Inside the Misty Forest dungeon.
The boss dropped a bunch of items after it died. There were five seven-star wood attribute fragments and a complete four-star wood attribute card, the Flower Fairy.
Brother Chen was in a good mood, and his voice carried a hint of laughter. “Not bad! We got fragments and a complete card on our first try.”
Xie Mingzhe asked curiously, “Brother Chen, is the drop rate of this Flower Fairy card very low?”
Brother Chen nodded. “Yes, the drop rate for the complete card is less than 10%. Usually, you get Flower Fairy fragments and synthesize them yourself.”
As they were talking, Chi Qing suddenly spoke up. “Brother Chen, I just received a private message from the boss. He said that in addition to the 100 seven-star wood attribute fragments, he will add 100 water attribute fragments and 100 fire attribute fragments. If we can deliver the goods within a week, the total price for the three orders will be 66,000, paid in full at once.”
Everyone was stunned.
Brother Chen was the first to react, and his tone was full of surprise. “Who is this expert who wants so many evolution fragments at once?”
Pang Yu made a guess. “Is he trying to upgrade three seven-star cards? Could it be a guild buying them?”
Chi Qing shook her head. “It is probably an individual buyer. His ID was a string of random characters when he posted the task in the trading post. It is clearly a secondary account.”
A big order of 66,000 gold coins couldn’t be missed. Brother Chen thought for a moment before he said, “Take the order first. Ah Qing, go and post a team recruitment. We will do a team dungeon at 9 o’clock tonight. Clear all the material dungeons in the next two days and get all the fragments we need. If we still don’t have enough, we will figure something out.”
“Can I help?” Xie Mingzhe asked. For example, hanging around and joining the fun or something? He was a professional hanger-on and definitely wasn’t a troublemaker.
Brother Chen gave him a disdainful look. “Your level is too low and you can’t enter a ten-person team dungeon. Go level up yourself first and come find me when you are level 35.”
“Oh!” Xie Mingzhe had already expected this answer. He waved goodbye to Brother Chen and quickly ran to level up.
Back in his personal apartment, the system voice rang in his ears. “Welcome back! The magical Star Card world is extremely vast. Would you like to come with me to explore this world?”
System options: 1. I’m willing.
- You have to agree even if you don’t want to.
Xie Mingzhe, “……”
The system was so cheeky! It seemed that the game’s official copywriter was also a joker.
He chose the first option, and the system’s voice was very relaxed and cheerful. “Now let me take you to explore the magical Star Card world! The planets in the Star Card world are divided into three categories. The first category is Functional Planets, the second category is Resource Planets and the third category is Open Planets. Please go to the star system navigation map and find the four functional planets.”
Xie Mingzhe followed the prompts to the star system navigation map and really did see four very large planets in the vast galaxy map. They were as big as his head and were quite obvious.
Once he got closer, a detailed text description popped up.
The entire Gemini star system was the residential area of the game where all players’ personal apartments were located. The Aquarius star system was the commercial area, where auctions, shops and stalls all took place. The Peacock star system was the entertainment area and featured theaters, amusement parks, food courts, bar streets and other leisure and entertainment venues. The Phoenix star system was the competition area. All competition-related activities were held there.
The four main stars each had distinct functions, and uses could direct teleport there from their personal spaces.
The system told him, “Now that you’ve learned about the four functional planets, let’s look at the resource planets. There are five resources planets in the game: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. Surrounding each resource planet are countless smaller planets, all of which serve as entrances to the Star Card Illusionary Realm dungeons. These five resource planets will drop cards of corresponding attributes, evolution fragments, enhancement materials, etc. In order to make your cards stronger, you will need to frequently visit the resource planets to obtain materials!”
The system continued, “There are also two open planets in the Star Card world called the Egret Star and White Crane Star. Egret Star is home to various illusionary creatures of different levels. You can defeat them to gain experience and material rewards. White Crane Star has abundant natural minerals. You can collect game resources there such as Nebula Paper, Repair Stones and Furniture Wood.”
Finally, the system said, “The introduction is complete. Now, please go and explore Egret Star.”
Xie Mingzhe was teleported to Egret Star from the star map.
This planet was equivalent to an open-world map in online games. It was a fully open mode where players could freely PK each other. Unlike dungeons where players had immortality protection, players here could die in the wild and had to be extra careful. There were forests, deserts, oceans, swamps, grasslands and snow-capped mountains. This rich natural environment was home to countless strange beasts and plants, which were just regular monsters to players. Killing them gave experience.
Xie Mingzhe was currently a level 5 newbie, so the system considerately led him to a lake with low-level monsters.
He had just reached the lake when he saw a small, thin girl being chased by several stone spirits. Her health was rapidly decreasing and she was stumbling while crying out, “Help! Help!”
Xie Mingzhe took two steps forward. The girl thought he was going to help and ran towards him. However, Xie Mingzhe immediately retreated. He watched the huge stone spirits warily, afraid of being caught in their attacks.
He moved nimbly and dodged with great agility.
Within three seconds, the girl was killed by the stone spirits and collapsed right at his feet.
The girl lying dead at his feet had the ID ‘Sisi.’ She couldn’t speak after she died, so a text box appeared above her head asking, “Why did you just stand by and watch someone die?”
Xie Mingzhe retorted, “Why should I save you? I don’t even know you?” Meddling wasn’t his style.
The annoyed girl immediately resurrected on the spot. She exclaimed, “Even if you don’t know me, you can still help me out. Helping others is a good thing!”
“I can’t save you.” Xie Mingzhe analyzed it, “I only have a one-star card with 100 attack power. Each of the stone spirits chasing you has 1,000 HP, and five of them adds up to 5,000. I can’t beat them. Saving you would mean I would be dragged down with you and die here too.”
“……” It made perfect sense and the girl couldn’t refute it.
The girl saw him turn to leave and quickly got up to follow him. “Hey, Chubby Uncle, let’s grind experience together!”
Xie Mingzhe, “??”
Chubby Uncle? Who was she calling?
He glanced up at his ID. He had almost forgotten that when he created his account today, he chose a very friendly name, Chubby Uncle. It was no wonder that people called him that. Xie Mingzhe was too lazy to explain it. It was just an online friend he met in the game. There was no need to get his real life involved.
Just then, a deep male voice was heard. “Sisi, what happened?”
Xie Mingzhe turned to look. The boy was quite handsome but his expression was somewhat serious. On the other hand, Sisi was petite and cute. He wondered if this was her real appearance or a virtual character created in the game.
The girl looked wronged as she walked over, saying, “I accidentally attracted five stone spirits and was killed.”
The boy reached out and patted her head, his voice gentle. “I told you to wait for me here. Why did you run off?”
Xie Mingzhe, “……”
Wasn’t a head pat a bit too much of a display of affection for single people?
He didn’t want to see a couple showing affection, so he was about to turn and leave. However, the girl chased after him. “Chubby Uncle, let’s grind experience together! The game has been running for ten years and it is so hard to find low-level players in the newbie zone. I’ve been grinding here for ten minutes and you are the only newbie I have seen.”
The boy also extended an invitation. “Let’s go together. A three-person team will be faster.”
Xie Mingzhe thought it would be good to make some friends in the game, so he joined their team.
The boy’s game ID was Senior Brother Qi. From their words, it could be inferred that Senior Brother Qi was using a secondary account to accompany his girlfriend. He had been playing the game for five years, so he naturally knew more than a complete newbie.
Senir Brother Qi suggested, “The little stone spirits don’t give much experience. There are more of us, so we can grind high-level monsters. We just need to make sure that we chain our control skills well.”
He was an experienced player, so his words made sense. The two newbies followed him to the lakeside.
The level 4 monsters by the lake were called willow tree spirits. They hit very hard but could be controlled. All three players had Ice Serpent cards given by the system during the beginner phase. These cards allowed for a single-target freezing control. Each person controlled one. Then they used the Thunderbird for AOE attacks. Defeating mobs was incredibly easy with proper skill combos.
After half an hour of grinding, all three of them reached level 10 and their cards had reached level 20 through experience gain.
Cards must evolve at level 20, or their level would remain at 20. Fortunately, they had also obtained many low-level evolution fragments from farming the willow tree spirits. Senior Brother Qi said, “Let’s go back to our personal space and evolve our cards, prioritizing the Thunderbird with its AOE attack.”
Xie Mingzhe opened his portal to his personal space and went back to upgrade his card.
On the control panel, a light green level 20 one-star card slowly absorbed the 100 two-star fragments while rotating continuously. The patterns on the back of the card were constantly changing, gradually turning from green to blue.
Level 20, two-star evolution, blue card.
Xie Mingzhe noticed that when a card evolved to a higher star level, the color on the back changed but the pattern on the front remained the same. In terms of numerical values, all basic attributes doubled. For example, the Thunderbird’s base attack was originally 100. Then after evolving to two stars, it became 200.
In other words, leveling up increased skill coefficients and evolution increased basic attributes.
Upgrading cards and then evolving them would result in a comprehensive improvement in strength.
Developing a seven-star card required a large amount of materials, so for ordinary players, raising a good card wasn’t just a matter of skill but also physical labor. Farming materials alone was exhausting!
Xie Mingzhe sighed as he returned to the lakeside of Egret Star after upgrading his card. He saw that Sisi and Senior Brother Qi had also returned.
Senior Brother Qi suggested, “Let’s go buy more attack cards. We don’t have enough cards if we are teaming up to grind experience.”
Sisi asked excitedly, “Where can we buy cards?”
Senior Brother Qi replied, “The black market.”
Sisi was taken aback. “The black market? Is there such a place?”
Senior Brother Qi said, “There is an underground city behind the commercial street called the Black Market. Players can set up stalls freely without paying rent. You can bargain at the black market and find a lot of good things, especially low-level original cards. They are much cheaper than what you would find in regular stores.”
Sisi scratched her head. “But I heard that original cards are more expensive?”
Senior Brother Qi explained, “I’m talking about original cards with ordinary or even terrible data, some of which are failed works. The truly top-quality original cards are all auctioned off.”
Xie Mingzhe listened to their conversation and thought about it. So only failed works were sold at the black market. However, for newbies, these few failed works from veteran players would be enough for the early game and grinding monsters.
Therefore, the three of them teleported to the Aquarius Star region.
This was Xie Mingzhe’s first time personally visiting the game’s commercial area.
At the very center of Aquarius Star was a plaza with a beautiful crystal bottle sculpture. Four skyscrapers rose to the east, south, west and north oft he plaza. They were the Auction House, the Star Card Bank, the Trading House and the Service Center.
Behind these buildings were crisscrossing commercial streets, all rented to players for independent operation. Xie Mingzhe glanced at the diverse store names such as Loving Couple Repair Store, Seven-Star Premium Card Specialty Store, Doudou’s Materials Store, the Boss Wants a Wife, etc. The streets were bustling and vibrant with player shopping, even more than the pedestrian streets in the real world.
The three of them were originally going to the black market together, but they found a large crowd gathered in front of the auction house on the east side of the square. Sisi curiously tiptoed to take a look and asked, “Senior Brother, what is going on over there?”
Senior Brother Qi followed her gaze and replied, “The auction house holds and auction every afternoon at 3:30. These people are probably going to attend the auction.”
Xie Mingzhe had only seen auctions on TV and they seemed very high-class. He had never been to an auction in person, and was quite eager to see what it was like. Before he could speak, Sisi excitedly blurted out, “Can we go and take a look? It seems really interesting!”
Senior Brother Qi nodded. “Okay, we’ll go to the black market after we see it.”
The three of them had just reached the entrance of the auction house when a sudden commotion erupted around them. There were screams coming from the distance. “They said that God Tang’s card is at today’s auction.”
”Is it really Tang Muzhou’s original card?”
”This is insider information. I’m not sure if it is true. Let’s go and join the fun!”
”Hurry, the tickets are going to be sold out!”
The crowd surged forward like a tide was behind them. Xie Mingzhe was startled and quickly slipped into the venue.
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