Transform into a magical girl after getting off work

"Haah..."

Purple Diamond lazily reclined in her seat, letting out a long yawn. She carelessly glanced at the projection screen not far away, quickly losing interest and muttering softly, "Boring."

The assessment had already entered the mid-to-late stages. The leading candidates were venturing deep into the secret passages, searching for so-called "maze nodes"; the trailing teams were not to be outdone, desperately hunting for new puzzles. The maze, once filled with various conflicts, was unexpectedly tranquil at this moment—most candidates were focused on advancing, with few clashes taking place.

This situation naturally caused the guests on the external viewing platform to lose their focus, with a temporary lull in interest. Watching the puzzle-solving process was fresh and exciting the first few times, but after the initial few teams, almost no one, apart from the examiners who set the questions, was interested in the content of these puzzles anymore.

For a moment, the remaining scenes on the projection were nothing but the monotonous footage of a few leading teams on their journey.

Among them was the remarkably impressive Team 277. In fact, due to the outstanding achievements of the team led by Tu Dinggui, Team 277 had become a focal point of the projection. Even when she wasn't doing anything, merely returning from a node, the screen would occasionally cut back to this team.

However, few guests found this surprising, after all, "Blue Star" was a well-known name in the Magic Kingdom. Since the unexpected fall of the former strongest Flower Card "Ying," she, as the representative Magical Girl of the Material Realm, had achieved numerous feats. Her current fame was second only to the Gemstone Scepter. As a "disciple of Blue Star," Tu Dinggui's excellent performance was entirely reasonable.

Aside from Team 277, other highlighted teams also had their own backgrounds. If any candidates familiar with the "Big Leg List" were present, they would be surprised to find that almost all the Magical Girls in these scenes were listed figures.

Among them was Team 604, whose progress closely followed Team 277. This team had now almost reached the maze node they were looking for. Barring any surprises, they would find the Remnant Beasts within the node in a matter of minutes. This team's style was very similar to Team 277, with uniformly excellent individual abilities, outstanding overall competence, and strong execution, making their journey smooth. Their only shortcoming compared to Team 277 might be a slightly lower puzzle-solving efficiency, with decisions not as crisp and decisive. But rather than saying they were lacking in this aspect, it could be said that Team 277's performance was simply exceptional.

As for the team composition, there wasn't much to discuss in the eyes of the guests. However, from the perspective of the "Big Leg List," this team was arguably a "dream team." Its members hosted two well-known Magical Girls from the list, being "Mu Mian" in first place and "Hua Zhu" in seventh. Even based solely on paper strength, they surpassed Team 277, so achieving this progress was not unexpected.

Another eye-catching team was Team 1334, who had been looking for trouble right from the start. The commander of this team was Drunken Fish Grass, who had previously attacked Xia Liang and others.

This team had a clear strategy from the beginning, "not looking for paths, only for people"; Drunken Fish Grass indiscriminately attacked every candidate team encountered along the way. Among them were teams that had found puzzles, whose puzzles and rewards thus fell into the hands of Drunken Fish Grass and her team. Until now, Team 1334 was surprisingly the team with the most puzzle rewards in the entire maze, with a total of seven puzzle rewards, which even surpassed Team 277 in points.

Astute observers had already noticed Drunken Fish Grass's scheme: she cleverly exploited a loophole in the rules—eliminated candidates could only identify an "individual attacker," not the "team of the attacker," which made her approach feasible. She could single-handedly handle all combat while her teammates reaped the benefits. Although she was destined to lose her score this round due to multiple identifications, she could ensure her teammates achieved outstanding results.

Does this mean Drunken Fish Grass was so selfless, sacrificing her score just to raise her teammates' scores?

The answer is, of course, no.

What she wanted was actually "team score" and "viewing evaluation."

These two additional rewards applied to the "entire practical assessment" and were not limited to the maze project. Therefore, these scores were not considered "the first assessment's results."

In other words, even if she was identified after leaving the maze, these scores would not be transferred to others.

The team score was the reason she worked so hard to boost her teammates' scores. As long as her teammates' scores were high enough, she could receive the corresponding bonus when this assessment ended.

As for the viewing evaluation, that was why she performed so diligently.

According to the rules of this assessment, Drunken Fish Grass's actions were naturally not encouraged; however, her actions hadn't reached a level of disrupting discipline. To the onsite viewers, Drunken Fish Grass, being such a "troublemaker," actually made the viewing experience much more interesting. It could be said that as long as the camera followed her, there would never be a lack of exciting stories.

This kind of live atmosphere indicated that her open strategy had succeeded. The veteran Magical Girls on the viewing platform certainly saw through her intentions, yet many still applauded her performance. After all, in the guests' eyes, being unscrupulous in the assessment to achieve high scores was also a "display of ambition." For Drunken Fish Grass to consider external factors early on and to purposefully strategize with "viewing evaluation" as her goal was very bold and ambitious, a commendable effort.

In addition to these three teams, there were naturally many other teams with outstanding performances in various aspects. Some teams formed alliances, assembling a large group of Magical Girls to sweep through the maze, even mastering more than three maze nodes, and were now making a major offensive; other teams relied on extremely high mobility and sensing abilities to traverse most of the maze, having now mapped out an almost complete map, using the map to deduce the maze's puzzle and node distribution; some teams even had members who could communicate with plants, conversing with the maze's walls, building relationships with the hedges forming the maze, locking onto the exit's position before it actually appeared. Now they've given up solving puzzles, staking out near the exit, merely waiting to dash out the moment all nodes are conquered...

Each team had its own ideas, and countless Magical Girls were thinking of ways to surpass the rules. The scene could be described as "The Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their prowess," as everyone knew that adhering to the rules was unlikely to beat the teams with absolute strength, so they all searched for alternative paths.

However, for now, the atmosphere was like the calm before a storm; many teams were still lying low, only when the exit opened would the fiercest competition happen.

Seeing the content on the projection screen unlikely to change for a while, Purple Diamond couldn't help but start looking around, but neither Emerald nor Pigeon Blood Red seemed to be engrossed, so she couldn't find someone to chat with.

Bored out of her mind, she couldn't resist sneaking a glance behind her.

The petite figure sat there, immobile like a doll.

However, Purple Diamond wondered if it was just her illusion, she noticed when that person looked at a certain spot in the projection, there seemed to be a slight upward curl at the corner of her mouth?

She did not dare to speculate too much, so she quickly withdrew her gaze, dispelling her confused thoughts.

She imitated the other spectators, posing as if she were still watching the projection, her eyes were somewhat unfocused, unable to concentrate for the moment.

Until at one point, she suddenly noticed Emerald sitting up straight.

Not just Emerald, even Pigeon Blood Red suddenly let out an ambiguous laugh.

From below the viewing platform, exclamations like "this is possible?", "my heavens," "doesn't this violate the rules?" started echoing continuously.

What happened?

A bit slow to catch on, she gathered her thoughts and began to pay serious attention to the projection, and it was so surprising to see what unfolded. The focus of the projection had shifted to a previously less visible team.

Within this team was a Magical Girl wearing a Jinzhi-colored soft hat, draped in a pale yellow cape, who seemingly used some trick to easily make a hole in the maze wall, then led her teammates through it.

And now, she was madly sprinting towards the outside of the maze.