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With 10 Mental Power, each card consumed 5 points, so he could summon at most two. The official system had given him exactly two cards, no more, no less.

Xie Mingzhe summoned the Ice Serpent and Thunderbird together.

The Ice Serpent was a pure white little snake about a meter long, its entire body seeming to be wrapped in ice and snow as it gave off wisps of cold air. It crawled around on the ground and actually looked rather cute. Thunderbird, on the other hand, was hard to compliment—it looked like a black crow and crackled with electricity all over. It was truly a frizzy little punk bird.

The Ice Serpent's single-target Freeze skill could freeze a designated target. Xie Mingzhe tried using it to freeze the Great Snake Demon. Thunderbird's skill, Lightning Link, was an area-of-effect attack. When Xie Mingzhe activated it, it indeed damaged both the Great Snake Demon and the little snakes around it.

He had been a science student in his previous life and was particularly sensitive to numbers, so he deliberately observed the damage values. Thunderbird's area attack dealt around 80 damage. Judging by the card's stats, its base attack was 100, and the skill description said it dealt 80% damage, which perfectly matched the calculation of 100 × 80%.

In other words, the final damage dealt by a card depended on its base attack and the skill's damage multiplier.

With Xie Mingzhe's years of gaming experience, he quickly determined that this card's stats were mediocre and not worth wasting resources to raise to Seven-Star. No wonder—the cards given out during the beginner period definitely wouldn't be top-tier. Later on, there might be good cards with 200% or 300% skill multipliers and higher base attack.

Good cards would have to be collected gradually. Xie Mingzhe wasn't in a hurry; he would familiarize himself with the game's rules first.

The simple beginner dungeon posed no challenge to Xie Mingzhe. He calculated data while clearing the dungeon, quickly wiping out the minor monsters and reducing the Great Snake Demon to 1% health.

Just then, the Great Snake Demon suddenly self-destructed, instantly killing both the Ice Serpent and Thunderbird.

--Congratulations, you have cleared the Phantom Realm!

--Ice Serpent and Thunderbird have reached Level 3. Additional rewards: Green Starstone ×10, Green Repair Stone ×2.

As Xie Mingzhe was wondering about it, the considerate system began explaining, "[Starstone] contains a large amount of experience. You can feed Starstone to cards you like to level them up. [Repair Stone] can repair cards. Every card in Star Card World has a limited number of uses. When a Star Card dies, its number of uses decreases. Once it falls to 0, the card is damaged and must be repaired with a Repair Stone of the same rank."

"Your Ice Serpent and Thunderbird are both damaged. Use Repair Stones to repair them!"

No wonder the snake demon had self-destructed at the end and instantly killed both cards—it was meant to teach players about the card repair feature.

After repairing the two cards, Xie Mingzhe followed the system prompts and continued grinding dungeons for experience.

***

Outside, Chen had just walked out when a tall young woman said to him, "Chen, we got a big order."

Chen's eyes lit up. "What kind of order?"

The woman said, "Someone posted a bounty task at the trading house. They want a hundred Seven-Star Wood-element fragments, with a reward of twenty thousand gold coins. It has to be completed within three days. I grabbed it."

Cheers erupted around them. "A-Qing is amazing!" "A hundred fragments—we've got our work cut out for us!"

Chen waved his hand decisively. "Everyone get ready. We're going to Wood Planet to farm materials."

The woman reminded him, "The Wood Planet dungeon requires a five-person team. There are only four of us, so we need to find one more."

Chen thought of the newcomer they had recruited that day. He walked back into the adjacent room and called to Xie Mingzhe, "Little Xie, the studio's short on people. Have you gotten familiar with the game yet? Come run a dungeon with us."

Eager to prove himself useful, Xie Mingzhe immediately ran over. Smiling, he greeted his "colleagues" and sat down beside them.

Everyone was in the game, so they paid no attention to his greeting. With their helmets on, they hadn't seen him at all.

Chen directed, "Wood Planet, gather at the entrance to Misty Forest."

Xie Mingzhe shamelessly asked, "Chen, where's Misty Forest?"

Chen patiently answered, "There's a room in your personal apartment with the world map inside. Just click wherever you want to go, and you can teleport there."

Xie Mingzhe had been following the system prompts to clear dungeons and had only made it to the study; he hadn't even finished the quest yet. He set aside what he was doing and checked the next room. Sure enough, the last room in the three-bedroom apartment contained a world map—a vast map of the starry universe, with every twinkling star labeled in text.

Was this the Star Card World's galaxy map? It was far too spectacular...

Xie Mingzhe stared blankly for two seconds before quickly finding the "Wood Planet" Chen had mentioned among the densely packed stars.

The game had planets from the solar system such as Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars, but Earth was nowhere to be seen. Xie Mingzhe carefully noticed that cards also had elemental markers like Water and Metal. Could planets like Wood Planet and Mars be related to card attributes as well?

Still puzzled, Xie Mingzhe teleported to Wood Planet and found the entrance to the Misty Forest dungeon. Chen sent him a party invitation. The moment Xie Mingzhe joined the team, he heard a cool female voice beside him. "You're the new guy, right? Tell me what cards you have so I can assign tasks for the dungeon."

Xie Mingzhe summoned his two cards. "I only have Ice Serpent and Thunderbird."

The woman glanced at the cute little white snake crawling around at his feet and the frizzy little electric bird flitting over his head. She nearly choked. "You brought beginner cards like these to a Seven-Star dungeon? Are you serious?"

The bespectacled man beside her suppressed a laugh. "Your Thunderbird only has 100 attack. The boss in a Seven-Star dungeon has a million health."

A flock of crows flew overhead...

Xie Mingzhe's expression in the game was utterly innocent. Didn't you guys invite me?

The culprit, Chen, awkwardly rubbed his nose. "I forgot, I forgot. He's a newbie. It's his first day playing this game."

The air suddenly fell silent...

After five seconds of silence, Chen rubbed his temples in frustration. "Fine. Little Xie, just come along and watch!"

Xie Mingzhe rubbed his hands excitedly, swiftly sitting upright like a well-behaved student listening attentively in class. "Okay, Chen. I'll just come along and watch. I definitely won't cause everyone any trouble!"