Tang Muzhou | Wood-Type Player: Tang Muzhou

Author's note: The early chapters lay the groundwork for the worldbuilding, so there will be a bit more game description. The game's mechanics are more novel than the keyboard-based online game I wrote before, so the rules need to be explained clearly.

You can think of cards as [summons]. Summoned cards come with different skills. This is an open card world where every player can create their own deck, and every competitor in the story will have their own distinctive deck as well.

Tang Muzhou | Wood-Type Player: Tang Muzhou

Although Xie Mingzhe was undeniably a complete newbie, he was here as an intern at the studio after all. Taking advantage of this group activity, Chen introduced Nirvana Studio's members to him. "Chi Qing's game ID is Green Grass, Pang Yu's is Cosmic Stars, Jin Yue's is Gold, and my in-game ID is Chen. There are currently only four of us in the studio."

"Hello, everyone." Xie Mingzhe proactively introduced himself as well. "My name is Xie Mingzhe. I just started playing this game, and my in-game ID is: Fat Uncle."

"...Hello." Hearing that strange ID, the others gave vague responses without much enthusiasm. It had been a long time since they had seen a newbie like him. Chen had somehow recruited a beginner to work as a power-leveler. Was that really reliable?

The corner of Chi Qing's mouth twitched slightly as she privately messaged their leader. "Chen, are you sure you want to bring him along?"

"He said he has several years of experience as a power-leveler. Once we explain the Boss mechanics to him, he should be fine. Let him tag along and have some fun." Chen forcibly convinced himself, then looked again at Xie Mingzhe in the game.

He remembered that the young man who had come today was very handsome, with a sunny smile and a height clearly over 1.8 meters. Yet his in-game appearance was completely different—a fat man under 1.7 meters tall, with the name "Fat Uncle." The more Chen looked, the sillier it seemed.

A tall, skinny young man with the ID "Fat Uncle"? Was he here

to be funny

or what?

Unable to bear looking at that ID any longer, Chen waved his hand. "Enter the instance."

***

The Phantom Realm in Star Card World was like instances in online games. Challenging Phantom Realms earned plenty of rewards, and their difficulty was divided by star rating, with one star being the lowest and seven stars the highest. Misty Forest on Wood Planet was a five-player material instance with seven-star difficulty.

The moment Xie Mingzhe entered the instance, he knew he had come to the wrong place. The minor monsters here had health pools in the tens of thousands, while his Thunderbird had only 100 attack power. Forget fighting monsters—one touch would kill it instantly. Seeing Ice Serpent and Thunderbird die as soon as they entered, their usage count changing from 1/1 to 0/1, and knowing damaged cards needed materials to repair, Xie Mingzhe felt a pang of heartache and immediately put the cards away.

Xie Mingzhe had assumed that, being so low-level, he would definitely spend the whole high-level instance lying dead. Yet although both of his cards had died, Fat Uncle himself had not died in the instance. Perhaps the game was designed around cards: combat relied entirely on cards, and players had no attack power, so they could not die?

Filled with questions, Xie Mingzhe followed behind the four of them and observed carefully.

As soon as Pang Yu entered the instance, he used a [Rhino Card]. The rhino charged wildly forward, instantly shattering Misty Forest's silence. The awakened Tree Sprites saw intruders in their home and immediately howled as they pounced toward the rhino.

The rhino raced ahead, while Chen and the others followed after it. The Tree Sprites scattered chaotically in every direction, and soon no one could even tell where the rhino was.

At that moment, Chi Qing suddenly summoned two cards in succession.

—Storm Goddess. The graceful goddess beat her wings, and a fierce tornado swept through the area, instantly gathering the scattered Tree Sprites together!

—Ice Goddess. The crystal-clear goddess descended from the sky as snow swirled around her, freezing every Tree Sprite in place!

Chen said, "Attack!"

Then Chen and the guy called Jin Yue began unleashing a barrage of skills.

Xie Mingzhe stood behind them, completely dumbfounded.

The full-dive game's effects were incredibly realistic. When he had just seen Storm Goddess and Ice Goddess descend, it felt exactly like sitting in a movie theater during Earth's era and watching all kinds of 3D fantasy blockbusters. The goddesses were right before his eyes, vivid and lifelike. Sharp winds howled around him, snow drifted overhead, and both the visuals and sound effects were flawless.

Awesome. The game effects were seriously amazing. The engineers who developed this game deserved a collective thumbs-up.

While marveling at it all, Xie Mingzhe watched them fight the minor monsters.

The four coordinated smoothly, clearing the instance with impressive efficiency. They killed this batch of Tree Sprites in just thirty seconds. Chen reorganized the group on the spot, placed the dropped fragment materials into his inventory, and continued deeper into the forest.

Since Xie Mingzhe's cards had already died and been damaged, he simply focused on watching the show.

Just as he had expected, the forest instance on Wood Planet dropped nothing but wood-element materials.

After clearing seven waves of minor monsters, they finally reached the Boss.

Xie Mingzhe saw that the distant Boss was a flower, a little over a meter tall. It looked somewhat like a lily from Earth, except it was a colorful version, with five large petals in red, green, blue, brown, and gold.

Chen stopped walking and said, "A-Qing, explain how to fight this Boss to Little Xie."

Chi Qing, having been called on, remained as indifferent as ever. "Flower Demon is a five-element Boss. When fighting it, players need to step on formations. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth correspond to gold, green, blue, red, and brown. When formations of different colors appear beneath it, players need to step on the formation outside that counters it, which makes the fight much easier. The countering order is: wood counters earth, earth counters water, water counters fire, fire counters metal, metal counters wood."

A newbie definitely would not remember so much information at once. But Xie Mingzhe had enough gaming talent to once attract an "esports club scout," and he immediately picked out the key point from her explanation. "How can I help? Should I step on the formations for you?"

Chi Qing spoke quickly, and she had not expected this guy to listen so carefully. Her resistance toward this "newbie who would hold everyone back" eased slightly. "When a green wood formation appears beneath the Boss, it restores its health. A red fire formation sends it berserk and wipes the whole team, so those formations must be countered by stepping on them. It doesn't matter if we ignore the other formations that increase attack or defense; we can brute-force the fight... Do you understand how to step on them?"