Strange Cards | Selling Cards on the Black Market

Five minutes...

Ten minutes...

Xie Mingzhe thought the system had crashed. He was just about to restart his helmet when a voice suddenly rang in his ears. "Card review approved. You may imprint your unique LOGO on the card as proof of copyright."

It passed! Xie Mingzhe was thrilled. He would just use the character "Zhe" as his logo and place it in the lower-right corner of the card's back—he had learned that from Tang Muzhou. Tang Muzhou's "Tang" looked incredibly stylish and cool.

However, the moment he entered "Zhe," the system prompted him: "LOGO already in use. Please change it."

Xie Mingzhe was helpless. Apparently, too many people used "Zhe" in their names. This game had been publicly available for ten years, so all kinds of logos had surely been registered already. Since he could not show off, he might as well use his in-game ID. To avoid "Fat" being taken as well, Xie Mingzhe simply entered "Yueban." This time, it finally went through.

On the back of the approved card, the originally pure white Nebula Paper gradually took on a soft green sheen.

Green cards were the lowest-grade One-Star Cards in the game, and all player-created cards started as One-Star Cards. Cards could be upgraded and raised in star level anyway. As long as the attributes were good, making a One-Star Card cost the least. He could slowly raise Daiyu to Seven-Star later.

Xie Mingzhe rubbed his hands together and picked up the card from the workbench for a closer look.

He had drawn Lin Daiyu in a comic style. As an artist obsessed with looks, the Lin Daiyu he drew was unquestionably beautiful—a uniquely graceful, delicate ancient beauty standing by the river and scattering flower petals into the water. The composition of the entire scene was excellent as well, capturing ninety percent of the mood of Daiyu Burying Flowers.

Xie Mingzhe then looked at the card's attributes.

Lin Daiyu (Wood)

Card Level: Level 1

Evolution Star Level: ★

Uses Remaining: 1/1

Base Attributes: HP 100, Attack 0, Defense 15, Agility 1, Critical Hit Rate 0%

Additional Skill: Daiyu Burying Flowers (Deals heavy damage to Flower Cards, with a 10% chance of triggering an Instant Death effect)

Xie Mingzhe was dumbfounded.

What kind of skill was that? Deals heavy damage to Flower Cards?

Daiyu buried flowers, so she could only fight the opponent's Flower Cards? If the opponent had no Flower Cards, would she not be completely useless?

A Defense stat of 15... Tang Muzhou's max-level Tuberose card seemed to have 50,000 Defense, did it not?

Ahem, that gap was far too huge.

The Little Ice Snake the system had given him had 50 Defense even before being upgraded. With Daiyu's 15 Defense, would she not be as fragile as paper, shattering at the slightest touch? Poor Lin Meimei—even after becoming a card, she was still so frail...

Xie Mingzhe began to get a headache.

This card's stats were truly not good enough. It seemed he was not destined to get rich overnight.

Would anyone want this card if he took it to sell on the Black Market?

Author's note: The cheat I gave the little bottom is making character cards. I mentioned it in the synopsis :)

Lin Daiyu is a Wood-type card. There will also be plenty of Water-, Fire-, Earth-, and Metal-type character cards later on.

Strange Cards | Selling Cards on the Black Market

The Daiyu Card's additional skill was "trigger Instant Death against Flower Cards." Xie Mingzhe guessed the system had automatically generated it based on his imagination, because while drawing the Daiyu Card, he had kept thinking about the scene of Daiyu Burying Flowers. This Daiyu Card was highly specialized against Flower Cards, but unfortunately, its Defense was too low and the skill's activation rate was only 10%. Its stats looked terrible.

What should he do with this card? Sell it for some pocket money? He really was short on money right now. Even selling it for a few coins would be good. With that thought, Xie Mingzhe focused his mind and began drawing more Daiyu Burying Flowers cards.

Since he owned the copyright, making this card did not count as plagiarism. Others definitely would not be able to copy it.

Xie Mingzhe made a total of nine Daiyu Cards, using up all the Nebula Paper he had bought.

The reason he made the same card repeatedly was that he had only just started. He wanted to build up card-making experience through the process and learn the card-making techniques of Star Card World. He discovered that the more focused his mental power was, the clearer the card image he created became, and the better its stats were. The final Daiyu Card had different values from the first one. Although its 16 Defense was still not high, it was an improvement over 15, at least.

Xie Mingzhe optimistically put away the nine cards and took them to the Black Market.

After arriving at the Black Market, Xie Mingzhe first walked around to look around—newbies who did not know the prices were easily scammed. Investigating the market before buying or selling was a habit he had developed over years of playing online games. The Black Market was an excellent place to do research, with every kind of card available.

After making a round, he roughly understood the market.

Original low-grade One-Star Cards with good stats and powerful skills would be sent directly to auctions, or raised to max stars before being sold at high prices. Here on the Black Market, One-Star Cards with average stats could sell for 50 gold coins—about five yuan in real life. Cards with poor stats but attractive artwork sold for 20 to 30 gold coins, while all sorts of other miscellaneous cards went for under 10 gold coins.

Raising a low-grade card into a high-grade card required a great deal of upgrade material, so low-grade cards were generally very cheap. Low-grade cards with bad stats in particular were practically dirt cheap. The reason original cards with poor stats could still sell on the Black Market was the halo around the word "original." These cards were not very useful; everyone bought and sold them as collectibles.

After checking the prices, Xie Mingzhe came to a fairly large stall in the Black Market. The sign beside it read "Purchasing Original Cards." He walked over and politely asked, "Boss, I have some original cards here. Would you be interested in taking a look?"

The owner took his card and glanced at it. "The artwork is quite pretty, but aren't the stats far too low?"

Xie Mingzhe had long prepared himself to be mocked over the stats. Smiling, he said, "I just started making cards and am not very skilled yet, so the stats are indeed a little low. How much do you think it could sell for?"

The owner stroked his chin and looked it over from side to side, feeling that this card was somehow strange.

The artwork was beautifully done: a delicate girl with tears all over her face, realistic flowers and a river used as supporting decoration. It was practically like a painting. He had never seen such a beautiful card face before. But those awful stats simply did not match the artwork at all, making the mismatch glaringly obvious.