MSC: Chapter 9

The black market was located in an alley behind the commercial street and was an underground city. Unlike the bustling commercial street, it was dimly lit with various materials piled up haphazardly. It was like a night market selling cheap goods from the Earth era.

Of course, people needed patience to browse the black market and slowly hunt for bargains. Fortunately, Senior Brother Qi knew the place well and quickly led the two of them to a large stall. The stall owner, a plump middle-aged man, greeted them warmly. “What are you three looking for?”

“Do you have Nebula Paper?” Senior Brother Qi asked directly.

The owner smiled. “Yes yes, I have all types of grades here.” He took out five stacks of white paper. From left to white, they were Nebula Paper of grades 1-5. The higher the grade, the better the luster.

“Does high-grade paper make high-grade cards?” Xie Mingzhe asked.

“No, the original cards made by players are all one-star and level 1. However, the cards made from high-grade paper would be relatively better data, but the key is still the card maker’s talent. A card maker with outstanding talent can make good cards with low-grade paper. In contrast, if the card maker has average mental power then the cards made with high-grade paper will be garbage,” Senior Brother Qi. “If you are just trying it out, I suggest you buy first-grade paper. High-grade paper is very expensive.”

“Then I’ll buy a few of the cheapest ones and try them out.” Xie Mingzhe turned to look at the store keeper. “How much is level 1 Nebula Paper?”

“It is 10 gold coins per sheet.”

“Can you make it cheaper?”

“This is already the lowest price!”

“Give me ten sheets for 70 gold coins, okay? A newbie doesn’t have that much money.”

Bargaining was Xie Mingzhe’s forte. Senior Brother Qi also said that people could bargain in the black market, so why not?

The store owner’s expression turned strange when hearing him suddenly cut down the price to 70%. “Even a poor newbie should have 100 gold coins, right?”

Xie Mingzhe said earnestly, “I just used my money to buy cards and I only have 70 gold coins left. Can I have ten?”

The store owner sighed helplessly. “Okay okay, here you go.”

Xie Mingzhe smiled. “Thank you, Boss!”

Senior Brother Qi was speechless. This guy was really good at calculating. It seemed he would have to bring this bargaining expert with him when he went shopping at the black market in the future.

After buying the level 1 paper, Senior Brother Qi took the two of them to a card stall to pick and choose. He bought three suitable combat cards, all three-star evolution cards.

The Firefly had the skill Firefly, which illuminated an area within a 10 meter radius for 5 minutes.

The Black Crow had the skill Air Raid, which dealt 100% lightning damage to all enemy targets within a 10 meter radius.

The Water Sprite had the Slow skill, which inflicted a slowing debuff on all enemy targets within a 10 meter radius for 3 seconds.

The Firefly card only cost 150 gold coins while the other two combat cards were 200 gold coins each. They were incredibly cheap compared to the cards at the auction house. Senior Brother Qi gave the Firefly card to Sisi, kept the Water Sprite card for himself and gave the Black Crow card to Xie Mingzhe.

Xie Mingzhe was a bit puzzled. “These two combat cards have AOE skills. Why are they so cheap?”

Senior Brother Qi answered, “The skill range is too small and the coefficient is also very low. Good AOE cards have a range of over 20 meters.”

“Can’t the range be increased when the card is upgraded?”

“It only increases by 1 meter at level 10 and 7 meters at most at level 70. Tang Muzhou’s Night Blooming Jasmine card is so expensive because the two AOE skills both have a range of 30 meters. 30 meters is the maximum range of AOE skills.”

“I see.” Xie Mingzhe nodded in understanding. He found that Senior Brother Qi was like a game encyclopedia who knew everything. Joining this couple’s team was a wise choice. He had learned a lot from Senior Brother Qi along the way.

Senior Brother Qi led the two of them to the Dark Cave at the southernmost tip of Egret Star to grind monsters. It was pitch black and nothing could be seen. The holographic game’s effects were so realistic. Sisi was afraid of the dark, but she maintained her composure and quickly summoned her Firefly card, illuminating a radius of 10 meters with a faint light.

The moment the light appeared, the three of them heard a sharp, piercing scream. Sisi immediately recoiled in fright, but Senior Brother Qi shielded her. He said, “Go to the corner and turn off the game sound effects. Just provide light and Chubby Uncle and I will handle the monsters.”

Sisi nodded and quickly retreated to the corner, using her Firefly card as a streetlight.

Senior Brother Qi turned to Xie Mingzhe. “This Dark Cave is a great place to grind monsters. The monsters will automatically gather around the light. They had high attack power but very weak defense. We will pull a group and take them down in one go.”

Xie Mingzhe nodded. Following an experienced player was definitely an advantage. He knew such efficient places to grind.

An hour later, everyone’s character level reached 15 and they had gathered all the materials for card evolution.

Senior Brother Qi said, “I’m going to eat now. Let’s level up together after the meal.”

Sisi agreed. “My mother is also urging me to eat, so I will log off first” She opened a spatial portal, walked to the entrance and turned back to ask, “By the way, Chubby Uncle, are you coming tonight? If you are, let’s continue leveling up together and reach level 35 tonight!”

Xie Mingzhe nodded. “I’m coming.”

The girl was happy. “Chubby Uncle, see you tonight!”

Xie Mingzhe waved goodbye to the two of them. “Goodbye.”

Once the two of them left, Xie Mingzhe returned to his personal space, took out the paper he had just bought from the black market and tried to make cards himself.

He placed the Nebula Paper on the card operation table, and the system prompted, “Do you want to proceed with the card creation?”

Xie Mingzhe selected yes.

The system told him, “Please concentrate your mental power and import the card image from your mental world into the Nebula Paper…”

Xie Mingzhe started to use his imagination. He miraculously discovered that after his mental power connected with the Nebula Paper, whatever he thought of appeared on the paper.

He subconsciously recalled drinking with his roommates on Earth before his rebirth. Since the images in his mind were quite chaotic, the picture on the Nebula Paper was also messy. Only the shape of a beer bottle stood out clearly.

Xie Mingzhe paused and immediately stopped his imagination.

The system said, “The card creation has failed. The Nebula Paper has been shattered. Do you want to start over?”

Xie Mingzhe chose no.

He needed to calm down and think things through before wasting a piece of Nebula Paper. He couldn’t just try again rashly.

He finally realized that making cards was actually quite difficult.

The human brain had an extremely rich imagination, making it difficult to concentrate on just one thing. It was the same when drawing.If he focused on the character he wanted to draw, external factors would always interfere. This was especially true if he encountered a bottleneck, causing his thoughts to completely go off-track and his mind to become chaotic.

In Star Card Storm, the cards couldn’t have chaotic images.

Xie Mingzhe thought of the white Night Blooming Jasmine at the auction and suddenly felt a sense of admiration for the man called Tang Muzhou.

That God Tang could actually create lifelike flower cards like the Night Blooming Jasmine and incredibly complex plant cards like the Millennium Divine Tree, a huge tree that blotted out the sky. Every branch and leaf required mental power to draw, with no room for error. his mental power must be over 300, eight?

Xie Mingzhe found making cards a bit difficult even with his own 300 mental power.

Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on thinking about the type of cards he wanted to create.

Plants? There was a master like Tang Muzhou, so there shouldn’t be much room for creativity left. Animals? This world already had various pet-like cards like the nine-tailed fox and long-eared rabbits. Pet designers had created countless pet cards using their rich imaginations. He even found several realistic Persian cats, toy poodle dogs, giant pandas, etc. Lions and tigers were probably too common and he couldn’t think of anything new.

Characters…

That’s it, characters! Senior Brother Qi said that the criteria for character cards was facial features. The official requirement was that they couldn’t be imported from the real world. What if he drew them in a comic book style? Wouldn’t that make them unique?

His drawing skills were acquired for a reason. Drawing comic book style characters wasn’t difficult for him.

Xie Mingzhe had an idea and excitedly clenched his fists.

What type of character should he draw?

A scene suddenly flashed through his mind.

A slender woman sitting by a river, scattering flower petals into the water. She coughed softly while her face was streaked with tears.

Daiyu burying the flowers.

On the night before his rebirth, he was heading out when he saw an artsy young man in his dorm room re-watching the 1987 version of Dream of the Red Chamber. He had joked, “How do you feel after seeing Lin Daiyu crying so sadly? Do you feel like crying too?”

His roommate had laughed and scolded, “Get lost! My girlfriend sent it to me. She wants me to re-watch a classic.”

Xie Mingzhe glanced at the computer screen and sighed, “This version of Lin Daiyu is still the most elegant.”

The scene was so beautifully filmed that it was deeply etched into Xie Mingzhe’s mind. In particular, Lin Daiyu’s tearful, pitiful appearance was so heartbreaking. Even a homebody like Xie Mingzhe felt sympathy when seeing her cry.

Therefore, he memorized it.

It was incredibly clear.

Xie Mingzhe’s eyes lit up. What if this scene was made into a card? He wondered if there were any cards of Daiyu burying the flowers in the Star Card world?

Xie Mingzhe thought of this and immediately activated the card creation system.

He placed the Nebula Paper on the control panel, closed his eyes and carefully sketched out the scene in his mind.

Green trees, flowers, a beautiful woman sitting by the pool, her face streaked with tears.

The more he thought about it, the clearer, more specific and more complete it became.

Once he fully visualized the scene in his mind with intense concentration, a system notification sounded in his ear. “Congratulations, the card creation is complete. Please place the card in the slot in the upper left corner to connect to the Star Card Database for review.”

Xie Mingzhe immediately followed the instructions and inserted the card.

Creating the card was the first step. Passing the review was the real key.

Perhaps because there were too many cards in the database, the review took a bit long this time.

Five minutes…

Ten minutes…

Xie Mingzhe thought the system had crashed. He was just about to restart the helmet when a voice sounded in his ear. “The card review has passed. You can print your unique logo on the card as proof of copyright.”

It passed! Xie Mingzhe was extremely excited. He decided to use the character ‘Zhe’ as the logo and place it in the lower right corner of the back of the card. It was a reference to Tang Muzhou, whose ‘Tang’ character looked very sophisticated and cool.

The moment he entered ‘Zhe’, the system prompted, “The LOGO is duplicated. Someone has already used it. Please modify it.”

Xie Mingzhe was helpless. It seemed that the name ‘Zhe’ had a high rate of duplicates. This game had been in open beta for ten years and all sorts of logos had probably been registered by others. Since he couldn’t show off, he might as well use his in-game ID. In order to avoid having the character ‘Pang (Fat/Chubby) duplicated as well, he simply entered ‘Half Moon (Yueban). This time, it finally went through. (TL Note: Yueban is sometimes used as a softer alternate for fat/chubby because of the visual deconstruction of the character itself 月半. 胖 =Pang/Fat. When split into two smaller characters, it can look like 月半)

On the back of the approved card, the originally white Nebula Paper gradually took on a green sheen.

Green cards were the lowest-level one-star cards in the game. All player-created cards were one-star cards. In any case, cards could always be upgraded and have the star increased. As long as the attributes were good, making a one-star card was the cheapest option. He could slowly raise Daiyu to seven stars later.

Xie Mingzhe rubbed his hands together and picked up the card on the control panel to examine it closely.

He had drawn a cartoon-style version of Lin Daiyu. As a self-proclaimed aesthetics enthusiast, his Lin Daiyu was undeniably beautiful. It was a uniquely elegant and pitifully charming ancient beauty standing by the river, tossing flower petals into the water. The composition of the scene was also superb, capturing nine-tenths of the essence of Daiyu burying the flowers.

Then Xie Mingzhe looked at the card’s attributes.

[Lin Daiyu (Wood Attribute)]

[Card Level: 1.

Evolution Star Level: ★

Available Uses: 1/1.

Basic Attributes: HP 100, Defense 15, Attack 0, Agility 1, Critical Rate 0%.

Additional Skill: Daiyu Burying the Flowers (Deals severe damage to flower-type cards. There is a 10% chance to trigger the instant death effect).]

Xie Mingzhe was dumbfounded.

What type of skill was this? It dealt severe damage to flower-type cards?

Daiyu Burying the Flowers. Did this mean it could only attack the opponent’s flower cards? Wasn’t it completely useless if the opponent didn’t have any flower cards?

15 defense? He remembered that Tang Muzhou’s max-level Night Blooming Jasmine had 50,000 defense.

Wow, this was a huge difference.

The little Ice Serpent the system gave him had 50 defense even before it was upgraded. Lin Daiyu’s 15 defense was practically paper-thin. She would crumble at the slightest touch! Poor Lin Daiyu, she was so weak even as a card.

Xie Mingzhe started to get a headache.

This card’s stats were really bad. It seemed he wasn’t destined to become rich overnight.

He wondered if anyone would want this card if he sold it at the black market?