Page 10

Xie Mingzhe nodded. "Got it. When a wood formation appears, step on metal; when a fire formation appears, step on water, right?"

"...That's right." Chi Qing was a little surprised. She had spent a long time memorizing the elemental countering rules herself and had planned to explain them to him in detail, but this newcomer understood after hearing it once. Was that for real?

"Get ready to start," Chen said. He had no confidence either and kept feeling that if the newcomer stepped on the wrong formation, the whole team would be wiped out.

Yet, to everyone's surprise, the instant a healing wood formation appeared beneath the Boss's feet, Xie Mingzhe immediately ran to the golden formation at the edge and stepped on it, dispelling the wood formation. Right after that, a red fire formation appeared beneath the Boss's feet, and he stepped on the blue formation to counter it. When a blue formation appeared, he stepped on brown; when brown appeared, he stepped on green...

The Boss deployed formations at an extremely fast pace, but Fat Uncle in the game ran quickly too. As he raced back and forth, he perfectly matched the Boss's skill rhythm—the Boss deployed a formation every ten seconds, and he happened to make a round trip every ten seconds, as though he had calculated exactly when the Boss would strike.

Every formation was stepped on accurately, and all five elemental formations were broken.

With his help, the four of them could summon their cards and focus all their firepower on the Boss. Their clear was actually faster than usual?

After clearing the dungeon smoothly, Chen looked at their completion time, which was three minutes shorter than usual, and was thoroughly surprised. He had assumed that, since this newcomer had just started playing, he would run around recklessly, step on the wrong formations, and get everyone's cards instantly killed. Instead, the newcomer was quite clever. Chi Qing had explained the formation countering rules once, and he remembered them without making a single mistake.

It seemed that what he had said about having worked as a game power-leveler for several

years

was true—although he had never played Star Card Storm, he had played other games, so he could draw inferences from one example and quickly grasp the mechanics.

An intern hired for 1,500 was truly a bargain! Thinking this, Chen's attitude toward Xie Mingzhe improved considerably. He asked gently, "Little Xie, you seem to understand the five elemental countering relationships very well?"

Xie Mingzhe chuckled. "A lot of games I played before had metal, wood, water, fire, and earth mechanics, so I memorized all of them."

Chen gave him an approving look. "In Star Card Storm, every card comes with an attribute corresponding to one of the five attribute main stars. You have to go to the corresponding main star to farm evolution materials. Attributes counter one another. For example, water counters fire, so water cards find it easier to hit fire cards. That accuracy bonus isn't actually much, though. What matters more is the same-attribute deck bonus."

Since Xie Mingzhe had such a strong aptitude, Chen wanted to guide him a little and patiently explained, "A deck bonus means that when your deck has five or more cards of the same attribute, you gain the [Main Star's Protection] deck bonus. The five main stars each offer a wide variety of deck bonuses. When you build a deck later on, you can lean toward whichever main star you prefer. Since you already understand attributes, this game will be much easier for you to grasp!"

"Mm-hmm!" As Xie Mingzhe responded, he pulled out the two cards the system had given him and took a look. Ice Serpent was water-element, while Thunderbird was metal-element. After hearing Chen's explanation, he finally understood the purpose of card attributes. Attributes countered each other, and decks of the same type also had bonuses. This was probably something he would need to focus on when playing in the arena later.

"Hurry up and level first. Once you reach level 35 and can use Seven-Star Cards, we'll farm dungeons together!" Chen was growing impatient. Since the intern he had recruited was promising, he wanted to train him up as quickly as possible and make him his capable assistant.

"Okay!" Xie Mingzhe also wanted to level up quickly. Character level affected spiritual power, and he only had twenty points of spiritual power right now, which meant he could not use high-level cards. Raising his character level was his top priority.

***

At the same time, inside the player apartments of Fenghua Club.

A handsome young man sat on the sofa, holding a tablet lightbrain as thin as a cicada's wing. His hands were beautiful, his nails neatly trimmed, and his long fingers looked powerful as well.

At that moment, his right index finger was swiftly swiping across the tablet lightbrain.

One Seven-Star Black Card after another appeared on the LCD screen before him. On the backs of the cards, which gleamed with black metallic luster, thin lines of red, green, blue, and gold stretched like vines, forming intricate and exquisite patterns.

—Every card looked like a collectible work of art.

The door was pushed open, and a woman around thirty wearing a professional suit skirt walked in on high heels. She stopped in front of him and said, "Little Tang, that task at the exchange at noon today, purchasing one hundred Seven-Star Shards of the wood element... you posted it privately, didn't you? I saw the ID of your alt account."

"Mm." Tang Muzhou kept his gaze on the screen and gave a quiet response.

"If you need them urgently, you can tell the club. I can transfer the materials directly from the guild for you," the woman kindly suggested.

"Don't let the club know yet." Tang Muzhou put down the tablet lightbrain and looked up at her. "I'm researching a new card."

"Oh?" The woman sat down beside him with interest. "How are the new card's stats?"

"They're decent. Once it reaches Seven-Star, I'll take it to the arena for some real combat tests. I'll decide whether to bring it into next season's competition after seeing the final results. The new card's skill values are still rather unstable, so I don't want to alert the club for now. That's why I posted a bounty task in the game," Tang Muzhou explained.

"So that's how it is." The woman nodded. "Are the people taking your task reliable?"

"A power-leveling studio took the order. Power-levelers won't leak their clients' information. Besides, I used an alt account, so they don't know who I am."

"That's good." The woman sighed in relief, then reminded him, "You should still be careful. Your reputation is what it is, and many clubs are studying your deck. Before a match, your deck data can't be exposed in advance, or people will target it. Be as careful as possible when you test in the game too."

"I know, Sister Xue." A faint smile appeared at the corner of Tang Muzhou's lips. "Even if someone finds out, it doesn't matter. I don't rely solely on cards to win matches."

"..." He was right. A strong deck was only a basic requirement. Whether one could win a major tournament depended on the player's ability to arrange their forces and adapt to changing circumstances. As the champion of the solo competition, Tang Muzhou was naturally among the very best.