Hajimei's Secret Transformation Guide

On the deserted street, the streetlights stretched Su Bai's shadow far behind him.

He trudged past a 24-hour convenience store on the corner.

Cold light spilled through its glass doors and fell across his exhausted face.

He stopped by the roadside, unlocked his phone again, and checked the balance in his banking app.

"Single digits. Forget a ride—I can't even afford the cheapest rice ball."

The abandoned factory mission had entered lockdown, so the system had suspended online QR-code payments.

At that thought, he jolted and fumbled through the pockets of his hoodie.

His fingers touched a cold, hard crystal.

He hurriedly pulled it out.

The bloodstained F-rank Tier 2 Abyssal Core had remained in the pocket of the pants he'd worn before transforming.

He let out a long breath.

His entire hoodie had vanished during the transformation, yet this stone had somehow survived intact.

"At least it doesn't make everything I'm carrying disappear. That's surprisingly considerate."

He held the Abyssal Core beneath the dim yellow streetlight and examined it closely.

The faint dark-red glow swirling inside the crystal reflected in his bloodshot eyes.

"This is fifty thousand in cold, hard cash."

He swallowed. The exhaustion vanished from his eyes, replaced by the stare of a starving wolf that had spotted a fat sheep.

With that in his pocket, the three-kilometer walk home no longer felt so far.

At two in the morning, Su Bai reached Room 703 of Xingfuli Apartment.

He slipped his key into the lock and turned it twice as gently as he could, trying not to make a sound.

He pushed the door open.

The old living room wasn't dark. A yellowed ceiling light remained stubbornly on.

The television in the corner was still plugged in, playing a special overnight news bulletin from a local Xinghai City station.

"According to our latest reports, a large-scale conflict occurred tonight in the West District Abandoned Factory area."

"Deep sword cuts were found at the scene. Investigators believe an unregistered monster hunter was involved."

"The Monster Hunting Bureau has yet to release a detailed casualty report..."

The television was quiet, its volume deliberately set to two.

He looked away from the screen and toward the peeling wooden coffee table.

Two bowls of noodles sat in the middle, both completely cold.

One was more than half eaten, with a few beads of oil congealed in the broth.

The other was untouched, covered snugly with an upside-down plate to keep it warm.

That was how Su Xiaoxiao always was at home.

No matter how fiercely she argued with him in the afternoon, or how much she scolded him for being unromantic and clueless, she would still come home from her evening out and make dinner.

Su Bai stood there without changing his shoes, staring at the cold noodles for several seconds.

His Adam's apple shifted slightly in the shadows.

He walked over, pulled out a plastic chair, and sat down without expression.

He lifted the plate, picked up the large bowl, and began shoveling noodles into his mouth.

Even the greens had clumped together, cold and unpleasantly stiff to chew.

It didn't matter. Cold was fine.

As hungry as he was, he could have found a way to swallow a whole live cow.

In the silent living room, the only sounds were the news anchor's even voice and the boy gulping down his noodles.

Back in his room, Su Bai immediately reached behind him and locked the door.

First, he opened the top drawer beneath his desk and carefully hid the gleaming Abyssal Core at the very back.

Then he fell flat on his back across the narrow single bed.

He stared at the mottled ceiling while his mind raced through everything that had happened.

Tonight's first real test had exposed far too many potentially fatal problems.

First, maintaining the transformation burns an absurd number of calories.

He silently committed that rule to memory.

Before every Demon Hunting job, he would have to eat plenty of high-calorie food. Afterward, he would need carbs immediately.

Otherwise, if he passed out from hunger halfway through a transformation and changed back on the spot, he'd become the biggest joke in the Demon Hunting world.

From start to finish, this transformation was nothing but a money-burning system.

Second, the light show when I transform is way too bright.

That kind of attention-grabbing spectacle was a serious liability for someone who wanted to keep his head down and earn money.

From now on, he would have to take jobs in remote areas away from crowds, or work after dark.

Third, I have no idea how many times I can transform or what the side effects are.

Whether using this power repeatedly over a short period would cause irreversible damage to his body was another mystery.

But amid all those problems, there was one thing he could be grateful for—and of that, he was certain.

The destructive power of this thing is ridiculous.

Tonight, he had fought three enemies alone. The Tier 2 Blood Curse Species he'd cut clean through with one slash had driven even the official frontline squad into a corner.

And with that utterly unnatural power, he had killed it in a single second.

He didn't know how much time had passed.

Su Bai sat up and reached for the brightly colored notebook in the corner of his desk.

It was the book that had changed his life tonight: Magical Girl’s Ultimate Transformation Guide (Xiaoxiao's Personal Edition).

He found the folded corner and flipped straight to the last page.

When he'd tossed it back to his sister that afternoon, he hadn't looked closely. Only now did he notice a line of tiny pencil writing at the very bottom of the page.

The pencil marks were so heavy they nearly cut through the paper. Su Xiaoxiao had clearly added them in secret while he was out.

"If only magical girls really existed in this world..."

Su Bai read the words aloud in a low voice.

"Then a superhero could protect Hajige, right?"

"He works so hard delivering food every day. What if he runs into one of those Monsters while he's out..."

"That idiot brother of mine has always cared too much about his pride. If he were really in danger, he'd let himself get beaten up before he ran away."

Su Bai finished the last word, and his hand went still.

He stared at the crooked pencil writing for a long, long time.

At last, he closed the guide and slid it back across the desk.

His slender fingers tapped its cover twice.

Su Bai switched off the ceiling light and closed his eyes.

Darkness swallowed the bedroom. Not even a trace of starlight came through the window.

A question suddenly surfaced in his mind, one he couldn't make sense of no matter how hard he tried.

He still didn't understand.

This transformation guide was nothing but a little girl's wild fantasy. Why did its embarrassing chants actually let him transform?

Could it be... the one the will of the world chose was Hajimei all along?