Drawing Cards, Growing Stronger

On the way back, the medicine gradually took effect.

The soreness in Lu Chen's limbs eased considerably, and his steps grew a little lighter.

As soon as he reached the entrance to Sheep Pen Street, he saw Blind Man and the others packing up their stall.

Shuan Hu rolled up the red cloth covered in large characters, while Er Gou carried the wooden chest filled with copper coins.

"How much did we make today?" Lu Chen stepped forward and asked.

"Not bad. Not as lively as the previous two days, though. Han Lao Wu stole away quite a few customers," Blind Man said.

Lu Chen nodded along on the surface and chatted with his brothers about what they had seen during the day, but his thoughts were fixed on the earthen jar of money hidden in his room.

Tonight, he could finally try the martial arts card pool.

Late at night.

Lu Chen did not light a lamp. Feeling his way through the darkness, he moved the cabinet aside and dug out the jar of copper coins.

With a thought, he opened Chronicles of Jianghu Heroes.

[Basic Card Pool: Entering the Jianghu]

[Single Draw: 150 coins; Ten Draws: 1,350 coins]

[Martial Arts Card Pool: Proud Snow Cold Plum]

[Single Draw: 150 coins; Ten Draws: 1,350 coins]

[Lu Chen: Strength 15, Vitality 12, Inner Force 0, Critical Strike 2, Agility 4, Bone Structure 2, Luck 1, Fist Technique 11, Leg Technique 3, Eyesight 1]

[Martial Arts: Plum Blossom Fist—Incomplete (Rudimentary Proficiency 0.1%)]

He noticed that the martial arts section on the character page had already gained the Plum Blossom Fist he had learned today.

The "Incomplete" label likely meant that he had not learned the full Plum Blossom Fist, only its first three forms.

The small line of text after Plum Blossom Fist was the martial art's experience value, also called proficiency. It was divided into four grades:

Rudimentary Proficiency, Minor Achievement, Realm of Great Accomplishment, Peak Perfection.

He had trained his fists hard for an entire afternoon, yet his experience had only risen by 0.1%. His bone structure truly was terrible.

For an ordinary person, it would probably take two or three years just to touch the threshold of Minor Achievement.

Luckily, he had his golden finger to fall back on.

Lu Chen lightly tapped Ten Draws beneath the Proud Snow Cold Plum card pool.

He spent 1,350 coins.

When the drawing animation ended, he had drawn eight white cards and two green cards.

The draw rates for the Proud Snow Cold Plum pool and the Entering the Jianghu pool were the same.

The eight white cards he drew were:

Plum Blossom Fist Experience +1%, Strength +2, Vitality +2, Agility +2, Strength +2, Plum Blossom Fist Experience +1%, Plum Blossom Fist Experience +1%, Plum Blossom Fist Experience +1%.

The two green cards were: Vitality +5, and one trait card.

Cold Plum Force (Green): When cultivating External Force in an environment with plum blossoms, efficiency increases by 10%. While surrounded by the fragrance of plum blossoms, vitality recovery speed increases slightly.

At the same time he drew the trait card, he unlocked the trait section and gained one card slot for equipping traits, along with ten inventory slots for storing various cards.

This game was stingy as hell.

If he wanted more card slots and inventory slots, he would have to draw from the basic Entering the Jianghu card pool.

It was practically forcing players to spend money.

Basically, you had to draw cards to get anything.

Lu Chen casually equipped the Cold Plum Force trait and continued drawing.

The copper coins he had saved amounted to over thirty-one taels. He had thrown 1,500 coins into card draws last time, paid ten taels of silver for the martial arts hall's entry fee, and still had twenty taels of silver left in the jar.

Lu Chen gritted his teeth and poured all twenty-odd taels of silver remaining in the jar into the card pool, drawing repeatedly from the Proud Snow Cold Plum pool.

Most of what he drew were white and green cards.

Besides the usual attributes like Strength, Vitality, and martial arts experience,

he also gained two new attributes, Arm Strength and Appearance, as well as a white trait card, Cold Resistance.

Arm Strength was a prerequisite for cultivating superior fist and palm martial arts.

Appearance was, in truth, the game's charm stat.

Those with handsome and imposing features could inspire awe without even showing anger. When fighting others, they naturally carried a certain intimidating air, and when walking the jianghu, they could also earn a measure of innate goodwill.

As for the Cold Resistance trait, it was only white quality, but its effect was practical: when circulating external martial arts, it could ward off the erosion of bitter cold.

In these frigid Northern Lands, this trait would prove extremely useful.

The most crucial gains from this round of draws were those two purple cards.

One was an attribute card granting Bone Structure +3, raising Lu Chen's Bone Structure from 2 to 5.

The other was the martial arts card Treading Snow Seeking Plum. It was a movement art, with the cultivation requirements: Bone Structure 1, Agility 10, Leg Technique 10.

Seeing that all his attributes met the requirements, Lu Chen immediately learned Treading Snow Seeking Plum.

Though this movement art was marked as a purple card, it only counted as an inferior martial art.

Card color merely indicated rarity; it did not determine the rank of the martial art itself.

Even among purple cards, there were differences in quality.

To draw superior martial arts, he would have to use higher-tier card pools.

With twenty taels of silver, he drew a total of 140 cards. His current status was:

[Attributes: Strength 45, Vitality 67, Inner Force 10, Critical Strike 22, Agility 34, Bone Structure 5, Luck 1, Fist Technique 15, Leg Technique 23, Eyesight 16, Arm Strength 23, Appearance 9]

[Martial Arts: Plum Blossom Fist—Incomplete (Rudimentary Proficiency 46.1%), Treading Snow Seeking Plum (Rudimentary Proficiency 0%)]

[Traits (1/1): Cold Plum Force (Green)]

[Inventory: Trait Card "Cold Resistance" (White)]

Lu Chen stretched his limbs, and his entire body crackled and popped, as though every inch of flesh and blood had come alive.

He walked over to the cabinet, that heavy thing which had once required him to exhaust all his strength just to shift.

Now, with a single arm exerting force, he moved it with ease.

It was not only that his various attributes had increased. His entire body had become light and nimble as a swallow, as though a slight push off the ground would send him soaring into the air.

This must have been the change brought by the movement art Treading Snow Seeking Plum.

Lu Chen lowered his head and glanced at the empty earthen jar.

The hard-earned money he had scrimped and saved for so many years, earned through gritted teeth on the streets, had in a single night gone clattering into that bottomless card pool. It hurt a little.

But in times like these, only by becoming stronger could he avoid being bullied.

Lu Chen spat into the empty jar. "Money is a bastard. Spend it, and you can earn it again."

Over the following days, Lu Chen went to report to the martial arts hall every morning before dawn.

And the lottery stalls in the county town, just as he had expected, sprang up wildly like weeds after rain.

Not only in South City—even along the bluestone roads of East City, stalls draped in red cloth had been set up.

Business at Lu Chen's lottery stall truly did fall off quite a bit.

Now that red-cloth stalls filled the streets, bringing in one tael of silver a day was already considered decent.

But Shuan Hu, Blind Man, and the others took it in stride.

They could earn steady money without licking blood from the edge of a blade. Every day after closing up, they pooled some money for a pot of wine, gnawed steamed buns with braised meat, and the brothers were already satisfied.

The only eyesore was Han Lao Wu.

That bastard hung up a one-hundred-to-one payout to lure in customers, yet behind the scenes, he relied on nothing but vile tricks:

When the numbers were drawn, he had little thugs block people's view so they could secretly switch the character tiles. Even if someone truly struck it lucky, he would find an excuse to renege on the payment.

Someone had seen it with their own eyes.

The only people who ever won were Han Lao Wu's own men. After collecting the money, they would turn around and stuff it right back into his pocket.

As time went on, people on Sheep Pen Street could not even be bothered to lift their eyelids when passing Han Lao Wu's stall. They would rather walk a few extra steps to place their bets with Lu Chen.

Han Lao Wu's stall grew quieter by the day, leaving only a few unfamiliar faces from out of town peering around there.

One afternoon.

Lu Chen was practicing his fists beneath the old plum tree in the courtyard when he suddenly saw Liu Qi striding hurriedly toward him.