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Tang Muzhou smiled faintly, turned around, and leisurely browsed the Black Market.

"Boss, do you have any character cards worth collecting? I'd like to buy them at a high price," Tang Muzhou asked politely.

Passing several stalls selling large combat cards, Tang Muzhou specifically chose the smaller stalls selling collectible cards to inquire at. After asking at more than a dozen in a row, he had found nothing. That was until he came before a very cute young woman.

Hearing the question, the girl smiled and said, "I have two, but I don't want to sell them."

Tang Muzhou said gently, "I'm very interested in character cards. Could you take out the cards you've collected and let me have a look?"

"Um... all right." Perhaps because his attitude was too mild, the girl eventually took out the two character cards.

—Sure enough, it was Lin Daiyu.

Tang Muzhou toyed with the card in his hand and said, "I really like this card's artwork. Five hundred gold coins each. Would you sell it to me?"

"This card is very pretty. I bought it for my collection in the first place, so I don't want to sell it."

"One thousand gold coins."

"..." She had bought it for fifty and could sell it for a thousand—a twentyfold increase. Delighted at making such a huge profit, the girl immediately handed the card over. "All right, I'll sell it to you!"

"Thank you." Tang Muzhou put away the cards, then asked with feigned curiosity, "Do you remember the name of the person who sold you this card?"

"Of course. It was quite a friendly name—Fat Uncle."

—Fat Uncle? No wonder the logo was called "Yueban." Could he really be a fat uncle?

Tang Muzhou put away the cards, bade the girl farewell, then turned and came to Red Candle's stall. He privately messaged her, "I bought two Daiyu Cards. A girl had taken them for her collection. I also found out the creator's name—Fat Uncle."

"..." Red Candle stood frozen. She had spent an entire afternoon searching without finding any information about the card creator, yet the moment Tang God stepped in, he had even found the creator's name. As expected of someone who had risen from the Black Market!

Tang Muzhou continued through private voice chat, "Send Fat Uncle an email as soon as possible. Tell him we want to purchase Daiyu Cards in bulk. Also, have someone keep a close eye on the Auction House. If he makes new cards, he may put them up for auction."

"Okay... Tang God, aren't you going to sleep yet?"

"I'll play a few Arena matches before bed."

Tang Muzhou was prone to sleepiness in the afternoon but became especially energetic at night. Red Candle did not want to persuade him otherwise and hurried off to send the email.

At that moment, Xie Mingzhe was lying in bed, sleeping soundly.

He had a wonderful dream. He dreamed that he had made a batch of top-tier character cards and become the most popular card maker in Star Card World. He took his cards to the Auction House and sold them for astronomical prices, while countless people surrounded him and screamed excitedly. The cries at the auction were deafening. At first, he could not make them out, but gradually, he heard them clearly—

Fat God! Fat God! Fat God, Fat God, Fat God!

"..." Xie Mingzhe woke with a start.

Touching his scrawny body, he somewhat regretted choosing the name "Fat Uncle." If he became famous someday, would people really chase after him and call him "Fat God," just like in his dream?

Fortunately, the dream had included beautiful scenes as well, such as his cards becoming wildly popular.

He would work hard toward that goal.

There were already three hundred thousand in his account. To him, the wages from power-leveling were insignificant. He could completely quit and make his fortune by selling cards instead. But Xie Mingzhe did not want to do that. Not only had Chen helped him out when he had been at his lowest point, but since he had signed the power-leveling contract, he should keep his promise. At the very least, he would stick with it according to the contract for this month and wait until the girl who had taken leave to get married returned.

It happened to be Saturday, so everyone logged in together. Chen directly formed a party and pulled them to Venus to run dungeons. That morning, they repeatedly cleared the dungeons on the five Resource Planets of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth. After this run, Xie Mingzhe had broadened his horizons considerably, and the settings for the five elemental creature types gave him plenty of inspiration as well.

Once the day's work was over, Xie Mingzhe immediately logged off to avoid getting a headache—he needed to balance work and rest and give himself some time to think properly.

He opened his battered laptop and logged into the official website for "Star Card Storm."

The official site was lavishly designed. The moment he entered, it felt like stepping into a realistic starry universe. He found and entered the "Announcements" section—recent posts were all about the professional leagues, notices related to the new season, and various events, densely filling an entire page.

He flipped back several pages and, sure enough, spotted a bolded news item titled "Annual Update Announcement for 'Star Card Storm.'"

The news had been released on July 25, only a week ago.

Xie Mingzhe skimmed the announcement at a rapid pace, catching the key information regarding Instant Death skills.

First, the skill database had added "Instant-Death Judgment," but the requirements for creating Instant-Death-Type Cards were extremely stringent—the card art and skill concept had to be unified, the card could only have one Instant Death skill, it could only target one specific subcategory of cards, and its own defense had to be very low. While instantly killing others, it could also be quickly killed itself.

Second, only one instant-death card could be brought into the Arena. It was to be used as a surprise "tactical card," and players could not bring more.

Xie Mingzhe finally completely understood why his Lin Daiyu card had only fifteen defense.

Because Lin Daiyu's skill was too powerful, her defense had to be very weak.

Wu Song was the same. Because he had an instant-death check, attributes such as attack and defense were only third-rate.

When Xie Mingzhe had made the cards, his mental energy had been intensely focused on the scenes of burying flowers and fighting a tiger. Those two cards had happened to perfectly meet the official database's criteria, which was why they had coincidentally gained instant-death checks.

After figuring this out, Xie Mingzhe continued searching for information about the Professional League.

Pang Yu had previously said that Judgment was one of the league's "Six Giants." Xie Mingzhe wanted to understand Judgment's true strength.

With the number of professional card players growing rapidly in recent years, clubs of all sizes had sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Among them, Fenghua Club, Adjudication Card League, City of Evernight, Frostfall City, Pantheon, and Ghost Prison were the six oldest and strongest clubs. They were the "Six Giants" Pang Yu had mentioned, each with a considerable fan base. These six clubs had cultivated countless outstanding players and were backed by major financial groups, making them first-tier clubs in the professional league. As for second-tier and third-tier clubs, there were too many to count.