"Forty thousand J only gives 400 spirit stones. A one hundred to one exchange rate is outrageous!"
Caesar complained, but when he saw the amount of spirit stones displayed on the spirit stone bar, he felt excited.
440 spirit stones—although not enough for two full ten-card pulls in the high-end card pool, it was enough to exchange for gold coins and still manage two ten-card draws in the regular pool.
"Don't rush to draw a card yet. Let's check what's in the surprise gift pack first."
Caesar's heart was racing. Usually, these early-game reward packs had high-value cards. If he pulled something good now, it would change everything!
"Spirits and gods of all worlds, bless me now! Shower me with gold cards so I can soar straight to the top!"
Caesar began to pray with dramatic flair.
Cards were divided into six ranks: white, green, blue, purple, gold, and red. The regular card pool could yield purple cards at best, while the high-end card pool had chances for red.
Still, Caesar wasn't greedy. A few golds would satisfy him.
After his prayers, Caesar opened the surprise gift pack.
A red light flashed, almost blinding him.
"No way... am I actually lucky today?"
Caesar's eyes widened.
"This is insane!"
But when the red light faded and he saw the actual rewards, his excitement immediately plummeted.
"Escanor fragments *10, Wado Ichimonji (blue)."
That was it.
Nothing more.
Caesar nearly burst into tears. Sure, it was a surprise gift, but it wasn't a good one.
The red item wasn't even a full card—just fragments!
You needed sixty fragments to synthesize a red card. What good were ten?
Staring at the fragments with longing, Caesar sighed.
Escanor. The Lion's Sin of Pride.
Night: Sorry for being human.
Noon: I alone am supreme.
No explanation was needed—Escanor's noon combat power was beyond absurd. Not to mention, the sun within him gave him unparalleled strength.
But ten fragments? That was nowhere near enough. Who knew how long or how much money it would take to gather the rest?
He placed the fragments into his system inventory and turned to the second item: Wado Ichimonji.
It was the Wado Ichimonji—a zoro-type saber that boosted the zoro card's attack power by 10%. It could be equipped by other cards too, though with only a 5% bonus.
With a thought, Caesar summoned the blade into his hand.
He drew the Wado Ichimonji and admired its gleaming edge. At least the item wasn't useless.
"Well, at least I got a decent weapon. Otherwise, I'd be seriously depressed right now."
Caesar put Snow back into the system inventory and opened the card draw interface.
From his experience with copycat mobile games, he knew that the first draw—either single or ten-roll—usually had a better chance of landing something good.
He didn't have enough for a ten-draw, but he could do one single draw.
"The surprise gift pack was a letdown. Hopefully this draw won't be."
Caesar muttered and tapped the single draw button.
A swirl of gold cards spun in the air. One card floated down and remained suspended.
Caesar held his breath and flipped it over.
A brilliant golden light filled his vision.
"Jackpot!"
He'd been excited before, but now he was on edge again, remembering Escanor's fragments.
When the light faded and he saw the card's details, Caesar pumped his fist.
The image showed a silver-haired man with golden eyes and white dog ears. He wore a necklace of purple-red spirit beads, a flaming red robe made from fire rat fur, and a white undershirt.
His pants were red and baggy, and he was barefoot. An enormous sword was strapped to his side—Tessaiga. A black cord was tied diagonally across his chest.
Inuyasha. Half-demon. The main character of his own anime.
Even without high-level magic, Inuyasha's half-demon body alone would skyrocket Caesar's stats.
If Caesar didn't have only six card slots, he'd have used some of the weaker ones as fodder immediately.
More importantly, unlike white cards, gold cards came with their own abilities. Equipping one brought a massive power boost.
After adding Inuyasha to his lineup, Caesar immediately felt the power flood in.
Name: Caesar
Grade: 1
Physique: 1 + (3 + 26)
Strength: 1 + (2 + 28)
Agility: 1 + (2 + 25)
Caesar exhaled deeply. The attribute boost was incredible.
"There are 340 spirit stones left. One hundred spirit stones can be exchanged for 50,000 gold coins. For 80,000 gold, it's only 150 stones. Let's do that and try the regular card pool."
After exchanging 150 spirit stones for 80,000 gold coins, Caesar dumped the coins into the ordinary card pool. Ten cards floated in the air.
He flipped them over, and the colors glowed: one blue, one green, and eight whites.
"Experience Card (Blue), Kunai (Green), Experience Card (White) x5, Pirate Minions (White), Random Minion 2 (White), Iruka (White)."
Looking at the junk cards, Caesar sighed.
As expected, good stuff only came from the high-end pool.
If you wanted specific characters or bonds, you could use the regular pool. But otherwise, it was filler.
"Still, I need to boost my base attributes early on."
White cards didn't have skills, but they could raise base stats.
He fed all six experience cards—one blue, five white—to Inuyasha. The card jumped to level 10, and Caesar's stats increased.
Then he added three of the white cards to his lineup and checked his panel:
Name: Caesar
Grade: 1
Body: 1 + (3 + 27 + 1)
Strength: 1 + (2 + 29 + 1)
Sensitivity: 1 + (2 + 25 + 1)
Wait.
Caesar blinked. He noticed that only the Iruka card had given him any stats.
The Pirate Minions and Random Minion 2 cards had added nothing.
Which meant their attribute scores didn't even break 10.
"That's weird. Why was Satan's attribute so high? He was also a white card. Pirate minions are white cards too, right?"
No one answered him.
But when Caesar opened the card collection album, he noticed a small note at the bottom of the screen.
"Card levels are based on the anime series they come from."
Reading that, Caesar finally understood.
So a gold card from a weak anime might be worse than a purple card from a strong one.
It was all about the source material.
That explained why Satan, despite being a white card, had crazy high stats—his world was just that powerful.
This made Caesar rethink his entire card strategy going forward.