Lord of the Mysteries

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With the rising tide of steam power and machinery, who can come close to being a Beyonder? Shrouded in the fog of history and darkness, who or what is the lurking evil that murmurs into our ears?

Waking up to be faced with a string of mysteries, Zhou Mingrui finds himself reincarnated as Klein Moretti in an alternate Victorian-era world where he sees a world filled with machinery, cannons, dreadnoughts, airships, different machines, as well as Potions, Divination, Hexes, Tarot Cards, Sealed Artifacts…

The Light continues to shine but mystery has never gone far. Follow Klein as he finds himself entangled with the Churches of the world—both orthodox and unorthodox—while he slowly develops newfound powers thanks to the Beyonder potions.

Like the corresponding tarot card, The Fool, which is numbered 0—a number of unlimited potential—this is the legend of “The Fool”.

Associated Names
One entry per line
LoM
Lord of Mysteries
LotM
Penguasa Misteri
Senhor dos Mistérios
Señor de los Misterios
لورد الغوامض
ราชันเร้นลับ
ราชันโลกพิศวง
序列的戰爭 (old)
詭秘の主
诡秘之主 (new)
신비의 제왕
Related Series
Circle of Inevitability (Sequel)
Recommendations
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My House of Horrors (13)
Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (7)
Throne of Magical Arcana (6)
Release that Witch (6)
Warlock of the Magus World (5)
Recommendation Lists
  1. currently reading/plan on reading
  2. Chinese Novel and Danmei
  3. Let's use our heads
  4. Best Novels I Read in years (Must read for you)
  5. Really Nice

Latest Release

Date Group Release
02/06/19 Webnovel c99
02/05/19 Webnovel c98
02/04/19 Webnovel c97
02/04/19 Webnovel c96
02/03/19 Webnovel c95
02/03/19 Webnovel c94
02/02/19 Webnovel c93
02/02/19 Webnovel c92
02/01/19 Webnovel c91
02/01/19 Webnovel c90
02/01/19 Webnovel c89
02/01/19 Webnovel c88
01/31/19 Webnovel c87
01/31/19 Webnovel c86
01/30/19 Webnovel c85
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375 Reviews sorted by


Loulaim
Loulaim rated it
February 20, 2023
Status: Completed
Dude transmigrated to another world with steampunk and magic after su*cide of original body owner. Novel about discovering this world secrets, starting with this su*cide... a lot of bloodborne/lovecraft/SCP vibes.

Great plot with a lot of foreshadowing. Great characters. Great worldbuilding. Some small (really small, trust me) downsides, one is no romance, despite some hints, maybe in the later books, another downside is sometimes novel is too descriptive about irrelevant things.

Just read any 5 star review for more details, but better read this novel, it deserves your time, trust me. Probably... more>> the best work on this site, thanks to this novel I remembered why I like reading. <<less
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Juviafullbuster11
Juviafullbuster11 rated it
February 6, 2023
Status: Completed
I can't explain how much I love LOTM! It was a bit rushed at the end but it's okay since we're getting Book 2!

Just like what the others said, it was a slow start but don't drop it yet. At least finish Season 1/Volume 1 before deciding whether to drop or continue.

Spoiler

There's no romance and I hope it stays that way!

[collapse]
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BarrenLord
BarrenLord
November 29, 2022
Status: Completed
After finishing the book, all I could think of was, 'Detailed' and 'Organized'

From the beginning to the end, every event and its corresponding chain-reactions were in sync. The novel is a bit of detective type and a little bit of slice of life type with incredible supernatural elements. It has a brilliant story.

The novel is a bit underwhelming, especially around the first ⅔ of the story. As a novel with mysteries genre, it failed to give the impact it should have given when many histories and mysteries were revealed. Most... more>> of the time, It felt like I just learned something NOT important. It was also a little confusing since sometimes many pieces of information were stacked up altogether (those parts were not well executed and was a torture for the braincells).

Many of the time the author intentionally gave false info as to misguide the readers and to make the story feel more mysterious; of course everything gets clear after finishing the book. Also at the start of each volume, the story slowly builds up momentum and releases it at the end of the volume. So people might find the developments slow in these parts.

I had the most fun when the war began. Since then all the important figures were active and most of the critical histories were revealed.

Some other aspects:

*Characters: Superb. Most of the characters had enough screen time for their development, especially the members of the Tarot Club. They had their own uniqueness. The villains are also well written.

*World building: It's a simple world with continents, countries, empires blah blah but it has a little twist to it. Its year is split into 12 months; 365/366 days= 1 year. It also has seven days a week. Yeah.. You'll get to read this kind of stuff 😶

*Power System: This is the most interesting aspect of the novel. Even though I'm a fan of cultivation system but the power system and power structure in lotm was cool.

*Main Character: This is what I care about the most when reading a novel. If the MC isn't to my liking then no matter how good the story might be, I can't make myself read them. Klein has become my third fav MC. An easygoing personality with a bit of humor. Take responsibilities seriously and has many other sides which I really like about him.

The Ending, though not complete, was great. Very emotional and impactful. An excellent and a deserving ending. <<less
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Vexsti
Vexsti rated it
November 25, 2022
Status: Completed
GO READ IT! Easily one of my favorite reads ever.

LotM is a Victorian mystery/dark fantasy novel with a lot of inspiration drawing from dark fantasies and horror like H. P. Lovecraft, Soulsborne games, and Assassin's Creed games; Gothic fictions/tragedies like Dorian Gray and Poe; travelogues and adventure stories like the Pirates of the Caribbean and Treasure Island; and a fusion of mythos between the Lord of the Rings and Cthulhu. Pretty much any dark fantasy you can think of, you'll find some of it here. I've actually gained a newfound... more>> appreciation for the dark fantasy genre after reading this novel, so I hope these comparisons can give a feeler for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

If you like world building and mythology, this is for you. If you're leaning in on a more simple story with brute force combat and action with an OP MC, maybe not. If you want romance, you will unfortunately find none of it in this novel. Either way, just go give it a try regardless.

REVIEW:

Solid world building, a lot of fleshed out characters, and interestingly written fights that rely more on wit, planning, and fantastical powers instead of brute force. Learning bits and pieces of mythos and history from different POVs while piecing them all together was a joy to read, and the author put a lot of thought and research into everything. The MC's story and pathway for the whole novel is set from the very beginning, and the reason for his transmigration is explained later on. He also assumes different identities throughout the novel, which is quite original and fresh to read.

The beginning is a bit slow, but it serves to expose information and set up the vast majority of the later events in the novel. The last 200 chapters felt a bit rushed, but everything that needed to be said was accomplished, and it was written very well regardless. The final arc especially was a sight to behold, and the main antagonist is very well written. The guy's not a flat character whatsoever. Any pacing issues were virtually solved after I re-read, as all the information I learned is comprehensively organized and connected. It all comes together at the end of the novel while leaving enough suspense for the reader to make guesses about what will happen.

I was also quite surprised to learn that this is the first installment of a trilogy, as it's rare for any WN to have a sequel, not to mention two of them. I will be keeping up with the sequels when they release. Happy reading! <<less
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Devourer of Dreams
Devourer of Dreams rated it
September 13, 2022
Status: c1400
Loved everything. It was slow in begining but once it catches pace at around 100 chapters, everything starts falling into place.

A well thought and planned story with amazing world building that one wants to explore.

Waiting for 2nd and 3rd book.
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cpzombie
cpzombie rated it
July 2, 2022
Status: Completed
It's an amazingly well written mix of steampunk, xianxia, and Lovecraft. The power system is pretty interesting and unique, and the fights and such stay interesting until near the end. The MC isn't so OP he can always do everything himself so he has to rely on others, and he does it relatively intelligently. The comedy parts are usually pretty funny, and you grow to like most of the characters. I wasn't really expecting too much when I went into it because of the "caring" and "righteous" protagonist tags (trauma... more>> from JP MCs that refuse to kill bandits), but it ended up being one of my favorite novels despite the MC not being my preferred type. He definitely fits those two tags, but there were only a few instances where that got annoying; even those weren't too bad (like questioning a leader of an evil cult to make sure he's evil before killing him, as if evil cults ever have good leaders). I highly recommend giving it a read. <<less
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introvertednerdah
introvertednerdah rated it
July 1, 2022
Status: c300
This is the best novel I had ever read. At first I hesitated to try this because I always read xianxia, thinking like I can't get used to western magic type. So if anyone who is afraid to try new type, don't hesitate anymore. You won't regret it one bit. My advice is to have patience until 200 chapters. Everything will unfold there. What I love about this novel is how we can relate to power/God system. Like it's happening in real life. E.g. How we worship gods, the angels... more>> surrounding them, and how people with supernatural power coexist within our society, all are logical. Another fact I love about this novel is MC is not OP (in my opinion), he don't have strong fighting ability at the start, he can only help from the back so he always use his brain to fight, pretty smart MC. He prepared well, planned well before danger arrive infront of him. So in fight scene, u will be amazed how smart he is, how cool the fight scene is, using unique powers u never seen before. I will read this novel again before the second book come out. <<less
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pigeonugget
pigeonugget rated it
March 8, 2022
Status: c1300
This is honestly my most favourite novel in the entire site. A world of mystery and intrigue, where fantasy and science comes together to create an addicting world of fantasy steampunk - plus the unique power system that involves consuming potions related to branches of Arcana that gives someone a specialised ability.
Nothing I can say will give this work the credit it deserves.
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Index154
Index154 rated it
February 25, 2022
Status: Completed
I really enjoyed the world building of this story which is something I rarely do. Even though the author goes into a little too much detail at times (and some things don't make perfect sense), I still found the main points to be very interesting. Especially the potion pathways, various gods, angels, factions as well as the overall history of the world.

As the main character grows stronger he starts to interface with more and more powerful people and slowly uncovers the truth behind important ancient events including the origins and... more>> plans of important beings. The pacing at the beginning is quite slow but it soon speeds up and almost becomes too fast. Towards the end it even felt a little bit rushed to me.

I think this is the first time I've read a story where the history of its world was actually interesting and relevant beyond the usual cookiecutter stuff like "it was stated in an old prophecy" or "the first demon lord caused the great calamity 100 years ago".

Compared to most of the "standard" novels out there the characters here felt mostly well thought out and have actual developments in my opinion. I have to admit that I'm not an expert on character building so I can't say much more about this. I can just say that I enjoyed them for what they were.

The reactions of the Tarot Club members to new developments and secrets were always especially satisfying to read about.

I would have loved it if the novel also had some romance or simply Klein opening up to someone. But you can't always have everything I suppose.

To make this simple and unstructured review a little more complete, here are some things worth criticizing about the novel:

    • The MC is so smart that it's almost hard to believe. It feels like he accurately analyzes every piece of information he gets and somehow almost always makes correct deductions based on them. I don't remember if this was maybe touched upon in the early chapters though. Maybe he was just a genius?
    • The story is very very open-ended, so much so that I'm almost disappointed by it. There is a particular extremely important event that is mentioned again and again but in the end the story stops before it even gets close to that event occurring...
    • I also didn't like the final 30 or so chapters. They basically just loosely retell parts of the original story in a new setting which felt really out of place and pointless. This made the end of the novel less enjoyable as well
    • The point that the grey fog is OP is valid but that honestly didn't make the novel any worse for me. The main character still often gets into extremely dangerous situations later on. Also, it kinda (?) makes sense with the added context from later in the story
    • Some of the abilities and explanations, especially towards the end of the novel, are rather hard to understand because of how strange their core concepts and rules are. The fights were still understandable though and the strangeness of the abilities made them more interesting to me
Final words: Just try the novel lol. And if you find yourself enjoying the first 50 to 100 chapters then it will probably mostly only get better as you keep reading until it falls off around chapter 1400. <<less
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RTTPufferFish rated it
February 21, 2022
Status: --
About 90% of the stuff that happens early on has a payoff, even if it's like 800 chapters later. Even the mentions of political reforms and bread prices and squalid pseudovictorian everyday life. While most of the major factions and players aren't known at the beginning of the story, generally everything that happens is the result of characters with well-defined motives trying to reach their goals, so you can look back later and say 'oh, so that's why the king did this or that'.

The author doesn't always go back and... more>> explicitly spell stuff out whenever Klein finds out something new, which is good.

There are some issues with the translation being verbose and using poor word choices. Going with literal character-for-character translations occasionally results in things like 'the scent of the steak made his oral cavity fill with saliva' instead of 'the steak smelled mouthwatering'.

Also, lol@ the guy in the other review saying that the story is unrealistic because there was no such thing as 'affordable housing projects' in Victorian England. There were actually a TON of them! That was, in fact, the primary way housing was built for workers by he 1860s. The standard organizational structure was to to charge well below market rent, aiming for a total of 5% profit. That way they'd maintain the buildings and eventually be able to build more housing; this became known as '5 percent philanthropy'. <<less
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Elementtx
Elementtx
February 13, 2022
Status: --
My favorite wn I’ve ever read. The story is good, but the world is what makes it for me. It’s refreshing to read after all the copy paste cultivation novels. It feels like the author actually put effort in writing the novel. Can’t wait for lotm pt 2.
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Adorable_arachnid
Adorable_arachnid rated it
February 8, 2022
Status: c1394
This novel to this day is one of the best fictional stories I read and am glad it was one of the first works I read when I was new to web novels.

The vast world this novel built, the steam punk setting, the cast of characters, the mystery of the occult and especially the power system are so captivating.

This is a work written with passion, dedication and brilliant story telling and to this day is one of my top recommendations.

One last thing I would say is that the manhua was... more>> a mistake and I won't hear it from no one :' ( <<less
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Zeusomega
Zeusomega rated it
January 4, 2022
Status: c950
Gothic steampunk visuals with some solid thinking into unique power system, a good simple read.

The pros:

it is book worthy, I mean with some reworks and edits it really would become a reputed fiction series.

... more>> It's got the mystery right, the logic, and some generic versions of comedy perfectly right.

Till later volumes it hardly feels stale, there's some unpredictability here and there that keeps the charm going.

Now the cons:

It fails to create any form of attachments to characters, any emotional scenes just feels off.

There are some crucial scenarios were the plot develops erratically, changes occur with long winded reasons which seem plausible but just not right.

Mc's daily actions are 10% plan 90% "coincidences", he encounters adventures on a daily basis which should alert him as he is already wary of similar situation but no, even when he sees his abnormal speeds of development compared to others neither does he or anyone else feel it is odd.

That brings me to this, MC's leveling feels like determined spots, it doesnt feel real at all, his methods aren't different from other geniuses but somehow he outpaces them. Without spoiling too much all I can say is he goes from 0 to divinity within a year or year and half, in a world where people take decades to reach the same.

There's no isolated incidents, each and every mystical activity MC gets involved has an over arching connection to the main world mystery top level god stuff...

This is the reasoning for his advantage over others, he experiences a what a demigod goes through in a century in just a week...

And this inadvertently leads to over stressing on how special MC is, his hardships feel mundane, where I am at now I don't feel much drive to read the next chapter at all...

There are plenty more minute flaws, technical and factual but I won't judge on those, cause this really is a good novel among the bunch of fast food varieties.

Basically for anyone looking for a good hero MC with western style world with grounded magic system and like Chinese conservative jokes and perspective then yeah this a bang for buck story. <<less
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Daoist Ghoul
Daoist Ghoul rated it
October 29, 2021
Status: Completed
One of the best (action) mystery novel I've read so far. I love how the MC build his character as well as the others with their beyonder sequence. Even though the starts pace so slow, I still immersed reading it from the beginning to end. I am looking forward for the apocalypse sequel and more actions.
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andreresaw
andreresaw
October 28, 2021
Status: Completed
A really good novel, very much different from what is out there with characters that have lots of personality that keeps one entertained every chapter. I'd recommend this to anyone anytime! Thanks Cuttlefish!!
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Ixcez
Ixcez rated it
October 26, 2021
Status: Completed
I would personally rate this as one of my most loved CN novels, most often CN novels suffer from having to push out daily chapters and just write as many words as possible to make money but this one is for the most party well written, thought out and different from many other novels I've read.

The story focuses on a pretty much everyday chinese guy who get's transported into a man who has just killed himself and into a what at first seems like a European country that has just... more>> entered the industrial age. Slowly however it is revealed that this world also has a hidden side that is based on a lovecraftian setting / Cthulhu mystery.

Then after entering this hidden world the MC starts out weak and for the first few hundred chapters or so it stay's that way with him overcomming difficulties by mostly brain and sometimes luck but almost never brawn.

I think the story is well written the world building well thought out for the most part and the pace though slow sucks you in. If you want a well written and engaging story this is for you but if you want a fast paced action story with a harem or romance then this is not for you. 5/5 easy. <<less
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saixranger
saixranger rated it
October 22, 2021
Status: Completed
One of the best CN novels I have read. It has good world building, very good characters but I would like to emphasis that it also is cruel towards the end of every volume. The start is a bit boring you may not know why you are being told about some things but that doesnt affect the actual story the info are used in first 2 volumes so no problem there. It has some ridiculous antagonists and I love them. Overall its was a very good read for me. I... more>> have read some parts of it many times especially the
Spoiler

coversations in tarot club, between Klein and Amon, Klein and Adam, Adam and Amon and the the mission undertaken by tarot club members.

[collapse]

It is a very good novel. <<less
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Aurerius
Aurerius rated it
October 2, 2021
Status: Completed
One of the most consistent stories I read. The idea of not knowing everything from the beginning and having "mysteries" to explore is refreshing. The world building is done well and the characters are likeable.

The cons of the novel are the slower pace. I agree with other review writers that at times too much unrelated, unnecessary and detailed information is given, that does not improve the reading experience by much, if at all, and instead creates this slower pace / slow advancement of the story. The additional information can deepen... more>> the understanding of the settings of the novel, but more often it just has no value for the reader (look at other reviews for adequate examples).

In conclusion a great novel that is just to long for its own good. <<less
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cnfan
cnfan rated it
July 13, 2021
Status: c1394
What is a masterpiece? THIS is a masterpiece.

Easily within the top 0.01% on this website. The story is extremely good and gets better and better as it progresses.

The story is so amazing and the plot so complex and deep that it will take multiple novels (at least 3 including this one) to cover all of it.

Also, it has some of the most memorable characters in all work of fictions I know, the author went above and beyond to give life to his characters.
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Darkn3ss321
Darkn3ss321 rated it
July 12, 2021
Status: c1394 (Fin)
"A guardian, a miserable wretch that is constantly fighting against threats and madness."

F##king Lit. A god-fooldamn masterpiece. This is the first novel series on novelupdates (out of near 100 novel series here + over 1000 novel/series read in total) that I rate 5/5. This series is a masterpiece unlike any other of its kind! It's regretful knowing that I'll never get to read something else like it again, but hey, I heard this is a trilogy series and the second part is coming out in Mid 2022, gonna be a... more>> while, but definitely worth the wait.

It took me some time after first finding out about this series before reading it. When I first saw the cover art, I thought this was the work of one of the many amateur Chinese novelists in fantasy fiction, and boy was I wrong. It's the complete opposite, this here just screams that it was carefully crafted by someone who knew what he was doing. You will never regret picking this up. No, you'll thank me and yourself for believing in me when I recommend Lord of the Mysteries to you. Go directly into the novel instead of manga first, manga (on hiatus since March 2021) is good as well, but clearly inferior to the novel (spoken from the perspective of someone who read till 64/64 of the manga before reading the novel). <<less
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