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11 The Web Novel
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33 Lord of Mysteries adapts the bestselling Chinese web novel of the same name by Cuttlefish That Loves Diving (爱潜水的乌贼). The novel was serialised on the Qidian platform from April 2018 to May 2020 and runs to 1,394 chapters in its main run, plus a spin-off sequel Circle of Inevitability (一世之尊 / 宿命之环) that takes place generations later in the same universe.
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55 The novel mixes Victorian-era industrial-revolution aesthetics, steampunk technology, occult ritual magic, Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and Chinese xuanhuan (mystic / cultivation) progression frames. Its English fan translations on Webnovel and various community sites racked up tens of millions of reads and built a dedicated international audience well before the game adaptation was announced.
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77 Author
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99 Cuttlefish That Loves Diving (爱潜水的乌贼) is a 'Platinum' tier author at China Literature Group / Qidian, the company that owns the rights to the franchise. He has consulted on the game adaptation and has been featured in promotional dev diaries in his Mr. Fool persona. The author retains creative oversight on canonical lore, particularly around Klein Moretti and the structure of the 22 Pathways.
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1111 What the Game Adapts
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1313 The game keeps the novel's core worldbuilding intact:
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1515 The 22 standard Pathways and the 10-Sequence ladder from Sequence 9 to Sequence 0.
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1717 The Acting Method and the role of acting in safely digesting Beyonder potions.
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1919 Rituals and mysticism including divination, telepathy, hypnosis, and high-Sequence Beyonder powers.
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2121 The kingdom of Loen and its capital Backlund, the city of Tingen, the Seven Orthodox Churches, and the supernatural law-enforcement bodies (the Nighthawks, Mandated Punishers, MI9, Machinery Hivemind).
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2323 Klein Moretti, the Tarot Club, the Gray Fog above the world, and the Sefirah Castle as the central canonical mythology.
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2525 The Fifth Epoch timeline, the Industrial Revolution started by Roselle Gustav, and the Northern Continent geopolitics.
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2727 What the Game Changes
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2929 The most important deviation: the player does not play as Klein Moretti. The player creates their own original Beyonder character through the Character Creation system and follows their own path through Tingen, Backlund, and beyond. Klein appears in the game as an NPC and as a recurring 'Mr. Fool' historical-vision overlay during the main campaign.
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3131 Combat is a real-time third-person action MMO system with dodge, parry, stamina, ability cooldowns, and group composition rules (tank, healer, DPS), none of which exist in the novel. The novel's encounters tend to be ritual-puzzle-driven with less moment-to-moment combat detail; the game adapts these into clearable encounters and dungeon-style instances.
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3333 Locations are reconstructed and named-canonical buildings are rendered with new floorplans suitable for an explorable open-world MMO. Specific game-canonical landmarks visible in the Crimson Test include the Iron Cross Street Market (a canonical reference), the Gandren Department Store, and an Evildoers' Tavern reframing of the canonical Diviners' Tavern.
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3535 Pace is condensed. The novel runs hundreds of chapters before the protagonist clears Sequence 7. The game's Crimson Test caps progression at the lower three sequences (Sequence 9 to Sequence 7) within a beta-window-sized session and unlocks higher Sequences through subsequent live updates.
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3737 Should I Read the Novel Before Playing?
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3939 No. The game is built to be a complete entry point. Reading the novel first will give you stronger context on the Seven Orthodox Churches, the Gray Fog, and individual NPC backstories, and will reward attention with foreshadowing references. But the main campaign explains everything the player needs in-game. Many beta players come in cold and report that the Acting Method and Sanity System are intuitive once a few quests have framed them.