"Congratulations to my first student, Shen Sui, for winning the Heaven's Chosen Cup!"
That night, after returning to the dorm, Shen Sui sat helplessly in his room's chair, watching Xin Yuan Tanchun open a cola for him across from him.
"I'm saying, as my coach, I didn't see you at all during the competition. The second it ended, you showed up to pop champagne for me, huh?"
Xin Yuan Tanchun really had brought a bottle of champagne. It was only under Shen Sui's vehement objections that she grudgingly switched to cola.
Of course, the champagne did not go to waste. She opened it anyway and poured herself a full glass.
Shen Sui was already an adult, and it was not as though he did not drink. But after the Heaven's Chosen Cup, Tianyi Academy's first Academy PK Competition would be held next week. He needed to use this time to strengthen his deck, especially the problem of having too few Follower Cards.
The reason he had been able to defeat Yuan Youxin was purely because he had been lucky enough to draw Anna at the start. Otherwise, with his lopsided forty-card deck containing only five Follower Cards, opening with five Spell Cards was commonplace. If he went first, it would be manageable—many of his Spell Cards had search effects—but against a deck like Yuan Youxin's going first, bad luck really left him powerless to turn things around.
Should he buy some Follower Cards to casually fill out his deck?
Shen Sui immediately rejected that idea. Effective Follower Cards were generally expensive, and even if he bought them, there was no guarantee he would find ones that suited his deck's characteristics.
Otherwise, he really would end up bricking for half the game.
Therefore, Shen Sui had already made his next plan on the way back to the academy.
First, he removed the regulator's restrictions and restored the time flow displayed on his Duel Instrument to normal: eight days passing on Alice's side for every one day on his.
With Alice's talent for causing trouble, two months would be more than enough for her to stir up plenty of incidents. Combined with his deliberate guidance, he should soon be able to farm enough Follower Cards.
Since he wanted to quickly farm Follower Cards in a short time, he naturally could not take the affinity route. He would go with the capture route instead.
However, Xin Yuan Tanchun's appearance interrupted Shen Sui's plans.
Looking at Xin Yuan Tanchun's still-disheveled appearance, Shen Sui got straight to the point. "So, what exactly did you come to see me for? With your personality, I doubt you came all this way just to celebrate a tiny Heaven's Chosen Cup with me, right?"
The Heaven's Chosen Cup's prize money was indeed generous, but it was ultimately just an amateur competition held in a park with promotional exhibition value. It was not enough to catch the eye of a Sixth-Order Soul Card Master like Xin Yuan Tanchun.
Xin Yuan Tanchun was only two years older than Shen Sui. Naturally, he could not treat her entirely like an elder and be excessively respectful. Nor was she the type to care about seniority, so she rather accepted the way Shen Sui spoke to her.
"You saw through me, huh." Xin Yuan Tanchun scratched her messy hair and finally revealed her true purpose. "I came this time because someone asked me to."
As she spoke, she drew a card from her Duel Instrument and placed it on the table. Then she continued, "My stupid little sister in Jing City felt very guilty after hearing that your Star Super Magic Array had been added to the Forbidden Card list, so she asked me to bring you a card as compensation."
"Oh?" Shen Sui frowned, instantly sensing that something was wrong. The July Forbidden Card list had not even been released yet. How had Xin Yuan Tanchun's sister, all the way in Jing City, learned that his Spell Card had been put on the list?
Shen Sui raised his head and looked into Xin Yuan Tanchun's eyes, hoping she could give him a reasonable explanation.
"Probably another filthy stunt that old hag pulled," Xin Yuan Tanchun said disdainfully. "To turn her daughter into a national idol, she'll use every normal and abnormal method available. Reporting your Life Card was probably just one of those methods. Otherwise, how could a freshman who had only just enrolled attract a Forbidden Card review from the Soul Card Association? Even if you received a huge number of reports, they probably wouldn't care."
"Oh~ Xin Yuan Ying Xue?" Shen Sui said the name, though he had already suspected it.
"Yeah. A little fool who'll drown in that fake mother-daughter affection sooner or later." Xin Yuan Tanchun paused before saying to Shen Sui, "But don't worry. The Xinyuan Family can probably only manage this much. That old hag doesn't have the ability to order the Soul Card Association around. She's probably already used up what little influence she had."
"Fine." Shen Sui shrugged and picked up the card Xin Yuan Tanchun had placed on the table.
This was a Follower Card Shen Sui desperately needed. Clearly, Xin Yuan Ying Xue also knew that the greatest pain point for most novice Soul Card Masters was their lack of Follower Cards.
Card Name: Lucky Doll: Shari Category: Follower Card Star Rating: 4 Stars Effect: ① During the opponent's Main Phase, when one of your Spell Cards resolves and is sent to the graveyard, discard this follower from your hand to activate: choose one Spell Card in your graveyard and return it to your deck; ② When a follower on your field becomes the target of a card effect, you can activate this effect: banish this follower from the graveyard and negate that effect. Spirit Value: 0
This card had clearly been carefully selected by Xin Yuan Ying Xue. It was not a product of her Nineteenth World, but likely a fantasy-type Follower Card she had traded for somewhere.
On the card artwork, a beautiful doll lay quietly inside a cabinet, as though waiting for its owner to arrive.
A very good card.
Although it could not replace the permanently active Star Super Magic Array, it did have special graveyard disruption.
Being able to give him this card as an apology—never mind that Shen Sui had not cared in the first place—even if he had cared, seeing this compensation would have made him forgive that girl he had never met.
Of course, he still could not forgive the true culprit.
Using connections to get a freshman's card banned.
Did they know how much psychological harm a Forbidden Card could inflict on a weak, pitiful freshman like him?
"Since that's the case, I'll forgive her." Shen Sui decisively stuffed the card into his deck.
Xin Yuan Tanchun rolled her eyes. "Look at that face of yours. You were one of the people who reported that card getting banned too, weren't you? All right, enough. This card has already been unlocked. When the time comes, just process it at a Soul Card Shop, and you can use it as your Life Card. I should get going too."
After delivering the apology, Xin Yuan Tanchun did not linger at Shen Sui's place. Carrying her partially drunk champagne, she said goodbye and left.
She really was busy. The Tier-up Tournament for the seventh order was not as simple as people imagined. She had come this time purely to help her sister deliver the Life Card.
Shen Sui rested on the bed for a while, then brought the opened bottle of cola back into the bedroom.
"Seriously, if you wanted to open a cola, couldn't you buy one yourself? You said you were here to celebrate for me, but you opened the cola in my fridge. What was that about?"
As he spoke, Shen Sui had already lain down on the bed.
Although a day of dueling had exhausted him, the prize money had thoroughly washed away his fatigue.
Excellent!
Soul Card World activated!
Let's see what Alice was doing.
Alice encountered the Lord of Thunder's knight order.
Alice launched a sneak attack~
Anna unleashed her power, and Alice successfully snatched a treasure chest from the knight order.
????
Weren't you supposed to be looking for my treasure chest? Why did you run off to rob one instead?
PS: Tomorrow, please make sure to help contribute some follow-up reading! I'm begging you, dear readers! Please!
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