50+ High Quality Novels.... more>>

read untranslated novels using ChatGPT, superior to Mtl. <<less

This is it, yal already know... more>>

Webnovels: f*ck WEBNOVEL, sh*t ASS SITE, PIRACY W

Shadow s*ave: "I can't believe I am still finding good novels to read. This is one of the best novels I've ever read and is incredibly well written. Deep plot, good apocalypse setting, characters are incredibly lifelike, real emotion. Solo leveling but done so much better in a sense. Enough said." #1.5

Paragon of Sin: "Very very very very good. MC is cool, not very generic, a different feeling all together while still being a cultivation ln. Enough said." #0.5

Birth of the Demonic Sword: "Falls off at the end but rly cool, dark, and powerful mc. Enough said." #10.5

Divine Emperor of Death: "Man has cheats but somehow it doesn't take away from the overall story. Harem as well. Enough said."   #18.5

Blood Warlock: Succubus Partner in the Apocalypse: "Very similar to God and Devil in the beginning but then changes for the worst, it feels like a self-insert type thing. Also the mc is brainless and s*upidly op. Enough Said." #26.5

Chao's Heir: "From the same author of BotDS and it greatly dissapoints. There's so much things wrong with this one that it would take me a day to get into the details. Do not read. Only s*upid ass webnovel ppl would read this, the reviews were probably botted too. I can't believe its the same author, dude must've been going threw something idk. Enough said." #40.5 <<less

A list of memorable stories I read on novelupdates that covers mostly survival stories, reincarnation in non-human beings, second chances in other worlds and novels that felt unique in some way.... more>>

More often than not, stories I included had some grim parts to them. Where I find it necessary, I'll put a warning. 

Some stories are simply positive. Not everything needs to be dark. <<less

This list contains novels where the Main Character starts out normal or seemingly normal to a deranged or twisted or distorted person in terms of personality, ideals, morality, actions. ... more>>

Some where the MC's normal desires such as "protecting family" is distorted and warped in to the extremes.

Some where the MC starts out already as a bit outside a normal person and gets more and more distorted through the progress of the novel.

Some where the MC starts out as a normal person and ends up completely twisted and warped.

MC's can end up as either righteous, evil, antihero, etc but the character distortion is where this list focuses on.

If there is no english translation, I'll add a link in the comments. Btw this list is made from the novels I have read and I have not read everything, so if you have a novel that I have not read please comment it.

NOTE: Please note that the order has no meaning and is simply the order in which I added them to the list. <<less

Noice Novels...they are not in order

I've been faithfully reading webnovels (Chinese, Korean, and English) for 10+ years. The list is based on my taste mainly neutral evil to neutral good personality MC and decently paced novel with less fillers than the standard webnovel. Most of these novels are written by well-experienced authors. ... more>>

"Well-experienced" meaning he/she has written over 2000+ chapters of webnovel before the novel was created!

I don't like romance, especially harem in my action/adventure novels but I make an exception if the novel is really good.

Starting from tier Decent-, they are not in order because these novels are just "decent enough" to kill your time.

I would not recommend rank 1-15 if you are a newbie reader because it's gonna spike up your standards in webnovels.

If you think that the novel is worthy enough to be put in this list, then comment below. I'll check whether I've read it or not. <<less

Sharing several years of my reading experience.... more>>

I was slowly creating this list for about a year. When I've got nothing else to do I was gradually expanding it and that's the result.

***

To make it more descriptive and clarify some things I've put what I consider the main focus of the story under the 'Main Tags' line.

I've also added some comments to express what I thought about most novels that I've read.
As a bonus I've thrown out here some things that people look for or try to avoid like romance and mentioned similar titles that I've read myself.

***

Tags' explanation:

Mature:
FL - foul language, G - gore, E - ero elements.

Romance:

'No Romance' - nothing worth mentioning/mc is a loner, No Romance(?) - I haven't seen any, 'Romance' - only 1 heroine, Yanderes - self-explanatory, Harem - if MC is in CONFIRMED relationships with
several love interests, not a japanese useless one.

***

'My reading progress' line is a show of my 'sincerity'. At least I know what I'm talking about cause I've read it till cXXX.

***

Rating:

10/10 - Perfection (for me).

9/10 - Not 10/10 but pretty close.

8/10 - Something good/worth reading

7/10 - Readable

6/10 - Read with caution / Only 'Readable' under specific circumstances

***

P.s I've read a lot of novels (more than 200), so I've chosen more popular titles, or at least novels that I've liked more than others. So very few novels here can be considered questionable or 'hidden gems'. <<less

I like sane, smart and scheming characters. ... more>>

My Royalroad recommendations ~

-Fodder

-Castle Kingside

-Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4

-Ave Xia Rem Y

-Beware of Chicken

-Chrysalis

-The Red Lands

-The Rise of Lord <<less

Serious/Seinen themes with as less cliché elements as possible. Preferably clever and calm MCs. No harems, maybe one odd love interest but nothing frivolous. Negligible... more>> comedy tropes.  <<less

Overlooked and underrated novels that are really unique in terms of either characters, world, story or even several at once and don't have glaring faults.... more>>

Lots of novels are interesting at first but are destroyed by either insufferable characters or a terrible story. Not these. And if you know others like them, PLEASE let me know!

Bad stories and characters are everywhere, good stories and characters are rare, but truly UNIQUE stories or characters are unforgettable and THAT is what I'm looking for after reading hundreds of titles.

People often complain that many novels' characters are flat and fixed. Well, here they are not just really well written, but grow and change over time.

No reincarnations into tr*shy young masters, no sect branches that have bigger branches behind them with sects behind them with bigger sects behind them, no fighting 10 ranks higher enemies because MC is so special, no repeating the same nonsense again and again for thousands of chapters, no all-knowing MC on a rail to the next key-item, no arranged marriages and no idiots to be killed by MC for a back and forth of revenge with family->sect->kingdom->world againd and again.

I've read many hundreds of the most popular titles and they won't make the list because of mentioned issues, or are new and I don't know of them yet.

I made a second list with titles that didn't make it because of flaws but are still a good read.

Ranked in terms of being well-rounded and polished. <<less

For personal reference/rereading. Mostly plot focus & serious favs, with solid writing/characterisations/overarching plot. Any pairings (mostly bl/het), but not many harem/stallion novels. Mostly CN/KR novels for dialogue. Roughly sorted, many genres, no/low spoilers.... more>>

I prefer wuxia over xianxia, tragedy over fluff, etc. Some less serious/non-plot-focused novels included/marked for their definitive traits.
Personal genre/trait favs: comedy, tragedy, historical, mystery, psychological, scifi, realistic, mature, bittersweet, wuxia, delinquents, strategies/war, empire building, betrayal, food.   <<less

Chinese novels with MLs that are well-received in the Chinese community, meets at least one:... more>>

1. Rank highly on novels websites like Qidian and Zongheng (mostly QI)

2. Are strongly recommended on novel recommendation websites (eg at least 1k recommendation upvotes or at least 7.8/10 or 4/5 ratings with 1k reviews)

3. Commonly recommended on forums, search engines and blog posts (eg zhihu, sohu)

Notes:

There are novels that meet the criteria but not included like Lord of the Mysteries and Perfect World. May add them in later.

I picked the novels according to what caught my eyes (mostly comedy) or have more well known donghua adaptations (eg soul land, btth) so there may be many novels not mentioned

*Well received may not always mean good or well written, they may just be wish-fulfilment, OP-MC novels that generally cater to many, therefore, highly ranked. (eg popular 'junk food' novels).

This list is used as a compilation for me to ‘try out’. I will update my reviews if I’ve read something here. While I may not have read the novels, I may have read/ watched the dongman adaptations. <<less

Too little wives like 2 and 3 , don't count. I mainly prefer harem and polygamous novels as they are the reason I turned to light novels in the first place, anime,manga etc just don't have enough true harem endings, most just choose one girl and break my heart. That's why I make major concessions on certain novels to continue, as beggars can't be choosers. List is not optimized and places may change as many of them are close and the middle is hard to sot, there are a few great novels and tr*sh novels and more middle novels... more>>

, comments haven't been finished yet and I don't want to talk all day on one novel because I totally could. <<less

My reading list.

Everyone has their own preferences and picks.
These are novels that I read. Though some of them I have already dropped.... more>>

In order of how great they are in my view. 

Status: 

Read - I have read it to completion

Up to latest chapters - always up to date with the latest chapters

Waiting for chapters - update frequency is slow, tend to stack up chapters to read

Unplanned Dropped - Dropped the novel with no future plan for it. May or may not continue reading

Temporarily Dropped - Dropped due to inconveniences, fully planned on reading again

[Order is relative to this list and not the subsequent lists]

Second List: https://www.novelupdates.com/viewlist/6452/ <<less

A compilation of some of my favourite cultivation novels and some comments about why I enjoyed them.... more>>

The list is still unfinished and I have a lot more I need to add, so if you'd like, you can leave comments of novels you think deserve to be on this list.

Thanks >.>

*** Spoiler Warning for contents listed below *** <<less

This list contains titles I am reading or have read so far. I will mostly list those I like and omit the ones I dropped or outright dislike and put them in another list. I probably missed a few because I read a massive lot and can't remember every title ^^... more>>

The novels I have read on this site started mostly in the Wuxia/ Xianxia Genre but with time I came to read more and more KR and JP stuff too. As a result, the contents will revolve around the usual genre tropes so I won't bother with a long list of tags. I don't have a lot of expectations for most titles I casually pick up.

What I consider when actually calling a novel "bad" is mostly bad writing ability (author) or translation quality. Otherwise there are some things like excessive NTR, those mostly have horrendous writing/ storytelling anyway. There are also things I just subjectively find boring of course.

I hope the list contains stuff that you may come to like just as I did :)

[I have not really ranked the entries] <<less

No description.

Mostly action a lot of game elements just stuff I would recommend kinda ordered (will have to put more thought and wait till some have... more>> more chapters) <<less

On most occasions, I tend to read 1/3~ of a novel to get a feel of things. These are [completed] some personal favorites and also some to pass time. A small summary of the novel which may contain spoilers!... more>>

I started out with Wuxia and explored other genre like Xianxia and Xianhuan. Not a ranking list btw ^^;;

Jin Yong, Gu Long, Liang Yusheng... etc, all great. <<less

After reading many novels I reached the conclusion that (for a male at least) the perfect novel needs 3 ingredients to satisfy the reader without boring him:... more>>

1 - STRENGTH : Constant MC drive to Increase his power/strength via cultivation or other means. The greater the obstacles he overcomes, the hardship, and the explosion of his power after he strengthened himself, the greater is the psychological reward. Examples: I Shall Seal The Heavens, Against The Gods, The Desolate Era.

2 - BEAUTY : An unending series of beauties in distress, with saving them as the main motivation to go on with the story. The MC should not be necessary a righteous person, but he should have a soft spot for damsels in distress. The beauties must not necessarily become part of the MC harem, they just need to be grateful to him. Examples: Womanizing Mage, Ancient Strengthening Technique, Battle Through the Heavens.

3 - WISDOM : The MC must outsmart his enemies. The most cunning, the better. Battle strength alone is not going to keep interest in the long run. Scheming and strategy, especially long term grand designs and political ploys, keep the story interesting. Antagonists also need to be crafty to make defeating them a rewarding experience. EXAMPLES: Legend of Ling Tian, Nirvana in Fire, Transcending the Nine Heavens.

So the formula is Xianxia/Xuanhuan + Save-The-Beauties + Cunning Protagonist.

This is a list of the best novels of this kind. <<less

No description.

The cream of the crop of novels in no particular order. I'll add in more novels as I find them.

Thrash novels are too prevalent, that's why I made it easier for everyone and just made a list of in mea sentetia novels that actually do have great plot or those that stand out from their peers. These are the must reads. ... more>>

PS: Honestly just read Brandon Sanderson, George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, Patrick Rothfuss, etc. for actual good fantasy novels.

  <<less

Finding good fantasy weak(or not so weak)-to-strong novels is a pain. Therefore, this list has been made to help you find the good stuff without having to touch manure!... more>>

Individual reviews are work in progress. If you have suggestions, please give them, I need more reading material. I also recommend checking out anything by Vihyungrang, Andur, or LupineKing on Royal Road. <<less