After treating Kuina’s scrapes, the doctor left.
His medical skills were powerless against a patient with such a severe concussion.
A group of junior disciples in the dojo surrounded Kuina.
A few of the younger ones had already started crying.
Master Koushirou had to do a lot of persuading to finally get them to leave.
After the group of bratty kids reluctantly left, only Ian and Zoro remained in the dojo, watching over Kuina.
Master Koushirou walked in and said to them, “Thank you for your hard work.
Go get some rest.
I will take care of Kuina.”
“I won’t!” Zoro said through gritted teeth.
“I’m going to wait for her to wake up!”
Ian, on the other hand, thought for a moment and said to Koushirou, “Master, I need to step out for a bit.”
Without waiting for Koushirou to nod, Ian hurriedly ran back to his room.
Except when eating, the Transponder Snail spent most of its time dozing off.
However, when Ian picked up the receiver on its back, it immediately perked up and opened its large eyes.
Ian dialed Ivankov’s number on the rotary dial.
The Transponder Snail immediately let out a “Puru…
Puru…” sound, as if ringing and waiting.
It didn’t take long for the call to connect.
Ian’s Transponder Snail instantly morphed to resemble Ivankov, sprouting long eyelashes over its large eyes and even sporting purple lipstick.
It was a rather magical sight, but Ian had no time to study it.
Iva’s voice came through the receiver, “Hee-haw!
Who is calling?
Is that you, Kuma?”
It was no wonder Ivankov made the mistake.
The Transponder Snail on Ivankov’s end likely mimicked Ian’s appearance…
or rather, it mimicked the original look of Ian’s snail.
Since Ian was always wearing that bear-eared hat, Ivankov didn’t immediately realize and mistook him for Kuma.
“It’s not Uncle Bear, it’s me, Ian!” Ian spoke into the receiver.
The Transponder Snail on the desk paused for a moment, mimicking Ivankov’s expression.
“So it’s you, little candy Ian!
Long time no see.
I didn’t expect you to call me.”
“Iva, no time for small talk!” Ian said anxiously.
“That day on the ship, I saw you give Sabo first aid.
You must be a doctor, right?
Something happened to Kuina on my end!
You have to help me!”
“Kuina?” Ivankov was confused at first, then suddenly realized.
“That’s Mr.
Koushirou’s daughter, right?
What happened to her?”
Ian explained what had happened and asked, “Where are you right now?
Can you come back to Shimotsuki Village for a bit?”
“I’m very sorry, Ian-boy!” Ivankov said regretfully.
“I’m currently in the Kamabakka Kingdom.
It’s on the Grand Line, so who knows how long it would take me to rush over there!”
Hearing this, Ian’s heart immediately sank.
Distant help was useless for an immediate crisis.
“But don’t worry!” Ivankov’s tone suddenly shifted.
“I understand the situation you described.
Little candy Kuina doesn’t have any external injuries, so it’s likely that intracranial bleeding is causing her coma.
Although I can’t come, I can tell you what medication to use for treatment.”
“Ah, that’s great!
Tell me, I’ll write it down!” Ian quickly found a pen and paper.
After Ivankov told Ian the necessary medications, he continued, “There’s one more thing you need to note, Ian-boy.
Medication can only serve as a supplement.
Even if it can clear the blood clot in her skull, it might not necessarily wake her up!
That doctor in your village was right; whether or not her consciousness can be awakened is an unknown variable!”
“Then what should we do?” Ian hurriedly pressed.
“You can only provide external stimulation!” Ivankov thought for a moment and said.
“When you have free time, talk to her as much as possible.”
The phone consultation quickly came to an end.
Although Ian had managed to contact a doctor like Ivankov, just as he had said, whether her consciousness would awaken was entirely up to fate.
Late into the night, Ian and Zoro were still watching over Kuina.
The medication Ivankov mentioned had already been entrusted to the instructor Sasuke, who went to a neighboring town to search for it.
“How could this happen!” Zoro was still muttering to himself.
“Wasn’t everything fine yesterday?
We just made a promise, and now you…”
Master Koushirou, kneeling on the opposite side, heard this and said softly to Zoro, “Zoro, people are sometimes very fragile…”
“Master!
What if Kuina really doesn’t wake up?” Zoro asked Koushirou, rubbing his eyes.
“You have to believe in her!” Koushirou smiled faintly.
“Kuina is a strong-willed child.
She won’t be defeated just like this.
As for you, Zoro, if she wakes up and finds that you haven’t made any progress, she’ll probably laugh at you!”
“At a time like this, who has the mind to practice!” Zoro said.
“You can’t say that!” Koushirou said.
“Didn’t you make a promise with her?
Don’t you want to give her a surprise when she wakes up?”
Zoro stared blankly at Kuina on the floor, looking at her peaceful face.
After a long while, he nodded and said, “I understand.
I’ll keep working hard!”
Koushirou nodded in gratification.
Ian remained silent on the side.
At this moment, he was checking the system in his mind.
According to what Ivankov had said, pure medical skills wouldn’t be of much use for Kuina’s condition.
Therefore, he wanted to search and see if there were any cards with mind-related skills in the system!
It had been over a year since he arrived in this world.
Aside from his first draw, which yielded the Akechi Samanosuke Hidemitsu card, Ian had accumulated enough time to draw three more times.
However, these three card draws made Ian realize just how helpless a free-to-play player was in a pay-to-win game.
Drawing from the card shop didn’t mean you would get a card every single time; it was only a probability!
This was because the drawing pool also contained other items.
In his subsequent three draws, Ian’s first pull yielded five Breakthrough Stones.
His second pull resulted in a piece of green-tier common equipment, a cloth tunic.
The third time was slightly better, finally producing a character, but it turned out to be fragments!
Two fragments of Nakoruru from the Samurai Shodown game!
Nakoruru was a two-star card, requiring twenty card fragments to synthesize a complete card.
With such a massive number of cards in the shop, relying solely on one draw every three months, how long would it take to gather the remaining eighteen Nakoruru fragments?
Furthermore, after inquiring with the system, Ian discovered an even worse issue regarding one-star and two-star cards.
According to the system, every card had an aptitude attribute.
One-star and two-star cards had the lowest aptitude, followed by three-star and four-star cards, with five-star cards being the highest.
It was important to note that this referred to base cards!
In other words, a base five-star red card had the highest aptitude.
Even if a four-star card was upgraded to a five-star card through various breakthroughs, its aptitude would still be somewhat inferior to a base five-star card.
Aptitude equated to growth.
It represented how many attribute points a card gained per level and the overall stat boost when breaking through to +1, +2, or +3.
Since the final attributes of these cards were directly applied to Ian, the host, it naturally affected his own growth as well.
Even if one-star and two-star cards could eventually be upgraded to five-star cards, the process would consume a massive amount of resources.
Therefore, the system did not recommend Ian invest in them.
The primary use for such cards was to provide fate and bond bonuses for higher-star cards.
They could also be dismantled to obtain souls, which could then be used in the exclusive soul shop to purchase desired card fragments.
The cards truly worth investing in started at a minimum of three stars.
Relying on time-accumulated single draws meant the chances of pulling a full card were extremely low.
The only viable option was the ten-pull draw, which supposedly had higher odds.
However, a ten-pull required Ian to spend real money to top up.
Ian was lucky, yet also unlucky.
He was lucky that after coming to this world, he had a system to support him in growing stronger and surviving.
The unfortunate part was that this system was a domestic, money-grabbing knockoff…
He could overlook all of that, but what made Ian want to complain the most was that while most of the system’s functions were intact, the only thing that had glitched was the story campaign.
Anyone who had played mobile card games knew they almost all followed a fixed formula: clearing story chapters, commonly known as pushing stages.
After completing a chapter’s stages, players were given the chance to open treasure chests based on the number of stars they earned.
These chests usually contained diamond rewards, serving as the primary source of premium currency for free-to-play players.
However, this damn system had absolutely no story campaign.
It simply brushed Ian off with an “[Unknown Error]” message…
In other words, if Ian wanted diamonds to draw cards, he had to top up.
It was the one and only way.
Encountering this kind of domestic bootleg game that seemed desperate for cash, as if planning to make a quick buck and run, Ian was completely exasperated…
“System, are there any card characters with mental or psychic powers?” Ian asked.
“Yes!” the system answered straightforwardly.
“Oh!?” Ian was instantly overjoyed and asked, “What characters are they?
How many stars?”
“[Card Character: Yuri!
Four-star orange-tier card; Card Character: Queen of Blades Kerrigan, five-star red-tier card!…]”
Just hearing the system list two names made Ian’s heart run cold.
He instantly realized that card characters with psychic powers were almost exclusively high-level rare cards!
They were completely out of his reach at this stage!