Chapter 6: 5-Star SSR, but the Cost is Too High
Inside the Command Room
When PD pushed open that shimmering door, the scene before him shocked this well-traveled tycoon once again.
This wasn't a simple 2D gacha interface, but an extremely dark and deep Magic Workshop.
In the center of the workshop, a massive and complex 3D Magic Circle was engraved on the floor, with glowing blue liquid mana flowing through its patterns.
A system prompt sounded in his ear:
[Please, Master, draw Magic Circuits in the void and chant the catalyst phrase to perform a Heroic Spirit Summoning.]
"Holy crap? I have to draw my own cards? And chant into the mic?"
PD was stunned for a moment, and the live stream's chat was filled with question marks.
"What kind of metaphysical setting is this?"
"This is so chuunibyou, help!"
"Boss P, hurry up and chant! If you don't chant, they won't ship the goods!"
Under the frantic cheering of the chat, PD's face turned red. He reached out his chubby finger, drew a few circles in the air, and then bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"Heavens and Earth, spirits of all! Give me the highest rarity gold card!!!"
As soon as he finished, the Magic Circle on the ground instantly erupted with blinding light, and the mana rings began to spin at high speed.
First ring... second ring...
Suddenly, on the originally silver-white halo, a burst of brilliant and dazzling rainbow lightning exploded!
Rainbow light (Rainbow Orbs)!
[Highest rarity confirmed!]
A golden card back slowly flipped in mid-air. The class symbol on the back was a knight holding a sword with both hands.
"Vroom—!" Accompanied by a sacred and ethereal entrance sound effect, countless blue motes of mana gathered.
A beautiful and majestic blonde girl, holding an invisible sword and wearing silver and blue armor, stood realistically before PD.
[Saber (Guard) - Artoria Pendragon]
The girl raised her head slightly, her emerald eyes gazing at the fat man before her. Her cold and firm voice echoed through the hall:
"I ask you, are you my Master?"
*Gulp.* PD swallowed hard.
So beautiful, so cool!
The level of detail in the modeling, the ahoge fluttering in the wind, and the cold luster flowing on the armor—it was as if a living, peerless knight was standing right there!
The live stream chat instantly exploded:
"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! This modeling! This voice acting!"
"Waifu!!! I declare this is my new waifu!"
"Is this the highest rarity 5-star SSR? The pressure and premium feel are insane!"
"Hahaha! See that, brothers?! A 5-star on the first pull! I am the Chosen One!"
PD was beside himself with joy. Any sense of shame had long since been thrown out the window as he immediately began his frantic gacha spending spree.
For the next half hour, the live stream turned into a massive ritual site.
To pull various 5-stars, PD drew turtles and pentagrams in VR, and even shouted all sorts of embarrassing lines...
After dropping a hundred thousand yuan in cold, hard cash, he managed to collect every single 5-star in the permanent pool.
The Hero King Gilgamesh wielding the Sword of Rupture, Zhuge Kongming puffing on a cigar, the arrogant Lord Impaler Vlad III...
Looking at the screen full of glittering highest-rarity characters, PD's confidence was through the roof.
He opened the [Party] interface and, without even looking at the 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star trash cards he'd pulled, shoved all the 5-star Servants into his team.
Of course, if he had looked closely, he would have noticed a flashing red warning in the upper right corner of the interface:
[Warning: Current team's average mana consumption (Cost) is too high. This could easily lead to a defensive line collapse. Please deploy with caution!]
But how could PD look at something like that? Bringing a full team of the highest-star cards was basically the same as being invincible!
"Full 5-star lineup! Max stats! Brothers, let's see what this crappy game can do to stop me! Into the dungeon!"
PD high-spiritedly clicked on the first stage of the Prologue: Burning Fuyuki (Unconfirmed Coordinates X-A).
A wave of dizziness hit him.
When PD opened his eyes again, millions of viewers followed his first-person perspective back to that realistic wasteland of fire.
Black ash drifted from the sky. Broken highways and burning buildings formed a 3D tactical grid with immense depth.
He stood at the very back of the defensive line—next to a blue-glowing base core.
[Battle Start!]
At the other end of the battlefield, a low-level monster, a "Dragon Tooth Soldier" that was nothing but bones and holding scrap metal, slowly crawled out of a red portal and limped toward PD's blue gate.
"Is that it? Just a few crappy skeleton soldiers? Watch me send a 5-star Saber to crush you!"
PD laughed loudly and immediately selected his favorite 5-star character, [Artoria] (Saber), and high-spiritedly dragged her card onto the path the skeleton soldier had to take.
"Go, Saber! Show them what you've got!"
However, just as he was about to press the "Deploy" button...
A massive red exclamation mark suddenly popped up in the center of the screen, accompanied by a piercing error sound:
[Deployment Failed!]
[Insufficient Mana (Cost)!]
"Huh?"
PD was stunned. He frantically clicked deploy two more times, but it still prompted "Insufficient mana, cannot manifest."
Only then did he notice a progress bar labeled [Mana] in the bottom right corner of the screen.
In the first stage, the starting mana was only 10 points, and it slowly recovered by 1 point every second.
And the 5-star Servant Artoria he had just tried to deploy, as a top-tier Heroic Spirit, actually required a staggering 26 points of mana (Cost) to manifest!
"Holy crap?! It takes over twenty points to deploy? I only have 10 at the start!"
PD panicked. Seeing that the skeleton soldier had already wobbled through a third of the distance, he hurriedly clicked on his other 5-star cards.
Gilgamesh: Cost 32 points!
Zhuge Kongming: Cost 20 points!
Vlad III: Cost 29 points!
Team average cost: 27 points!
And now, his mana bar had only just jumped to 18!
"It's over, it's over, it's over! I can't deploy them! Oh my god! What kind of crappy setting is this?! Why won't you let me use the 5-stars I spent money on?!"
PD was sweating profusely in VR, his hands waving wildly in the air as he tried to force those glittering 5-star cards onto the battlefield, looking like a shaman performing a ritual dance.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, the viewers in the live stream erupted into overwhelming laughter, the chat densely covering the entire screen:
"Hahahaha! I'm dying! Is this the legendary hundred-thousand-yuan full 5-star squad?"
"PD: I have god-tier gear! Dev: Sorry, you don't have enough mana to cast skills."
"That's what you get for not reading the warning! The description said to use'strategy,' but you insisted on brainlessly bringing all 5-stars. Now your hand is stuck, right?!"
"The'Strongest King' gets benched right at the start!"
Just then, that fragile Level 1 Dragon Tooth Soldier, which would die from a mere touch, had slowly limped to the deepest part of the defense line.
It didn't even glance at the frantic, hopping PD beside it. It just limped along and, right in front of this tycoon... slowly walked into the blue gate.
Vroom—!
The screen instantly lost its color, turning into a deathly silent black and white.
Four blood-red words slammed mercilessly into PD's face:
[Mission Failed]
Quiet.
A deathly silence.
PD stood there blankly, looking at the pile of 5-star Servants in his hand that he couldn't deploy at all. He looked like he had been petrified.
A hundred-thousand-yuan maxed-out lineup.
Soloed, without taking a single hit, by the very first mob in the first stage of the Newbie Prologue.