Master of Trading Star Card Game

Chapter 4 – Game Rules

After entering the game, Xie Mingzhe, who had never played holographic games before, was stupefied by the image in front of him.

The vast starry sky and the resplendent Milky Way greeted his eyes. He also saw a meteor shower while travelling in a carrier spacecraft. Countless meteors dragging silvery white trails of light dotted the night sky, which was like gorgeous fireworks in the space.

Xie Mingzhe thrilled to enjoy the scene at the window. He felt like “granny Liu who was visiting the Grand View Gardens¹” – a bumpkin opened the door to a new world.

After a period of voyage in space, there was a “ding” in his ear and the crisp prompt sound said: “Welcome to the Binary Star. Your assigned residence here is: No. 7498 Apartment in G District. Please enter your personal space.”

Landed on both feet, Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath to slow down his rapid heartbeat and turned his head to look at the so-called “personal space”.

The design of three bedrooms and one living room was similar to that of a house in the real world. There were sofas, tea tables and LCD TV with a huge screen – it was probably the world channel, on which there were many literal messages that made Xie Mingzhe dazzled.

After leaving the living room, he followed the arrows beneath his feet to the bedroom. The system sound: “You can rest in your bedroom if you are tired. Certainly, you are allowed to change its decorative style and furniture.In addition, you can invite your friends to your house.”

The game designers incorporated “Homeland Design” into the game. Every player had his own apartment that they could decorate and design to make a virtual friendship space.

Xie Mingzhe praised the design in the heart. He followed the instruction to the study from the bedroom.

The three walls of the study were lined with light blue metal display cases, which were divided into neat rows of small sub-boxes. Each sub-box is a square of 20×20cm, which was similar to a backpack that you can store cards and materials in online games.

There was a metal console in the center of the study. As Xie Mingzhe approached it, the system sound: “This is the [Card Console] where all the cards are made, decomposed, leveled and evolved. Please read carefully the card instructions.”

Game newbies should pay attention to the instruction – this was Xie Mingzhe’s experience from playing different games in the past.

With a gentle stroke, an animated version of a detailed explanation appeared in front of him.

Star Card Storm, of course, took card as the core of the game.

Star cards’ strength depended on upgrading and evolution.

The initial card was level 1 one-star green card, which could evolve to a level 20 two-star blue card, level 30 three-star purple card, level 40 four-star orange card, level 50 five-star silver card, level 60 six-star golden card and level 70 (the highest level) seven-star black card.

Every time the card leveled up, its skill power would gain a percentage increase. When it evolved, its base attributes would be raised two fold. To evolve, the card must reach a certain level first, and then it needed to devour three cards of the same star level or one hundred fragments of high star level.

For instance, to evolve a six-star card into a seven-star card, players needed to raise the card level to 70 and then fed it three six-star cards or one hundred fragments of seven-star, and it could evolve into a powerful seven-star card with doubled strength.

Leveling up was easy to understand, which was to gain as much experience as possible to level. Xie Mingzhe interpreted the evolution of the card as “level breakthrough” in online games. Every time the card evolved, it would consume a lot of resources, but the high star-level card players obtained at last would repay them with doubled strength.

In the late game, there would be seven-star cards of the highest level in instances and arena that dominated the game. A seven-star card of level 70 was extremely expensive to cultivate as it needed a great deal of experience and resources, so how to cultivate cards was a knowledge for players.

Xie Mingzhe had a basic understanding of the game rules.

After reading the beginner’s guide, Xie Mingzhe heard a prompt sound of the system: “After reading the rules of card upgrading and evolution, let’s get into battle! There are countless wonderful lands of illusion in the World of Star Card. You can gain a wealth of experience and material rewards by challenging them. There are some alien creatures in the lands of illusion, use the cards the system gives you to defeat them!”

“Ding-ding,” went the prompt sound – Get card [Icy Snake] × 1, [Thunder Bird] × 1.

A display case on the left side lit up, and two green cards appeared inside. The level 1 one-star green card was the initial card in the game.

Xie Mingzhe picked up the cards, poring over their data.

[Icy Snake]（Water²）

Card Level：1

Evolution Level：★

Available Times of Use：1/1

Base Attributes：Health 100，Defense 100，Attack 20，Agility 10， Critical Strike Chance 1%

Additional Skill：Freeze（Causes 20% damage of Water attribute to target. At the same time, target will be frozen in ice for 2 seconds.）

[Thunder Bird]（Metal）

Card Level：1

Evolution Level：★

Available Times of Use：1/1

Base Attributes：Health 100，Defense 50，Attack 100，Agility 30，Critical Strike Chance 5%

Additional Skill：Interlinking Thunder（A Thunder Bird hovering in the sky causes 80% sputtering damage of Thunder attribute to all targets within range.）

A control card and an AOE card.

The two cards, which the system gave to a beginner like him, must be enough to handle the instance in the novice stage.

Xie Mingzhe took two cards to the first instance, and the scene suddenly changed.

There was an empty square with a stone pillar in the middle. When Xie Mingzhe entered, he heard a woman’s spooky voice: “Hehehe, here comes fresh food…”

Xie Mingzhe raised his head and saw a creature with a human-like upper body and a snake-like lower body twisting beside the stone pillar. There were several small snakes around her. They were obviously the BOSS and its followers that he had to defeat.

Prompt Sound: “Please pay attention to your Inner Spirit points. Your current level is 1, with Inner Spirit totaling 10 points. Summoning a one-star card requires 5 Inner Spirit points. The system will automatically restore the Inner Spirit for you every second.”

As an experienced game player, Xie Mingzhe understood quickly – the Inner Spirit was just like the MP (Magic Points) in online games. Summoning cards would consume a player’s Inner Spirit points, which was obviously aimed at limiting the number of cards a player could summon. Otherwise, if a player summoned hundreds of cards in one breath, the game would definitely be in chaos.

Summoning a card needed 5 points, and Xie Mingzhe had 10 Inner Spirit points, so he could only summon two cards at most. No wonder the system just gave him two cards.

Xie Mingzhe summoned [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird] at the same time.

Translator’s Notes:

1. It is an expression commonly known to modern Chinese people relating to Granny Liu in Dream of the Red Mansion (one of the four greatest ancient Chinese novels). It refers to the parts of the novel where Granny Liu visits the noble family who plays host to her, but which also makes fun of her openly for her simplicity. (Granny Liu is, however, grateful for their generosity.) The expression is used in modern Chinese to describe someone, usually a simple unsophisticated person, who is overwhelmed by new experiences and luxurious surroundings.

2. This is one of the characters of the Five Elements called Wu Xing in Chinese. It is a fivefold conceptual scheme that many traditional Chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs, and from the succession of political regimes to the properties of medicinal drugs. The “Five Elements” are Wood (木 mù), Fire (火 huǒ), Earth (土 tǔ), Metal (金 jīn), and Water (水 shuǐ).

Chapter 4 – Game Rules (Part 2)

Icy Snake was a pure white snake about one meter long. It was covered with ice and snow, emitting coldness and crawling on the ground. It looked pretty cute, while Thunder Bird was just like a crow surrounded by bolts of lightning.

Icy Snake could freeze a single target, so Xie Mingzhe tried to use it to freeze the half-woman and half-snake monster. He also tried Thunder Bird’s AOE skill “Interlinking Thunder” – the monster and its surrounding snakes receiving damage as expected.

Xie Mingzhe was a science student sensitive to data when he was on Earth. He deliberately observed the damage points – “Interlinking Thunder” caused about 80-point damage to all targets. According to the description of Thunder Bird’s base attributes and additional skill, its base attack was 100 points, and its skill could cause 80% attack damage, which exactly conformed to the algorithm of 100×80%.

In other words, the ultimate damage a card could cause depended on its base attack  and skill coefficient.

As an experienced player, Xie Mingzhe quickly concluded this card was just a common one that was not worth wasting resources to level it up to seven stars. Cards the system gave to a newbie were definitely not good cards. As he played for a longer time, there might be better cards with higher coefficient like 200%, 300% and higher base attack.

Good cards couldn’t be obtained easily, so Xie Mingzhe just took his time, deciding to get familiar with the rules of the game first.

This simple instance was not difficult for Xie Mingzhe. He counted data while playing, and soon he killed all the small snakes and reduced the half-snake monster’s Health to only 1%.

At this moment, the monster suddenly committed a suicide explosion, killing [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird] within seconds.

——Congratulations! You have accomplished the mission of the illusion land.

——The levels of [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird] have been increased to Level 3. Added bonus: 10 Green Star Stones and 2 Green Repairing Stones.

When Xie Mingzhe thought about the usage of the Stones, the considerate game system explained: [Star Stone] contains lots of experience, which can be used to feed your favorite cards to level them up; Every Star Card has limited using time that would diminish after death and when the number decreases to 0, Star Cards would be damaged. At that time, [Repairing Stone] of the same level could fix those damaged Star Cards.

“Your [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird] has been damaged. Fix them with the Repairing Stones!”

No wonder the half-snake monster would commit suicide explosion to kill these two Star Cards. To make players know the repairing function of the Star Card.

After fixing these two cards, Xie Mingzhe followed the system’s guide and continued to gain more experience in different instances.

***

Outside the door, when Brother Chen had just walked out, a tall girl told him, “Brother Chen, we have received a big order.”

Brother Chen’s eyes got bright and asked, “What order?”

The girl said: “There is someone who issued a rewarding task in Exchange. He wants a total of 100 seven-star wood attribute fragments in three days and the reward reached 20,000 gold icons. I took the order first.”

A cheer rang out from all around: “Aqing, well done! A hundred fragments, we get a lot of  work to do!”

Brother Chen waved his hand neatly, “Get ready to gain materials in Jupiter.”

“The required squad of instances in Jupiter is five people. We, only four, couldn’t enter the instance. Ask another one to join us.” she said.

Thinking of the new recruit today, Brother Chen walked back to the next room and said to Xie Mingzhe, “Xiao Xie, our studio is shorthanded, have you known the game rules? Come and clear an instance with us.”

Finding his place in the studio, Xie Mingzhe immediately ran over, greeted several “colleagues” with a smile and sat next to them.

The crowd was in the game world and didn’t pay much attention to his greeting – wearing helmets, they didn’t even take a look at him.

“Jupiter,” said Brother Chen, “assemble at the entrance of the Misty Forest.”

Xie Mingzhe asked shamelessly, “Brother Chen, where is the Misty Forest?”

Brother Chen answered patiently, “There is a world map in one room of your apartment. It can transmit you to wherever you want to go.”

Xie Mingzhe was clearing the instance under the guide of the system when he entered the study. He left the unfinished task aside and walked to the next room. There were three rooms and one living room in his apartment. On the wall of the last room was a world map –  a vast galaxy map and all twinkling stars were marked with labels.

Was the galaxy map in front of him the World of Star Card? How spectacular it was!

Xie Mingzhe was stunned for a few seconds, then he found the “Jupiter” Brother Chen mentioned among a dense swarm of stars.

In the game, there were Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn and Mars in the solar system, except the earth. Xie Mingzhe found there were also attribute marks on the cards: Water and Metal. Were Jupiter and Mars also related to the attribute of the card?
With the doubt, Xie Mingzhe was transmitted to the Jupiter and arrived at the entrance of the Misty Forest. Brother Chen send him a team invitation. As Xie Mingzhe joined the team, one asked him in a clear female voice, “Are you the newcomer? What cards do you have? Tell me and then I could allocate the task.”

Xie Mingzhe summoned two cards, “I only have [Icy Snake] and [Thunder Bird].”

That girl looked at the cute little white snake crawling around, and the thunder bird with spiky feathers hovering above them. She almost lost her breath, “Do you want to clear the seven-star instance with these two one-star cards? Are you serious?”

The man with a pair of glasses tried not to laugh, “The attack power of [Thunder Bird] is only 100, but the HP of the boss in the seven-star instance is 10,000,000.”

A flock of crows flew overhead…

In the game world, Xie Mingzhe felt innocent: was it not you who called me here?

Brother Chen, the culprit in the matter, was embarrassed but just touched his nose, “I forgot it, he is a beginner, it is his first day to play the game.”

An air of silence descended on the team…

After five seconds, Brother Chen rubbed his temple lightly, “Well, Xiao Xie, take it as an exercise!”

Xie Mingzhe excitedly rubbed his hands and sat straight, like a good student who was listening to lessons carefully, “OK, Brother Chen, I just have a look beside you and would not make any trouble!”