1: Chapter 1 [The Spirit Monkey]

In the year 4396, in Jiaqing Residential Area of Gaoping City,

howling winds roared, rain fell like a dense weave, and dark, heavy clouds hung across the horizon like an iron curtain.

Inside the cramped room, a pale screen illuminated Sun Po's handsome face.

His knuckles gripping the phone were clenched faintly white.

"Right, the house in Jiaqing Residential Area, five hundred thousand, but I need it right now."

The property ownership certificate is already listed at the notary center, you can check it,

As long as you transfer the money, the deal is done immediately."

The person on the other end of the phone was silent for a long time, and then—

"Five hundred thousand has arrived in your account, please check."

Sun Po didn't wait a single extra second, immediately tossing the phone aside and hunching over the computer to open a website.

The website prominently displayed the large characters: "Gaoping City Official Card-Making Materials Direct Sales Network".

Sun Po stared fixedly at the screen, rapidly clicking the mouse,

After a flurry of operations, when he clicked the "Purchase" option, he finally let out a sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

At the bottom of the page, colorful news pop-ups continuously emerged:

"# Recently, the [Artificial Creation Cardification] experiment hosted by the scientific research team of our country's Yanhuang National Defense University has achieved huge progress #"

"# The Bald Eagle Federation recently discovered an unexplored large secret realm, and officials stated that it is expected to open up 5 to 7 card-making sequences from it #"

"# Li Tiance, the second young master of the Jinyang Li Family, has developed a brand-new orange card-making sequence,

It is reported that the card type is a field card, with the true name Xuanwu Gate. Some experts analyze that Li Tiance's victory in the competition for the heir of the Jinyang Li Family is already set #"

"# The Gaokao data for the year 4396 has been released. The number of registered Card Makers nationwide for this Gaokao reached 1.3 million, an increase of about 150,000 compared to last year's Gaokao #"

Seeing the words "Gaokao", Sun Po's heart couldn't help but tighten.

Suddenly, a crisp phone ring sounded,

The words "Homeroom Teacher Yang Xinyue" flashed on the phone screen.

Sun Po pressed the answer button, and a slightly urgent female voice came through:

"Sun Po, I fought for a one-hundred-thousand-yuan student loan for you. How much are you still short of gathering the money for the card-making materials?"

Hearing this, Sun Po replied,

"Sister Xinyue, I have already decided not to make a second card."

The voice on the other end of the phone became even more urgent:

"What? Without a second card, what will you do about next month's Gaokao? Are you short of a lot of money?"

Sun Po replied with some hesitation: "Quite a lot, Sister Xinyue, don't worry. No matter what the result is, I can accept it."

The two fell into silence.

After a long while, the female voice on the other end sighed:

"Three years ago, the quality of your Spirit Monkey was as high as [White 7-Star]. Why has it kept dropping, all the way down to [Gray 1-Star]?"

Immediately afterward, Yang Xinyue seemed to have made up her mind:

"With two gray cards, at least you can attend a junior college! How much are you short? I'll lend it to you!"

(PS: Card quality: Gray - White - Green - Blue - Purple - Orange - Gold - Black - Color, One-Star to Nine-Star, from lowest to highest)

Sun Po felt a warmth in his heart and smiled bitterly:

"No need, Sister Xinyue, you have already helped me enough."

"Cut the crap, this lady has money!! How much are you short, name a number..."

Before the other person could finish speaking, Sun Po had already hung up the phone.

Homeroom teacher Yang Xinyue had taken good care of him for three years and genuinely helped him,

but he'd rather take a gamble himself. After all, it wasn't good to keep accepting charity from others.

Sun Po turned off the computer, lay on the bed, and quietly looked at the family portrait of three by the bedside, his thoughts inevitably drifting back to when he first transmigrated.

Three years ago, Sun Po was sent to this world by a muck truck.

He had a car and a house, both parents were deceased, and he sat on a million-dollar inheritance, enjoying himself immensely for a while.

At that time, he felt novelty toward everything here.

This world had many similarities with Earth, including history, culture, mythology, technology, and so on,

but this was a world where cards were king.

A severe explosion occurred in this world during the Tianqi era of the Ming Dynasty, and after the explosion, many huge rifts appeared all over the world.

Behind the rifts were independent spaces, which people called secret realms.

Countless monsters poured out from these secret realms, frantically slaughtering humans.

They seemed to exist in another dimension; blades couldn't hit them, and firearms couldn't blow them up.

Yet their sharp fangs and claws, along with ice, fire, lightning, and poison, could easily take human lives.

For a time, humanity fell into its darkest era.

Fortunately, there were brave men among humans who charged straight into the secret realms against the monsters,

He carved out a mysterious spiritual space within his brain and drew out the first card in human history, thereby gaining the power to contend with monsters.

People saw the dawn of hope, and countless people began to enter the secret realms without fear of death to seek the mysteries of cards.

Later, people discovered that some monsters would drop spirituality-infused residues after death, which people called "card-making materials".

Different card-making materials could be combined through special rituals to create brand-new cards,

Humans thereby gained the ability to make cards, and called this combination method a "card-making sequence."

The Card Era thus began, and the profession of Card Maker officially stepped onto the historical stage,

To this day, the development of cards has approached nearly a thousand years.

The monsters in the secret realms occasionally erupted, but they could no longer pose an extinction threat to humanity.

However, the "card-making sequence" had become the most precious information. Monsters no longer poured out, and commoners no longer had channels to obtain "card-making materials."

The initial Card Makers monopolized the card-making sequences they researched,

passing them down with bloodline as the bond, and established noble families.

Back then they were entrusted with the duty of guarding the secret realms, but now it had become their perfect reason to monopolize the entrances to the secret realms.

If the authorities hadn't published some public card-making sequences, coupled with new secret realm entrances opening up,

more than ninety percent of civilian Card Makers would have had no cards to make at all.

Nowadays, the vast majority of commoners could only use cards from public card-making sequences to risk their lives in unknown secret realms.

But whether in combat power or growth potential, public cards fell far short of the card-making sequences of the noble families.

Even so, public card-making sequences could still be called the gospel of civilian Card Makers.

Only with cards could one participate in the Gaokao.

The only promotion channel for civilian Card Makers was through the Gaokao to enter university,

using official card-making resources to enhance card quality.

Sun Po was no exception. His first card was the Spirit Monkey, one of the official "Imperial Three Families",

A complete set of card-making materials for the Spirit Monkey cost over 500,000,

instantly hollowing out half of the inheritance left to him by the original body's parents.

As for the remaining inheritance, it was all dumped into his transmigration golden finger.

...

"Clack, clack, clack"

Just as Sun Po was reminiscing, he suddenly heard a sound at the window glass.

He hurriedly jumped out of bed and pulled open the curtains,

A palm-sized paper crane carrying a small cross-body bag was struggling to peck at Sun Po's glass.

Sun Po quickly opened the window,

and the paper crane flew in along with the rainwater.

This wasn't his first time buying card-making materials, so he knew this paper crane was the courier delivering the card-making materials.

Heavy rain poured outside the window, yet the paper crane wasn't wet at all.

It flew down onto the desk on its own accord and pecked open the small cross-body bag with its beak,

The bag shook for a moment, and out flew a humanoid skeleton with strangely long arms.

To this day, Sun Po didn't know how that bag managed to fit so many things inside,

But he still had serious business to attend to and was in no mood to research these things.

Sun Po took out a pen and signed his name on the paper crane, which counted as signing for the delivery.

The paper crane shook its wings, put away the cross-body bag again, flew straight out the window, and vanished into the curtain of rain.

Sun Po looked at this tall skeleton with burning eyes.

"It's finally here!!"

With a slight thought, a grayish card floated in mid-air in front of Sun Po.

Drawn on the card was a short, emaciated wild monkey with blank eyes and messy fur.

Name: [ Spirit Monkey ]

Quality: [ Gray 1-Star ]

Type: [ Beast / Monster Species ]

Introduction: [ A mountain wild monkey with slightly opened spiritual intelligence, capable of understanding human speech ]

Skills:

[ Scratch and Bite ]

The Spirit Monkey leaps to approach the target to scratch and bite, with a chance to cause the enemy to enter a bleeding state.

[ Agility ]

When moving in the mountains, the Spirit Monkey's sensitivity increases, and its evasion capability is enhanced.

This was Sun Po's first card, a monster species card positioned toward reconnaissance functions.

The greatest advantage of the [ Spirit Monkey ] was that it was cheap, but in terms of combat power and performance,

it fell far short of the [ Warrior ] and the [ Wrongfully Deceased Scholar ], which were also part of the "Imperial Three Families".

But unlike other [ Spirit Monkey ] cards,

at the very bottom of this card, there was also a line of small text:

" [ MOD: Not Loaded ] "

...