The black market was an underground mall in the alley behind the high street. Different from the commercial streets, the black market was dim and cluttered with various kinds of materials, which made it look like a night fair for selling staple goods on earth.

Players definitely had to be patient to shop for their targeted goods slowly in the black market. Fortunately, senior brother Qi knew here well and took Xie Mingzhe and Sisi to a large stall soon. The owner of the stall, a fat middle-aged man, greeted them warmly, “What do you want to buy?”

“Is there any Nebula paper?” Senior brother Qi asked directly.

The owner said with his eyes crinkled, “Yes. I have the Nebula papers of different grades.” Then he took out five stacks of Nebula papers in succession and placed the Nebula papers of grade 1-5 from left to right in order. The higher the grade of the Nebula paper was, the better gloss it had.

“Is the high star-rated card? made of high-grade paper?” Xie Mingzhe asked.

“No. The original cards made by players are all one-star cards, at level 1. The card made of high-grade paper has relatively better data, compared with that made of low-grade paper, but the creator's talent serves as the key determinant of the card's data. In other words, a gifted creator can use a piece of low-grade paper to make a card with fine data, but a creator with ordinary Inner Spirit can only make worthless cards with high-grade papers. If you want to try and make an original card, I suggest that you buy the paper of grade one. The higher grade of the paper is, the higher price it has.” Senior brother Qi said.

“Then I will buy several pieces of the cheapest paper and have a try.” Xie Mingzhe looked back at the owner, saying, “How much is a piece of Nebula paper of grade one?”

“Ten gold coins for a piece of paper.”

“Can its price be lower?”

“It is sold at the lowest price.”

“Can I buy ten pieces of paper for seventy gold coins? I'm a newbie who doesn't have much money.”

Xie Mingzhe was adept in bargaining and he was willing to do it. He had learned from senior brother Qi that haggling was allowed in the black market.

The owner had an odd look on his face when he knew Xie Mingzhe wanted to buy the paper at a 30% discount, saying, “No matter how poor a newbie is, he has at least 100 gold coins, hasn't he?”

Xie Mingzhe said seriously, “I bought cards just then and only have 70 gold coins left. Could I buy 10 pieces of paper with these gold coins?”

The owner had no choice but to sell him 10 pieces of paper, saying, “OK. Cut it a deal.”

Xie Mingzhe said with a smile, “Thanks!”

Senior brother Qi was speechless. He decided to take Xie Mingzhe with him when he went to the black market as Xie Mingzhe was a budget-conscious man.

After buying the Nebula paper, senior brother Qi led them to the stalls selling cards, where they bought three suitable battle cards that were three-star evolution cards.

[Firefly]

Skill: Firefly Glow (To illuminate the surrounding area within a 10-meter radius of the card for 5 minutes.)

[Black Crow]

Skill: Air Attack (Targets with 10 meters round will receive 100% damage of Thunder attribute.)

[Water Spirit]

Skill: Deceleration (To apply a debuff of deceleration to the targets with 10 meters round for 3 seconds.)

The [Firefly] card was sold for 150 gold coins and each of the other two cards was sold at a price of 200 gold coins. They were much cheaper than the cards sold in the auction house. Senior brother Qi bought all these three cards. He gave the [Firefly] card to Sisi and the [Black Crow] card to Xie Mingzhe and he kept the [Water Spirit] card.

Xie Mingzhe was somewhat confused, saying, “Both of the two battle cards have AOE attack and control skills, why are they so cheap?”

Senior brother Qi answered, “Because their skill scope is small and their skill Increase is low. An excellent AOE card has a skill scope of more than 20 meters.”

“Will the skill scope be expanded when the card levels up?”

“The AOE range increases only 1 meter every time cards upgrade 10 levels, so the AOE range of the card can increase 7 meters at most by 70 levels. Tang Muzhou's [Tuberose] is so expensive because its AOE ranges of both Crowd control skills are 30 meters – the maximum AOE range of Crowd control skills designated by the official.”

“So it is.” Xie Mingzhe learned it and nodded. Xie Mingzhe considered senior brother Qi an “encyclopedia of the game” that knew anything. It was a really wise choice to join the couple's team at the beginning – in a short period, he gained lots of knowledge about the game.

To gain more experience, senior brother Qi took them to the “Dark Cave” located at the southernmost part of Egret star. In the “Dark Cave”, it was completely dark, so they could see nothing. The scene of the holographic game was too lifelike. Although Sisi was terribly afraid of darkness, she kept calm seemingly and quickly summoned the [Firefly], illuminating the surrounding within 10 meters.

As soon as the fireflies emit light, a shrill cry rang out. Sisi was frightened and bolted back. At the same time, senior brother Qi stretched his hand to protect her, saying, “Go to the corner and turn off the game sound. You just need to light up the surrounding, Uncle Chubby and I will clean these mobs.”

Sisi nodded and withdrew to the corner fast, using the [Firefly] card as a lamp.

Senior brother Qi turned around and looked at Xie Mingzhe, saying “This dark cave is a good place for sp.a.w.ning mobs, which would gather together automatically when they see the light. We could pull more mobs and then kill all of them at one go.”

Xie Mingzhe nodded and thought it was really convenient to sp.a.w.n mobs with old plays, who knew the more effective method to do so.

An hour later, all their characters reached level 15, and the materials for cards evolution were also completely collected.

Senior brother Qi said, “I'm ready to eat and then continue to level up.”

Sisi said, “My mother also urges me to eat, and I have to leave now.” She opened the s.p.a.ce portal and walked over, but when she was at the door, she turned around and asked “Right! Uncle Chubby, will you be online in the evening? If so, we could continue to level up together, to level up to 35 tonight!”

Xie Mingzhe nodded, “I will.”

Sisi became very happy, “Uncle Chubby, see you tonight!”

Xie Mingzhe waved farewell to them and said, “Goodbye.”

After the two people left, Xie Mingzhe returned to his apartment and took out the paper that he just bought from the black market, trying to create his original cards.

When he put one Nebula paper on the card platform, the system prompted, “Do you want to make a card?”

Xie Mingzhe pressed the YES b.u.t.ton.

The system, “Please focus all the attention, and then picture the card image shaped in your mind on the Nebula paper…”

Xie Mingzhe began to imagine – he found with surprise that when his Inner Spirit power was connected with the Nebula paper, whatever he thought would appear on the paper.

Subconsciously, he remembered the scene of drinking with his roommates in his previous life on Earth. Due to the fuzzy ideas in his mind, the image that was presented on the Nebula paper was also very chaotic, with only one wine bottle shaped clearly on the paper.

Xie Mingzhe was stunned and immediately stop imagining.

System: “To create the card failed. Nebula paper has been shredded, do you want to start anew?”

This time, Xie Mingzhe pressed the No b.u.t.ton.

He had wasted a piece of Nebulae paper. Now he had to calm down and rethink the process, rather than to have another attempt so rashly.

At this time, he realized that it was quite hard to create cards.

The human brain could have fertile imagination, so it was difficult for one to concentrate on one thing. Even if he concentrated on painting only the character he wanted, there were always external factors that would interfere with him, especially when he hit a bottleneck, because under this condition, his thoughts would wander off the point, and he would feel confused.

In Star Card Storm, the image on a card couldn't be in a mess.

Thinking of the cl.u.s.ter of white Tuberose at the auction, Xie Mingzhe suddenly admired Tang Muzhou to some extent.

Legend Tang was truly an awesome player – he created such a vivid flower card as [Tuberose], and incomparably complex plant card as [Thousand-year-old G.o.d Tree] – a huge tree covering the sky. Tang Muzhou must use his Inner Spirit to draw every branch and leaf without making any mistakes. His Inner Spirit must exceed 300.

Xie Mingzhe felt it a little hard even though his Inner Spirit was 300 high…

Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on thinking about the type of card he wanted to make.

Tang Muzhou excelled at creating plant cards, so there was hardly any room for him to make new plant cards. As for animals, there had been pet cards such as [Nine-tailed Fox] and [Long-eared Rabbit] in this game. Card designers with active imagination made a lot of pet cards. When he searched for information in the hospital, he found various realistic Persian cats, Teddy dogs, giant pandas, etc. Lions, tigers, and other animal cards were just too corny, and he had no idea for new ones.

Character…

Yes, characters! Senior brother Qi said that the approval standard for character cards was the character's facial features. The official standard stated that players couldn't take examples from people in the real world to draw the character's facial features. What if he drew comic-style characters? Wasn't that unique?

He didn't learn painting in vain – he could draw comic-style characters easily.

Xie Mingzhe clenched his fist excitedly for finding a way.

What character should he draw?

A scene suddenly came to his mind.

A slim girl sat by the river, strewing petals over the ground. She gave a little cough, her face bathed in tears.

——Daiyu burying the flowers¹.

The night before his rebirth, when he went out, one of his roommates, who was arty, was watching the 1987 version of the Dream of the Red Chamber in the dormitory. At the time, Xie Mingzhe joked, “Seeing Cousin Lin crying bitterly, how do you feel? Do you want to cry too?”

The roommate laughed a little and replied, “Get out! My girlfriend sent the video and asked me to go over the cla.s.sic.”

Xie Mingzhe glanced at the computer screen and sighed, “Lin Daiyu in this version got real cla.s.s.”

The scene was so beautiful that it was imprinted on his mind. It made one's heart ache to see such a delicate and touching girl with tears filled in her eyes. Even an otaku like Xie Mingzhe would feel worried when seeing her crying.

So the scene stuck in his mind.

So clearly.

Xie Mingzhe's eyes lit up – what if he turned this scene into a card? He didn't know if there was such a card in the world of Star Card.

Thinking of this, Xie Mingzhe immediately started the card-making system.

He put one Nebula paper on the Card Console, closed his eyes and carefully depicted the picture in his mind…

Green trees, flowers, a beauty standing by trees, buried petals, and tears on her face.

The picture got clearer, more detailed, and more complete as he was depicting in his mind.

After he concentrated on picturing the image in his mind, the game system reminded, “Congratulations! You have created the card. Please insert the card into the card slot in the upper left corner and connect to the star card database to verify your card.”

Xie Mingzhe immediately inserted the card into the slot as the system prompted.

— After the cards were finished, the first step was to see whether the cards could gain official approval or not. It was also the key point.

Probably, there were too many cards in the database, so the examination took a long time.

Five minutes later…

Ten minutes later…

Xie Mingzhe thought the system had crashed. When he was about to restart his game helmet, a voice suddenly rang in his ears, “The card has been approved. You can print a unique LOGO on the card as a copyright certificate.”

Approved! Xie Mingzhe was extremely excited. He decided to use the word “Zhe” directly and print it in the lower right corner of the back of the card – to imitate Tang Muzhou's style because his word “Tang” looked really decent and cool.

However, after he entered the word, the system prompted, “The LOGO has been occupied. Please choose another one.”

Xie Mingzhe felt helpless. It seemed that there was a high rate of name repet.i.tion. Star Card Storm beta had been in operation for ten years and all kinds of LOGOs must have been enrolled earlier. Now that to apply a cool logo failed, why not use the ID in the game? So Xie Mingzhe simply entered “月半” (月 and 半 are two parts of the Chinese character 胖, which means chubby. In the future chapters, we will write Xie Mingzhe's logo as “Chubby”). It finally pa.s.sed.

On the back of the approved card, the pure white Nebular paper gradually s.h.i.+ned soft and green l.u.s.ter.

The green cards are one-star cards, the lowest star cards in the game. All original cards players created were one-star cards. It didn't matter – the cards could be upgraded and evolved. The cost of producing one-star cards was the lowest. As long as it had excellent attributes, he had the patience to level up Daiyu to a seven-star card slowly.

Rubbing his hands, Xie Mingzhe picked up the card on the Card Console and looked at it carefully.

As a painter who was adept in painting good-looking people, he painted Lin Daiyu beautifully in a cartoon style. A lovely and pathetic ancient beauty of distinctive disposition stood by a tree, burying the petals into the ground. The composition of the picture was also awesome as it had depicted 90% of the artistic conception of Daiyu burying the flowers.

Then Xie Mingzhe s.h.i.+fted his focus to the card's attributes.

Lin Daiyu (Wood)

Card Level: 1

Evolution Level: ★

Available Times of Use: 1/1

Base Attributes: Health 100, Attack 0, Defense 15, Agility 1, Critical Strike Chance 0%

Additional Skill: Daiyu Burying the Flowers (To inflict huge damage on flower cards,  10% chance of triggering immediate death effect)

Xie Mingzhe was completely confused by the attributes.

What was this skill? Causing huge damage to flower cards?

Daiyu Burying Blossoms, as its name suggested, could only be used to fight against his adversary's flower cards? Wouldn't the card be useless if his opponent had no flower cards.

Its defense was 15, however, Xie Mingzhe remembered that Tang Muzhou's [Tuberose] card of the highest level had a defense ability of 50000.

There was an enormous gap between these two cards.

Even his [Icy Snake] card given by the system had an initial defense ability of 50. Wouldn't the [Daiyu] card be smashed as easily as a piece of paper since its defense was just 15? “Poor sister Lin, you couldn't change your destiny even if you were made into a card in the game,” Xie Mingzhe thought.

Xie Mingzhe felt disappointed.

The data of this card was by no means good, it seemed that he was not destined to make a fortune overnight.

Would anyone buy it in the black market?

Translator's Notes:

1.  Daiyu burying the flowers:

Lin Daiyu is one of the princ.i.p.al characters of Cao Xueqin's cla.s.sic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. She is portrayed as a well-educated, intelligent, witty and beautiful young woman of physical frailness who is somewhat p.r.o.ne to occasional melancholy. The romance between Daiyu and Jia Baoyu forms one of the main threads of the book.

One of the enduring images of Daiyu, often portrayed in Chinese art and re-enacted in Chinese operas, is that of Daiyu burying the flowers. One day, overcome by a spell of melancholy after a misunderstanding with Baoyu, Daiyu goes to bury some fallen petals at a hillside and falls in deep weeping at the demise of the flowers. She composed a long, elegiac memorial poem for the dead petals, which triggers off a similar grieving response in the eavesdropping Baoyu.