gives the MC very reasonable weaknesses while also featuring well put together assassination scenes. It's set in the same world as the author's two previous novels, Hakai Me no Yuuri and Half Dragon Slave Life, neither of which have been fully translated, and characters and references show up reasonably often but not so much as to take over the story. Overall I'd just say it's high quality in general. The MC is cute at times and fun to read about with complex motivations, there's genuine drama at him wanting to be reunited with his lover who's mourning over his death right in front of him, the fight scenes are interesting and creative, and the overall story seems to be going places. 2. ドラゴンさんのお肉をたべたい Novel status: Complete (124 chapters) Translation status: None Possible EN title: I Want to Eat Dragon-san's Meat Synopsis: Dragon Meat. That is the ultimate taste...! After being stranded on a desert island, Tatsuki obtains extreme power by eating a dragon's meat. Also he became a beautiful girl. A survival lifestyle unfolds. Together with a talking cat, Almira, she escapes from the solitary island, seeking unknown cities and foods! The more she eats, the stronger she becomes, the wild gourmet life of the hungry "wild god" Tatsuki! Will the world withstand her gluttony? Features/Why I Like It: To put it simply, the MC eats a dragon and turns into a goddess. The rest of the story is her traveling the world, finding dragons and other giant divine monsters, killing them, eating them, and becoming worshipped by the humans who fall under her protection. The MC is cute in a weird way. She's constantly running off and doing weird stuff, and is ruled by the memory of the taste of the dragon she ate. So when she hears about a city's guardian god, or meets a rampaging divine beast, her first thought is "supper", and her companions have to struggle to get her to stop drooling. There are many novels that elevate the MC to the level of a god, but I don't think any I've read has pulled it off quite as well as this one. The MC glows golden in the darkness, is so beautiful that she falls in love with herself the first time she finds a mirror, is wrapped in a gentle breeze, has a temple dedicated to her, etc. Later in the series they'll even circulate rumors that she has various abilities, hoping that the people's belief will make her actually able to do those things, and it works. It gives an odd and unique character dynamic. Overall, it's a fun series that hit right down the center of my strike zone. 3. VRMMOで妖精さん Novel status: Ongoing (950 chapters) Translation status: None Possible EN title: VRMMO as a Fairy Synopsis: Ichimiya Koyuki starts playing a new VRMMORPG after being invited by her sister. While at first she was delighted to randomly receive the rare race "Fairy", she then falls into despair. And while she picked Summoner hoping to get some cute furry pets, it turns out to be an unpopular class that is rejected by parties. A story where she decides to give it her best with guts and an attitude of stubbornly finding the merits to unpopular skills, even as she stands against terror that threatens to drive her mad. Features/Why I Like It: This story is absolutely twisted. The synopsis reads close to typical VRMMO cliches, but it doesn't really read like it. The story is a split between the dangers of everyday life for a fairy, and an exploration of how twisted and terrifying the fairy race truly is. It kind of forgets it's supposed to be an MMO sometimes. The terror mentioned in the synopsis mostly stems from the fact that the game basically scales the physics that affect MC based on her size. So being up at human eye level feels exactly like hanging off the top of a skyscraper. A gentle poke or brush that wouldn't affect a small animal of the same size threatens to break her bones or smash her skull like a melon. She respawns, yes, but the game has realistic levels of pain. A lot of the story is just her training and figuring out what she can do as a fairy. They keep discovering new weird or disturbing facts about the fairy race or disturbing abilities that she has. It gets really fucked up. 4. 本好きの下克上/Ascendance of a Bookworm Novel status: Complete (677 chapters) Translation status: Ongoing (82 chapters) Synopsis: Urano, a bookworm who had finally found a job as a librarian at a university, was sadly killed shortly after graduating from college. She was reborn as the daughter of a soldier in a world where the literacy rate is low and books were scarce. No matter how much she wanted to read, there were no books around. What is a bookworm to do without any books? Make them, of course. Her goal is to become a librarian! So that she may once again live surrounded by books, she must start by making them herself. Features/Why I Like It: This one's actually got something of a translation that's just finished the first arc of five, and is even moderately popular, but as a raw reader it still seems like it's barely begun. The rest of the series is quite different from the first arc and is where most JP readers really got into it. Starting from the end of the second arc it has some incredibly emotional twists that continue on for the rest of the series. I cried my ass off when I first read it, and I don't do that very often. It only really gained popularity in JP around the fourth arc, which is much longer than the ones that come before. In part 1 the MC is just a dirt-poor peasant girl, but by part 4 she's a magician and basically a princess, and starts attending what is essentially hogwarts. The MC is lovely to read. She's cute, interesting, and funny. There's drama that had me on the edge of my seat and twists I never saw coming. The last arc has huge action setpieces, and the ending is incredibly fulfilling, tying up every loose end except for a couple that are being addressed by an ongoing spinoff series. 5. 「「神と呼ばれ、魔王と呼ばれても」」/She Was Both Called God, As Well As Satan Novel status: Complete (93 chapters) Translation status: Slowly Ongoing (18 chapters) Synopsis: In the distant future on Earth, there was a girl with God-like powers. That girl is the last survivor of the former human race that flourished in ancient times. The Ancients. And on that very same Earth, a new breed of humans with the ability to wield Magic emerged. That girl began to observe the new human race silently. Sometimes called a God, other times called Satan, that girl continued to observe the new human race. This is the story of the happenings between the lonely girl and the hardworking new human race. Features/Why I Like It: It seems that the TL has progressed recently, but I'll list it here anyway. The style of this novel is unlike any other I've read. The MC is almost entirely passive and you rarely even see events from her perspective. Instead, you get a history of a fantasy world as it progresses from primitive caveman times towards the present. There are wars, breakthroughs, and near apocalypses. It's a story on a super grand scale that you get to watch from an omniscient perspective. 6. 賢者の弟子を名乗る賢者/She Professed Herself the Pupil of the Wiseman Novel status: Ongoing (270 chapters) Translation status: Ongoing, but stalled? (50ish chapters) Possible EN title: Synopsis: Sakimori Kagami plays a VRMMORPG called Arch Earth Online. He is a veteran player with the name and appearance similar to an elderly bearded wizard from a certain book about a ring. One day he purchases an appearance change item as a last resort to spend expiring currency and gets the idea of choosing what he would want to look like if his character was ever a girl. Falling asleep should have suspended the game, but Kagami wakes up still online and feels the game has has gotten a bit more realistic. Did Arch Earth Online finally get a long-awaited update? Or… Features/Why I Like It: There are translations of the start of this, but they all seem to be stalled, and many of them aren't very good. The fact that the MC talks like an old man is a fairly central aspect of the story, but it's hard to convey that in english without making the dialog read awkwardly. It's also fairly slow at the beginning, which is where the translations have petered out. This series is one of the best I've found at conveying a sense of adventure. It really puts a lot of detail into the MC's every action, right down to her going shopping or developing a new technique or talking with fans. The result is a very gradual journey through a world that starts to have an impressive amount of worldbuilding. It also helps that while the MC's "summoning" skill is fairly common in these sorts of novels, this plays it up and makes it feel more like a complete system than most others.
Ascendance of a bookworm is a really well crafted story. Currently rereading the Chinese translations and discovering plot threads buried eighty chapters ago. There are tiny threads for observant readers to piece together as well as supplemental stories that really flesh out details or explain why things are that way and actual reasons for why some things exist (IE. Noble's academy).
Thanks for the novel list. Item #3 looks somewhat interesting, I'll take a whirl in it (MTL, but I've grown somewhat used to it) after I've caught up with some other series I let drop for a while so that they buffer. If you don't mind, I'd like to suggest another Qidian novel that's really in need of a translation: 巫师之旅 Novel status: Completed (2100 chapters) Translation status: Hiatus since 4 months ago after a disastrous start at webnovel.com EN title: A Sorcerer's Journey Synopsis: “With my knowledge, give me a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world!” … Sorcerer Continent—a world where sorcerers exist. Wielders of arcane knowledge. Masters of all elements. Sovereigns of space and time. These sorcerers governed the world with their unrivalled prowess. One day, a young man awakened into this world with his past forgotten and no place to call home. Follow along as Glenn, by relying on his luck and wit, tries to survive and advance in this unforgiving world. Entangled within the machinations of fate, political schemes, power struggles and wars, he forges his own path and creates a place for himself Features & Why I like it: Incredible, multi-layered world building. It has a somewhat ho-hum start which may turn people off prematurely, but in return you get treated to some of the most human moments in a fantasy webnovel : horror & guilt when the MC slowly realizes that, because he gave too much well-intentioned help to a fellow apprentice, he's doomed her to a life measured in a couple of centuries rather than milleniums; crushing despair after losing everything he's saved and worked on for centuries to be followed almost immediately by near-hysterical laughter when the MC realizes a clue from the wreckage that's left. etc etc. I've never read a novel that embraced the MC's failures as much as his successes, or one that teases your imagination, touching on what's real and unreal, and making them the stuff of magic.
Have just read the first 15 chapters of Lord of Mysteries, I agree with the thread starter, it's quite an interesting novel. In a while I'll run out of translated chapters and have to go MTL it, but i think this story's worth it