  We present optical spectroscopic and photometric observations of the nearby
type Ic supernova (SN Ic) SN 2014L. This SN was discovered by the Tsinghua-NAOC
Transient Survey (TNTS) in the nearby type-Sc spiral galaxy M99 (NGC 4254).
Fitting to the early-time light curve indicates that SN 2014L was detected at
only a few hours after the shock breakout, and it reached a peak brightness of
$M_{\rm V} = -17.73 \pm 0.28$ mag ($L= [2.06\pm 0.50] \times 10^{42}$ erg
s$^{-1}$) approximately 13 days later. SN 2014L shows a close resemblance to SN
2007gr in the photometric evolution, while it shows stronger absorption
features of intermediate-mass elements (especially \CaII) in the early-time
spectra. Based on simple modeling of the observed light curves, we derived the
mass of synthesized $^{56}$Ni as $M_{\rm Ni} = 0.075 \pm 0.025 M_{\odot}$, and
the mass and total energy of the ejecta as $M_{\rm ej} = 1.00 \pm 0.20 M_\odot$
and $E_{\rm ej}=1.45\pm0.25$ foe, respectively. Given these typical explosion
parameters, the early detection, and the extensive observations, we suggest
that SN 2014L could be a template sample for the investigation of SNe Ic.
