U.S. First Military Hospital, noon.
With the war still ongoing, there were many wounded officers and soldiers receiving treatment at the hospital, as well as family members who had come to visit. But precisely because it was a military hospital, everyone kept their voices down, afraid of disturbing others.
Kyle, dressed in the standard patient's gown, walked through the hospital lobby corridor. His young, handsome face immediately drew the attention of quite a few women.
Fortunately, information did not spread as wildly as it would in the twenty-first century, so few people recognized Kyle as the greatest contributor to the recent counteroffensive.
In fact, Kyle, America's youngest Second Lieutenant, was not yet as famous as Steve, who bore the promotional title of "Captain America."
Faced with the nurses repeatedly shooting him flirtatious glances, Kyle responded only with a smile. He stepped out of the hospital building and entered the landscaped park outside.
The sunlight was bright, the trees and grass lush and green, and the fountain in the pool glittered with clear light. It was a pleasant place, well suited for recuperation.
Of course, Kyle was not the kind of person who could patiently lie around recovering.
He took several deep breaths of fresh air and began loosening up with warm-up exercises—a standard set of military combat boxing. By the time he finished, his bones crackled like popping beans, hot blood flooded his stiff, sluggish body, and his complexion became much rosier.
"Feels good." Kyle exhaled a breath of hot air. Though his unhealed left shoulder protested with pain, he found this far more comfortable than lying weakly in a hospital bed. He was used to the battlefield, after all.
Tomorrow, he would be heading to the Training Base with Joseph. He did not want to show up looking so listless. Since he had said he would stay ahead of Steve, then naturally, he had to do everything perfectly.
At some point, Kyle had developed his own pride and principles.
"Right. I nearly forgot about the spoils from the counteroffensive."
After working up a sweat, Kyle sat on a park bench and closed his eyes as if resting. His consciousness quietly entered the Card Space.
Compared with previous battles, the vast white space did not contain a large number of miscellaneous white and green Item Cards.
Yet the gains from this battle exceeded those from any battle before it!
Only twenty-five unclassified Blue Item Cards were stored there, conspicuously suspended above the center of the card vortex. Each was a block of Infinite Energy, capable of granting modified firearms astonishing destructive power.
But the moment Kyle saw the blue-grade Infinite Energy blocks, he had already decided how to use them.
Rather than expend this energy on firearms, he might as well use it himself as material cards for Sacrifice Draws!
"Two sacrifices using blue cards. Even if I don't draw a card above blue grade, I'll still get two blue cards at worst. That'll greatly improve my personal strength." Filled with anticipation, Kyle suspended the twenty-five Blue Item Cards before his consciousness avatar.
The gap between the lower and upper limits of Sacrifice Draws was absurdly huge. Because there was a chance to draw anything, it could sometimes be a devastating loss, but it could also bring unexpected rewards.
The blue Ability Card, Stealth, was an exceptional product of Sacrifice Draws.
Without the Stealth ability, Kyle would not have been able to infiltrate the enemy base alone. He probably would not even have made it to the gates.
"Goddess of Victory in New York, bless me with some luck. Please, let me get something good." Kyle felt as if he had returned to the gacha draws of his previous life. Excited and nervous, he trembled as he sacrificed ten Blue Item Cards first.
Sacrifice Draw!
'You sacrificed Gem Energy ×10!' 'Draw successful. Congratulations, you obtained Blue Eagle.'
A clearly biological blue card appeared before Kyle. Blue light flickered brilliantly across its surface, proclaiming its extraordinary grade.
"Blue rare on the first draw?" Kyle had not expected such an outrageous stroke of luck. Drawing a blue rare card was already like winning the jackpot. He hurriedly took the new card and examined it.
Blue Eagle: A strange avian creature that lived atop ten-thousand-meter cliffs. Blue Rare Card.
Three times larger than an ordinary eagle, with a wingspan of up to ten meters when fully spread. Its feathers were entirely dark blue. It possessed outstanding vitality and defensive capabilities, capable of withstanding ordinary hot-weapon attacks.
It could see ten thousand meters away and unleash sonic screech attacks. Its maximum flight speed was Mach 4, halved when carrying a rider.
"A rare flying mount?" Kyle stared wide-eyed. In an online game, this would definitely be the sort of rare mount exclusive to rich players.
In the Marvel world, this Blue Eagle could already be classified as an alien-monster-level creature!
"It can reach Mach 4 at top speed. That's faster than a fighter jet, isn't it?" Kyle pondered. He truly liked the Blue Eagle, but its unusual nature meant it could not be used normally.
Just imagine him riding the Blue Eagle through the real world, or directly summoning it to kill enemies. Either his own country's fighter jets would blast it out of the sky, or a group of biologists would make a racket about capturing and dissecting it.
In terms of practicality, the rare blue Blue Eagle might not even compare to the rare green Poisonous Wasp Nest.
"I'll keep it for now. It can still come in handy in certain situations later. Besides, this is the first blue rare card of my life!" Kyle comforted himself and placed Blue Eagle in an easily accessible section of his space for emergency use.
Next came the second Sacrifice Draw. After this draw, the remaining five portions of Gem Energy would not be enough for another one.
"Please, give me something more practical this time." Kyle did not forget to offer up a prayer.
He understood now. The most important thing about cards was practicality. A card suited for immediate use was a truly exceptional card!
'You sacrificed Gem Energy ×10!' 'Draw successful. Congratulations, you obtained Vibranium Bracer.'
"Vibranium? That's good stuff!" The instant Kyle heard the name of the new card, his tense face lit up with excitement.
After all, anything with the Vibranium prefix could not possibly be bad!
Vibranium was one of the Marvel world's finest materials, originating solely from Wakanda, Black Panther's hidden nation. In the outside world at present, only the shield Captain America would wield in the future was forged from Vibranium.
Kyle excitedly grabbed the new Item Card and carefully checked its attributes.
Vibranium Bracer: A right-arm bracer forged from pure Vibranium. Blue Item Card.
It could perfectly accommodate the holder's right arm and easily negate all manner of physical damage and hot-weapon impacts.
"Isn't this basically the right-arm component of Black Panther's suit, just without the claws?" Kyle was thoroughly satisfied.
Though it was not an Ability Card, it was still Black Technology equipment that he badly needed right now.
With the Super Soldier physique he was about to obtain, the Vibranium Bracer, and the Stealth skill, Kyle would truly become an invincible one-man army on the battlefield!
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