Master of Trading Star Card Game

Chapter 50 - Jiangdong Instance Team (Part 1)

Translator: Star River from wangmamaread
Proofreader: Rhith

The game, Star Card Storm, had been running for so many years and players already knew every strategy for instance. Players had developed all kinds of methods of farming instances. Since they only expected materials from instances, essentially there wasn't much difference between 3 minutes and 3 minutes 30 seconds to complete the instance. So no one cared about breaking the time record.

Most instances' time records were set by only the big clubs when they studied the instances in the early years.

The record for 'Purple Bamboo Forest' was 2'25''33 which was set in the first season by Adjudication, and the club still held the record.

The key was the appearance of the talented player, Nie Yuandao.

Beast cards made the fastest development in the first season in which Nie Yuandao considerably enriched the Beast card group. The card group involving [Black Rhinocero], [God Turtle] and [Flame Dragon] was the one that he made for instance. [Black Rhinocero]'s 'Brutal Bump' was extremely fast in pulling mobs, and [God Turtle]'s support skill was very useful. So far [Flame Dragon]'s group attack had the strongest single-AOE explosive power of all the Fire AOE cards.

One [Flame Dragon]'s Fire AOE was high enough, not to mention that cards could be repeated in instances. Three [Flame Dragon]s applying the master stroke together could destroy the whole world and instantly kill innumerable mobs.

It was the instance record that made all players in the game know Nie Yuandao's name and the Adjudication he was in. His beast cards were the mark of quality. [Flame Dragon] continued to gain in popularity. Then Nie Yuandao took it to the professional league matches and won the overall championship in the first season's individual race, which apotheosized the card. And the card's replica was even treasured up on the card wall of the League's general headquarters.

No one could break the 'Purple Bamboo Forest' record later because [Flame Dragon]'s AOE was extremely powerful——there was no boss in Purple Bamboo Forest, so skills were not that important there. It merely depended on whether AOE was high enough to instantly kill mobs.

If they wanted to break the record, the only way was to make a Fire AOE legendary card which could be on a par with the mob-pulling legendary card [Black Rhinoceros] and a support card with buff increases to ensure their cards' safety before pulling and instantly killing mobs.

The appearance of the Fire card [Zhou Yu] gave Chen Xiao hope of breaking the instance record. [Flame Dragon] was strong because of its instant explosive force which made every Fire AOE cause very high damage.

[Zhou Yu]'s advantage was his continuous spread output, which may cost a lot more time, but the more mobs they had, the higher damage he would cause.

The two cards were both legendary AOE cards. But their mechanisms were different, so the method of farming instances needed some changes.

"There are 120 mobs in the instance in total. Adjudication divided them into three batches to pull and one batch was 40, all of which were instantly killed the moment they used [Flame Dragon]'s AOE skill. After the cool down interval, they continued to kill the next batch. With the good tempo, they killed all the mobs in 2'25''."

In that year, the process of Adjudication farming the instance was filmed and the video was played on the forum so Chen Xiao could remember it clearly too. He thought for a moment and said, "We can change our way of thinking. Undoubtedly [Zhou Yu] can't be as fast as [Flame Dragon] in pulling and killing mobs and he needs more time to cool down than [Flame Dragon]. But when there are more mobs, [Zhou Yu]'s continuous Fire Attack damage result will definitely be higher than Flame Dragon's instant explosive one. [Sun Ce] runs faster than [Black Rhinocero], and the latter can pull 40 mobs at most with one group taunt in a particular area, while Sun Ce can pull more. Adjudication made it three batches and we can try two. Only in this way can we possibly break the record."

Chen Xiao's analysis was clear and reasonable. After hearing his idea, Xie Mingzhe said, "But if we divide 120 mobs into 2 batches, it will be very hard for Sun Ce to kill 60 every time! Just now in the last instance run, Brother Yu made Sun Ce pull 40 mobs and his HP decreased quickly......"

"So the timing of using skills is very important. [Sun Ce]'s Overlord state needs a 1-minute cool down, so it could be used twice for two batches separately. Applying the invincible overlord mode could resist 60 mobs in each batch. We need to plan our route in advance to save time."

His ideas equalled pulling 6 groups of mobs in the first batch without missing even one of them, which was a great trial for [Sun Ce]'s mob-pulling speed as well as stability!

Pang Yu scratched his head and said frankly, "I can't pull 6 groups every time. How about letting Brother Chen use it?"

"Okay." Chen Xiao nodded briskly, "First we head east when we enter the instance and pull all 6 groups of mobs in the area at once. I'll apply the Overlord mode for eight seconds when about half HP is left, then [Huang Gai] will immediately provide the shield after the mode finishes. And you need to kill all the mobs during this period."

"The second round will repeat the skills from the first one except that [Huang Gai] doesn't need to provide [Sun Ce] with shields this time. I'll try to make it through and [Huang Gai] directly self-destructs to increase [Zhou Yu]'s Attack so that we can save time. Are we clear?"

"Yes!" Everyone nodded.

This strategy was adventurous since they needed to pull so many mobs all at once, which means if any skill didn't follow its previous one on time, [Sun Ce] would be dead.

Chen Xiao said, "Xiao Xie, you control [Huang Gai]."

Xie Mingzhe was surprised, "Me?"

He was good at making cards, but he was not as professional as Pang Yu and Chi Qing in farming instances. They had been boosting for two years after all.

Xie Mingzhe was flattered that Chen Xiao gave him an important task like this. However, Chen Xiao said at the next second, "I believe that you can make every step in our plan happen on time. Just give all your attention to Sun Ce and immediately give him the shield once the first round is over."

Brother Chen trusted him so much, and naturally Xie Mingzhe wouldn't refuse. He briskly received [Huang Gai].

They finished allocating all five cards. Chen Xiao controlled the difficult card [Sun Ce], Xie Mingzhe controlled [Huang Gai] and the other three used [Zhou Yu]s to apply AOE.

In previous instances, they could just use skills casually since time wasn't an important consideration and they could pass instances anyway. However, since today they tried to break the record, every move needed to be their best and there was no room for a mistake. Xie Mingzhe's heart was beating fast. He could also feel that his teammates were nervous too. Xiao Pang who was usually noisy was quiet now. He just stood there, eyes opened widely.

Chen Xiao smiled, "Relax. We just give it a shot. It will be great if we break the record. If not, we'll be fine. So everybody, no pressure."

If they could break the world record of 'Purple Bamboo Forest' set by Adjudication's Flame Dragon card group, their card group involving [Sun Ce], three [Zhou Yu]s and [Huang Gai] would definitely become famous!

The sale amount and income were trivial. Most importantly, if his brother knew that Xie Mingzhe's card group could compete with Nie Yuandao, he would be impressed by Xiao Xie. At that time he would be on board with the apprentice thing. In addition, if they broke the record, Nirvana could be catapulted to the system charts. Then they wouldn't need to put effort into enrolling and publicity issues since the club's development would definitely be accelerated and 月半's card makers would absolutely become a hit!

The advantages of breaking a record were innumerable. Hence, Chen Xiao gave his most professional and sincere attitude this time. He rigorously analysed every detail in the instance to finalize the plan for it. He also controlled [Sun Ce] in person.