Before you read:
This novel was renamed "Honkai: Star Rail: When the Stars of the Xianzhou Shine" in January 2025. Platform mechanics mean the titles may differ.
If you only want to see HoYoverse characters steamroll everything, only want romance, or only want to follow the game's main storyline, this isn't for you.
This novel contains extensive original plotlines, personal interpretations of canon characters, such as the High-Cloud Quintet, Zandar, and Polka Kakamond, and a few Paradox Interactive elements. You don't need to have played their games to follow along.
The story has two timelines. In his current life, the protagonist is a diviner during the High-Cloud Quintet era, eight hundred years before the game's main storyline. Jingliu is the sole romantic lead; her affection starts maxed out, but the romance is a slow burn.
In his previous life, he was the Xianzhou Marshal. That timeline contains no romance.
I recommend not skipping chapters. Both timelines contain plenty of foreshadowing, and you probably won't understand what's happening if you skip ahead.
If you take issue with the setting, technology, or power levels, please check the first chapter's publication date: October 28, 2023. The outline was established before the literary calamity and the omniscient domain existed. By May 2024, I was already writing about Zandar wanting to kill Nous...
Lastly, for returning readers, the Marshal timeline covers chapters 13-22, 51-72, 126-160, and 220-297. Everything else is everyday romance.
All illustrations in this novel are by artist @Wutong Wu. This amazing artist drew so many pictures for this novel for free, sob sob sob.
Character illustrations appear in the following chapters: Xianyu, 1; Matthias, 131; Daiyang, 133; Chanzhen, 145; Guanliang, 222; Zandar, 231; the couple embracing, 316; the proposal, 336.
Please don't edit or reupload any of the pictures. Let's just enjoy them ourselves (˃ ⌑ ˂ഃ )
As a chosen one reincarnated into another world, Xianyu had no grand ambitions.
Power, fame-he wanted none of it.
Just thinking about all the trouble he would face in a position of authority left him exhausted, body and soul.
It felt as though he had spent thousands of years working in his previous life.
That inexplicable exhaustion left Xianyu wanting nothing more than to coast through life, slack off, and be an unremarkable ordinary person.
Unfortunately, the moment he arrived in this other world, half his dream of slacking off went up in smoke.
Like the legends surrounding ancient emperors, his arrival was accompanied by an unprecedented phenomenon.
The Aeon of The Hunt, who had been hunting abominations, suddenly appeared on the Luofu.
The Aeon's enormous form blotted out the sky, and the divine pressure made it hard to breathe.
At the sight of their Aeon, the Xianzhou natives were shaken to their cores and cried out, "Reignbow Arbiter!"
The devout believers were overcome with excitement and immediately fell to their knees in worship.
Some Outsiders dared not look directly at the Aeon. Drenched in sweat, their knees weak with fear, they knelt alongside the Xianzhou natives.
The Reignbow Arbiter said nothing, merely cast a glance their way, then hurried off.
But to the Xianzhou natives, who understood the Reignbow Arbiter better than anyone, things were nowhere near that simple.
The Reignbow Arbiter must have had a deeper purpose!
And so, great hopes were placed upon every child born on the Luofu that day. Xianyu got caught up in it, too.
From birth until his enrollment in the Academy, everyone kept their eyes on him. Every so often, someone would earnestly lecture him and urge him to study, terrified that these children might disappoint the Reignbow Arbiter.
One day, Xianyu came across an arrow at home that contained the power of the Aeon of The Hunt.
That single arrow, capable of detonating a celestial body, held a vast, seemingly inexhaustible power.
For some reason, the arrow rested obediently in his hand, as though its power was his to command.
In that instant, he nearly let out a piercing shriek.
He knew full well that if anyone discovered this, he would probably never have anything to do with the word "ordinary" again.
Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
Just as he grew desperate enough to consider fleeing the Luofu, the system every transmigrator seemed to get finally appeared.
The initially emotionless electronic voice let out a shrill, bizarre laugh when it saw what Xianyu was holding.
It laughed in fits and starts, sounding like a long-neglected machine covered in verdigris.
"I, hahaha, am the Game System-"
The laughter was deafening, loud enough to make Xianyu's ears hurt.
Its tone was eerie and utterly inhuman. Xianyu was afraid it might laugh itself to death at any moment.
Xianyu said, "...Stop laughing. You're scaring me."
The system giggled. "That look on your face... How fascinating!"
Xianyu asked, "Could you put this thing away?"
The system replied, "Huh? This has power on the level of an Emanator of The Hunt! Why would you want to put it away?"
Xianyu said, "...It's a huge hassle!"
The system put the arrow away as requested, then continued giggling without a shred of seriousness.
"If you don't want to use the power of The Hunt, what do you want?"
Xianyu shook his head. "I don't want anything."
Perhaps, to others, arriving in another world was like deleting their account and starting over: they would immediately acquire a cheat, stand out among the mediocre masses, and become an overpowered protagonist envied by every background character.
But Xianyu lived up to his name. He only wanted to spend his life in peace and simplicity.
Rather than building a career, he wanted to live well. A lover who truly understood him was something one could only hope to find, but having a few close friends to eat and drink with would be nice, too.
He had no grand ambitions, but the "Game" system bound to him was indignant.
The system casually made promises, boasting that it could produce countless Credits and Curios.
From the way it talked, any random mission could fulfill Xianyu's dream of coasting through life, spare him centuries of detours, and let him retire on the spot.
Its exaggerated delivery sounded like an opera performance, but its words sounded like a scammer promising a high salary to lure someone into having their kidneys stolen.
"How about the power of an Emanator of Elation? Interested?"
Xianyu said, "..."
Xianyu said, "Aeon of Elation, did you trick all your Emanators into joining you? That's pretty embarrassing."
The electronic voice fell silent for a moment, then became a human voice whose gender was impossible to distinguish.
It burst out laughing and once again invited Xianyu to become an Emanator. After being refused, it left him with the words "Returned to its rightful owner" and vanished.
Xianyu let Aha's words go in one ear and out the other, then began studying the cheat he had been given.
Once separated from Elation, the "Game" system could only provide the most basic features, such as an inventory and skills.
Where did this stripped-down, third-rate game come from? No mods, not even multiplayer? What kind of "Game" system is this?
Grumbling inwardly, Xianyu opened the inventory, and his vision was instantly obscured by a wall of items.
Raspberries, trash, Mora, a Gnosis, Artifacts, Marrow-Cleansing Pills, Intertwined Fates, Mirror Flower, Water Moon, River of Child and Mother Water...
Xianyu: old-man-on-the-subway-looking-at-his-phone.jpg
What kind of weird stuff got mixed in here...?
Xianyu couldn't begin to count the items. He could only scroll to the very end of the inventory, where he finally found "The Hunt Arrow."
As he focused on the arrow, the system helpfully popped up a description.
"Power personally bestowed by The Hunt, but this gift doesn't seem to have pleased its recipient? How could an Aeon with no sense of humor possibly give a satisfactory gift? The Hunt bad, Aha good."
Xianyu: ...Aha, say that on your main account.
For several days after receiving his cheat, Xianyu tested it with great caution, terrified that General Teng Xiao's people might jump out of nowhere and arrest him on the spot.
Xianyu: If anything else goes wrong, I really will convert to Abundance...
Fortunately, both the cheat and Aha proved reliable. Once the arrow entered his inventory, no one detected the power capable of blowing up the Xianzhou.
Fortunately, too, Xianyu wasn't the only Xianzhou native born on the Luofu that day.
Among those children were plenty of gifted talents.
Beside the dazzling brilliance of the others, Xianyu, who deliberately slacked off, wasn't nearly as noticeable.
Only a handful of people noticed him because of his rare surname and the utterly slapdash given name that didn't suit it at all.
"Your surname is Xian? That's so rare."
"Why did your parents name you 'Xianyu'?"
"It sounds so slapdash. Is it a nickname?"
Xianyu didn't answer. He only smiled.
Like an inconspicuous spark beside a bonfire, he quickly dimmed, blended into the crowd, and became the least noticeable background character of the group.
Under everyone's regretful gazes, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. Later, he successfully entered the Divination Commission with a bottom-of-the-class assessment score.
After muddling along in the Divination Commission for a few years, Xianyu finally mastered the proper art of slacking off and developed a routine of his own.
He leisurely entered the Divination Commission just as his shift began, then just as leisurely lingered in the break room chatting with his colleagues under the pretext of "making tea."
After chatting for a while, he saw that his immediate superior would arrive any moment. He and his colleagues tacitly stopped talking, and he returned to his desk holding his newly purchased insulated cup, which was smaller than his palm.
Xianyu stared blankly at the coins used for divination.
Before long, the Lord Diviner arrived.
Hearing those familiar footsteps, Xianyu immediately perked up and fixed his eyes on the coins.
"What? Are you going to stare flowers into them?"
The Diviner was named Xiao Lin, a middle-aged man with a full beard. His smile never reached his eyes, and his sharp gaze seemed to see straight through Xianyu's true nature as a salary leech.
His immediate superior first looked at the coins, then met Xianyu's eyes.
Xianyu stood his ground despite having no leg to stand on. The Diviner watched him with an unreadable expression, his tone equally inscrutable, and asked:
"You and that Sword Champion, Jingliu... Is there some conflict between you?"
Artist @Wutong Wu. Sob sob sob, declaring my love right here in the front row. What did I ever do to deserve meeting you...?
Artist @Wutong Wu. No editing or reuploading.
Before you continue