Master of Trading Star Card Game - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Tang Muzhou

Although Xie Mingzhe was a complete newbie, he was a studio intern after all. Brother Chen introduced Xie Mingzhe to the other members of Nirvana Game Studio in this collective activity: “Chi Qing’s game ID is Green Grass, Pang Yu’s ID is Galaxy Stars, Jin Yue’s ID is Golds, my ID in the game is also Brother Chen. All four members are here now.”

“Hello everyone.” Xie Mingzhe also introduced himself, “I’m Xie Mingzhe. I just started playing this game. My ID in the game is: Uncle Chubby.”

“…Hello.” This strange ID confused the others. They responded vaguely, not very enthusiastic. They hadn’t seen a newcomer like him for a long time. What was Brother Chen thinking about? Why did he hire a newbie as a booster? Was Xie Mingzhe reliable?

Almost speechless, Chi Qing side-texted Brother Chen: “Brother Chen, are you sure to bring him with us?”

“He said that he was an experienced booster. I will tell him about the mechanism of the Boss. It won’t be a problem for him. Let him follow us and join in the fun.” Brother Chen tried to convince himself. Then he looked at Xie Mingzhe’s figure in the game.

He remembered that Xie Mingzhe, who was more than 1.8 meters tall, looked very handsome with a bright smile. But his figure in the game was opposite to that – a fat man, less than 1.7 meters tall, whose ID was “Uncle Chubby” – so stupid.

A lanky boy was called “Uncle Chubby”? Was he kidding?

Brother Chen cleared his mind, waving at other members: “Let’s go.”

***

Lands of illusion in the World of Star Card were just like instances in online games. Players could get a lot of rewards for challenging lands of illusion which ranged from one star(lowest degree of difficulty) to seven stars(highest degree of difficulty). The Misty Forest at Jupiter was a seven-star instance designed for a five-member team.

Xie Mingzhe knew that he shouldn’t be here as soon as he entered the instance. Here the mobs  all had a HP more than ten thousand, but his Thunder Bird’s Attack was only 100 points. It was killed within seconds – how could it attack the mobs? Icy Snake and Thunder Bird died as soon as they entered the instance, and their Available Times of Use also changed from 1/1 to 0/1. Besides, he needed materials to repair the cards. Xie Mingzhe took pity on his cards, so he immediately put them away.

Xie Mingzhe thought his level was so low that in the high-level instance, he could hold the position but do nothing. As a result, after his two cards died, his role ‘Uncle Chubby’ was still alive. Probably, the setting of the game was based on the cards – all fighting depended on the cards – while the player’s role didn’t have any attack power, then would his role be alive forever?

Although confused, Xie Mingzhe followed the four people and watched their fighting.

As soon as they entered the instance, Pang Yu used the [Rhinoceros]. The rhinoceros rampaged through the Misty Forest which suddenly broke the silence. When the awakened little treants saw the intruder, they screamed and immediately lunged at the rhinoceros.

The rhino rushed all the way and Brother Chen and his teammates also ran behind it. The little treants were scattered around, so we could hardly see where the rhino was.

At that moment, Chi Qing beside me suddenly summoned two cards at one go.

– [Storm Goddness], the graceful goddess flapped her wings and then a tornado swirled around all scattered treants, bringing them together in an instant!

— [Ice Goddness], the crystal-like goddess fell from the sky and surrounded all treants with heavy snow, freezing them in situ!

Brother Chen said, “Fire”

Then Brother Chen and the guy named Jin Yue started throwing lots of their skills toward the treants.

Xie Mingzhe was shocked by their fight, hiding behind them.

The holographic game was so realistic that when he had just seen Storm Goddess and Ice Goddness, he felt it was like watching all kinds of 3D fantasy blockbusters on earth. Goddesses seemed so close and vivid. Together with the sound of continuous wind and heavy snow overhead, the visual and sound effects were perfect.

666, the effect of this game was so great that all engineers who developed it deserved a “thumbs up”.

Xie Mingzhe sighed as he watches them killing the mobs.

It was highly efficient for the four well-coordinated players to clear the instance – killed all treants in 30 seconds. Brother Chen recuperated in situ, put the dropped fragments into his personal package, and then continued to go deep into the forest.

Since Xie Mingzhe’s cards were dead and damaged, he decided to look on intently.

As he had expected, materials they got from the forest instance on Jupiter were all with Wood attribute.

After killing seven rounds of mobs, they finally encountered the Boss.

Xie Mingzhe noticed the Boss in the distance was a flower more than one meter tall. It looked like a lily, but it was a colorful one whose five petals were red, green, blue, grey and gold respectively.

Brother Chen stopped and said: “A’Qing, tell Xiao Xie (Xiao means young, which is often used as a prefix before surname when one calls someone else younger than him or her to show amity in China) how to beat this Boss.”

Chi Qing still spoke in an indifferent voice: “The flower monster is a Boss of Five Elements. When fighting with it, players have to stand on different patterns. Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth correspond to gold, green, blue, red and brown. When a pattern with a certain color was generated under its feet, players need to step on the corresponding pattern at the external frontiers that restrain them, which makes it much easier to defeat the Boss. The order of restraining in the Five Elements are: wood overcomes earth, Earth overcomes Water, Water overcomes Fire, Fire overcomes Metal and Metal overcomes Wood.”

A novice couldn’t remember all the information because she talked too much at once. However, Xie Mingzhe was so talented in games that once an e-sports club scout talked to him. He immediately grasped the key information, saying: “What can I do for you? Help you step on the pattern?”

Chi Qing spoke very fast, but Xie Mingzhe listened carefully. She considered Xie Mingzhe as a drag on her team before, but now her attitude of exclusion toward him relaxed, “When the green Wood pattern generates under the Boss’s feet, its HP will recover, while the red pattern will help the Boss kill all the players in a second. Therefore, we have to stand on certain patterns to restrain it. It doesn’t matter if we fail to step on other patterns that can restrain patterns increasing its attack and defense, because we can kill it by violent attack… Can you understand?”

Xie Mingzhe nodded, “I know. When a Wood pattern emerges, I have to step on the Metal pattern; if it is Fire, I should step on Water, right?”

“…Yes.” Chi Qing was somewhat surprised. It took her a long time to recite the order of mutual overcoming. She wanted to explain it to him in detail again, however, Xie Mingzhe understood it after he listened to it once. Really?

“Let’s get ready.” Brother Chen said. He had no idea whether Xie Mingzhe could step on the right patterns. He thought it perfectly possible that the newbie would step on the wrong pattern and the Boss ace all of them.

However, to everyone’s surprise, when Boss generated a Wood pattern restoring its HP at its foot, Xie Mingzhe immediately ran to the external frontier and stepped on the gold Metal pattern, which solved the Wood pattern; then the red Fire pattern appeared at the foot of Boss, so he stepped on the blue pattern to restrain it; then appeared the blue pattern, so he stepped on the brown; the brown appeared, then he stepped on the green…

Boss generated the patterns quite quickly, but Uncle Chubby also ran very fast. He ran in a regular rhythm same as Boss releasing skills – Boss generated patterns every 10 seconds, while he ran back and forth exactly in 10 seconds, as if he had calculated to a nicety the time.

Xie Mingzhe stepped on all patterns accurately, restraining Boss of the Five Elements successfully.

With his help, the rest summoned their cards to fight against Boss at full blast. Finally, they defeated it within a shorter time than usual.

After completing the mission, Brother Chen surprisedly looked at their completion time, which was three minutes shorter than usual. He had thought before that Xie Mingzhe would just stumbled around, stepping on the wrong patterns. He didn’t expect the newcomer to be very smart. Chi Qing only told Xie Mingzhe about the order of mutual overcoming in the Five Elements once, but he bore it in mind without making any mistakes.

Xie Mingzhe proved himself that he was really an experienced booster – although he had never played “Star Card Storm” before, he played many other games, so he could learn by analogy and quickly understood.

“I only offered a monthly salary of 1500 but found a really ‘cheap and fine’ intern!” Thinking about that, Brother Chen relaxed his attitude towards Xie Mingzhe. He gently asked: “Xiao Xie, it seems that you are quite familiar with the order of mutual overcoming in the Five Elements?”

Xie Mingzhe smiled: “Many of the games I’ve played before involve the Five Elements, so I’ve committed them to memory.”

Brother Chen glanced at him with satisfaction, “All cards in Star Card Storm have their own attributes corresponding to five Major Planets¹. Players must go to the corresponding Major Planet to gain materials for evolution. There is an overcoming cycle in the Five Elements, for example, Water overcomes Fire, so when you use cards with Water attribute to fight against cards with Fire attribute, your cards will have a higher Effect Accuracy, which is almost the same as Effect Accuracy Percentage. But more importantly, a suit of cards with same attribute will gain Suit Percentage.”

Xie Mingzhe was really insightful, so Brother Chen set his mind on teaching him, patiently explaining: “The so-called “a suit of cards” means when you have more than five cards with the same attribute in your set of playing cards, you will get [Major Planet’s Blessing], namely Suit Percentage.

There is a wide range of the Suit Percentage of Five Main Stars. Late in the game when you want to collect your own suit, you could draw close to your favorite Main Star. Now that you know the attribute rule, it’s easier for you to play the game!”

“Uh-huh!” As he responded, Xie Mingzhe took out his two cards: [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird], which were presented by the system. Their respective attributes were Water and Metal. After Brother Chen’s explanation, Xie Mingzhe had understood the role of card attributes – these cards of different attributes mutually restrict each other and the suit with the same attribute would obtain the additional bonus. This was the whole point during the future fight in Arena.

“First, you need to level up to 35. At that time, you can use seven-star cards, then we could clean instances together.” Brother Chen could not wait to see Xie Mingzhe’s progress. Now that the recruited intern was a good candidate, he wanted to fast cultivate Xie Mingzhe as his primary assistant.

“No problem!” Xie Mingzhe also wanted to level up quickly, because the level of the role would affect the Inner Spirit. His present Inner Spirit was only 20 points, so he couldn’t use advanced cards. The current focus was to level his role up.

***

At the same time, in Fenghua (which means elegance and talent) Club’s apartment for players.

The handsome young man sat on the sofa with a gauzy tablet computer in his hand. His hands looked really pretty with strong fingers and his nails were clean.

At this moment, his right index finger was sliding fast on the tablet computer.

In front of the LCD screen, there were many seven-star cards with black metallic luster, the back of which were red, green, blue, golden – thin threads of various colors stretched like vines and formed complex but exquisite patterns on their back.

– Each card seemed like a significant collection.

The door was pushed open, a 30-year-old woman, in a tailored skirt and with high-heeled shoes, stepped in and stopped in front of him, “Xiao Tang, is it you who privately posted the rewarding task for 100 Wood fragments this noon? I find your subsidiary account.”

“Yeah.” Tang Muzhou didn’t turn his sight away from the screen and gently responded.

“If for emergency, you can tell the club and I could directly give you the material from our club.” The woman kindly suggested.

“Don’t let the club know the card first.” Tang Muzhou put down the tablet computer and looked up at her. “I am inventing a new card.”

“Oh?” The woman sat down beside him with interest, “How about the data of the new card?”

“Not bad. When the new card levels up to seven stars, I’ll take it into the Arena for actual combat. The result will determine whether I will use it in the next competition season. With the unstable data of the new card, I don’t intend to bother the club for the time being, so I have released a rewarding task.” Tang Muzhou explained.

“I see.” The woman nodded, asking, “Are the people who have undertaken your task trustworthy?”

“A game studio providing boosting service took the task. Boosters won’t divulge the customer’s information. In addition, I used my subsidiary account that they don’t know.”

“That’s good.” The woman breathed a sigh of relief and warned Tang Muzhou, “Be cautious. After all, you are well-known in the game, so many clubs are studying your set of playing cards. Before the match, keep the data of your new playing cards a secret to avoid being targeted. Be careful when you put the new card on trial in the game.”

“I got it, sister Xue.” Tang Muzhou showed a faint smile and said, “It doesn’t matter even if the data is exposed in advance. I have never relied on the cards only in the match.”

“…” He was right. Having a strong set of playing cards was just the foundation of winning a match. Whether one could win a match mainly depended on his ability to embattle and adapt to changing circumstances. Tang Muzhou, who once won the first place in the Individual Race in the National Star Card League, was certainly an outstanding player.

Tang Muzhou was only 23 years old. He was a young man boasting a unique temperament. He was elegant and graceful, as if he was the gentlest prince in a cartoon fairytale. He was handsome and his smile made people warm. Seeing his smile, people would easily be off guard.

However, only those knowing him well knew that he was not as mild as he looked.

What was hidden behind his gentle smile was his fierce and merciless way of attack. Tang Muzhou played miraculously the Wood plant cards, especially his famous card [Thousand-year-old God Tree], which could kill other cards in a large scale, having defeated many trump cards of other professional players.

Killing his opponents’ cards with various kinds of vines with a smile – Tang Muzhou in the match was undoubtedly the most terrifying Wood player.

Translator’s Notes:

1. Wu Xing (Chinese: 五行) originally refers to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus) that create five dimensions of earth life.

Wood→Jupiter

Fire→Mars

Earth→Saturn

Metal→Venus

Water→Mercury