Master of Trading Star Card Game

Chapter 47 - The Modified [Zhou Yu] (Part 2)

Translator: Star River from Wangmamaread

Proofreader: Rhith

Since instances had a limit on the number of players and the minimum was five, they went to Egret Star's wilds.

Chen Xiao knew that Egret Star had a cave full of Wood mobs at about level 60 which were intensively distributed, making the cave a good place to instance farm. He brought Xie Mingzhe to this cave so that they could test the effect of the AOE damage.

It was 3:30am and no one was in the low-level cave.

Seeing innumerable mobs crowding in front of him, Xie Mingzhe briskly summoned Zhou Yu, who first interlinked all the mobs in the particular range ahead, then released his second skill, Burning Red Cliffs——the fire first ignited the mobs in the range of 30 meters ahead, causing 50,000+ damage immediately, and then the blaze spread through chains. As the targets increased, the blaze burned more and more ferociously. As a result, in the end, every release created 60,000+ damage!

The raging blaze illuminated the dark sky, and all the mobs within the range were burned to ashes by the continuously spreading blaze!

Xie MIngzhe, "......"

Chen Xiao, "............"

The card, [Zhou Yu], was a mobs' natural predator!

Chen Xiao rubbed his nose and laughed, "Xiao Xie, I originally thought that you could make a regular card for farming instances at best. I didn't expect that the effect of your Fire spreading and iron chains skill combination would be so powerful. If you sold this card, you would definitely make more money than selling IDE cards."

It was not money that Xie Mingzhe cared about most. He was more concerned about whether the card would be approved by Legend Chen?

He eagerly wanted to make a set of cards that could be used in the arena, but he knew nothing about the design of card groups. As long as this card could be approved by Legend Chen, and thus he was willing to apprentice him, he could speed up the process of making battle cards.

Chen Xiao seemed to see through him and encouraged him, "Don't worry. My brother just wanted to test you to see what else you can do other than making IDE cards. It is really hard-won for you to make a new instance card. He won't deliberately stump you."

Hearing what Brother Chen said, Xie Mingzhe was much relieved. He thought for a moment and said, "I remember that all the instances have a limit on the number of cards. [Zhou Yu]'s Defence is very weak and it could easily be killed if mobs besieged him. So we shouldn't just take [Zhou Yu] to farm instances. There must be some other cards to protect it."

Chen Xiao said, "Of course. But we have a lot of protective cards in our hands. For instance, [Rhinoceros] is used for pulling mobs, [Ice Goddess] is used for crowd control and also [Cure Goddess] is used for healing. We should try them in instances and see their actual effect after the other guys wake up."

Xie Mingzhe nodded, "Okay!"

He took a look at the clock which showed it was already four. He was really sleepy after spending so much Inner Spirit making cards, so he put down the card and said, "Brother Chen, let's go to sleep."

Chen Xiao didn't feel like sitting up all night either. So they took off their helmets and went back to their bedrooms on the second floor to sleep.

For making [Zhou Yu], Xie Mingzhe had used his brain for a dozen hours straight, and thus he was exhausted and fell asleep soon after laying in bed.

However, he had a strange dream.

The scene of 'Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai※' appeared in his dream, which was also one of the scenes that had impressed Xie Mingzhe most when he originally watched Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The elderly man, Huang Gai, was lying prone on a wooden bench topless, and he had been battered by Zhou Yu to a pulp. Even if many people tried to dissuade Zhou Yu from beating the old man, Zhou Yu just ignored all these people and almost crippled him.

This was actually an act prepared by Zhou Yu and Huang Gai in order to cheat the spies planted by Cao Cao in Zhou Yu's camp. Thus, they could turn Cao Cao's trick to their own use by having Huang Gai pretend to defect over to Cao Cao's side because he was unhappy with Zhou Yu.

The 'self-torture ruse' was key to Zhou Yu's success at the Battle of Red Cliffs. Huang Gai was battered before the public, pretending to be greatly humiliated and thus expressing his willingness to defect to Cao Cao. At first Cao Cao, of course, didn't believe that the state of Wu's loyal minister would defect to him. However, all of his spies confirmed Huang Gai's account that he was brutally beaten by Zhou Yu and then Cao Cao trusted him.

The day when Huang Gai pretended to defect to Cao Cao, Huang Gai led the fleet and sailed before the wind. There was dry grass and oil hidden in the ships. Consequently, a fire burned Cao's warships into ashes!

And the idiom 'Zhou Yu beats Huang Gai – The punishment is appropriately given by one and willingly accepted by the other' came from this event.

......

Xie Mingzhe didn't wake up until 2pm the next day. His brain had a good rest and he was energetic and extremely inspired. Last night's dream really enlightened him——Since he had already made [Zhou Yu], how could he miss the old general Huang Gai?

[Zhou Yu]'s Health and Defence were low and mobs could kill him easily.

If he was protected by Huang Gai, this card would be comparatively safe in instances!

Thinking of this, Xie Mingzhe immediately went downstairs and put on the helmet to make the card in the game.

Chi Yingying approached him and gave him a thermal insulation lunch box, smiling. Then she said, "Brother Chen just woke up too. Did you guys stay up all night? It is 2pm!"

Chi Qing stood nearby, calmly saying, "We've already had lunch and saved two helpings for you. Wash your face and come eat some food."

Chen Xiao had just finished washing his face and was walking outside. He said, "I don't think this can be counted as staying up all night. Xiao Xie made a new card, and we studied it until four in the morning before we went to sleep."

"A new card?" Everyone immediately curiously gathered together.

"I'll show you later in the game. Now I'll just go wash my face real quick!" Xie Mingzhe swiftly ran into the bathroom to wash up.

******

Translator's Note:

Huang Gai is a minor character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. His most significant moment in the novel is a fictional episode in which he proposes a "self-torture ruse" (苦肉计) to win Cao Cao's trust so that Zhou Yu's fire attack plan can be carried out.