In... inescapable from J?
Youyu saw this ID and couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.
This player definitely has issues!
Youyu thought that as an NPC with such good looks like himself, he should probably be a bit more cautious.
Soon, the two players came in one after another.
"Welcome."
Chinai stood up ready to greet them, but was stopped by Youyu.
"It's okay, they're here to see me."
Xue Lang entered the door and immediately saw the petite girl in a silver-haired maid outfit, and his eyes lit up.
You say you're not the protagonist, Youyu!
The system even arranged a girl for you. Who would believe it if it wasn't a protagonist template?
He stepped forward to hand over the task: "I brought the person."
Inescapable from J quickly stepped forward to get acquainted, all smiles: "Hello, hello!"
For some reason, looking at his smiling face, Youyu had some instinctive urge to avoid him...
At this moment, Inescapable from J already believed most of what Xue Lang said.
To say nothing else, judging by this NPC's looks, it's clear he can't be just a passerby!
Have you ever seen a work where the author spends so much effort on drawing an insignificant passerby?
However, just as he made up his mind to cling to this NPC and get more rare cards and hidden tasks, a line of text ruthlessly popped up on the NPC's forehead.
[Favorability -5]
Inescapable from J: "?"
What did I do?
How could there be an NPC that reduces favorability just by meeting them?
Inescapable from J was still stunned, unaware that Youyu had glanced at his ID overhead and after thinking a bit, adjusted the favorability slider slightly lower.
Youyu thought that this guy named Inescapable from J had some issues for sure, and the value of his favorability must be kept low to avoid any weird ideas from the other side.
[Favorability -5]
Inescapable from J: "??"
Is it... that I'm ugly?
Inescapable from J, doubting life, opened the panel to check his charm value, which showed a charm value of 63.
Surely not high, but it shouldn't be too low either. There's no reason it would cause aversion!
It can't be that this game's NPCs judge you by the face you've customized, right?
Chinai watched from behind the counter, and although polite enough to say nothing, she also thought this customer didn't look too kindly, watching him was uncomfortable.
Especially with the way he stared at Youyu, as if expecting something, made Chinai feel uneasy just watching from the side.
Therefore, right after, Inescapable from J noticed that the head of the cute maid girl beside him also popped up with a [Favorability -10].
Inescapable from J instantly felt like he was struck by lightning, and couldn't help but feel the urge to rush out to find a mirror to take a look—
—Am I really that ugly?
"Ahem." Youyu coughed and said, "Little brother, is there any chance you could bring me a 'Fusion' magic card?"
Despite the dislike, there's still wool to be gathered.
It's here!
He had already been informed of this initial task by Xue Lang, so he was naturally prepared in advance.
Inescapable from J saw it as a perfect opportunity to recover his starting favorability of -10, so he didn't even need Youyu to remind him, without a second thought he exchanged his gifted newbie card voucher for a Fusion and handed it to Youyu.
Youyu accepted the card, nodded slightly, and as a reward slightly increased Inescapable from J's favorability by... 1 point.
This way, his favorability rose from -10 to -9!
"You all must be Duelists new to the city, right?" Youyu continued, "In the future, we'll all be Duelists in the area. If there's any difficulty, we can support each other.
As you see, I work here at this shop, so if you want to get cards you're always welcome to come by. Even though we are a small shop, we still have plenty of good cards.
Additionally, if you encounter any difficult problems, you can come to me for help, and I will do my best as long as I can help."
Youyu thought he expressed his NPC role quite clearly.
The first point is, I have many good things here, so if you have money, please patronize my business.
The second point is, if you stumble upon any hidden tasks or major storylines, please involve me too, I also want to leech experience and rewards.
The meaning is there, but how to express it is up to personal ability.
At this moment, both players were overjoyed, feeling they had certainly gotten a good deal.
Isn't this exactly the kind of "Mysterious Merchant" character they encounter many times in games?
From their vast online game experience, such mysterious merchants sell things other players can't get, which in this game are likely rare cards!
As for the latter statement, it clearly means they've encountered a strong golden thigh! In the future, if they run into any difficult tasks, they can probably come here to pull this thigh for help.
After all, he's an NPC named "You", so presumably he's quite skilled in playing cards, right?
Inescapable from J tugged on Xue Lang's clothes, whispering, "Hey, I saw on the official site that cards bought in the game's card store are useless? It seems only cards obtained from the system card pool and task rewards can be used in actual battles?"
[Ding! NPC Youyu has unlocked the private shop function]
Both received the notification simultaneously.
Private shop! It's indeed an undocumented hidden function on the official website!
Both of them hurriedly opened the private shop simultaneously.
The items available for purchase were categorized by rarity and price, with a dazzling array from N cards to rare UR cards, the sumptuous card faces dazzling them for a moment.
After all, Youyu had leveled up for so many days, pouring all the Crystal Stones he farmed into the system card pool to open card packs. However, as everyone knows, opening up a few dozen packs would yield a few useful ones if lucky, most being worthless.
Perfect to throw into this private shop to expand the inventory.
Their gaze moved upwards and soon noticed some eye-catching items.
"Whoa, there are Elemental Heroes!"
"This means even if you don't choose the Hero deck initially, you can still obtain the Hero deck system through this NPC?"
As mentioned before, the probability of drawing cards from the system card pool is highly dependent on the cards already obtained.
For example, if you have Elemental Heroes, you'll have a chance to draw many Elemental Hero series cards. If you have a Magician, you'll have a chance to draw cards related to the Magician.
So, although the initial deck chosen by players is mostly filled with useless Normal Monsters, it directly affects the types of cards they can draw from the system card pool afterward.
To obtain other series themes outside the initial deck, players must continuously explore in the game, seek opportunities, trigger specific tasks, and obtain new series of cards as rewards, thus expanding the capacity of their system card pool.
In other words, acquiring the Elemental Hero cards from Youyu is equivalent to unlocking Elemental Heroes in one's card pool, henceforth giving them a chance to draw other Elemental Hero series cards!
Xue Lang immediately became excited, eager to buy, buy, buy right away. But as he was excited, he suddenly noticed the purchase limit added to the Elemental Hero series—
—requiring Youyu's favorability of 40 or higher.
... was immediately dampened with a bucket of cold water.
Xue Lang wasn't too bad off, but Inescapable from J truly despaired when he saw this restriction.
FML, a favorability requirement of 40 or above, and here he lost 10 points just upon meeting, only getting 1 point increase for completing a task. At this rate, how long would it take to grind up to that?
Being only one day into the beta, Inescapable from J even considered deleting his account and starting over. He thought about creating a female character with max charm to seduce this NPC, thinking he might get favorability maxed right at the start?
While he was lost in thought, Xue Lang's sudden excited exclamation of "Whoa" interrupted his thoughts, pulling on his clothes and incoherently saying, "Quick, look at the top of the UR product list!"
"What are you saying... Whoa~~"
Following his direction, Inescapable from J looked over and couldn't help but gasp.
Could that be...
... the legendary God (forbidden) card Pot of Greed!