Translator: Star River from wangmamaread
Proodreader: Rhith
At twelve noon, Xie Mingzhe's store closed on time.
There was still the announcement which said "New cards will be released at 11:30am tomorrow", since Xie Mingzhe had already conceived some ideas in his mind. And he planned to paint two new cards that afternoon.
After closing the store, he first went offline to have lunch, and also to let his brain rest for a while. When he got back online again at 1pm, the system prompt voice rang, "You have a new email. Please check."
Xie Mingzhe walked into the living room and opened his email box, then he saw the new message.
The email was sent by a person whose ID was "Ghost Fire". And the email said, "Hello, Uncle Chubby. I am the Ghost Hell Club's president. Some players in my club want to confer with you about some business. If you have spare time, I would be honored to have you visit my club."
Xie Mingzhe turned around and went to check the Galaxy Navigation Map. As expected, there was an extra club territory star.
The Ghost Hell Club's territory star was pure black with a ghostly atmosphere surrounding it. It was obvious that the star's style was similar to the Underworld.
He generally knew the respective characteristics of several big clubs since he had looked up their information these days. Most of the Ghost Hell Club's cards were Earth cards, some of which were very famous, such as Legend Zheng Feng's "Defence and Counterattack" cards, Gui Sirui's ghost cards as well as Liu Jingxu's demon cards. Amongst the three players, Lao Zheng was the experienced player who had debuted in the first season. Nowadays he was in his thirties and was respected by players of the new generation. Gui Sirui was one of the most popular players of the new generation. His eerie and scary card style had attracted a lot of die-hard fans. As for Liu Jingxu, he won first prize in the eighth season. In addition, he was a research freak as well as a late bloomer.
The club was quite strong. It had won numerous trophies no matter if it was in individual races, paired races or group races.
Why does the Ghost Hell Club suddenly want to see me? Today Xie Mingzhe had made three cards, [Zhong Kui], [Sha Wujing] and [Cao Chong], without a break. And all of the three cards targeted the Ghost Hell Club. It was perfectly possible that the club's legends wanted to accuse him in person.
Thinking of this, Xie Mingzhe replied, "President, if the reason that you want to see me is to abuse me. I'd rather not visit your place."
Ghost Fire immediately answered, "That's not gonna happen. We really have business to discuss with you."
Business? Customizing cards like Legend Fang Yu? Or buying copyrights like Legend Nie?
No matter what it was, Xie Mingzhe decided to visit the club in person since the president had politely invited him. A club territory was a safe area where PK was not allowed, so he wouldn't be besieged and attacked anyway.
He was teleported to the Ghost Hell Club by clicking the Galaxy Navigation Map.
The architecture of the Ghost Hell Club was different than any of the clubs he visited before——Fenghua and Adjudication had aboveground buildings, while Ghost Hell had a gigantic underground castle, which was similar to "the Underground" that he had seen on TV. Both of their buildings were underground and surrounded by a dim, black and evil atmosphere. Even the background music was distinctive, which was creepy and frightening.
Xie Mingzhe used to be a huge fan of supernatural novels and horror movies, so the design of the Ghost Hell Club's territory star was in harmony with his taste.
The president welcomed him at the entrance in person, and ushered him into his office with ceremony. The two people went straight down using the lift and entered the gigantic underground castle, which felt like personally visiting "the Underworld"......However, the office was on the eighteenth floor underground. What an unlucky number!
This world probably didn't know about the concept of "the eighteen levels of Hell"※ in traditional culture. Otherwise, they wouldn't set such an important office area on the eighteenth floor underground.
Xie Mingzhe opened the office door with a skeleton sign.
It was obvious that club territory buildings could be freely designed according to different styles, but the internal structures were almost the same. He saw a club insignia that was hung right in the middle of the wall once again——the Ghost Hell Club's insignia, which was a picture similar to the "Hell's abyss". And in the middle of the abyss laid two black words, "Ghost Hell", which was surrounded by spooky black smoke. Just like its architecture, its insignia was eerie and distinctive too.
Three men sat side by side in the office and it was obvious that they were the three players who were targeted by his cards. As expected, the president introduced them to him, "They are my club's players, Gui Sirui, Liu Jingxu and Legend Zheng Feng."
Xie Mingzhe approached them with a kind smile, "You Legends wanted to see me not to accuse me, right?"
Zheng Fengwas the first to speak, "We don't need to do that since we're not the only club that was targeted by you."
Gui Sirui also said, "Relax. We're not that petty. As professionals, we have been targeted so many times before. There is another reason why we wanted to see you."
Liu Jingxu stood up and approached him, then seriously said, "Uncle Chubby. The three cards that you designed were impressive since they perfectly avoided some of the authorities' restrictions on IDE cards by designing [Zhong Kui] as a variation on the instant death skill effect as well as applying the strong control play "Exile" to [Cao Chong]'s skill."
Xie Mingzhe was a little bit confused, "Exile? You mean [Cao Chong]'s skill, weighing an elephant, amounted to the exile effect?"
Liu Jingxu nodded, "Exile is the strongest of all control plays. It directly banishes a particular card from the Arena, which is the control skill named "Arena Insulation". This kind of exile play was originally discovered by the chief designer of Pantheon, and then it was imitated by every big club. Even if other clubs have made some similar cards, your [Cao Chong]'s "Weighing an Elephant" is the strongest one at present. We have tested it in the Arena. When the elephant was stuck on the boat and subsequently exiled, it couldn't return to the Arena even if the game was over."
That was exactly what Xie Mingzhe thought when he designed [Cao Chong]. Since he couldn't kill the elephant instantly, he would banish it to some other place. However, he didn't know there was a name for this control play in the Star Card World, "Exile". He felt some new ideas had appeared in his mind.
Liu Jingxu actively stretched out his hand, "I really appreciate your talent for making cards. And I want to make you a friend so that we can study how to make cards together. We arranged this meeting in order to invite you to become our club's card designer."
Xie Mingzhe scratched his head, smiling, "Thank you for your recognition. But I don't want to be a club's card designer."
Zheng Feng arched an eyebrow, "Don't rush into rejecting our proposal. Don't you want to hear our conditions first? Xiao Gui, give him the contract."
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Translator's Note:
The concept of the eighteen hells started in the Tang dynasty. Some literature refers to eighteen types of hells or to eighteen hells for each type of punishment. Some religious or literature books say that wrongdoers who were not punished when they were alive are punished in the hells after death.
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