Transform into a magical girl after getting off work

In the new setting, players take on the role of a creature called a "Fairy," tasked with finding Magical Girls in a fictional city and, through collection and development, assembling their own Magical Girl team.

The game added some management and strategy gameplay and optimized and improved the original turn-based combat, making a game that was previously not much fun finally become enjoyable.

But this still wasn't enough to make "Magical Girl Squad" a hit game.

There are many high-quality games out there, and stunning art or interesting gameplay doesn't guarantee a game will become a smashing success. Moreover, "Magical Girl Squad" was made by a small company, had been operated for a long time with hardly any buzz, and even a version update didn't bring in many new players.

What really made this game take off was a post on social media, consisting of just a few words:

——"Is this really me?"

Accompanying the post was a picture of the in-game Magical Girl development interface.

And the author of this post was none other than the famously powerful current "Strongest Magical Girl" — Blue Star.

As the captain of Tiandu City's Magical Girl team and the titular strongest Magical Girl, Blue Star's social media account had countless fans, with innumerable people offering support under her sparse posts every day.

It was extremely rare for Blue Star to update her blog, and her posting a game screenshot naturally drove a massive number of her fans to download the game. That day, the game servers of "Magical Girl Squad" crashed because of this.

Later, as some players delved deeper into the game, they gradually uncovered a shocking truth—the game's settings were just too realistic.

Not to mention the "Fairy," a creature commonly bound to urban legends about Magical Girls. The content about Magical Girl abilities and combat within the game was detailed to the point of excess. Even some who claimed to be retired Magical Girls declared online that the person behind the design of version 2.0 might also be a retired Magical Girl, as those settings were too real.

But if it were just that, it didn't seem like a big deal. There aren't many retired Magical Girls in the material world, but there are certainly enough that it's not too strange for someone to enter the gaming industry.

The situation escalated further when people discovered many characters in the mobile game modeled after real-life Magical Girls. These characters possessed traits of their originals to various degrees and displayed shockingly detailed aspects in certain profile settings, and many character designs were completely unknown to the Magical Girls' fanbase.

Take the game character Blue Star once screenshot on social media, for example. The character's appearance wasn't very similar to Blue Star's, but the set-up for her combat abilities and the details in her personal profile were exactly the same as Blue Star's. There was even a lot of information Blue Star had never disclosed publicly.

That's why Blue Star used a question, as she too was quite puzzled by this.

One couldn't say this was a privacy breach since the game never explicitly named anyone; nor could it be called slander since the Magical Girl representations in the game were all very positive.

It could be said that "Magical Girl Squad" completely circumvented the usual restrictions placed on Magical Girl works and, with a hand of "reliability," found a way to satisfy people's curiosity without risk of being banned.

From then on, the game truly became popular among the Magical Girl fan community, and based on these fans, it gradually attracted a large number of ordinary players.

So, two years went by with the 2.0 version of "Magical Girl Squad" operating in full swing, until recently, when it finally began to reach its original target audience—young teenage girls.

It wasn't just Jiang Yuan; in class three, grade two of Xizhao Middle School alone, several girls were discussing the game during breaks.

And Lin Xiaolu, a girl who wasn't particularly interested in games and preferred to lie on the sofa watching Magical Girl animations, also downloaded this game due to the "Magical Girl" theme, at the strong recommendation of Jiang Yuan.

After school, after briefly patrolling around the Luoming District, Lin Xiaolu was the first to return to the secret base and laid down on the sofa to boot up "Magical Girl Squad".

Watching the opening animation with an expressionless face, Lin Xiaolu snacked while waiting for the game's hot update. However, perhaps because the data content was too much, the update still wasn't finished by the time she had finished a bag of snacks, and she gradually became impatient.

Video games are such a hassle, maybe I should just watch TV instead?

She couldn't help but think this.

However, her interest in the "Magical Girl" theme ultimately prevailed over her impatience, and she waited until the game had finally updated.

Upon entering the game and reading a confusing introductory story, followed by a series of yawn-inducing tutorials for beginners, Lin Xiaolu finally got to play the game herself and started to experience how the game works.

Holding her phone, she first looked expressionless, then her brow furrowed, and finally, she sat up abruptly, baring her canines as she shouted, "Ah! So boring! I don't want to play anymore!"

She had originally thought that with the banner of "Magical Girl" and such hot sales, the game would be some kind of unique creation. However, after actually getting into the game, the sluggish turn-based combat and the complex skill data instantly drained all her enthusiasm.

Tossing her phone aside, she picked up the remote and turned on the TV, flipping casually to her favorite animation channel from usual days, only to discover that today they were broadcasting a program she didn't like much, making her feel even more bored.

With no choice left, she reluctantly picked up her phone again and continued her gaming journey with a look of reluctance.

After fighting through the beginner levels with the most basic team, and enduring a storyline that couldn't get her remotely excited, finally, the system informed Lin Xiaolu: she could discover a new Magical Girl.

They say it's assembling a team, but in the game, it's actually just drawing cards, something that seems to have become an industry standard in mobile games, so Lin Xiaolu didn't give it much thought and followed the prompts to enter the game's draw pool.

Then, her gaze was caught by the cover of the latest card pool.

The card pool cover featured a Magical Girl dressed in a purple-red bubble dress, with a slightly shy expression, but also inexplicably resolute, in her hands.

The Magical Girl was holding something that looked like a notebook but was referred to as a "Spiritual Equipment" in the game, apparently corresponding to the Magical Gear of a Magical Girl in the real world.

This appeared to be a newly implemented character, with the card pool named "Nostalgic Reappearance." The code name of the Magical Girl on the cover was "Altair," and the edge of the cover's image was inscribed with the fine text: "Blossoming Magic Power, to protect the unfulfilled longings," such words of endearment.

For some reason, Lin Xiaolu felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity with this Magical Girl; clearly, she didn't recognize the person—a seemingly ordinary illustration of a character from a picture book—yet she still felt she had seen her somewhere before.

This feeling of familiarity ultimately was fleeting, quickly disappearing without a trace, and upon looking at the cover's Magical Girl again, that strange feeling was gone from her heart.

Since it was just a game, Lin Xiaolu chalked these sensations up to her imagination and quickly pushed them aside, following the newbie tutorial's guidance to the beginners' exclusive card pool. Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire

Then, with a heart inexplicably excited, she tapped the "Assemble Team" button.