88: Chapter 88: The Many Faces of Gacha Pulls and... The Hope for Success
[Grants all allies HP recovery, automatic NP charge, and automatic critical star generation! Lasts for a certain period.]
AoE healing, AoE NP charging, AoE star generation—a god-tier position Noble Phantasm that combines all three!
"Clang."
The pen White Night was using to take notes fell to the ground, and he stood there dumbfounded.
"You call this a Support? This is clearly a fully automatic Gundam!"
"With this party-wide invincibility, why bother with turn planning? I could close my eyes and tank Tiamat's ultimate move!"
"With this 'Hero Creation,' I can just put my Buster main DPS in front, and after one slash, even Red Sword Brother would have to call me daddy?!"
"Did they mess up the stats?! Old Thief Gu must have fallen asleep while typing! Did he stitch the skills of ten Servants onto one person?!"
"Brothers, is FGO running away? Is this the rhythm of grabbing one last haul before shutting down the server?! Otherwise, how could they dare release such a 'wheelchair' that stomps on the game's underlying logic and rubs it into the dirt?!"
Faced with such an ultimate must-have card that had no weaknesses and fit perfectly into the current "Buster critical" system, no player who had just been tortured by high-difficulty content could resist the temptation.
Shortly after, the gacha banner officially opened!
In an instant, the entire internet welcomed the most terrifying gacha carnival and wailing session since the launch of FGO.
"What did I say just now? Even if I go broke, I'm going to max him out!"
PD didn't waste any words, his eyes flashing with the unique red glow of a whale.
He clicked directly into the recharge interface, his fingers turning into a blur over the highest-tier saint quartz pack.
One pack, two packs, ten packs...
"Come out, internet scammer mage! I want you to give me invincibility! I want you to make me a hero!"
Accompanied by the continuous flashing of golden circles, under the absolute crushing power of money, in just ten minutes, PD's inventory was neatly lined with five Merlins.
"Whew... Max NP, that feels good."
PD let out a long breath and arrogantly crossed his legs. "Turn planning? Memorizing patterns? That's what commoners do. In front of me, only spending money creates happiness!"
On the other side, A-Dai's livestream room presented a completely different scene.
As a firm believer in "metaphysical luck," A-Dai was currently draped in a Taoist robe from who knows where, dancing around in her VR pod.
"Spirits of heaven, spirits of earth, Great Britain's sword saint, manifest quickly! Merlin bless me, a one-shot success!"
She drew a bizarre magic circle in the Servant summoning control room with extreme seriousness, even looping the Chapter 7 BGM.
"Alright, the time has come. Ten-pull, go!"
Despair-inducing silver lights flashed one after another on the screen.
[Obtained Craft Essence: Extra Spicy Mapo Tofu (3-star)]
[Obtained Craft Essence: Blue Black Keys (3-star)]
[Obtained Servant: Mephistopheles (3-star)]
[Obtained Craft Essence: Green Black Keys (3-star)]
[Obtained Servant: Gilles de Rais (3-star)]...
Nine pulls in a row, all 3-star trash and garbage Craft Essences that she wouldn't even bother looking at in the Friend Point gacha; she even pulled three plates of Mapo Tofu!
Just as A-Dai's heart turned to ash, the summoning circle for the tenth pull suddenly erupted with a dazzling golden ring!
"It's a rainbow! It's a gold card! The pity system is working! Merlin, my husband, come to me—" A-Dai jumped up from her chair in excitement.
However, when the gold-glowing card face slowly flipped over, it didn't depict the handsome, white-robed, silver-haired mage, but rather a middle-aged man in a wine-red suit with elegant manners and a small mustache.
[Obtained Craft Essence: Formal Craft (4-star)]
"Ahhhh! Why is it a trash 4-star Craft Essence!"
A-Dai pulled at her hair in a breakdown, raging impotently, "Old Thief Gu, you have no heart! Again! This time I'll press the summon button with my nose, metaphysical luck change!"
Those like A-Dai who used metaphysical methods were still better off; the most miserable ones were the F2P players who had saved up quartz for months, full of hope.
"Lucky pull" threads and "shipwreck" threads sprang up on all the major forums.
"I've begged and pleaded, one hundred pulls down, and I haven't even seen the shadow of a gold card!"
"Why did I get a rainbow, but it turned out to be Caster Tamamo! I want Merlin! I want the sword saint of Avalon, boohoohoo..."
"Help, I spent all the quartz I got from pushing the Chapter 7 main story and the Pruning Protocol, and I only got a Zhuge Liang. Am I being targeted by the Counter Force?"
"Broke, lost everything! The wind on the rooftop is so strong, are there any brothers going up to catch the breeze..."
And while the various players were either "shipwrecked" or "leaping like leopards"...
A full thirty hours had passed since the level 33 all-modifier unlock.
In the encrypted voice channel of Atlas Academy, the atmosphere was a weird mix of frantic enthusiasm and extreme calmness.
Not long ago, the [Magus of Flowers · Merlin] banner had just arrived, and the entire internet was caught in a spending frenzy of gacha pulls.
But in this small voice room, several hardcore grinders had already completely broken down the skill data of this newly promoted "wheelchair" into a screen full of dense calculations.
"Calculated it! Brothers, I've calculated it!"
[Data Maniac] stared at the holographic calculation board, his eyes bursting with unprecedented light, his voice trembling violently from extreme excitement:
"Merlin's 'Hero Creation' can provide a 50% Buster performance buff and 100% critical damage buff to a single target! If we then airdrop a 'Mozart' to instantly provide 50 critical stars, combined with Jeanne dArc Alter's Noble Phantasm and normal attacks..."
He slammed his fist on the table: "That damage gap we couldn't fill under the level 33 full-modifier conditions before... it's filled! Theoretically, we really might be able to kill the level 33 Red Sword Brother!"
"Holy crap! Then what are we waiting for? Just bring Merlin and force the kill!"
Ah-K roared in excitement, "We have AoE charging, invincibility, and nuclear-level crit damage. This 'wheelchair' is practically spoon-fed to us; level 33 is nothing!"
"We can't force the kill!"
The backbone, White Night, although equally excited, still maintained the rationality of a top-tier pro player.
He helplessly looked at the disgustingly difficult modifier panel of level 33: "Look at the modifiers clearly! [Natural Cost Recovery Reduced by 75%], [Allied HP Halved]! No matter how overpowered Merlin is, he is still just a Support that consumes Cost!"
"In such a high-pressure environment where Cost is so tight, there's no way to deploy high-star Servants like Merlin and Jeanne dArc Alter at the start! If we mindlessly bring the Golden Squad, we won't even survive the initial wave of trash mobs; the front line will melt in ten seconds!"
"Merlin, this overpowered cheat, only gives us the theoretical possibility of clearing the stage. To stall until we have enough Cost to deploy Merlin, the previous operations are still all necessary!"
White Night dragged the [Merlin] he had just pulled to max NP and instantly maxed out in level into his tactical formation. "Brothers, go wash your faces. Next... we start 'fishing'. No one is allowed to log off until we fish out that perfect, flawless clear turn-plan!"