Xun Ming's new book was called Chaos Gale, which Xi Yujin defined as a traditional righteous path power fantasy.

All literature develops along with its era; if something is too far ahead of its time or overly nostalgic, it won't sell well, no matter how good the writing is. Since this was Xun Ming's first attempt at switching genres, with multiple factions watching closely, Xi Yujin had to play it safe.

First, Xi Yujin scaled down the setting, placing the story within a single galaxy. These brief worldbuilding details might go unnoticed by most readers, but they form the underlying logic of the entire book.

In the world of Chaos Gale, a cosmic dark tide surrounded the entire galaxy. Chaotic shadows born from this dark tide ran rampant, destroying homes and slaughtering countless lives. However, under the influence of the shadows, the people of this galaxy evolved different elemental abilities. After sacrificing countless ability users, they finally constructed a Sealing Wall that temporarily protected the galaxy.

The protagonist was named Gale. Just an ordinary, somewhat weak, wind-element ability user.

When he was twelve years old, he returned to his village and mysteriously passed out. When he woke up, everyone in the village had been slaughtered by a mysterious figure. The only survivor, a neighboring aunt who was barely clinging to life, told him that the killer was a shadow creature that had escaped from outside the barrier. But she urged him not to hold onto hatred and just go live his own life.

But how could the protagonist not be devastated? He immediately swore to become the strongest ability user and avenge everyone who had died.

He went to register at the Ability Academy but was looked down upon because of his ordinary wind abilities.

When people heard that the protagonist was training to get revenge, they mocked him: "You? With your pathetic abilities, your whole village died for nothing! Their graves are probably someone else’s hunting ground by now."

Gale couldn't tolerate anyone insulting his dead family and friends, so he immediately issued a challenge during the entrance exam.

At this point, Gale was just a beginner tier-one ability user, while his opponent was already a maxed-out tier-one. Of course, he got beaten badly. But at the critical moment, Gale's abilities suddenly exploded, and he knocked out his opponent.

That was when Gale discovered that, besides wind abilities, he also possessed another powerful ability of an unknown type. He instinctively kept it hidden.

Despite winning the entrance exam, Gale was accused of cheating and was rejected by the major academies. Through a twist of fate, he was shuffled off to a remote, obscure school called Daxia Academy.

This small academy was strange. Despite being old and run-down, it had strict requirements for new students. Gale passed them all and became the only new student at this shabby school.

Little did Gale know that this was where he would begin his life of danger and opportunity.

And where he would meet lifelong friends...

—

"Isn't it weird to keep having best friend characters in books?"

Xi Yujin did some research and found that cosmic beings had serious misconceptions about Blue Planet and the humans that often appeared in books.

Most thought that humans were creatures with two arms and two legs, no exoskeleton, no thick fur, and skin that wasn't smooth or bouncy.

Regarding human gender classification, different species had their own interpretations. The debate stemmed from a riddle that appeared in Yongye's books:

"What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

The answer was humans.

So cosmic beings naturally misunderstood, thinking male and female were just organ differences, and that the real genders were child, adult, and elderly. They believed human gender changed over time, and most humans were homosexual since they only dated others of similar age.

Cosmic beings were quite confident in this misunderstanding. According to most interstellar evolutionary theory, binary gender societies were extremely fragile and almost never survived to the interstellar age. Species like the Flash Clan only survived because of their extreme longevity, while most races had three or more genders.

In writing, authors could either assign character genders based on their own race or use a "gender-by-designation" approach, which distinguishes genders without defining what they mean, letting readers fill in the blanks. For instance, stating a character was female without explaining what "female" meant.

Gender by designation was trendy. But thinking that human genders were divided into children and the elderly was too absurd! Thus, Xi Yujin briefly explained the human worldview in Chaos Gale: humans only have two biological sexes...

As he wrote, he ended up creating a separate document for Blue Planet lore: Blue Planet people evolved from humans, and each Blue Planet person had their own destined asteroid...

Nearby, Typing Machine No.1 was furiously typing away under his mental control, looking far more hardworking than Xi Yujin himself.

Feeling that one typing machine didn't seem enough, he modified the Blue Planet setting.

Humans once lived on Earth. Later, due to a series of historical events, they emerged as Blue Planet people who could live on stars. Blue Planet people could capture many asteroids in their lifetime, but only the one closest to them was their destined asteroid...

After casually making up the Blue Planet evolution history, Xi Yujin continued refining Chaos Gale's setting.

After enrolling, Gale discovered that the academy was very mysterious. The scruffy headmaster seemed to be a fallen prodigy from the previous generation. His scholarly classmate was the heir of a great family, and even the old gatekeeper had unfathomable power.

Gale was just an ordinary student, diligently studying here and stumbling into the mysterious world of ability users.

Ability users were rare, so battles rarely involved death. Instead, they used a team battle format called Sandbox Realm.

In the Sandbox Realm, each team has 5-8 members, positioned on opposite sides of various terrains. Each side had a faction tower, and the battle ended if the tower was destroyed or all team members lost fighting capability.

During the school tournament, Gale encountered various fortuitous encounters and somehow recruited all those legendary figures and classmates with mysterious backgrounds to be his teammates. From then on, this dream team swept through all opposition, aiming straight for the Inter-Academy Tournament.

Xi Yujin had carefully considered the design of the protagonist's teammates.

Because of the Fairy Tale of a Life and Death Romance, some cosmic beings thought Earth's best friends meant romantic partners. This caused readers to misinterpret other novels' themes, so he needed to correct this misconception.

Therefore, Chaos Gale couldn't have just one best friend.

He would create a whole group of them!

Close Friend A: A genius classmate who looked down on the protagonist at first but was actually sharp-tongued with a soft heart, secretly helped Gale organize the team.

Close Friend B: A sickly, gentle healer senior who frequently helped the protagonist, occasionally coughing up blood, but whose true personality seemed far more volatile.

Close Friend C: A rich second-generation kid who just wanted to coast through and would rather lie down than sit. Initially, he kept his distance from enthusiastic types like the protagonist but eventually became a fan.

Close Friend D...

Naturally, the dream team had female characters too and Xi Yujin carefully designed their bonds of friendship. Then, these young men and women with vastly different personalities and extraordinary abilities teamed up in the Sandbox Realm and dominated the battlefield.

At first glance, this seemed similar to the common revenge story, but Xi Yujin focused on character development and building team spirit.

Their passionate youth was filled with pain and laughter, blood and tears, and supporting each other all the way. The moment they finally lifted the championship trophy would be the most satisfying!

After inputting a thick stack of drafts, Xi Yujin began outlining Xun Ming's other three projects.

Web novels had actually been evolving toward more satisfying points and simpler prose. But this universe hadn't explored the potential of satisfying points. They'd just gone straight to AI-generated trash fiction. What Xi Yujin needed to do was develop different branches for plot-driven web novels to make readers realize that they could enjoy this too!

Traditional righteous path stories were the easiest for the masses to accept.

Next was the farming/management genre.

Travel was etched into every cosmic being's DNA, so farming literature was nearly extinct. But its ok, spaceship development was still development. Xi Yujin already knew how to integrate this genre into the interstellar environment.

For the remaining two projects, Xi Yujin chose the behind-the-scenes mastermind and the effortless-gains genre. Masterminds were about manipulating everything from the shadows, using brilliant schemes to control the entire world. On the other hand, effortless gains were an inevitable trend in power fantasies because no creature didn't love getting windfalls without working. Cliché, but popular.

There were other genres he could introduce later, depending on the opportunity.

Soon, Xun Ming's Blue Planet homepage gained several new works:

Real and Fake Aristocrats — Completed

Fairy Tale of a Life and Death Romance — On hiatus

Chaos Gale — Currently serializing

Starship Management APP — Drafting

House of Lies — Drafting

Million Gods' Wager — Drafting

Soon, Xun Ming's Blue Planet homepage gained tens of thousands of views.

—

Some time later...

"I feel like I've written enough... Should I take a break...?"

Xi Yujin slumped in his chair while Typing Machine No.1 slumped lifelessly on the sofa.

"No,  I have to keep grinding!"

Xi Yujin thought of Blue Planet's inadequate strength, and the sense of crisis made him spring up immediately. Typing Machine No.1 also sprang up with a whoosh.

"This time let's update Yongye's work... Canghai, you can take a break for now. I'll explain to the readers for you."

[

Reader's Digest, Literary Leisure Column.

Canghai: Today I had plans to gather inspiration with Xun Ming and Yongye, but both of them cancelled at the last minute, saying they had to write.

Canghai: Could it be... that I'm the only one... who didn't update?

Canghai: Hello, friends, any fellow authors want to hang out? Hello?

]

—

Reader Wenwen was completely absorbed in reading Chaos Gale.

It rarely touched plot-driven power fantasies because it disliked the Intelligent Machine, believing they had ruined the genre. Almost all stories used the same cookie-cutter formulas, with even the pacing and satisfaction points unchanged. When you already know that the protagonist will become the strongest in the galaxy, with everything predetermined, where's the fun?

The Ginseng Spirits had promoted their work everywhere as the light of originality, with 50% original content. Wenwen had curiously taken a look, but disappointment followed quickly.

The Ginseng Spirits used a fairly fresh opening hook, but some world settings felt completely stale, and some plot twists used phrases identical to those in other stories. That repeated 50% was like finding a fly in the food.

The overall framework was still designed by AI.

So, when Wenwen read Chaos Gale, it immediately felt different.

Xi Yujin didn't use the AI. First, he had paid 100,000 stardust for it, so he wanted to play with it himself. Second, he felt writing was a personal expression, so using AI seemed wrong. He still didn't know how this universe handled AI copyright issues. And with his reading experience from his previous life, he had enough material to write from.

"There's a... very raw freshness to it," Wenwen murmured. "According to normal habits, the first chapter should start with face-slapping, but instead it shows the protagonist still being looked down on after his village was massacred... It's strange, but interesting."

AI supporters claimed that AI had calculated the optimal power fantasy formula, and they just needed to fill in the content according to that. Some authors disagreed, but those who did usually wrote poorly, so regardless of what the idea was, using AI for power fantasies had become an unwritten rule.

But Xun Ming provided an answer today: even without following AI formulas, imagination and exciting plot alone could keep readers hooked!

A world filled with dark tides.

Humans evolved into ability users, divided into metal, wood, water, fire, earth, and mutated types... Blue Planet stories really loved the five-element setting.

Ability users utilized different powers, coordinated with each other, and achieved unexpected victories against strong enemies.

Wenwen had already read straight through to the academy team formation arc.

At first, it had been worried, thinking the protagonist would fall into the cycle of being looked down on, struggling desperately to prove people wrong, getting knocked down, and then turning things around with his cheat ability.

However, the academy was strange yet safe.

The academy teachers sternly lectured them: "One person's strength can only save one person. But a perfect team can save the world! The team needs you, but you also need the team."

The protagonist and his friends listened to the scolding with their heads hung low. Even though this was a setback for the protagonist, Wenwen didn't feel unsatisfied. Instead, the protagonist's growth felt traceable, and more like a real person.

That's right. Words written by living beings naturally had more soul than AI!

In the story, the protagonist and his group resolved misunderstandings through various difficulties. They gradually became willing to trust each other with their backs and experienced the benefits of trust. Even during grueling training, they gritted their teeth and refused to let go of each other's hands...

Wenwen felt a warmth in its heart.

Its species didn't have schools, but it had learned about human schools from the Fairy Tale of a Life and Death Romance. It was a place where young beings gathered to receive knowledge from professionals while developing the purest bonds of friendship.

Though it was only a minor training session rather than a heart-pounding battle, Wenwen felt a shiver of electricity. Reading the protagonist hold his teammate's hand to keep his promise, even while unconscious, felt like suddenly finding a guiding star in the absolute darkness of space.

And when the protagonist suddenly had a flash of brilliance and figured out a solution, he led everyone step by step out of difficulty. Soon, everyone was hugging in celebration, which made Wenwen feel more excited than if the protagonist had blown up an entire galaxy.

An individual’s effort shines like a star.

But a group of people working together toward the same goal was as dazzling as the entire starry night sky.

Ah! Wenwen wanted to cry too! This was the protagonist's dream team! They absolutely had to stay together! They would definitely win in the end!

The plot progressed to Daxia Academy entering the preliminary round of the Inter-Academy Tournament, facing off against a third-rate academy.

Daxia Academy's dream team shocked all spectators from their very first move. Wenwen got excited too! Their dream team still had so much they hadn't shown yet. Once they revealed their full strength, they'd definitely shock the entire galaxy!

But after this preliminary round, Xun Ming didn't describe Daxia Academy's celebration party. Instead, he wrote about the atmosphere at the third-rate academy after the match.

It turned out that the third-rate academy knew they were third-rate. They almost always lost in the first round of every tournament, destined to be background players. But losing was something you could never get used to, and the third-rate academy's atmosphere was very low.

One student who had only been on screen for a few minutes was crying: "If only I'd trained more, I could have held on a few more minutes."

Reading this, Wenwen suddenly felt something hit its heart.

It could certainly feel satisfaction from the protagonist's victory, but Wenwen related most to the supporting characters' defeats. Because most beings had to admit their own ordinariness. Most had thought, if only I'd worked harder before, maybe I could have been more successful.

Regret and frustration yet still repeating the same mistakes.

On the next page, this third-rate academy's headmaster spoke:

"We always think about winning, but someone has to lose. We often see the glory of victory but not the endless stream of losers... So, does being a loser mean you've gained nothing? Unfortunately, losers always have one less honor than winners. All we can do is learn to accept our imperfect selves...

You've all done great, but everyone go back and write a 3,000-word self-reflection!"

Wenwen laughed at the last line, then fell into deep thought.

Xun Ming seemed to be writing a power fantasy, but it felt different from other authors. Under his pen, it wasn't just the protagonist who had their own life; even side characters struggled just as hard.

And defeating a living, breathing opponent was far more satisfying than crushing a brain-dead one. Moreover, every match was visibly difficult, so the protagonist's victories highlighted his intelligence and strength.

When Gale smiled shyly amid his teammates’ celebration, Wenwen felt its heart melting.

Objectively speaking, in terms of raw satisfaction, it really wasn't as mindlessly gratifying as formulaic stories. But if Wenwen had to choose between the two, it would absolutely pick Chaos Gale.

That heart-gripping excitement, that catharsis of crying over things beyond the battles, no other book could match it! Dream team! You must win!

Wenwen opened the reader forum, wanting to share its detailed thoughts with fellow fans.

"I guarantee any reader who likes plot-driven power fantasy won't regret clicking Chaos Gale, because even I, who was biased against power fantasy, got hooked... Xun Ming is as good as ever at writing emotions and touching hearts through details. If I didn't know better, I'd really think that Xun Ming was some warmhearted big brother.

Setting that aside for now, Xun Ming's answer this time basically shows everyone that he can write plot-driven novels, and it's 100% original!

I have a feeling that he's going to lead a new genre movement, one with even bigger influence than the Landing flow!"

But a shocking post immediately caught its attention.

"Wow! Xun Ming's new book creates a new romance trope! One-to-many best friends! Place your bets on who'll be the final winner!"

That's friendship! This is a plot novel! Not a dog-blood romance!

But thinking about it, it was kind of shippable... The protagonist carries the blood feud of his family, gets healed by his friends, so getting together when they grow up would be pretty natural, right?

Actually... Wenwen has a favorite character...

Xun Ming, let me believe in you one more time!

Wenwen calmly added to the post.

Because of this post's promotion, many loyal romance readers also came to read, and loved it while praising it, though their focus was a bit off:

"Xun Ming really is the God of Dog-blood Drama! So exciting!"

Meanwhile, among plot-driven readers, discussion of this story completely overshadowed the Ginseng Spirits' serialization.

Academy teams! Ability competitions! Passionate youth!

Every reader was incredibly excited! They wished they could be ten years younger or transmigrate into the story to compete alongside the protagonist's team. They felt like they were growing and fighting alongside the team.

Some discussed tactics:

"Gale is such a charismatic protagonist. Even though he's still a kid, he's calm and clever on the field. He actually came up with that empty city strategy to sneak behind enemy lines and destroy the tower! Using weakness to overcome strength is incredibly cool!"

Some discussed power levels:

"The protagonist has dual abilities: wind plus chaos. In a 1v1, could he beat the senior's mutated light ability?"

Others analyzed the lore:

"Daxia Academy feels like it has lots of secrets. Everyone, pay attention to this character named Qiongqi. According to clues briefly mentioned in Ancient Tomb Code, this is part of their Blue Planet culture..."

While some compared it to Ginseng Spirits’ works:

"The Ginseng Spirits had created the Landing flow, and Xun Ming countered with the Academy flow."

"Both designed new approaches, both innovating from the revenge flow. I'd call this match a tie."

"But the details are so different. The Landing flow is only new in its opening, but the Academy flow is new even in its details. Team battles are so compelling, and everyone in them is so great. Now I can't stand those protagonists who fight alone; they seem so stupid."

"In terms of development potential, I think the Academy flow completely beats the Landing flow. Landing stories always run out of steam later on, with power levels inflating crazily. But Academy stories can come up with different battle formats. I just wonder how Xun Ming will write it. Did he really use to write romance novels?"

—

The Flying Duck Chamber of Commerce and the Ginseng Spirits held another emergency meeting.

The Ginseng Spirits read Chaos Gale over and over, trying to find the expected power fantasy formula, yet there wasn't one! But even so, everything connected so naturally. The more they read, the more they wished they had abilities so they could compete too!

"Our popularity should hold for a while longer... Damn it, why did the assassination plan fail?"

Suddenly, a notification chimed.

But on the forums, no one was discussing the Original Pentagram anymore.

It turned out that Yongye had updated! The new chapter was another long case, The Nursery Rhyme Murder Case, which came with a note:

"I offer this humble work in response to a friend's invitation. Apologies for the delay."

Right! Xun Ming not only called out the Ginseng Spirits, but also mocked Yongye and Canghai...

Was this... internal drama in Blue Planet's literary world?