Twelve wild dogs. That was a fortune, a huge fortune!
For Aige, who was used to a life of hardship, that was enough dog meat to last how many days? The hides could also fetch a few copper coins, at a stretch.
He was squatting in this hellhole of a graveyard, surrounded by corpses and guts. He wasn't a picky eater, but this really wasn't the setting for a meal. At the very least, he needed to move somewhere cleaner and have some meat to recover...
But each dog weighed dozens of pounds. How was a malnourished seventeen- or eighteen-year-old who had just crawled out of hell supposed to carry them?
Fortunately, the system was considerate enough. Desperate, he tried using Hero Space and found that he could easily store these inanimate objects inside, saving him some trouble...
In a small cave, Aige gathered some dead branches and used fire magic to light a campfire for warmth and cooking meat! His body really wasn't much to speak of. It was too frail, but fortunately, he still had the bonus from his system points. Now he only looked scrawny; his actual constitution was decent.
He had no knife! He could only find a somewhat sharp stone, break it into a crude stone blade, and eagerly prepare to butcher a wild dog with it. Unfortunately, things didn't go as he hoped. The stone blade was utterly useless, and he ended up relying almost entirely on brute force. After a tremendous effort, he finally "smashed" off a hind leg...
That was right! He had smashed it off. The crude stone blade couldn't cut through it at all!
Of course, he didn't have any seasoning either. The meat smelled delicious roasting, but it didn't taste like much. Still, he wasn't some fussy bastard. At a time like this, having anything to eat was good enough; he couldn't afford to pick and choose!
He stopped after eating half the leg, not because he was full, but because he didn't dare eat too much at once! Aige's body was far too frail. Long-term malnutrition had left him looking skin and bones. Fortunately, he was still of average height, and he believed some time spent recuperating would improve things. But he absolutely couldn't become fat in a single bite. Even if he could take it, his stomach couldn't.
After putting the half-eaten leg into Hero Space for safekeeping (what a thoughtful and useful feature. It deserved a thumbs-up!), the young master, fed and warm, began to think lustful thoughts... Oh, no! He settled down to study the Warcraft Hearthstone System.
His earlier first close encounter with the wild dog pack had left the poor Wisp with only a sliver of health!
This wasn't a game, after all, but a real world. The Wisp's one-star health didn't mean it really had only one health point. On the contrary, after taking a careful look, the esteemed gentleman found that this one star actually amounted to quite a lot. During the fight, at least four or five wild dogs had attacked it. Although the dogs could only tear at it with their claws, that still meant its one-star health could withstand quite a few hits, much better than he had initially expected. The discovery greatly pleased the young master...
The bad news was that when he recalled the Wisp into Hero Space and summoned it again, it still had only a sliver of health. That meant Hero Space couldn't heal minions... Simply put, summoned minions were disposable consumables, unless he was willing to heal them. But the damn Priest's Lesser Heal had a one-day cooldown. The wild dogs had scratched him quite a few times earlier, leaving him with many scars.
Fortunately, hero classes were somewhat like those in the game: sitting down to rest slowly restored health and mana, though much more slowly than in the game. Getting back to full health without spending a whole day on it was basically wishful thinking...
He had made up his mind. As soon as his skill's cooldown ended, he would heal the Wisp. He couldn't let this meritorious minion quietly die like that!
He had already noticed that the first card the system had given him was nowhere to be found in his card pack. Recalling how he had seen the card torn apart to release the minion inside when he summoned the Wisp, he reasoned that the cost of summoning a minion here was probably the complete destruction of the card, wasn't it? That was much more costly than in the game, where a few mana crystals let him use a card repeatedly...
The discovery troubled him for a long time. Hearthstone cards were hard to come by, and having one completely destroyed whenever he used it was painful. He would have to collect it again before he could use it. Of course, he could apparently collect lots of the same card too... I'll tear up one, then another... One to guard me, one to sleep with me! (Of course, this was only the esteemed gentleman's dream. Let him be happy for a while. In reality, the system had many strict restrictions and couldn't be that heaven-defying.)
Now that the Wisp card was confirmed gone, there was no need to mourn it for too long. Time to look at the next one!
This was a one-mana Priest class card. Damn!
Northshire Bitch! He'd pulled a god-tier card!
In the game Hearthstone, Northshire Priest was unquestionably a god-tier one-mana card, and Queen Xia Yike had outright called her Northshire Bitch! Back in the days before the changes, when Priests ran rampant, playing Northshire Bitch on turn one, or using the coin to play two Northshire Bitches when going second, basically meant the opponent could say gg! (For those who haven't played: the coin for going second meant that the opponent played first, but for balance, the game compensated the player going second with a coin. It could be used on any turn to gain one extra mana, so using it on turn one gave the second player two mana that turn, enough to play two Northshire Bitches. Back then, there was basically no answer to that.)
Class minion cards were generally a little stronger than neutral minions of the same cost. But this one wasn't just a little stronger. One mana to summon, one attack and three health. Her health was incredibly high. In the first three turns, few minions could take her out with three health. Unless the opponent had put powerful spell cards like Lightning Bolt or Frostbolt in their deck to clear her, having this bitch standing on the board would definitely make them miserable!
Mind you, her value never came from that paltry one attack, but from a skill that took effect while she was on the board: whenever a minion was healed, her hero could draw a card!
In Hearthstone, cards that gave an advantage in hand size were relatively powerful, and Northshire Priest was one of them. Used well, she could give her owner a card advantage that was easily converted into a winning position.
For example, if you played a 1/3 Northshire Priest and your opponent had no choice but to play a 2/1 minion-it was hard to find three-attack minions at low mana costs-you could simply trade with it using Northshire Priest. She would be left with one health, but Lesser Heal would restore two health, bringing the lively Northshire Priest back to three, and her skill would let you draw another card... How could anyone stand that? So many people simply cursed this god-tier card as Northshire Bitch: once that bitch showed up, you were in for a hard time!
Of course, the people cursing her certainly didn't play Priest. Most Priest heroes put one or two Northshire Priests into the limited space of their thirty-card decks... Everyone loved a useful card!
Could it be? If I just summon Northshire Priest and then heal the Wisp to full health tomorrow, will I get a new card?
Then as long as I keep Northshire Priest from dying, won't I have an endless supply of new cards? I'm about to start playing with cheats!... Just as he was fantasizing about his future life of sexual bliss, a blow to the head left him completely disoriented.
Northshire Priest, one-star minion card, gray common quality. One-star attack in all attributes, three-star defense in all categories. Special ability: whenever a minion is healed, Hero Space additionally summons one Human Recruit. Maximum duration: one day. Summoning cooldown: one day! Human Recruit, one-star minion card, gray common quality. One attack, one health! Maximum duration: one day.
That was right! After the system's fusion, there couldn't possibly be a loophole that provided an endless supply of cards. So all card-draw effects had been changed, and Northshire Priest's template effect had become summoning one completely unremarkable Human Recruit. Though still decent, compared with the former god-tier card, it was absolute trash!
The young master could understand the system's change, but the difference was a bit much... Mm, better have a bite of dog meat first!
If he could accept the card-draw effect being censored, then the card description's one-day maximum duration and one-day cooldown had knocked him completely senseless. From this, he now understood why a mere zero-cost Wisp with 1/1 stats had been rated a white excellent card: it had no maximum duration, and its zero cost also meant it had no summoning cooldown!
Northshire Priest cost one mana, lasted at most one day, and had a one-day cooldown. He figured the rest of the pattern was probably much the same. He could infer that two-cost creatures basically lasted at most two days, with a two-day cooldown; ten-cost creatures lasted at most ten days, with a ten-day cooldown... As a top-tier hardcore gamer who had spent decades studying games, he could bet his balls that it definitely followed this pattern!
This amounted to indirectly limiting the range of uses for his summoned creatures... It even gave him a warning: the Book of Hearthstone probably had more restrictions he didn't know about, ones he simply hadn't uncovered yet!
He had very few cards now and couldn't obtain much information, so he couldn't draw any more conclusions. But the Book of Hearthstone was based on Hearthstone, after all, and some rules were bound to apply. For example...
Aige tried hard to recall everything he had seen about Hearthstone in the past... Hmm!
Apparently, there could be no more than two copies of any card in a deck... That might be a restriction!
Apparently, there could be no more than one copy of a legendary-quality card, colored orange...
There could be no more than seven minions on the board...
By the time he came here, roughly three hundred cards had been released in that version of the game. There were definitely unreleased ones, but he didn't know whether monsters here could drop them...
Monsters also came in different qualities. Were their drops related to their quality and level?
In the game, Arcane Dust could be used to craft cards, and disenchanting cards yielded Arcane Dust. What were the exact rules?
The more the esteemed gentleman thought about it, the more his forehead broke out in sweat!
There were definitely pitfalls among these rules! He just hadn't had a chance to encounter them yet...