228: Advance to [Jade 8]

Chapter 228: Advancing to Emerald 8

Since the simulated missions for Thunder Flash were relatively smooth, Star Ascension didn't cost much, only a few hundred thousand.

Shi Li now has just over 15 million cubic coins in hand.

The Star Ascension to four for Black Angel requires 5 million cubic coins, which he initially thought was a bit expensive.

After all, his other cards that needed materials for card crafting to complete the second step of Star Ascension to four stars averaged around 2 million cubic coins.

But Black Angel was severely overpriced, more than double.

However, he also knew that with the gradual increase in refresh fees, subsequent Star Ascensions to four would definitely be more expensive.

At the very least, the Star Ascension to four price for Black Angel would not increase, which offered some psychological comfort.

"For the Hell Trial, it's worth it to spend."

Gritting his teeth, he paid the 5 million cubic coins.

A surge of emerald green light enveloped him, and Shi Li immediately felt refreshed.

Rank: Emerald 7 → Emerald 8

Stamina: 800 / 800 → 830 / 830

Energy: 800 / 800 → 830 / 830

"Comfortable."

Soon, a brand new four-star card appeared in his hand.

Black Angel

Wither, 30 points, four-star attack 30, 100 / 100, 0 / 50

Soul Drain - Characteristic: Black Angel's attacks inflict 10 points of Exhaustion.

Punishment - Passive: When Black Angel's Exhaustion effect expires, the target loses corresponding health.

Trample - Passive: When Black Angel attacks a target afflicted with Exhaustion, its attack power increases by 10.

Redemption - 10 Energy: Black Angel attacks one target and detonates its Exhaustion.

Soul Reap - 30 Energy: Black Angel attacks one target, converting its Exhaustion into an equivalent amount of Energy cap.

Annihilation - 30 Energy: Black Angel attacks one target, converting its Exhaustion into an equivalent amount of Wither.

(Exhaustion: Lose a corresponding amount of Energy cap for this round, stackable)

"This is formidable!"

After reading the new card's details, Shi Li's eyes lit up.

First, a passive special attack entry was added, though its effect was only so-so.

It wasn't a permanent special effect; if the opponent used Purification or other reasons caused Exhaustion to disappear, it would affect the special attack's activation.

And it also required Black Angel to make a preliminary attack as a warm-up.

What he was more interested in was the newly added active skill.

It seems that Wither might be a relatively common effect in the Wither system.

And Black Angel's skill, its power is quite immense.

For example, if a target already has 20 points of Exhaustion, activating Annihilation in this situation would first trigger the special attack, increasing Black Angel's attack damage to 40 points.

Then, 20 points of Exhaustion would convert into 20 points of Wither, causing the target to lose 20 points of health cap.

After that, when Exhaustion expires, the target would lose another 20 points of health.

This layering of effects would be equivalent to 80 points of damage.

And if the target had 30 points of Exhaustion, it would directly be 100 points of damage, capable of instantly killing someone.

But to be honest, this is just an ideal scenario.

It takes a considerable amount of time to accumulate 30 points of Energy or to stack 30 points of Exhaustion on a target.

By the time that's accomplished, the target might already be dead, and it wouldn't be your turn to use Annihilation.

"However, from another perspective, this is a skill that increases Black Angel's attack benefits."

"Assuming it's a PVE match where the target has a lot of health."

"Then, with the premise of casting Annihilation, it can be considered that each time Black Angel attacks, it accumulates 10 points of Punishment's health loss and 10 points of Wither for Annihilation."

Its output benefit per attack can be considered to reach 30 attack power + 10 special attack + 20 Annihilation consequence = 60 points.

"A 30-point card having 60 points of output is already quite good."

"Although it definitely can't compare to serious output cards like Red Blade Maiden, one also has to consider the negative effects brought by Exhaustion and Wither."

"However, if the BOSS is an idiot, then the significance of Annihilation isn't very great."

"Because when its Energy cap is quickly reduced to 0/0 by Exhaustion, it reaches the maximum stack limit for Exhaustion converting to Wither."

"But if you can really get the BOSS's Energy to 0/0, you can basically declare victory, right?"

Shi Li analyzed it carefully and then felt that Annihilation didn't seem as powerful as it initially appeared.

"The good news is, my Wither system resonance is 200%."

Shi Li opened the Hell Trial.

Entering Hell Trial.

This trial can only use Rage cards and Wither cards.

Trial Layer 2 is about to begin. Please select your character cards for battle.

In the previous Layer 1, he could only use Rage cards.

At that time, it was Red Blade Maiden + Lotus Succubus + The Diner + red dragon beast master, these 4 cards.

red dragon beast master occupied 3 slots, so it could barely be considered 6 cards.

This meant that in a 9+1 deck, he still needed to play 4 non-unique Rage cards.

Then, relying on Red Blade Maiden's super strong output, coupled with The Diner's 'cow-raising' tactic, he barely managed to pass Layer 1.

"This time I've added 2 four-star Wither cards, so no matter what, they're stronger than those two-star or three-star ordinary Rage cards."

"And last time, my Rage cards only had Red Blade Maiden and Lotus Succubus as two four-star cards. This time, even The Diner is four-star, and I also have its destined hand card."

"Counting the destined hand cards of Withering Dragon and Black Angel, I have 3 more destined hand cards than last time."

"In PVE card games, the player's biggest advantage is having more hand cards than the enemy."

"This time, there shouldn't be any problem."

Opening Layer 2, the opponent's deck was still the same deck that defeated him last time.

2 true five-star cards, with 8 pseudo five-star cards.

Among them, that trump card had a percentage-based damage skill.

"Last time, it was this percentage-based damage skill that caused my 'cow-raising' tactic to fail."

"But this time it's different; I just happen to have its nemesis."

The nemesis Shi Li was referring to was Withering Dragon.

The lower the enemy's health cap, the less damage percentage-based damage can deal.

If Defense or Shield were added in such a situation, the damage would be even more pitiful.

Withering Dragon only had 50 health, which perfectly met this requirement.

And it could also refresh its health, making it a complete counter.

However, even so, Shi Li's first attempt still failed.

He had to admit that there was still a gap in his deck's strength.

But compared to the previous failure, this time's failure made him realize that it wasn't hopeless.

If strength wasn't enough, then hand cards would make up for it.

So, after a series of fierce battles, Shi Li finally succeeded with a stroke of luck.

Congratulations, you have passed Trial Layer 2.

You can receive 300,000 cubic coins.

You can receive a unique Star Ascension token card.

"Not bad, an extra 100,000 reward."

Although he had just spent over 5 million cubic coins, this 300,000 was a drop in the bucket, but it was still happily accepted.

The rewarded card automatically merged into his card library, and when Shi Li pulled out that card, it had indeed changed.

Star Ascension Token Card: Can be used to perform a Star Ascension mission (2/3) for 1 four-star character card (unique).

"If things go smoothly, I might get the remaining 1/3 after passing one more stage."

Shi Li clicked to go to Layer 3.

Trial Layer 3 is about to begin. Please select your character cards for battle.

"Farewell."

However, this time he didn't even set up his cards.

He glanced at the opponent's deck and directly chose to give up.

3 true five-star cards, with 7 pseudo five-star cards.

He really couldn't beat this level of strength.

Don't underestimate the fact that Layer 3 only had one more true five-star card than Layer 2 in terms of strength.

True five-star cards often possess special mechanisms, and even just one more could mean a world of difference in strength.

"Right now, I definitely can't win head-on; I can only seek to strengthen my deck."

Shi Li's gaze turned to his personal resonance panel.

Rage: 200%; Wisdom: 100%

Persistence: 120%; Momentum: 150%

Chasing Wind: 110%; Listen to the Wind: 100%

Balanced: 170%; Wither: 200%

Wandering: 60%

"The Momentum system has already been analyzed; unless I get another unique Momentum card, it's difficult to reach 200% in the short term."

Even if everything goes smoothly, it can at most reach 190%.

"So, the easiest system to reach 200% right now is the Balance System."

"Cicada Wing Patrol, Fleeing Ink, Abyss Slime – these three cards are all three-star."

As long as they are ascended to four-star, the 200% resonance can be achieved.

"Although these three are support cards, if they reach four-star, their strength will definitely be much greater than ordinary two-star or three-star cards."

He still had 10 million cubic coins in hand, so his next strengthening goal was clear.

That is, Cicada Wing Patrol, Fleeing Ink, and Abyss Slime all needed to ascend to four-star.

"Let's first complete the prerequisite simulated missions for all three of them and see what the situation is."

Thinking of this, Shi Li directly ordered three unique three-to-four Star Ascension token cards for the Balance System.

unique three-to-four Star Ascension token cards, due to their preciousness, were semi-controlled resources.

Organizations holding such resources would generally prioritize supplying them to their own people.

They were the kind that even with money, you might not be able to buy, and if you weren't a Card Hall employee, you might have to queue up in the purchasing system.

Even as a Card Hall employee, at most, you could only cut in line a little after submitting an application.

Because of this, and because having a token card didn't guarantee 100% success in Star Ascension, it wasn't easy for ordinary card players to advance to Emerald or increase their rank within Emerald.

Of course, some more powerful card players usually had related item cards that could greatly improve the success rate of simulated missions.

Since Shi Li was now an S2-level employee of the Show Card Hall, and he only needed a very small quantity of 3 cards.

Therefore, under the internal system allocation of the Card Hall, he directly skipped the queueing process.

In just half an hour, the 3 token cards were delivered to his hands.

Including the price of the 3 token cards, Shi Li spent a total of 5 million cubic coins to complete the prerequisite missions for these 3 cards.

"It seems it's not that easy after all."

To his disappointment, among the 3 cards, Cicada Wing Patrol and Abyss Slime were types that required missions to complete their Star Ascension.

And the missions for these two cards were quite demanding.

Cicada Wing Patrol's requirement was to defeat 10 different four-star Fel Energy cards.

Honestly, Shi Li considered himself to have encountered Fel Energy card players a few times and even had duels with them.

But four-star Fel Energy cards, he hadn't seen a single one so far.

"And judging from this mission, its new four-star entry might be related to countering evil.

So, the significance of ascending to four doesn't seem very great for me temporarily.

The key is not knowing where to find so many Fel Energy cards; I can't just go poke the Blacklight Society's nest, can I?

Even if I really wanted to, I don't know where they are."

So, Cicada Wing Patrol's mission could only be temporarily shelved, to see if he would encounter Blacklight members later.

Those who possess four-star Fel Energy cards wouldn't be small fry, so he shouldn't bite off more than he can chew.

As for Abyss Slime's mission, it was also quite customized.

It required evolving by passing Abyssal True Realm Layer 20.

"I used all my strength just to clear Layer 10; is Layer 20 really possible?"

Shi Li also maintained doubts about this.

However, upon closer thought, it wasn't necessarily the same.

When he cleared Layer 10, he was still Platinum, with at most a 9+1 all three-star deck.

But now he could assemble a 9+1 all four-star deck, so there might still be a chance.

"When I had just cleared Layer 10, Brother Hou said that Abyssal True Realm was expected to open in half a year.

Now, it seems that about half the time has passed."

So, this Star Ascension mission could also only be temporarily shelved.

But at least it seemed more promising than Cicada Wing Patrol, with something to look forward to.

"So, now only Fleeing Ink is left."

Shi Li looked at this card.

After completing the prerequisite mission, he also obtained a destined hand card token card.

Ascending Fleeing Ink to four-star and completing the token card would bring his resonance to 190%.

"I still have 5 million cubic coins left, which is enough to ascend it to four-star."

But Shi Li thought about it and decided to temporarily shelve Fleeing Ink's four-Star Ascension as well.

After all, being stuck at 190% and 170% wasn't much different.

"I don't know what the situation with the journey to the Divine Realm will be, so I'll save these 5 million cubic coins to ascend other cards first."

Since he couldn't activate the Balance System's 200%, the cards he most wanted to ascend were the two linked cards.

bo shan and cloud river.

They used to be his main core cards, and in fact, they still were.

However, as he acquired more and more four-star cards, the importance of these two three-star cards diminished.

Especially bo shan, with alternative damage-absorbing cards like The Diner and Moonlight Werewolf, its position as a damage-absorbing card was also being diluted.

Nevertheless, he still had considerable faith in the strength of bo shan and cloud river.

Ascending these two cards to four-star should greatly help improve his deck's strength.

So, he placed another order, one unique three-to-four Star Ascension token card each for the Steadfast System and the Listening Wind System.

Including the refresh fees, he spent another 3 million cubic coins.

"Oh?"

However, Shi Li soon received good news.

The Star Ascension missions for these two cards were quite easy.