Flame Witch Hozeville's effect was more than enough to make her a core card.
But Shen Sui had countless ideas in mind and still could not settle on how this main engine should win.
Burn damage?
Wouldn't that be a little too Netherworld?
As he thought, Shen Sui removed the unnecessary Life Cards from his deck.
Now that he had passed the Duel Exam, those filler Life Cards had no reason to remain in the deck.
How did Shen Sui dare to add irrelevant cards to his deck? Wasn't he afraid of bricking?
Of course Shen Sui was not afraid, because the effects of those filler Life Cards were astonishingly similar, such as the remaining three cards from his original twenty-card deck:
Card Name: Meaningless Murmur Category: Spell Card Star Rating: 1 Star Effect: Can only be activated during your Main Phase. Banish this card from the duel; gain 1 Soul Point, then draw 1 card from your deck. (This was a card Alice generated by talking in her sleep at night. Shen Sui was very curious how that could even produce a Spell Card.)
Card Name: Useless Coal Sprite
Category: Follower Card
Star Rating: 1 Star
Effect: During your Main Phase, discard this card from your hand to activate it; draw 1 card from your deck.
(This was a Follower Card Alice obtained from a villain's castle when she burned it down. Since it had no combat power whatsoever, Alice set it free.)
Card Name: Malicious Gift Category: Spell Card Star Rating: 5 Stars Effect: Once per turn, choose 1 Life Card from your deck and add it to your opponent's hand to activate it. Your opponent chooses and activates one of the following effects: ① Draw 2 cards from your deck; ② Reveal your hand, then let your opponent choose 1 Life Card from it and obtain it. (A Spell Card Alice obtained during a transaction with a noble.)
Other than Malicious Gift, these seemingly meaningless cards from his original deck, which had no side effects either, were simply divine cards for thinning the deck while padding out its card count.
You could not call them powerful, but you definitely could not call them weak. Under the right conditions, their effects could far exceed ordinary people's imagination.
Shen Sui kept Malicious Gift and bundled the other two cards together with several direct-damage Spell Cards Alice had obtained from the Storage Box this time, then uploaded them to his online store.
This time, Shen Sui had learned his lesson and no longer priced his cards according to the recommended prices.
Useless Coal Sprite and Meaningless Murmur were both highly useful cards in specific situations. Shen Sui priced each at five thousand, targeting precisely those buyers.
As for the direct-damage Spell Cards, he priced them according to just how overpowered they were.
Most of the direct-damage Spell Cards Shen Sui had obtained from fishing treasure chests were overpowered cards. Though the extent varied, it was enough to push their prices above the recommended rates.
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
As Shen Sui's cards were uploaded one after another, his bank account likewise received notifications of incoming funds.
Aside from a slight delay in selling the first two five-thousand cards, nearly every other card was bought the instant it was uploaded.
No wonder he had not seen many cards in the online store. They were all being snapped up instantly.
Even those two meaningless cards were bought after only a few minutes' delay.
"Nice!" Shen Sui stretched.
After this round of sales, the balance in Shen Sui's bank card had reached fifty thousand. He would not have to worry about running short of money anytime soon.
He even had spare cash to upgrade his Duel Instrument.
The Time Flow Regulator was a very small feature located on the right side of the homepage bar. It displayed the current time-flow ratio, which was set by default at 1:8—one day in the real world equaled eight days in the Soul Card World.
Upon opening the regulator's control interface, the slowest setting was 1:1. At that rate, time in the real world and the Soul Card World would be synchronized, with the same amount of time passing in both.
The fastest setting was 1:16, allowing Soul Card Masters to rapidly farm cards in an extremely short period. However, at that time-flow rate, the text on the homepage changed so quickly that you might not have time to enter commands.
The most eye-catching part of the controller was the paid top-up button, where usage time could be purchased.
After selling off a batch of Life Cards, Shen Sui's available Life Cards had dropped to thirty-one.
According to the Soul Card Association's regulations, a professional Soul Card Master's deck had to contain exactly forty cards—no more and no fewer—or they would not be eligible to participate in official competitions recognized by the Soul Card Association.
The reason Shen Sui had left nine Blank Cards open was to prepare for Alice's journey to Modena City.
Whether Alice intended to cause trouble or not, Shen Sui himself wanted to stir things up in Modena City.
The city he had painstakingly built in the game had become the City of Sin, and it was also where Vivian, his lover in the game, had died. Anyone would be angry.
Shen Sui was going to cleanse Modena City.
Drodell?
God of Sin?
Hmph! If they dared to show themselves, they would only end up as Follower Cards—and Follower Cards created from their actual deaths!
Since he was going to cause trouble, he would definitely obtain more than a few Life Cards. Naturally, Shen Sui had to leave enough room for these new cards.
He even felt that nine empty slots were too few.
But there was nothing he could do. Every one of the remaining thirty-one cards had a purpose. He truly could not squeeze out a single extra slot.
Still, he had not figured out the win condition for his other main engine. Perhaps the upcoming trip to Modena City would give him the answer.
Fish King Pa Yin Jia De, on the other hand, had already been molded into Shen Sui's shape.
Following his own ideas, Shen Sui directly modified Pa Yin Jia De's effect, making this Follower Card fit the Flame Witch engine even better.
Card Name: Fish King Pa Yin Jia De Category: Follower Card Star Rating: 8 Stars Effect: This follower is treated as a Token while on the field. ① During your Main Phase, you may Tribute 2 followers on your opponent's field to Special Summon this follower onto your opponent's field; ② As long as this card exists on the field, all Tokens on your field cannot be Tributed. Spirit Value: 2000
Here, have a powerful follower with 2000 Spirit Value. Happy? Surprised?!
Originally, Shen Sui had planned to set its Spirit Value at 2200 as a tribute to the Turtle Kaiju. Unfortunately, Soul Card Duels had a system where Tributing restored costs. If he gave his opponent an 8-star monster, they might actually be delighted. On their turn, they could Tribute it to recover costs, raising their per-turn cost from sixteen Soul Points to twenty-four Soul Points. That would be absolutely incredible for them.
Considering that he might need to use this card to remove his opponent's low-star followers, Shen Sui could only add another effect to prevent his opponent from Tributing Tokens to recover costs.
After checking the effects of the Life Cards in his deck and confirming that he was fairly satisfied with them all, Shen Sui finally had some free time and picked up his Duel Instrument to check on Alice's actions.
Alice was on her way to the City of Sin.
She had finally calmed down for a while.
Shen Sui sighed.
But he knew this was the calm before the storm.
The moment Alice reached the City of Sin, a bloody storm would sweep across the entire Dawn Continent.
Modena City! Your master was returning!
Just then, the phone Shen Sui had just inserted a SIM card into lit up. He was receiving a call.
It was a staff member from Tianyi Academy. The contents of the call were very simple, yet very important to Shen Sui:
"Student Shen Sui, your coach has arrived. Please proceed to Room 302 of the teaching building. She is waiting for you there."
"Not a reassignment?"
"No."
A professional Soul Card Master from the Dawn Continent of the Soul Card World?
That was truly rare!
Shen Sui's eyes lit up.
The person who could help me farm duplicate cards had arrived!
Before you continue