The Era of Gods

Even without Creation Energy, it doesn’t matter; with so many cards, I can definitely pick out the right ones for targeted enhancement.

With a light touch of a finger, the roulette began to spin, slowly at first, then quickly picking up speed until it reached a peak before slowing down again, and soon it stopped on an orange card.

Lin Xiao pondered for a moment, chose to confirm, and did not reselect.

Removing the solitary Ancient Card, an Orange Legendary Card sits between the lowest Epic and the Golden Mythical Quality cards, an intermediate level, which isn’t too bad.

Judging by the fact that there are only five or six Golden Mythical Quality cards at most, the probability of drawing a gold card upon reselection is not high, but rather there’s a high probability of drawing a purple card.

Of course, the main reason Lin Xiao kept this orange card is that it is a Soldier Card—five hundred Level 4 human Crossbowmen equipped with a standard single-shot crossbow, a set of leather armor, and a short sword.

Since it’s a battle mode, the most important thing is obviously the Soldier Cards, followed by other cards for support.

That could be a combination with other types of soldiers or better Weapon Cards for arming them, and so on.

Also, taking into account the direct confrontation, all cards in the card pool are related to battle, without any useless resource cards or the like.

After all, these cards are only for use in this one exchange match and will be reclaimed after the battle.

Having secured the Crossbowmen card, it has now taken up twenty points of the card pool; in comparison, a normal player would only be able to draw a maximum of five Five Star cards, even those from the high school league could only draw six.

Generally speaking, higher-grade cards naturally have greater power, but sometimes it’s about what fits the situation, so you can’t just blindly draw high-quality cards.

Lin Xiao initially planned to draw one high-quality Soldier Card, then a large number of lower-level cards to combine, and after drawing all the cards, he would use the Magic Cube to decompose or fuse a few strong cards into a battle deck depending on the situation.

Now that the first card drawn is a Soldier Card, there’s no need to draw more Five Star cards.

Next, he followed his original plan and drew four Four Star cards, eight Three Star cards, and with the first Five Star card, he spent a total of one hundred card points, then selected ten Two Star cards using thirty points, and twenty One Star cards at one point each, exhausting all one hundred fifty points.

Altogether, the five grades of cards added up to forty-three cards of mixed quality, with more than half being plain cards, a few rare, unusual, and epic quality ones, with no more legends after the first, but there was one Mythical Quality card, albeit a Two Star level card.

A stack of cards fanned out in his hand, colorful and varied—overall, his luck was average, neither bad nor good, but without cheating or any extra advantage, definitely not making it to the end, probably not even the top fifty.

After selecting the cards, there was still some time to freely combine them. He glanced to his left at Lin Xu, who was frowning and looking at his dozen or so cards of various colors, clearly all chosen above three stars, with no one or two stars.

It looked like Lin Xu was quite lucky, having drawn a Golden Mythical Quality card. By his choice, it had to be at least a Three Star Mythical card, so it probably wouldn’t be too bad.

Looking to the right at Shen Yuexin, he reflexively leaned back and was blinded by several dashes of orange and gold, and a dazzling crystalline glow that flashed across his eyes.

“Goodness, could this be the legendary Europe Emperor?”

Shen Yuexin seemed to notice his action, glanced at him with her big eyes, flipped through her cards as if she had a winning hand of aces in poker, her face full of smug satisfaction.

Lin Xiao looked around and saw no one was paying attention, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath in her direction.

Her pretty face turned red in an instant, and in a tone of reproach she hadn’t noticed herself, she said:

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing much, just soaking up some of your European luck.”

“Hmph, hooligan.”

She pinched her delicate little fist and gestured, and Lin Xiao extended his fist and lightly touched it:

“Go for it, little aunt!”

After saying that, he turned his head back and no longer looked at the somewhat confused Shen Yuexin.

Covering his mouth to hold back laughter, he perked up and spread out the cards, starting to figure out how to integrate these forty-three cards in his hand.

Because of the competition rules, these forty-three cards were all battle-related like Soldier Cards, Summoning Cards, Weapon Cards, skill scrolls, Talent Cards, expertise cards, and so on.

Battles generally rely on Soldier Cards to summon organized troops.

Summoning Cards often summon powerful but few creatures, such as a war bear, a giant eagle, a dragon, and so on, though of course, Five Star cards wouldn’t summon something as significant as a dragon.

Weapon Cards grant a varying number of powerful weapons depending on the grade and quality of the card, which can replace the ordinary weapons carried by Soldier Cards.

Skills, talents, and expertise don’t even need to be mentioned; they are directly loaded onto the soldier or summoned creature, allowing for the creation of unique troops.

It’s worth mentioning that, due to the specificity of the rules, if a Profession Card is loaded onto a Soldier Card, there’s no need to start from the First Level. Instead, it automatically grants a Professional Level as high as the Soldier Card’s level. For example, Lin Xiao’s Level 4 Crossbowmen, after loading the crossbowman profession, would directly obtain a Level 4 Professional Level.

Beyond that, all players can also enter the battlefield but cannot directly participate in combat nor will they be attacked. Instead, they are like a background commander directing their subordinates, and if they have skill scrolls, they can cast them.

Put it this way, you can think of Lin Xiao before he crossed over to another world, like the heroes in a classic game called Heroes of Might and Magic 3, but without the hero attributes and talent bonuses to their troops.

Lin Xiao set aside the four Soldier Cards he held, placed six Summoning Cards to one side, eleven Weapon Cards to another, and eleven skill or spell scroll cards to yet another side. There were no Profession Cards; the rest were all sorts of talent expertise cards and some assorted cards.

Firstly, there were four Soldier Cards. Besides the Crossbowmen, there was a three-star blank Light Infantry Card, capable of summoning one hundred Level 3 Human Light Infantrymen equipped with Single-hand Swords, Oak Round Shields, and studded Leather Armour.

There was a three-star rare Elite Assassination Card, capable of summoning a small squad of twenty invisible Jackal Man Assassins at Level 3.

And a two-star blank quality Goblin Squad card, with three hundred members but only at the First Level, pure Cannon Fodder.

The six Summoning Cards included one for a Double-headed Ferocious Alligator, which had reached the Fifth Level limit, just a step away from the Rank 6 Transcendent Level.

Four Large Water Elementals, summoned from a single card at a four-star rare quality, though the grade of the Water Elementals was Level 4, altogether they were not a match for the Double-headed Ferocious Alligator.

Two Large Fire Elementals, summoned by a single card which could summon only two creatures, also at Level 4 but clearly of lower quality compared to the previous card summoning Water Elementals.

There were also four one-star and two-star quality Summoning Cards that summoned rather average creatures and weren’t much use.

Beyond these, the weaponry and equipment cards included items like Swords, Bows, and Armor which were, needless to say, of better quality than the default equipment of Soldier Cards.

The rest of the talent, expertise, and skill cards were not very high in level nor were they of exceptional quality, but after all, they were skills; used well, they could significantly increase the strength of the troops.

The sole Golden Mythical Quality two-star card was a Ring of Spells – Level 2 Monster Summoning (Enhanced). Normally, this spell would summon a certain number of Level 2 creatures, but this enhanced version could summon a group of Level 2 creatures. Crucially, as a Magic Item, it could be used repeatedly.

After taking stock of his cards, the next step was to utilize the Creation Rubik’s Cube for disassembling and strengthening them.

As previously mentioned, even though now he needed to consciously train his own willpower, this didn’t conflict with using cheats. The Creation Rubik’s Cube was his Golden Finger for rising to power. How could he possibly not use it? He wouldn’t be so foolish to restrict himself.

First, he gathered the cards that weren’t of much use, feeding them into the Creation Rubik’s Cube to disintegrate them into Creative Power, stockpiling it as a nutrient for strengthening other cards.

Though Creative Power couldn’t work miracles like Creation Energy, simple enhancement was still within reach.

Then…

Lin Xiao pondered for a moment, similarly disintegrating the card that summoned Water Elementals as well as the one for the Double-headed Ferocious Alligator, converting them into Creative Power for later use.

Next, he took out the Fire Elemental Summoning Card and fed it into the Creation Rubik’s Cube for disassembly, fusing the two Large Fire Elementals it would have summoned, then poured all the Creative Power from the previously disintegrated cards into this card to begin enhancement.

His plan was quite straightforward: simply enhancing other Soldier Cards wouldn’t lead to a qualitative change, but if he could use these Summoning Cards to summon a Transcendent Level Super Large Fire Elemental, then it would be a different story.

Typically, only cards of Five Star Mythical Quality or above had the potential to summon Transcendent Level creatures. Plus, given randomness, the number certainly wouldn’t be vast. A Transcendent Level Super Large Fire Elemental on the battlefield would absolutely stand out like a crane among chickens, truly exceptional.

The outcome was as he anticipated. Utilizing a mishmash of cards as nutrients, the disassembly of all Summoning Cards provided sustenance for this Fire Elemental Summoning Card. The fused card was indeed a Five Star level, Golden Mythical Quality Summoning Card, capable of summoning a Transcendent Level Super Large Fire Elemental.

Lin Xiao immediately incorporated this card into his combat deck.

Then, he took out the three-star blank card that could summon one hundred Light Infantrymen, another two-star rare quality Armor Card with one hundred and fifty suits of studded armor, and one more card containing two hundred poor-quality steel Single-hand Swords, also at two stars. Fusing the three cards produced a three-star rare quality Soldier Card.

Still consisting of one-hundred Human Infantrymen, but now equipped with both weapons and thick Armor, they had transformed into one hundred Heavy Infantrymen, perfect for forming the front line ahead of the five hundred Crossbowmen.

It was a shame there weren’t any Shield Weapon Cards; they were still paired with Oak Round Shields.

Alongside the five-star legendary quality Soldier Card of Crossbowmen, this new card became part of the starting deck, in addition to the Super Large Fire Elemental Summoning Card. Thus, his initial deck of three cards was formed. This combination of forces was quite powerful, likely enough to fight his way into the top hundred without trouble.

Given the current number of contestants, it was estimated that one would need to win five battles to reach the top hundred. During the process, he would acquire at least five to a maximum of fifteen cards from his defeated opponents. He hoped to gain some good items to combine with the remaining cards.

Having settled on the deck, Lin Xiao selected the ready option on the on-screen interface and began matchmaking. The scene in front of him shifted into a continuously twisting Chaos Vortex.