Chapter 9 – S-Grade Tool Card

The keeper of Hearts was a beautiful sister. Xiao Lou thought that the image of the keeper of Diamonds would be similar. As a result, he just finished speaking when he heard a clear and sweet child’s voice in his ears. “Hello, I am A of Diamonds. Congratulations on your perfect clearance!”

Xiao Lou turned and saw a small loli sitting on the sofa. She wore a red, knee-length dress, white stockings and a pair of red bow shoes. There were two ponytails on the girl’s head and her chubby baby’s face had a big smile. Her eyes were curved and there was a lovely dimple on the corner of the left side.

She looked only seven or right and her soft white face easily made adults feel soft.

However, remembering that this was the keeper of Diamonds… Xiao Lou quickly put away his love of children and got straight to the point. “I perfectly cleared the instance so can I draw a card?”

“Of course, try your luck.”

A glittering treasure chest appeared in front of him. Xiao Lou walked quickly and put his hand into the box, pulling out a card.

[Congratulations on getting the S-grade ‘Tool Card: Compass’!]

Since the perfect clearance of 2 of Hearts and drawing the summoning card Tao Yuanming, Xiao Lou had a preliminary understanding of this Card World. He didn’t feel any surprise when getting the Compass. He picked up the card and looked at it carefully.

[Tool Card: Compass]

Rarity: S

Description: A mathematical tool that is common in reality but extremely rare in the Card World. After perfectly clearing a room, there is a very low probability of obtaining it from the limited card pool draw.

Additional Skill 1: Draw a Circle.

How to use: Take out the compass tool and draw a circle at any position. After 10 seconds, the circle will become a metal ring of the same size. You can let the ring float and use it as a weapon to attack the enemy. The power of the ring depends on how you use it. Please understand it for yourself.

Note: The growth is level one and the drawn circle will become solid after 10 seconds. For every increase in level, the time it takes for the drawn circle to become solid is reduced by one second. At full level, it is reduced to 0.5 seconds.

Additional Skill 2: Unlocked when the card grows to level 10.

Xiao Lou read the description and immediately activated this tool card, wanting to try out the actual effect.

The card activated and a silver compass appeared in his palm. It was similar to the compass used in junior high school mathematics, except that there was a knob at the two legs of the compass which allowed him to adjust the length.

He first drew a regular sized 1 cm diameter circle on the ground and then followed by adjusting the length of the legs to the maximum, drawing a circle with a diameter of 100cm. After 10 seconds, two silver-white metal rings of the same size as the circles he just drew appeared. The rings were very thin and the touch was like silver wire. The rings floated into the air with his movements.

Xiao Lou’s heart was happy as he tried to control the rings to fly around his personal space.

Two rings, one big and one small, actually floated in the air according to the movement of his fingers and didn’t fall.

This type of anti-gravity phenomenon like ‘magic’ made it difficult for Xiao Lou to adapt for a while. Then he thought of himself in the Card World and how he could summon Tao Yuanming… there was no need to talk about the scientific basis of making a floating ring.

The world itself wasn’t scientific.

Xiao Lou put the rings down and quickly figured out the usage of the S-grade tool card, ‘Compass.’

The circle drawn by the compass could be adjusted freely between 1cm and 100 cm. Small earrings, rings, hula hoops for adults—the size of the circle was the size of the metal ring.

The powerful part of this card was that it was very flexible to use. He could draw a ring the size of a bracelet and use it as a hidden weapon to attack others. He could draw a big ring that could be used to trap the enemies. When necessary, he could use a thin metal ring to break the neck of others.

In theory, with the compass in hand, he didn’t lack any circular weapons. They could be painted on the spot, regardless of the environment.

This was really an S-grade tool.

Xiao Lou comfortably put the new card into his card package and rearranged the order.

The plot card ‘Rose Funeral’ was still placed in the last grid. He also placed the Four-way Arrow and Folding Paper that he just obtained in the back. These two cards were temporarily unavailable. They would be taken out later if necessary.

Then he followed up by placing the Compass in the second grid for convenient access at any time.

Xiao Lou finished the arrangement and once again checked the position of each card. Tao Yuanming was still in the first grid, Compass was in the second grid, followed by Nine Palaces Grid, Mathematical Equation, Fruit Knife and Rose Perfume. Then there were more than a dozen card sloths and finally Rose Funeral, Four-way Arrow and Folding Paper.

He currently had a total of nine cards, two of which were S-grade.

Xiao Lou found that the S-grade cards were all cards that could grow. They had the highest versatility and no limit on the number of uses. Tao Yuanming could be summoned at any time and use Remember Peach Blossom Spring once a day, while Compass could always draw a circle and wouldn’t be damaged.

An A-grade card was weaker than an S-grade card. For example, Folding Paper could only be used once. Four-way Arrow had no limit on the number of uses but only had the role of ‘guidance.’ It was a god card in the maze but not a big deal outside the maze.

Cards below A-grade were even worse. For example, the tool Fruit Knife could only deal damage 10 times, Rose Perfume had a 100ml capacity before it was used up, Nine Palaces Grid could only be used nine times and Mathematical Equation could only be used twice.

Judging from the cards currently obtained, there was no hierarchical fraud in card rarity.

This meant that an S rarity card was the most powerful, an A-grade card had a miraculous effect in some secret rooms but had large restrictions, B and C-grade cards were relatively simple to obtain while there were countless low rated cards that were also very easy to use.

In the later stages, if he wanted to clear more advanced secret rooms then it was better to have more S and A-grade cards on his body.

In the Card World, the cards drawn would increase the player’s combat power. Therefore, in the next secret room, Xiao Lou should aim for a perfect clearance as much as possible. Even if he had to use the low level cards he obtained, he must pursue a perfect instance clearance to draw more S-grade cards.

Xiao Lou put away the card package and look at the little girl on the sofa. “I can rest for 15 minutes after the clearance is over?”

The little girl supported her chin with a hand and smiled. “The Diamond rooms have no break time. You need to select the next card as soon as possible within one minute.” She waved her hands and four cards suddenly flew in front of Xiao Lou.

Xiao Lou frowned. It seemed that the rules set by the keepers of each type of secret room were different. After the Hearts secret room, he could rest for 15 minutes while the Diamonds secret room didn’t give any rest time and he could only continue to the next level.

At present, the second rooms that Xiao Lou could choose were 3 of Hearts, 3 of Diamonds, 2 of Spades and 2 of Clubs.

He could go to 3 of Hearts to solve the case or go to 3 of Diamonds to continue opening the mechanisms. He had confidence that he could clear it. However, he couldn’t always avoid Spades and Clubs. Since he decided to be familiar with all the secret rooms, Xiao Lou simply pulled out Spades in order.

This was the first time he had drawn a black card.

The unknown secret room and the black light of the card made Xiao Lou feel a bit uneasy.

Still, he didn’t have time to think much about it. His body was forcibly sucked into the world of 2 of Spades by a familiar, strange force.

***

This was a desolate town.

The grey sky cast a shadow over the entire town.

Most of the stores had their doors closed, the streets were empty and there were no pedestrians. There were many abandoned vehicles parked on both sides of the street and no living people in all the cars. Some cars had a rusted appearance.

There was a garbage can not far ahead. The garbage inside obviously hadn’t been cleaned out for a long time and it smelt rotten.

A gust of wind blew through the garbage can and a plastic bag in the trash was blown out.

Next to it, a dry tree was blown down to the ground with a loud sound. The crows on the tree were startled and screamed as they flew into the distance. A few mice next to the trash can were alarmed by the crow’s voices and scurried around. A large mouse passed by Xiao Lou and stopped to look at him.

Xiao Lou was immediately alert.

This was an unusual environment. What type of place had he come to?

Just then, the floating text box above his head familiar gave the familiar prompts.

[Welcome to the 2 of Spades secret room, Zombie Town.]

This is a remote town. Due to its beautiful scenery, it was once a popular tourist destination in the Card World.

Six months ago, a family of three travelled here and this coincided with a heavy rain. The eight year old boy was sent to the hospital for treatment after a high fever. At first, everyone thought that he only had a cold and a fever but the doctor couldn’t cool him down, no matter how many attempts were made. The boy died because of the ineffective rescue and he was placed in the morgue in preparation for burial after the rain.

However, late at night, the little boy suddenly climbed out of the morgue.

He was gnawing on his mother’s neck when the nurse on duty found him. The nurse screamed and called the security room. The little boy attacked the people around him like a mad dog but the security guards at the hospital quickly subdued him and locked him up.

Even so, there were too many people bitten by him and some left the hospital.

The virus started to spread rapidly.

The infected people frantically bit at their own kind.

The original scenic town turned into the most terrible hell on earth overnight!

[2 of Spades secret room survival target: Avoid the zombie attacks and go to the hospital in the town centre. There will be someone on the roof of the hospital outpatient building to save you.]

[The time limit to clear the instance is 60 minutes and it will be a failure once the time is over.]

[D-grade secret room’s friendly tip: The zombie’s attacks are very strong but their movements are slow. Once caught by them, you will immediately be infected with the virus, become a zombie and stay here forever.]

Unlike the simple tips for Hearts and Diamonds, the Spades room had a more detailed background.

Xiao Lou was currently in a world infected with the zombie virus.

The last line of the tip made Xiao Lou feel creeped out.

In other words, if he was accidentally scratched by a zombie in this secret room then he would get a virus and stay here in the form of zombies. Perhaps many of the zombies he would encounter in the 2 of Spades secret room were challengers like him.

Living in the form of a zombie in this Card World, it was better to simply die!

Xiao Lou clenched his fists hard, nails hurting his palms. The sharp pain made him calm down quickly.

Hearing a noise behind him, Xiao Lou turned around.

He saw that several zombies had smelled the living and were slowly surrounding him.

Some zombies had distorted features, some lacked arms and legs and some had holes in their stomach. A female student in a school uniform whose body was intact but her eyes were muddy and staring at him without any feelings. Drool was flowing from her mouth.

The distance between him and this female zombie was no more than five metres.

The moment he turned back, his eyes happened to meet the female zombie’s dead, fish-like eyes.

“…………”

Xiao Lou stiffened and turned without hesitation to run!