Xie Mingzhe watched the rolling numbers on the screen, realizing his poverty and insignificance.

When he was worried about the rent of 800 coins a month and felt happy to find a job offering 1,500 per month, the rich spent tens of thousands for a card in the world of games.

He remembered that when he was still on earth playing online games, a rich player spent tens of thousands on his armours and weapons in their area. It was said that the rich in games dropping armours and weapons randomly often topped up millions into their account to get better equipment.

There were always the rich and the poor, no matter in which era. Unfortunately, Xie Mingzhe was a poor man both on earth and this planet.

He didn't understand what the rich were thinking about. What he could do was just standing aside and watching.

The price on the screen soared to 150,000 and then stopped.

“150,000 once, 150,000 twice, is there anyone else…” said the host.

Before he finished “offering a higher bid”, the number rolled again.

– 200,000.

– 220,000.

– 250,000.

– 300,000!

Xie Mingzhe's eyes widened. The gap between each bid was all about thousands of coins before – why did it suddenly change? Now the gap was tens of thousands!

Senior brother Qi whispered beside him, “The bids before were not important. The real rich just begin bidding right now. This seven-star card's attributes are so great – Agility 100, two Crowd Control skills, plus Tang Muzhou's reputation, its price is definitely more than 300,000.”

Xie Mingzhe：“……”

The rich's world was unimaginable.

Rare cards in this game should be the same as the top armors and weapons in other games, especially cards with perfect attributes. It seemed reasonable to bid millions for this card.

Xie Mingzhe sighed as he looked on pa.s.sively.

At the same time, inside Fenghua(which means elegance and talent) Club's office in the capital city.

Xue Linxiang looked at the young man, who was lying back on the sofa and constantly yawning. She said softly, “Xiao Tang, you invested lots of emotional energy to create this [Tuberose] card, the data of which is really perfect. Even if you don't need it, you can give it to others. Why would you want to sell it?” Xue Linxiang was reluctant to do that.

Tang Muzhou was so sleepy that he was about to fall asleep. Hearing sister Xue's words, he raised his spirit a little and squinted his eyes, saying, “Changfeng, Man Man and Xiao An, none of them are good at using plant cards. Even if I give it to them, they couldn't also exert its maximum effect. Why not find an eligible owner for the card?”

When he was sleepy, his voice was a little low, with a hint of laziness and hoa.r.s.eness, which heard extra good.

Xue Linxiang was afraid that he would fall asleep because of his strange routines, then said hurriedly to catch his attention, “Well, since you don't need it anymore, it is surely better to find an owner who cherishes it, instead of placing it in a display cabinet… However, the [Tuberose], a support card, has been sold. Have you selected an alternate card for your set of playing cards?”

“Of course.” Tang Muzhou opened the information of card in his tablet computer and introduced, “This card was just finished a few days ago. I applied different ideas when creating it. Sister Xue, have a look at its data.”

“……” In an instant, Xue Linxiang's eyes widened.

The surplus value of the seven-star [Tuberose] card, which had been sold by Tang Muzhou, was extracted completely. However, the data of the card that replaced [Tuberose] was even more frightening. She believed that when this card appeared on the court, it would definitely make Tang Muzhou's opponents have a headache.

“How did you create this card?” Xue Linxiang turned around but only found that Tang Muzhou had already fallen asleep, with the tablet computer in his arms. Please support original translation from w.a.n.gmamaread.

Tang Muzhou always had an afternoon nap every day, just like the dehydrated plants that had been exposed to the burning sun for a long time. If not, he couldn't lift the spirit. The strange routine really made others helpless. Seeing him sleep deeply, Xue Linxiang didn't wake him up but put away his tablet computer. She walked back to the office to check the schedule that the league had just sent to her.

At the auction.

The ultimate sale price of the [Tuberose] card was 660,000 yuan, equal to the actual currency 66,000 yuan. It was really amazing.

Xie Mingzhe and his two partners went out of the auction house after the auction ended.

The summer sun shone on him, which was so lifelike and made him feel warm even in the game. The temperature was moderate and the weather was fine, but Xie Mingzhe was in a very bad mood.

The rich could spend tens of thousands of gold on a card, but he had to worry about how to make a living.

The gap between the rich and the poor existed in every world, including the game world. Xie Mingzhe did not detest the rich, instead, he believed that people who made a fortune must have something superior to others. He became an orphan when he was born, so he was on his own and had a much lower starting point.

But he refused to reconcile himself to that situation.

He was unwilling to be a poor man again after he restarted his life in a new world.

In his previous life on earth, Xie Mingzhe finished college on a scholars.h.i.+p. After graduation, he intended to find a well-paid job and lead a stable life. He was satisfied with his peaceful life at that time.

However, now he changed.

Although this world had highly developed science and technology, people's intellectual nourishment was scarce, which resulted in the popularity of the holographic games like Star Card Storm in the world. Numerous players regarded Star Card Storm as the spiritual sustenance, so they were willing to invest in the game.

The auction had proved that point. A [Nine-tailed Fox] pet card with weak ability to attack could be sold for 8000 gold due to its cuteness and the [Tuberose], a battle card was sold at a sky-high price of 660 thousand gold, which was equivalent to 66 thousand currency in the real world.

If Xie Mingzhe had such a card and sold it out at such a high price, he didn't have to worry about his living expenses and tuition fees in college at all.

Xie Mingzhe was extremely shocked.

Xie Mingzhe had never played card games before. He had thought the card was cheap and he could buy one for several gold to raise as there were innumerable cards in the game. However, Xie Mingzhe had a completely new understanding of this world after he saw the original cards that were sold for several thousand, tens of thousands of gold.

Maybe he could also produce some original cards to sell? It didn't matter if he failed, but what if he succeeded? He didn't expect his original cards could be sold for tens of thousands of gold. If someone bought his card for several hundred gold, you would lead a period of comfortable life.

Thinking of that, Xie Mingzhe immediately took senior brother Qi and consulted him modestly, “You have referred “original card” many times just now. If players want an original card, are there any special requirements?”

The old player, senior brother Qi explained patiently, like a commentator, “To create an original card in the game depends on the Inner Spirit and genius of players.”

Xie Mingzhe nodded, “Oh, could you explain it in detail?”

Senior brother Qi simply found a quiet pavilion nearby and sat down, along with Xie Mingzhe. Sisi followed us and listened to the “old players lecture” curiously.

“Inner Spirit, in the more popular words, is the ability of your brain to withstand external stimuli, which can be measured in hospitals. The Inner Spirit of ordinary people is around 200. If the number is higher than 260, the man is competent to all difficult tasks of various fields, or to partic.i.p.ate in the professional league of holographic games.”

“…” Xie Mingzhe stunned. How many were his spirit points? When he woke up in the hospital, Doctor Qin had measured his Inner Spirit, using robots. His Inner Spirit points seemed to be 300 – yes, when the robot pressed the electrode on his temple, the number displayed on the screen was 300!

So his Inner Spirit was relatively high, at least higher than the average Inner Spirit point, 200. Xie Mingzhe was happy and continued, “Is it necessary to use the Inner Spirit for creating original cards in the game?”

“Yes.” Senior brother Qi brother replied in detail, “Both the content and skills of the card you want to create depend on your Inner Spirit. For example, if you want to make a plant card, the cards you create must be refined, specific to what the flowers look like, how its root grows, what the shape of its leaf is, how to describe its skills and how to distribute its data – the more specifically and precisely you create the card, the better the quality of the cards will be.”

Xie Mingzhe was stunned – wasn't this similar to drawing?

There were two ways to draw a picture: one was to draw the real scene on the paper; the other one was to imagine.

For example, if you wanted to draw a kind of plants, first you need to outline the appearance of the plant in your mind. Once the imaginative appearance shaped, picture it on the paper. The works of a good artist were realistic enough to be taken as real objects.

It was easy for Xie Mingzhe to create a card in this way. He was a science student in his previous life on earth, but he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts of Capital University in this world.

He could draw and imagine and his Inner Spirit was 300, all of his abilities had reached the standard of being a card creator, now he just needed a permission for his creation.

Xie Mingzhe rubbed his hands in excitement and continued, “In other words, after imagining the detailed contents of the card, I will use the Inner Spirit to draw them on a special cardboard to make a card. Is that the whole process?”

Senior brother Qi shook his head, saying, “This is just the beginning. A more vital part of creating a card is the examination and approval of the new card. There is a very strict copyright protection system in the game. Your card has to be examined and approved by the official card database system before it is operational in the game.”

“Protect copyright? What does it mean?” Xie Mingzhe scratched his head confusedly.

“For example, the [Nine-tailed Fox] card sold at today's auction has been reviewed by the official card database system, so its creator owns its copyright and others are not allowed to plagiarize his idea. That is to say, other players are prohibited from plagiarizing his idea to make similar cards, such as an [Eight-tailed Fox] crad, a [Seven-tailed Fox] card or a [Nine-tailed Cat] card.”

Sisi nodded her head as if she understood something, saying, “In other words, players are not allowed to remould the ready-made cards in the card database, instead, they can create new cards that haven't appeared in the card database before, right?”

Senior brother Qi nodded, saying, “Yes. Cards in the database won't be turned into an original card by modification and the skills of the ready-made cards can't be copied directly either. Players have to create new cards and design new skills before their cards are approved by the system. As for the Character Cards, the official has a special requirement. Importing the features of a man in the real world is prohibited, players need to create their original character.”

Xie Mingzhe suddenly understood it.

The official stipulation was indeed powerful and effective, which put an end to plagiarism. In this way, the official could protect the players' creative ideas, so creators didn't have to worry about their ideas would be stolen. A man's features in the real world couldn't be imported into the game, which also avoided players maliciously smearing the image of people in the real world and giving them some odd skills. For instance, one would import his cla.s.smate's feature data into the card and give it a “Fart” skill, which sounded terrible.

Senior brother Qi added, “More critically, your card's skills need to match its image. For example, [Tuberose]'s skills, Alluring Scent and Night Falls, are both related to the card's name¹. Tang Muzhou's strongest AOE card [Thousand-year-old G.o.d Tree] has a skill called [Fatal Strangling], which can strangle star card holograms with its Wood vines over a wide range of areas. The reason why his card is so strong is that the card, data and skills are perfectly compatible.”

Xie Mingzhe nodded in admiration. It seemed that Tang Muzhou had a very vivid imagination! All kinds of plants had been given great skills.

The official rules for creating original cards were really strict. Players couldn't just create cards at will. In order to make the game as fair as possible, the official must have a large professional database and calculation formula to control card data. For example, skills stepping out of lines such as killing all targets within 100 meters would not be approved.

The earlier you played this game, the easier it was to create original cards, because there was a lower possibility to create same skills with other players. But Star Card Storm had been in operation for a decade, having countless players. Those having played this game for longer years must have created all kinds of cards, Xie Mingzhe guessed. Did the official database collect all plants, animals, and characters cards? To be creative would be a big problem for many players who wanted to create original cards.

Must he create a card that was not included in the database? What should he do? Xie Mingzhe rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Senior brother Qi said, “If you are really interested in original cards creation, you can go to the black market to buy some Nebula papers and give a try.”

Sisi advised, “Uncle Chubby, creating original cards is especially expensive. One of my besties wanted to create a pet card last month, and she spent several thousand coins on buying materials. But she failed at last. Don't get yourself into a fix!”

Xie Mingzhe nodded, “OK. I'm just interested in it and want to give a try. If I fail, I will forget it. I won't spend too much on it.” He didn't have much money to waste, but he couldn't reconcile himself if he didn't try it.

At least he had a high Inner Spirit and was good at painting, which meant he was totally qualified to create original cards. Maybe he could succeed and make money by selling his cards.

Making up his mind, Xie Mingzhe followed senior brother Qi to the black market, the largest underground trading market in the commercial star.

Translator's Notes:

1. Tuberose in Chinese is 夜來香. “夜” means “night”, while “香” means “scent”.