Pure Fiction Guide: Scoring, Whimsicality Buff, and AoE Team Building
30-second summary: Pure Fiction is an endgame mode where you build 2 teams for 2 separate battles, each with 4 turn cycles to clear 3 continuously respawning enemy waves. You earn points from both dealing damage and killing enemies, so AoE teams score highest; points give 0-3 stars per stage. Before entering, read the fixed global Whimsicality buff and pick 1 of 3 Cacophony effects per team (a different one for each). Favor Erudition wide-hitting DPS plus energy-regen buffers so your team acts as many times as possible in 4 cycles.
What is Pure Fiction?
Pure Fiction (Vietnamese players call it Kể Chuyện Hư Cấu) is one of Honkai: Star Rail's endgame modes, unlocked after a Xianzhou Luofu adventure mission. Think of it as a seasonal farming trial. Each cycle offers 4 stages. In every stage you build 2 teams, and those teams fight 2 separate battles. Each battle gives you 4 turn cycles to clear 3 enemy waves. The twist: killed enemies keep respawning until you defeat the set number for that wave, then the next wave begins. You are not breaking a boss's toughness here — you simply mow down as many weak enemies as possible. Finishing both battles rewards Stellar Jades and 
Jade Feathers to spend in the mode's own shop (full numbers in the Rewards section below). Like Memory of Chaos, the mode resets periodically: your progress returns to zero and you can earn the rewards again. Each reset also swaps the buffs and modifiers.
How Scoring Works: Why AoE Wins
Points in Pure Fiction come from two things: dealing damage to enemies and defeating them. Both battles from your 2 teams add up into one final total. That total decides the stage's star rating, from 0 to 3 stars — more points, more stars, more Stellar Jades. This is exactly why the mode differs from Memory of Chaos: enemies here are numerous, weak, and constantly respawning. A hit that strikes many targets at once (area-of-effect, or AoE) both damages the whole pack and kills several enemies together, so it multiplies your score fast. A single-target team, by contrast, picks off one enemy at a time, wasting turns and scoring far less. Since you only get 4 turn cycles, every action counts. To estimate how much damage one AoE hit spreads across a wave, use GameVika's Damage Calculator to test numbers before diving in.
Whimsicality and Cacophony: Read Before You Enter
These two are what many players skip and then lose unfairly. First, Whimsicality: a fixed global effect active for the entire battle across both teams. It usually 'hints' which team style to bring — for example, rewarding hits on many enemies or a specific mechanic. Reading its text is like reading that season's rulebook. Second, Cacophony: a selectable side-buff. Each season offers 3 of them, and you pick 1 per team during team building. Crucially, your two teams must choose two DIFFERENT ones — no duplicates allowed. So match each Cacophony to how that team fights: give the AoE-damage buff to your bulk-clear team and the remaining fitting one to the other. Picking the right Whimsicality plan and Cacophonies can spike your team's power enough to jump from 2 stars to 3 without re-building any character.
Building Your Two AoE Teams
Golden rule: build two solid teams — don't stack everything into one and leave the other feeble, because both battles' points are summed. Each team's core should be a wide-hitting DPS, classically an Erudition DPS whose skills sweep the whole enemy row; damage-over-time DPS (Nihility path, poison/burn spread across the field) also score well because they hurt many enemies at once. Around the DPS, slot 1 buffer that restores Energy and boosts speed so your team casts more often, plus 1 healer or shielder so nobody dies mid-run. You don't need the trendiest 'meta' squad — just correct roles and enough AoE. To compare roles and pick characters, open GameVika's Team templates for ready-made AoE frames, then cross-check the Tier List filtered to the Pure Fiction mode to see which units suit wide-clear play given the resources you already own.
AoE DPSCore of each team (Erudition or spreading DoT) 
Speed/energy bufferMore skills and ultimates 
SustainHealer or shield to survive 
Squeeze Out More Actions: Speed and Energy
Since you only get 4 turn cycles, the real question is: how MANY times can your team act within them? More skill casts and Ultimates mean more points. There's a fixed in-game constant: Action Value equals 10000 divided by Speed (SPD). In plain terms, higher Speed means your turn comes sooner, so within the same 4 cycles you attack more often. That makes Speed and Energy regen more worth investing in here than squeezing out a little extra raw damage. Favor speed-boosting buffers, tune your DPS's Relics and Light Cone to be fast enough to fit one more turn, and keep Energy topped up so AoE Ultimates keep firing. One extra action is usually worth more than a single substat line. To see how much total damage a Speed bump buys you, plug numbers into GameVika's Damage Calculator and compare both options before spending materials.
Rewards: What You Get for Clearing
Many guides skip this, but rewards are why you play. Pure Fiction scores in stars: each stage gives up to 3 stars, so 4 stages make 12. Clear all 12 stars in a season and you earn roughly 800 Stellar Jades (the currency for pulling gacha), 600 Jade Feathers (called Biyu / 璧羽 in the game), and 240,000 Credits (the money for upgrading characters and gear). Jade Feathers can't be used for pulls; you spend them in the mode's own shop. The single best buy there is Self-Modeling Resin — a 'universal relic' that lets you hand-pick the exact Relic piece you need, extremely rare and valuable. There's one more reward newcomers miss: once you clear stage 2, the game GIVES you a free 4-star character named 
Lynx (a solid healer). In other words, pushing far enough hands you an extra unit for free. So don't stop halfway — every star converts to Stellar Jade, and each seasonal reset lets you claim the whole haul again.
FAQ
When does Pure Fiction reset?
The mode resets seasonally, like Memory of Chaos. One Pure Fiction season lasts about 6 weeks. The three endgame modes — Memory of Chaos, Pure Fiction, and Apocalyptic Shadow — rotate, with roughly one of them refreshing every 2 weeks. After each reset your progress returns to zero and you re-challenge the stages for Stellar Jades and rewards again. Each reset also changes the Whimsicality and the Cacophony options, so last season's optimal team may not stay optimal — re-read the buff rules before entering.
How many teams do I need for Pure Fiction?
Each stage needs 2 teams fighting 2 separate battles. Both battles' points are added together to form the total and star count. So you should build two capable teams rather than stacking all your best units into one and neglecting the other — doing that leaves your total low even if one battle looks great.
Can single-target teams do Pure Fiction?
Yes, but you lose points. Because enemies are numerous and keep respawning, an AoE team both kills many at once and damages the whole pack, scoring much faster. A single-target team picks off enemies one by one, wasting turns across the 4 cycles and struggling to reach 3 stars. If you must use one, favor characters with splash or damage-over-time effects to make up for the lack of area coverage.
Must I match my team to the Whimsicality buff?
Not mandatory, but recommended. Whimsicality is a fixed global buff for the whole battle that usually rewards a specific play style (for example, hitting many enemies). A team that fits it grows noticeably stronger, sometimes enough to jump a star tier. You can still clear with an off-buff team if your characters are strong enough, but reading the Whimsicality text carefully is the cheapest way to gain points.
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