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Chen Xiao glanced in Xie Mingzhe's direction, inwardly impressed. "Move, everyone!"

Everyone immediately followed Chen into the forest to burn those tree-spirit mobs. The blazing flames rapidly reduced the monsters in the game to ashes.

After clearing the first wave of mobs, they were bound by vines again. Pang Yu, the chubby one, finally snapped and complained, "This dungeon has vines interfering everywhere. These vines don't even drop materials—they're just here to disgust us on purpose. Vines are the worst thing about wood-element dungeons. I hate farming wood-element dungeons the most..."

Xie Mingzhe deeply agreed.

Take one step and get tied up by vines; take two steps and get tied up again... Were they even allowed to clear this dungeon properly?

After being bound all the way through, they finally stumbled through the final vine boss. Xie Mingzhe asked with a headache, "Are we still fighting?"

Chen Xiao said, "Let's do the other five-player dungeons and clear all of Wood Planet's instances."

Five-player dungeons were easier, and Chen and the others were all extremely strong. Following them, Xie Mingzhe quickly cleared every five-player dungeon.

After this trip through Wood Planet's dungeons, he had truly felt the power of wood-element creatures—besides the highly destructive vines, all sorts of seemingly beautiful flowers came with control effects like hallucinations and blindness. Many plants also inflicted negative statuses such as poison, weakness, and confusion.

Wood was only one branch of Star Card World. Cards of the water, fire, earth, and metal elements surely had their own distinct traits as well.

After smoothly clearing the wood-element dungeons, Chen Xiao said, "Let's disband for now. Go to bed early later. We'll do the other dungeons tomorrow."

Xie Mingzhe nodded. Looking at the time, he saw that it was eleven o'clock. Since the party had disbanded, he simply returned to his personal space to continue studying cards.

***

At the same time, at the Judgment Club office.

Nie Yuandao had just returned to the club after a late-night snack. Looking at the Wu Song card that Illusory Moon had handed him, he frowned slightly.

The man's features were already sharp and rugged. When his brows drew together slightly, he gave off a particularly stern impression.

Though only in his thirties, he carried the calm, steady air of someone who had weathered many hardships. Perhaps because he dealt with fierce beast cards like wolves, tigers, and lions every day, his eyes possessed an animal-like sharpness that made people afraid to meet his gaze directly.

Nie Yuandao also had the title of Beast King, because the entire beast card pool had been influenced by him. Before he appeared, there were few beast cards in Star Card World, and their skills were fairly simplistic. Nie Yuandao perfected the entire beast card pool. The tigers, leopards, wolves, lions, and other beast cards he created possessed tremendous attack power, and his style of using beasts to encircle and kill opponents had become a school of its own.

Illusory Moon did not dare look at him. Lowering her head, she softly asked, "God Nie, what do you think of this card?"

Nie Yuandao handed the tablet to the person beside him. "Shan Lan, take a look."

The man sitting beside him was named Shan Lan. He was twenty-two this year and was also a renowned card player in the league, known to fans as Lan God.

If God Nie's gaze was so sharp that people did not dare meet it, then Lan God was an exceptionally gentle person. When he smiled, his eyes curved so much they nearly narrowed into slits, and his voice was soft as well. With his fair skin, delicate features, and particularly good temper, he gave people the feeling of a warm spring breeze.

Shan Lan was Nie Yuandao's only disciple, and his deck consisted entirely of beast cards.

However, Nie Yuandao preferred close-range critical-hit strategies. The cards in his hand were all fierce beasts such as white tigers, male lions, black rhinoceroses, and wild wolves—his beast deck crushed opponents with brute force. That was Nie Yuandao's signature: simple, direct, and no nonsense.

Lan God, on the other hand, preferred Airstrike strategies. The card illusions he created were all beautiful: cranes, white eagles, larks, peacocks, and the league's strongest aerial combat cards, Fire Phoenix and Ice Crystal Phoenix. All of them had been created under his master's guidance.

This master-disciple pair worked seamlessly together in aerial and ground combat, making them an exceptionally powerful duo in the doubles event.

The master and disciple lived together and were usually inseparable—because Lan God admired his master deeply and liked sticking close to him. Wherever his master went, he followed. In the eyes of the Judgment Club staff, Lan God, who was especially fierce in matches, seemed more like Nie Yuandao's little tagalong.

Taking the Wu Song card from his master, Shan Lan carefully examined its data and asked softly, "Where did the president buy this card?"

Illusory Moon said, "The Black Market. We happened to receive it today."

Shan Lan analyzed, "Instead of taking it to an auction and selling it for a high price, the creator sold it cheaply to the Black Market. That suggests the creator doesn't understand card values or market prices. Maybe he also didn't read the official announcement and doesn't know that Instant-Death Judgment was only recently added to the database—was he a newcomer who had only been playing for a short time?"

Illusory Moon immediately agreed. "That's right. According to Shuangshuang, who received the card, the creator is a level fifteen newcomer named Fat Uncle."

"Fat Uncle?" Shan Lan repeated the strange name, then turned to God Nie. "Master, what are you planning to do?"

Nie Yuandao was silent for a moment before finally speaking, his voice low and calm. "At the end-of-season review meeting, Tang Muzhou suddenly proposed adding Instant-Death Judgment to the skill database. Do you know why I supported him at the time?"

Shan Lan seriously guessed, "Was it because many league players were copying Zheng Feng, constantly stacking their cards' health and pushing it over one hundred and fifty thousand at every turn? If this continued, matches would become more and more dull?"

Nie Yuandao gave his disciple an approving glance and nodded. "Actually, Tang Muzhou didn't make that suggestion specifically because of Zheng Feng. Earth-element decks were meant for defensive counterattacks, and what Old Zheng did was perfectly reasonable. We also had plenty of ways to deal with him. But the key was that, seeing Old Zheng's cards survive for so long, other players began copying him and stacking health on their own cards."

At this point, a trace of regret flashed through the man's eyes. "These newcomers entering the professional league in recent years only know how to follow trends, imitate, and learn from their predecessors' decks. They've never had any creativity of their own. It wasn't like Season Five, when so many genius card players emerged and created so many distinctive styles."

Shan Lan had only debuted in Season Seven. During Season Five, he had still been a young boy studying under his master. Recalling that era's glory, he could not help feeling wistful. "Season Five truly produced countless talents. Tang Muzhou perfected wood-element decks, Fang Yu and Qiao Xi pioneered water-element strategies, Gui Yuanshan had his ghost cards, Ling Jingtang his cold weapons, along with all kinds of talisman cards, gu insect cards, and more. The creativity back then was truly beyond anything today's players could match."