Chapter 18: The Arduous Path of a Country Bumpkin Player

After dealing with the scratches on Kuina's body, the doctor left, unable to do much for someone with such a severe concussion.

The junior disciples at the dojo surrounded Kuina, with some of the younger ones already sobbing. Koshiro, the master, had to persuade them to leave.

Once the juniors reluctantly departed, only Ian and Zoro remained by Kuina's side.

Master Koshiro came in and said, "You two have worked hard. Take a break, and I will take care of Kuina."

"I won't!" Zoro gritted his teeth. "I'll wait until she wakes up!"

Ian hesitated for a moment and then said to Koshiro, "Master, I'll step out for a moment."

Without waiting for Koshiro's approval, Ian hurriedly returned to his room.

Most of the time, the Den Den Mushi on his desk was napping. However, when Ian picked it up and touched its shell, it suddenly became alert, and its big eyes opened wide.

Ian dialed the number of Ivankov Cove on the dial pad. The Den Den Mushi made a "burp... burp..." sound, as if it were calling and waiting.

After a while, someone finally picked up on the other side. Ian's Den Den Mushi transformed into Ivankov's image, complete with long eyelashes and purple lipstick. It was a magical scene, but Ian didn't have time to marvel at it.

"Ivankov, enough chit-chat!" Ian urgently said. "The other day on the ship, I saw you treating Sabo. You must be a doctor, right? Something happened to Kuina! I need your help!"

"Kuina?" Ivankov was puzzled for a moment, then realized. "Kuma! Is that you?"

It was no wonder Ivankov mistook him, probably because their Den Den Mushi simulated Ian's appearance... or rather, the appearance of Ian's Den Den Mushi. As Ian always wore the bear-ear hat, Ivankov didn't recognize him and thought he was Kuma.

"No, it's not Kuma, it's me, Ian!" Ian said into the receiver.

Ivankov's Den Den Mushi on the table hesitated for a moment, simulating Ivankov's expression, then said, "Oh, it's you, little candy Ian! Long time no see. I didn't expect you to call me."

"Ivankov, enough of the small talk!" Ian said anxiously. "Kuina, has an accident! Please, can you help?"

"Kuina?" Ivankov first looked puzzled, then it suddenly dawned on her. "Koshiro's daughter, right? What happened to her?"

Ian explained what happened, saying, "Where are you right now? Can you come to Ivankov Cove?"

"Sorry, Ian boy!" Ivankov said regrettably, "I'm in the Kamabakka Kingdom right now, and it's on the Grand Line. It will take me a long time to get there!"

Ian's heart sank upon hearing this. The problem was that help from afar couldn't solve an urgent situation.

"But don't worry!" Ivankov's tone suddenly changed. "I know the situation you described. Kuina Little Candy doesn't have any external injuries. It's probably intracranial bleeding that caused her coma. Although I can't come, I can tell you what medication to use."

"That's great! Tell me, I'll write it down!" Ian quickly found paper and a pen.

After Ivankov told Ian the medications to use, she continued, "There's one more thing, Ian boy, you have to be careful. Medication can only provide assistance. Even if it can disperse the intracranial bleeding, it doesn't guarantee she'll wake up! The doctor in your village is right; whether she wakes up or not is an unknown."

"What should I do then?" Ian asked anxiously.

"You'll need to provide external stimulation!" Ivankov thought for a moment. "When you're free, talk to her more."

The phone consultation ended quickly. Although Ian had contacted Ivankov, as he said, whether Kuina's consciousness could wake up was left to fate.

.........

Late at night,

Ian and Zoro were still keeping watch over Kuina. The medications that Ivankov mentioned had been entrusted to the junior disciple Zuojie to find in a nearby town.

"Why did this happen?" Zoro murmured to himself. "Wasn't she fine yesterday? We just made a promise, and then you..."

Master Koshiro was sitting opposite Zoro, and upon hearing him, he said softly, "Zoro, sometimes people are fragile..."

"Master! What if Kuina really can't wake up?" Zoro rubbed his eyes and asked Koshiro.

"You have to believe in her!" Koshiro smiled faintly. "Kuina is a determined child; she won't be defeated like this. But as for you, Zoro, if she wakes up and finds you haven't improved, she might laugh at you, right?"

"Is there still time to practice at a time like this?" Zoro said.

"You can't say that!" Koshiro said. "Didn't you promise her? Don't you want to surprise her when she wakes up?"

After staring at Kuina's peaceful face for a while, Zoro nodded and said, "I understand. I'll keep working hard!"

Koshiro nodded with satisfaction.

Ian, on the other hand, had been silent all this time. He was checking the system in his mind.

According to what Ivankov said, treating Kuina's condition with just medical skills wouldn't be very effective. So, he wanted to see if the system had any cards with psychic or mental abilities!

It had been over a year since he arrived in this world, and besides the first draw that got him a card of Koshiro, he managed to accumulate enough time to draw three more times.

However, in these three draws, Ian realized how pitiful it was for a broke player in a money-grabbing game.

The card shop draws in this world didn't guarantee that you'd get a card each time, as it was just a probability. The process also included obtaining other items.

In the three draws, Ian first got five Advanced Stones, then a green common equipment, and finally, he managed to get a character, but it was a fragment! It was Nakoruru's fragment from the "Samurai Shodown " game!

The problem was that Nami was a two-star card, and it required twenty fragments to form a complete card.

How long would it take to gather the remaining eighteen fragments by drawing once every three months?

Moreover, after inquiring with the system, Ian discovered an even worse situation regarding one-star and two-star cards.

As the system said, every card had attributes, and one-star and two-star cards had the lowest attributes. Three-star and four-star cards were better, but the highest attributes belonged to five-star cards, particularly the original five-star red cards.

Even if a four-star card broke through and advanced to become a five-star card, its attributes would still be slightly worse than those of the original five-star cards. Attributes represented growth, indicating how many attribute points a card gained each level and the overall attribute increase when breaking through to +1, +2, and +3. Since these attributes would be added to Ian himself, it directly impacted his growth.

One-star and two-star cards could be advanced to five-star cards, but it would consume a massive amount of resources. The system didn't recommend Ian to cultivate them; these cards were mainly used for enhancing the bond and affinity bonuses of high-star cards and could be disassembled to obtain souls. Souls could be used in the exclusive soul shop to buy the card fragments he wanted. The truly worthwhile cards to cultivate had to be at least three-star cards.

The chance of drawing a whole card with the accumulated time was quite low, which meant that he had to rely on the ten consecutive draws, but it seemed the chance of getting better cards was higher in that case. However, ten consecutive draws required Ian to recharge with real money.

Ian was both lucky and unlucky. He was fortunate to have a system supporting him to grow stronger and survive in this world. However, he was unlucky that this system was a money-grabbing Chinese knock-off game...

That was not all. What bothered Ian the most was that most of the system's functions were complete, except for one crucial aspect—the storyline part.

Anyone who played card mobile games knew that they usually had a fixed mode, which was to progress through the storyline chapters, commonly known as stages. After completing a stage, based on the number of stars earned, players would receive a chance to open treasure chests containing diamonds, the main source of diamonds for broke players.

However, this damn system had completely omitted any storyline stages. It simply dismissed Ian with the message "Unknown Error"...

In other words, if Ian wanted diamonds for card draws, he had to recharge; that was the only way.

Encountering such a blatant money-grabbing Chinese knock-off game, Ian could only say that he couldn't afford to be injured...

"System, are there any card characters with spiritual or psychic powers?" Ian asked.

[Yes!] The system answered straightforwardly.

"Oh!?" Ian was delighted. He asked, "What characters are they? And how many stars are they?"

[Card character: Yuri! A four-star orange ranked card; Card Character: Queen of Blades Kerrigan, a five-star red ranked card! ...] (p.s Yuri probably from Command and Conquer while Sarah Kerrigan from Star Craft, no further information on the og, I can only guess based on the google search result)

Just hearing the system list two names, Ian's heart sank. He immediately understood that these characters with psychic powers were all advanced and rare cards, far beyond what he could obtain at his current level!