CHAPTER 10: CHAPTER 10: ALICE RARELY BEHAVES HERSELF

Alice released Hali to distract Rhine, and then rushed to Lake Paiyiga without wasting any time.

According to Oshana’s information, the villains who abducted Anna planned to attend the Sinful Festival, which was set to occur in one and a half months. At the festival, they intended to sacrifice the souls of young girls to the God of Sin, Florres. Until then, they needed to ensure the purity of the girls.

But this didn’t guarantee Anna’s safety, so Alice had to hurry.

Perhaps because her best friend’s life was hanging by a thread, Alice didn’t cause any trouble for Shen Sui in the following three days. She merely incinerated five bandit hideouts, eight shady roadside inns, and thirteen castles belonging to low-ranking nobles who oppressed the common people.

Yes, compared to Alice’s usual reckless behavior that often endangered her own life, these seemingly righteous acts seemed insignificant to Shen Sui.

Over these three days, Alice even contributed three spell cards to Shen Sui, which was indeed relatively docile.

Incredibly, as Alice continued her adept arson, her spell card [Arson] actually leveled up.

On the Dawn Continent, magic had specified star levels. Even with Shen Sui’s max-level account using the Fireball Technique, it still remained a level 1 magic. However, [Arson] was not magic; it was a type of behavioral spell card resulting from Alice’s actions, not a manifested skill.

Like some protagonists in novels who exhibit atypical behaviors, you can’t say these are skills, but such behaviors indeed bring many benefits, allowing the protagonist to overcome numerous formidable adversaries.

After days of research, Shen Sui roughly understood the pattern of obtaining cards from the Soul Card World. Coupled with the summarized experiences of predecessors, he had a fairly good idea of how to acquire more cards from the Soul Card World.

This required thorough research because selling cards was indeed a lucrative business.

Being invincible in the Soul Card World was illusory; only the wealth in reality was tangible!

The cards obtained from the Soul Card World were generally divided into several categories.

The first category was the primordial spell cards, representing skills or equipment that inherently existed within the Soul Card World’s power system. Upon acquisition or equipment by the Soul Card followers, this type of spell card would appear. However, in practice, Shen Sui discovered that as a Life Card Master, his use of skills or equipment on Soul Card followers could also yield similar cards, such as the skills like [Recovery] that Shen Sui used. This wasn’t taught in books, indeed most Life Card Masters in the Soul Card World didn’t have indigenous identities since they had to set up characters first.

The second category was the behavioral spell cards, formed by concretizing specific behaviors of Soul Card followers in the Soul Card World, such as Alice’s [Arson] and [Below-the-Belt Crushing Blow]. But the Dueling Device’s judgment on behavioral spell cards was peculiar and inconsistent. Some said the behaviors that gave rise to such cards might significantly affect the future. Shen Sui was quite curious about what kind of future impact [Below-the-Belt Crushing Blow] could have.

The third category was the event spell cards, awarded when Soul Card followers participated in significant events. Event spell cards were often permanent, akin to continuous spell cards in "Yu-Gi-Oh!" As long as they weren’t destroyed by the opponent, they could persistently exert effects on the field; hence, these spell cards were extremely powerful but also extremely challenging to farm. Shen Sui planned to see if he could trigger an event spell card during this trip to Modena City.

Spell cards are roughly divided into these three categories, while rules for follower cards are much simpler: When a certain degree of favorability with Soul Card followers is reached, or their followers are born, a follower card is generated.

For Life Card Masters who unfortunately drew low-level characters, farming follower cards was the most torturous task:

Penniless individuals from the bottom had no followers and were undeserving of love and friendship.

Thus, these Life Card Masters usually resorted to purchasing follower cards during the rookie phase and feared the duel exams the most, often grinding spell cards to enhance their power.

However, an upgradeable behavioral spell card like [Arson] was something Shen Sui had never seen before.

Accompanying Alice’s pyromania, his [Arson] also reached 12 stars.

A 2-star Soul Card that somehow grinded to produce a 12-star spell card, it was hard not to question her mental state.

But for Shen Sui, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing since the upgrade of [Arson] allowed him to enhance this spell card’s strength significantly. After Alice’s recent antics, he finally had a genuinely powerful field-clearing spell card.

******

Card Name: [Arson]

Category: Spell Card

Star Level: 12 stars

Effect: During your main phase, you may reveal and discard the top card of your deck, then destroy all Life Cards on your opponent’s field with a star level lower than that card.

******

Alice was still a few days away from Lake Paiyiga, and Shen Sui figured it was about time for his journey as well.

He calculated that he had now gathered enough Life Cards to meet the duel exam requirements, and once Alice reached Lake Paiyiga and opened her storage box, he anticipated acquiring another batch of Life Cards.

Considering Alice might encounter some events along the way, Shen Sui decided not to release any more cards and would wait until after the duel exam instead.

"Have you really managed to gather twenty Life Cards so quickly?" Lin Ke’Er exclaimed in disbelief when Shen Sui came to bid farewell while she was writing a lesson plan.

As a teacher of "Life Card Basics" and a one-star professional Life Card Master, Lin Ke’Er also took the duel exam in her time, so she had a straightforward understanding of the difficulty of obtaining Life Cards from the Soul Card World. Looking at the time, the exam wasn’t until June 6th, so completing the Life Card collection two days early was indeed extraordinary.

Most duel exam candidates often completed their Life Card collection just within the deadline.

Lin Ke’Er was one of those, barely acquiring the final puzzle piece for her Soul Card a second before the examiners examined her deck to pass the verification back then.

"Is your Soul Card really a magic apprentice?" Though happy for Shen Sui’s success, Lin Ke’Er still found it hard to believe, "This efficiency in obtaining Life Cards surpasses some 7th or 8th-rank strong practitioners."

"She’s kind of special," Shen Sui said awkwardly, unable to admit it was an arson-loving brat. Moreover, she’s particularly prone to trouble.

Lin Ke’Er didn’t probe further; information about Soul Cards was the most secret intelligence for Life Card Masters.

"Then I’ll await your good news here," Lin Ke’Er smiled.

Shen Sui: "Actually, if possible, I’d like to duel you, Miss Lin, to test my deck. Aren’t you a one-star professional Life Card Master?"

"Ah, I’m no longer a professional Life Card Master and don’t duel anymore," Lin Ke’Er regretfully admitted.

"Retired? Why?" Shen Sui asked instinctively but quickly realized he was being intrusive, as this was someone else’s secret.

"Let me teach you one final lesson, Shen Sui," Lin Ke’Er seriously looked at Shen Sui, speaking slowly, "In professional arenas, there’s only one champion. Some people can betray everyone for that championship. Never reveal any information about your Soul Card followers to anyone."

There are thirty-three Soul Card Worlds in total, and many Life Card Masters’ Soul Cards originated from the same world. If opponents from the same Soul Card World knew their Soul Card’s information, it could easily lead to underhanded tactics.

Not many chose the Dawn Continent, but it wasn’t nonexistent. Moreover, Life Card Masters opting for the Dawn Continent were often desperate gamblers, thus more prone to extreme actions.