Little Pink Starfish

Pei Sen truly wanted to return to the Arly Continent. The longer he delayed, the more he felt a mounting urgency.

What worried him wasn’t anything external—it was the fear that Eagle would misunderstand and think he had really “run away.”

I hope Aiken has already found the silver mini-cube. That way, at least we could figure out a way to bring Eagle over to take a look.

From every angle, the Era of Azure Souls was a more picturesque and comfortable place to live than the Arly Continent. After all, this server had a more modern background, with a considerable temporal gap.

If Eagle had a loving family, Pei Sen wouldn’t have kept him in his heart like this. He wouldn’t even be thinking of dragging him along on a “business trip.”

But Eagle had no such family.

Pei Sen really wanted to go back, but more and more things were piling up here… Yes, countless players were performing selfless good deeds every day. In the eyes of the locals, the reputation of the Bix tribe was steadily improving.

After President Chen Qingxu personally negotiated with the Southern Government, the authorities took on a stance of cold indifference toward these minority people from the mountains. For Pei Sen, this was good enough—he just needed them not to jump out and start arresting players at random.

“Your tribesmen have actually helped us a lot during the latest campaign to eliminate Azure Soul demons,” said Chen Qingxu seriously.

Pei Sen’s thoughts returned. “What about the matter I brought up before?”

“I can consider it,” Chen Qingxu replied after a moment of thought. “But I still haven’t seen enough of their true character in such a short time.” He paused. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll assign Chen Tian to work with you to create some opportunities. You can ask your tribesmen if they’re willing to undergo certain trials in order to become Azure Soul Hunters.”

The weight on Pei Sen’s shoulders finally lifted. This was the goal he had been working toward.

In the original timeline, the two classes on the Era of Azure Souls server remained sealed for a long time. Eventually, only casual and life-simulation players stayed. It wasn’t until much later that the Azure Soul Affairs Management Association decided to give the “morally upright” Bix tribe a chance that things began to turn around.

Pei Sen’s arrival had accelerated this process, giving new players an early shot at what would later become a well-documented trial.

“Great. They’ll be happy to,” Pei Sen replied immediately. “You can rest assured—once they become Azure Soul Hunters, they’ll be under the Association’s control and will fight the Azure Soul demons like all other Hunters.”

After all, monster-slaying and leveling up had always been the players’ favorite style of gameplay. Saying that the players would “dedicate themselves to hunting Azure Soul demons” wasn’t far off.

Chen Qingxu looked worried. “It seems like the number of Azure Soul demons is increasing again. We really do need more people to deal with this.”

Pei Sen didn’t respond. He didn’t tell Chen Qingxu that this situation would only get worse in the years to come.

No one in this world knew how Azure Soul demons had come to be. For now, they were assumed to be humanoid monsters that crawled out of the sea—but no one could prove it.

The original batch of Azure Soul demons had mostly been exterminated. The ones around now were very different. Neither the Southern Government, the warlords, nor the Association’s Hunters had ever told the public the truth: most of today’s Azure Soul demons were transformed humans.

Yes, it sounded horrifying. And it was.

Even now, no one knew what caused this transformation.

The Association had gathered a great deal of data. Most of the transformed individuals had never had contact with Azure Soul demons. They were just ordinary people who suddenly disappeared in the middle of their daily lives—no sign of abduction, no physical traces. It was as if they had simply vanished.

Then, days or weeks later, they returned as Azure Soul demons—mindless beasts driven solely by the instinct to hunt humans.

The Association housed many experts in Azure Soul demons, yet even they couldn’t figure out any pattern to the transformation.

Those who transformed didn’t share obvious commonalities. They came from different classes and backgrounds. While most were ordinary folk, even some from privileged backgrounds hadn’t escaped the fate.

Fortunately, the scale of these incidents remained small. The vast majority of people were unaffected.

In this already chaotic land, disappearances weren’t rare. The country had never been peaceful. Most families of the missing assumed their loved ones had been taken by demons—or killed during robberies or conflicts. They never imagined they had become demons.

There were occasional exceptions—cases where someone recognized a transformed loved one. But those were swiftly covered up by the Southern Government and the warlords. At the very least, the public never learned the truth.

When Pei Sen was still “just playing the game,” he had thought this was nothing more than server background lore.

“Just a game setting. No need to overthink it.”

Besides, some things in games simply didn’t have a reason.

But now, seeing Chen Qingxu’s genuine worry and stress, sitting there in his worn coat with a chipped teacup, living humbly yet anxiously for the sake of the common folk… Pei Sen couldn’t help but feel moved.

If this were a real world, and this problem went unresolved, what would the Era of Azure Souls eventually become?

Years later, the massive influx of players barely held back the rising tide of demons. “Disappearances” became more and more common. In the end, even the Southern Government and various warlords were forced to sign ceasefire agreements.

Population losses were too severe. It became nearly impossible to keep the secret that humans were turning into Azure Soul demons.

Pei Sen couldn’t hold back any longer. He asked Bix Magic Cube, “What’s the deal with this human-to-demon transformation in Era of Azure Souls?”

Bix Magic Cube: I don’t know.

Pei Sen: “???”

Wait, you’re the game’s creator and you don’t even know what’s going on in your own world?

Well… actually, it wasn’t that surprising. It wasn’t the first time Bix Magic Cube had answered “no clue” to something important.

Now that Chen Qingxu had given the green light for players to take the trial to become Hunters, Pei Sen promptly issued a new quest.

Ding.
Main Quest: Purge Evil, Hunt Demons—Azure Soul Hunter.
Azure Soul Hunter Trial: The reputation of the Bix tribe is spreading across the land. Although misunderstandings and prejudice based on appearance haven’t completely disappeared, Chairman Chen Qingxu of the Azure Soul Affairs Management Association, thanks to Pei Sen’s efforts, now believes in the tribe’s goodness and justice. He is willing to accept them as true Hunters.
Players who have completed the main quest prerequisite may now go to the Association’s headquarters or a branch office to undertake the Hunter trial.
Main Quest Prerequisite Requirement: Goodness Level 10 (Note: You must maintain Goodness Level 10 or higher. If it drops below this level, the trial will automatically close.)
Upon passing the trial, players will unlock the server-exclusive class and EXP bar. (Note: Azure Soul Hunters must maintain their Goodness Level at all times. Dropping below the threshold will cause class level regression or even resealing. The Goodness System freezes when players leave this server and stops tracking alignment.)
Let us, the kind and righteous Bix tribe, spread our reputation across the Eastern continent!

The players stared at the long task description. The slightly chuunibyou-style wording went completely ignored. After all, “being kind to others” didn’t literally force them to be saints—it just meant staying on the “good” alignment path. And that wasn’t hard.

Still, given how realistic the game was, some players on the forum had already started joking that after being “good” in-game for so long, they’d begun doing good deeds in real life out of habit.

“My parents thought I’d gone through something traumatic. Honestly, when I helped someone IRL, they were more shocked than moved.”
“LOL bro how terrible of a person were you before?”
“Same here. My classmates thought I had brain damage.”
“People in my country don’t usually get involved in others’ business. I’ve been so helpful lately, my manager gently told me to tone it down…”
“My neighbors think I’m great now. I helped them a few times before I even realized I was doing it because of the game.”
“The priest near my house called me a ‘good kid’ for the first time ever… and I’ve been an adult for years!”
“All in all, this is a good thing, right?”
“Yeah, but even after doing all this good in-game and IRL, I still haven’t reached Goodness Level 10. So sad.”
“How many people have met the prerequisite?”

At this stage, very few had. But one person who had worked hard and put in countless hours was 空.

Having met the requirement, he immediately ran to the Association’s headquarters, eager to begin the trial quest.

Unlocking the class meant finally being able to grind mobs and level up—the gameplay he loved!

空 had been growing impatient with all the Goodness Quests. He was about to delete his character and start fresh on Arly Continent if the class unlock system didn’t appear soon.

Luckily, the main quest opened at just the right time.

Since he arrived at headquarters and there were few players qualified yet, Pei Sen personally received him.

“Come, draw a trial quest,” Pei Sen said cheerfully.

Ever since the magic stone event, Pei Sen had enjoyed these luck-based draws.

空 wasn’t surprised and pulled a stick from the bamboo tube in Pei Sen’s hand.

The tip was painted gold—it was a golden stick.

Pei Sen blinked in surprise at the young man in front of him—a Korean, judging by his features. “Your luck is amazing. You drew the golden stick, and that only has a one percent chance!”

空 lit up. “Only one percent chance for the golden stick?”

“Yes,” Pei Sen said, smiling. “It’s a golden stick. Now you have three chances to redraw your trial quest. Each redraw will void the previous stick and cost 10 copper and 10 EXP.”

Yep, he was squeezing a little fee from the players again. But still, a fair one.

空 said firmly, “No need. I’ll take the golden one!”

If he had a one percent chance and still got it—only a fool would redraw!

“Alright,” Pei Sen replied with a professional smile. “You’ve chosen the Golden Trial. Brave of you.”

空: “???”

“The difficulty of the trial is based on the stick’s color. There are four levels: green, blue, purple, and gold. Gold is the hardest.”

空 froze. He quickly asked, “Then if the difficulty is different, does that mean the rewards differ too?”

Pei Sen answered with a straight face, “No. It’s just a trial. Once you pass, you become an Azure Soul Hunter. There are no extra rewards.”

空: “???”

So drawing the golden stick didn’t make me lucky… It made me doomed?

Why wasn’t this critical detail mentioned earlier?!