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Xie Mingzhe took two steps forward. The girl thought he was going to help and ran in his direction. Instead, Xie Mingzhe immediately backed away, staring warily at the massive Stone Spirits, afraid their attacks would catch him in the crossfire.

He moved smoothly and dodged with exceptional agility.

In less than three seconds, the girl was killed by the Stone Spirits and collapsed right at his feet.

The dead girl's ID was "Sisi." Unable to speak through voice chat after dying, she sent a text bubble above her head asking, "Why didn't you save me when I was dying?"

Xie Mingzhe retorted, "Why should I save you? I don't even know you." Sticking his nose into other people's business was not his style.

"..." The girl immediately revived on the spot in anger and said, "Even if you don't know me, you could've helped while you were at it! Helping people is a virtue!"

"Couldn't save you." Xie Mingzhe analyzed calmly, "I only have one-star cards with 100 attack power. Each Stone Spirit chasing you has 1,000 HP, and the five of them have 5,000 HP altogether. I can't beat them. If I tried to save you, you'd just drag me down and we'd both die here."

"..." It made so much sense that she could not even argue.

Seeing him turn to leave, the girl hurriedly got up and followed him. "Hey, Fat Uncle, let's grind experience together!"

Xie Mingzhe: "?"

Fat Uncle? Who was she calling?

He looked up at his ID and nearly forgot. When he had created his account today, he had chosen the rather friendly name "Fat Uncle." No wonder she called him that. Xie Mingzhe could not be bothered to explain. They were only strangers who had met in a game, so there was no need to involve real life.

Just then, a boy's low voice came from nearby. "Sisi, what happened?"

Xie Mingzhe turned to look. The boy had fairly handsome features, though his expression was somewhat stern. Sisi, on the other hand, was petite and adorable. He wondered whether those were their real appearances or virtual characters customized in the game.

Looking a little aggrieved, the girl walked over and said, "I accidentally pulled five Stone Spirits just now and got killed."

The boy reached out and rubbed her head, his voice gentle. "I told you to wait for me here. Why were you running around?"

Xie Mingzhe: "..."

—A head-pat kill? Wasn't it a little cruel to force-feed dog food to a single man like this?

Not wanting to watch a couple flaunt their affection, Xie Mingzhe prepared to leave. But the girl actively chased after him. "Fat Uncle, let's grind experience together! This game has been running for ten years, so it's really hard to find low-level players in the beginner zone. I've been grinding here for ten minutes, and you're the only newbie I've seen."

The boy also invited him. "Come with us. A three-person party will be faster."

Xie Mingzhe thought it would be nice to make a few companions in the game, so he joined their two-person party.

The boy's in-game ID was "Senior Brother Qi." From their conversation, Xie Mingzhe could infer that Senior Brother Qi had created an alt account to accompany his girlfriend. He himself had been playing this game for five years, so naturally he knew far more than a newcomer who had just started.

Senior Brother Qi suggested, "Lesser Stone Spirits give very little experience. Since there are more of us, we can farm higher-level monsters. We just need to chain our control skills properly."

He was an experienced player, so his advice naturally made sense. The two newbies followed him to the lakeside.

The level-four monsters by the lake were called Willow Tree Demons. They hit especially hard, but they could be controlled. All three of them had received Ice Serpent Cards from the system during the beginner stage. Each person could freeze and single-target control one monster, then use Thunderbirds for area attacks. As long as their skills connected smoothly, farming the monsters was incredibly easy.

After farming for half an hour, all three had reached level 10, while the cards they had brought had also gained enough experience to reach level 20.

Cards had to evolve once they reached level 20, or else they would remain stuck at level 20 and could not level any further. They had also obtained plenty of low-level evolution fragments from farming Willow Tree Demons, so Senior Brother Qi said, "Go back to your personal spaces and evolve your cards. Prioritize the Thunderbird with its area attack."

At the operation console, the pale green level-20 one-star card slowly devoured 100 two-star fragments while continuously spinning. The patterns on the back of the card kept changing as well, and the originally green card gradually turned blue.

—Level 20, two-star evolution, blue card.

Xie Mingzhe noticed that when a card evolved to a higher star rating, the color of its back changed, while the image on its front remained the same. As for its stats, all base attributes directly doubled. For example, the Thunderbird's base attack had originally been 100, but after evolving to two stars, it became 200.

In other words, leveling increased skill multipliers, while evolution increased base attributes.

If a card was leveled first and then evolved, its strength would improve across the board.

Since raising a seven-star card required an enormous amount of materials, for ordinary players, raising a good card themselves was not only a technical challenge but also a physical one—just farming the materials would exhaust them to death!

After sighing over this, Xie Mingzhe finished upgrading his cards and returned to the lakeside on White Egret Star, where he saw that Sisi and Senior Brother Qi had also returned.

Senior Brother Qi said, "Let's buy some more attack cards. These cards aren't enough if we're going to farm experience as a party."

Sisi asked excitedly, "Where can we buy cards?"

Senior Brother Qi said, "The Black Market."

Sisi froze. "The Black Market? There's a place like that?"

Senior Brother Qi said, "There's an underground city behind the commercial street called the Black Market. Players can freely set up stalls there, and there's no rental fee. You can haggle over goods in the Black Market and find plenty of bargains. Low-level original cards in particular are much cheaper than in official shops."

Sisi scratched her head. "But I heard original cards are more expensive?"

Senior Brother Qi explained, "I mean original cards with mediocre data, or even terrible data. Some are failed creations. Truly top-tier original cards are sent to the Auction House for auction."

Listening to their conversation, Xie Mingzhe thought, So failed creations are sold cheaply in the Black Market. Still, for newbies like them, buying a few "failed creations" from veteran players would be enough to get through the early stages and farm some minor monsters.

Thus, the three of them teleported to the Aquarius Star Domain.

This was Xie Mingzhe's first time personally visiting the game's commercial district.

At the very center of Aquarius Planet stood a plaza, with a beautiful crystal bottle sculpture erected in its middle. Four skyscrapers stood to the east, south, west, and north of the plaza respectively: the "Auction House," "Star Card Bank," "Trading House," and "Service Center."