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The vast starry sky, the dazzling Milky Way—during the voyage aboard the transport ship, he could even see meteor showers streaking past the window. Countless meteors trailed silvery-white light across the heavens, like brilliant fireworks bursting against the cosmic backdrop.

Xie Mingzhe excitedly pressed himself against the window to take in the scenery, feeling like a country bumpkin seeing a whole new world for the first time.

After traveling through space for some time, a crisp ding finally sounded beside his ear, followed once more by the system's clear voice: "Welcome to Gemini Star. Your assigned residence is: Gemini Star, District G—Apartment 7498. Please enter your personal space."

With both feet finally on solid ground, Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath to steady his racing heart, then turned to inspect this so-called "personal space."

It had three bedrooms and a living room, much like a home in the real world. The living room contained a sofa, a coffee table, and an enormous LCD television. This television was probably tuned to the world channel, with countless text updates scrolling across it so quickly that Xie Mingzhe's eyes nearly blurred.

After leaving the living room, Xie Mingzhe followed the arrows beneath his feet into a bedroom. The system spoke again: "Whenever you feel tired in the game world, you may return to your bedroom to rest. Naturally, the bedroom's décor and furniture can be changed, and you may also invite friends to visit."

This game had incorporated a housing system as well. Every player could receive an apartment of their own, decorate and design it according to their preferences, and turn it into a virtual social space.

Xie Mingzhe gave it an approving nod inwardly. Leaving the bedroom, he followed the prompts to the study.

All three walls of the study were lined with display cabinets. The pale-blue metallic cabinets were divided into neat rows of small compartments, each a 20-by-20-centimeter square. This design was probably similar to an inventory in an online game; cards and materials obtained in the game could be stored in these cabinets.

At the center of the study stood a silver-white metal platform. As soon as Xie Mingzhe approached it, the system prompted: "This is the [Card Operations Console]. All card crafting, dismantling, upgrading, and evolution are carried out here. Please read the card operation instructions carefully."

New players absolutely had to read the instructions carefully. That was experience Xie Mingzhe had accumulated from all the games he had played before.

With a light swipe of his finger, a detailed animated explanation indeed appeared before him.

Star Card Storm naturally revolved around cards.

To improve a card's abilities, there were two methods: upgrading and evolution.

All cards initially began as Level 1, One-Star green cards. At Level 20, they could evolve into Two-Star blue cards; at Level 30, Three-Star purple cards; at Level 40, Four-Star orange cards; at Level 50, Five-Star silver cards; at Level 60, Six-Star gold cards; and at the maximum Level 70, they could evolve into powerful Seven-Star Black Cards.

Whenever a card leveled up, its skills received percentage-based boosts. Whenever it evolved, its base attributes doubled. However, evolution required the card to first reach the corresponding level, then consume three cards of the same star rank or one hundred shards of the next star rank.

For example, if a "Six-Star Card" wanted to evolve into a "Seven-Star Card," it first had to be raised to Level 70, the level at which evolution was possible. Then it had to consume three "Six-Star Cards" or one hundred "Seven-Star Shards." That would allow it to evolve into a Seven-Star Card with twice the power.

Upgrading was easy to understand: grind experience to raise levels. Xie Mingzhe understood card evolution as the equivalent of a "level breakthrough" in online games. Every evolution consumed a huge amount of resources, but the resulting high-star cards would repay players with doubled strength.

By the late game, whether in dungeons or the Arena, it would definitely be the domain of max-level Seven-Star Cards. Since a Level 70 Seven-Star Card cost an enormous amount of experience and materials to raise, exactly how players cultivated their cards was a discipline in itself.

Xie Mingzhe roughly understood the rules of the game.

After he finished reading the beginner guide, the system immediately spoke beside his ear: "Now that you understand the rules for card upgrading and evolution, let us enter actual combat! There are countless marvelous Phantom Realms in the Star Card World. Challenging Phantom Realms will earn you abundant experience and material rewards. Some strange creatures dwell within them—use the cards gifted to you to defeat them!"

A ding-dong notification sounded beside his ear—Card obtained: [Ice Serpent] ×1, [Thunderbird] ×1.

The compartments on the left side of the display cabinet lit up, revealing two green cards inside. Level 1 One-Star green cards were the most basic cards in the game.

Xie Mingzhe picked up the cards and examined them.

Ice Serpent (Water Element)

Card Level: Level 1

Evolution Star Rank: ★

Available Uses: 1/1

Base Attributes: HP 100, Defense 100, Attack 20, Agility 10, Critical Hit Rate 1%,

Additional Skill: *Freeze* (Freezes a designated target for 2 seconds and deals 20% Water-element damage)

Thunderbird (Metal Element)

Card Level: Level 1

Evolution Star Rank: ★

Available Uses: 1/1

Base Attributes: HP 100, Defense 50, Attack 100, Agility 30, Critical Hit Rate 5%,

Additional Skill: *Lightning Link* (Spins through the air, dealing 80% Lightning-element splash damage to all targets within range)

One was a control card, while the other was an area-of-effect attack card.

The two cards the developers gave new players should be enough to handle beginner-stage dungeons.

Xie Mingzhe brought both cards with him into the first dungeon, and the scene before him indeed changed.

This was a wide-open plaza with a stone pillar in the center. As soon as Xie Mingzhe entered the area, he heard a woman's sinister voice say, "Hehehe, has more fresh food delivered itself to my door?"

Xie Mingzhe looked up and saw a creature with the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a snake writhing beside the stone pillar. Several small snakes followed her nearby. This was clearly the boss and lesser monsters that needed to be defeated in the dungeon.

The system said: "Please monitor your mental power points. Your current character level is Level 1, with a total of 10 mental power points. Summoning one One-Star Card consumes 5 mental power points. Mental power automatically recovers every second."

Having played games before, Xie Mingzhe had no trouble understanding—mental power was like the mana bar in an online game. Summoning cards consumed it, clearly to limit the number of cards that could be summoned. Otherwise, if players summoned hundreds of cards in one go, the game would surely descend into chaos.