Chapter 1210: Six Cards
"Is that so?" Xu Huo smiled. "So in your hometown, the custom is to poison your teammates? Or to poison someone you've just met?"
He Xiaoxiao's emotional shift was very natural. "Shouldn't I? One must be wary of others. If you had my methods, wouldn't you use them?"
"Makes sense." Xu Huo agreed wholeheartedly. "That's why I didn't hold it against you."
He Xiaoxiao's expression relaxed a bit at this. "You're a reasonable person. Besides, the poison I gave you was a slow-acting one, not immediately lethal. As long as you leave the instance, it won't be hard to buy an antidote."
Xu Huo thought for a moment, then nodded with a look of deep reasonableness. "But you've already lost your credibility, haven't you? Shouldn't you try to win it back?"
"Can I hold my cat?" He Xiaoxiao asked. "Since you've already cut them to pieces anyway."
"Go ahead." Xu Huo gestured for her to pick them up herself.
He Xiaoxiao tentatively stood up, and once she confirmed she could leave the chair, she immediately rushed toward the nearest prop cat, picked up the rubber pieces torn in half, pieced them together, and hugged them with both hands.
She only stood there for a second before turning back and sitting down again.
Holding a fake cat, she seemed a bit more settled, her expression relaxing. She then said, "Black Card 14 is indeed a draw card. White Card 19, I didn't lie to you about that. Its effect isn't 'easily getting lost,' but rather that the maze walls within a five-hundred-meter radius will move on their own."
"And White Card 8?" Xu Huo stared at her. "Assuming everything else you said is true, White Card 8 has already changed hands once. You should be able to see its effect by now."
"A trap card." He Xiaoxiao said. "Its specific effect is to randomly trigger five additional mutant plant attacks..."
Before she could finish, a short dagger from her hand swept forward quickly, leaving a crescent-shaped arc of light as it sliced open the throat of Xu Huo, who was sitting in the chair!
As the figure in the chair vanished, He Xiaoxiao seemed to break free from the mental power's restraint. She looked up at Xu Huo, who was still standing in the distance, and sneered, "I knew a sneaky bastard like you wouldn't make the rookie mistake of 'the villain dying from talking too much'! See you later!"
A black vortex suddenly grew in front of her, and a tremendous suction force instantly enveloped her entire body. Just as she was about to be teleported away, a blade pierced through her heart from behind.
Seeing the bloodstained thin blade protruding from her chest, He Xiaoxiao tried to turn around, but heard the person behind her say, "But you did."
A look of immense hatred burst across He Xiaoxiao's face. Through blood-filled lips, she said, "I should have given you a lethal poison..."
"Once the poisoning failed, you should have known it had nothing to do with the poison's potency." Xu Huo pulled out "Cake Slice," casually flicked the blood off the blade, and claimed her player inheritance and the playing cards.
He originally had three cards. Adding the five from He Xiaoxiao, he now had more than six, which immediately triggered a random loss. So when he opened his personal panel, only six cards remained in his instance slot.
The first card, Black Card 1, and the black card, Flower Scepter, remained unchanged.
The Cannibal Player's first card, White Card 8, was a nullification card. Its effect was to cancel out any card except the first card. After use, both White Card 8 and the selected card would disappear from the card frame together.
No wonder He Xiaoxiao had tried to run so quickly. This was indeed a very rare card. If one obtained a trap card with an outstanding effect, a nullification card was probably the only way to get rid of a card besides the random loss of excess cards. Moreover, this method could also reduce two cards to increase reserve space.
Black Card 11 was the same as He Xiaoxiao's—a clue card—but the content was different.
"The maze's endpoint is directly to your left front at this very moment."
Directly to the left front—this coincided with the direction Xu Huo had been heading earlier.
He paused on the paper card face for a moment, then continued looking at the others.
White Card 12 was He Xiaoxiao's first card, a trap card. Its content was to teleport the user to the nearest dead end.
The moment he finished reading the card, he was pushed by a force through several consecutive turns, changing direction a few times before stopping. Blocking his path was a solid wall.
Black Card 14 was a draw card.
With a total of six cards, Black Card 14 appearing here meant that the card Lin Qian had obtained earlier wasn't this one, because this was a player's first card. As for the playing card's effect, it was easy to disguise... unless there was more than one Black Card 14 in this instance.
As for Black Card 11, that was a bit interesting. He Xiaoxiao's content was "The maze's endpoint is directly east of the next passageway," but in his hands, it became "The maze's endpoint is directly to your left front at this very moment." It couldn't be said that He Xiaoxiao had lied, because the content of White Card 19 also had discrepancies.
After He Xiaoxiao read the card, there was indeed an effect of the maze walls shifting, likely from White Card 19. But the Cannibal Player had said this card was a trap card, with the effect of easily confusing directions.
After these two cards changed hands, their effects both showed discrepancies. Black Card 11 was still a clue card, just with changed content. White Card 19, however, seemed to have even changed in nature. The effect He Xiaoxiao got from reading the card wasn't entirely a trap. Although she was also blocked nearby, it did help shake off an enemy.
Therefore, from these two cards, it could be seen that while a playing card could only be used once after being obtained, after changing hands, the card's effect would be altered.
Assuming White Card 19 was still a trap card, then it meant that clue-type and trap-type playing cards would change their content after changing holders.
The nullification card and the draw card, however, did not.
Of course, this might also be related to the fact that these two cards hadn't been used yet, so it was uncertain whether they would also change.
Xu Huo returned to the card frame and selected Black Card 14 to draw.
After clicking on it, three playing cards appeared before him, all with identical backs, no colors or markings as aids.
"Let's try my luck." Xu Huo randomly chose one. The card face flipped over to reveal a White Card 6, with the content:
"The black flower card closest to you is the Pure Gold Boots. The distance is a two-hour normal walk. Its final position is at your ten o'clock direction."
This was a card that marked the location of a flower card.
Although there was no hint about the flower cards, their small number and the existence of a dedicated card to mark their positions showed their importance in the instance.
Regardless, the concept that "flower cards are useful" had surely already sunk deep into the players' minds. Some probably knew, but just hadn't revealed it.
The two pieces of information—"two-hour walk" and "ten o'clock direction"—could only mark the approximate position of the cardholder. Even if he rushed over at full speed, the other party wouldn't stay put waiting. And after he tried changing his position, the hint on the card face didn't change.
So this was also a "single-use" card.
However, from the cards he had obtained so far, different numbered cards had different functions, and their nature and content might not be fixed. This multiplied the effects of the limited cards several times over, making the instance more substantial. But there was one point: even under these conditions, the playing cards still couldn't circulate efficiently.