Chapter 2: Departure

After quickly packing her luggage, Jiang Tang bid farewell to the butler and her younger sister at the door.

Since the butler saw the purple card Jiang Tang summoned, his spirits had been high. Before she left, he cautioned, “Young Mistress, the recent space routes have been quite unstable. There are reports of mutant creatures above Class B causing disturbances. Please be extra careful.”

Jiang Tang nodded, secured her gun, and glanced again at her still-zero spiritual energy.

Could she really be this unlucky? she wondered uncertainly as she boarded the shuttle bound for the spaceship docking station.

The scenery outside the window blurred past. Jiang Tang looked up at the sky.

Colorful meteors occasionally streaked across the heavens, beautiful to behold, but Jiang Tang knew they were mutants attacking the protective shield of Cangwu Star.

In just five minutes, she arrived at her destination.

After disembarking, Jiang Tang hurried along while using her neural interface to search for Nebula Academy.

Card Masters have rankings, and naturally, the academies that train them are ranked too. The four most renowned schools are: Lightchaser, Carlos, Starry, and Nebula.

Jiang Tang’s Nebula Academy was wealthy and dominated an entire planet, yet it was the weakest among the four prestigious schools.

She spotted a headline from a marketing account:

“Academy League Approaching: Can Nebula Academy Reclaim Its Glory?”

Below, some soured reactions:

“Reclaim its glory? Don’t make me laugh. Everyone knows Nebula has been begging everywhere for talents these past few years.”

“I heard the signing bonus went up to 50 million star credits, yet people still turned to Lightchaser.”

“I heard too. That was just two years ago. The guy’s name is Song Linchuan, from Cangwu Star, and he’s now Class A!”

“Speaking of Cangwu Star, do you guys know about that useless S-class?”

Jiang Tang twitched her mouth, thinking, “Why am I being called out again?”

She checked her spiritual energy again—still zero.

Turning, she searched for ways to recover her spiritual energy.

Having been in this world only eight hours, she was still in the dark about many things.

The boarding gate was noisy.

“Card Master? A Card Master bullying our child?”

“No… he was the one who flipped up my skirt first!”

“Who knows if you didn’t do it on purpose to seduce our child! Hmph, you fox spirit!”

Jiang Tang followed the voices and saw a girl in Nebula Academy uniform, so she stopped.

The girl was surrounded, her face flushed with anger: “Forget it, I won’t argue with you anymore, okay?”

But the stout woman grabbed her collar stubbornly, shouting, “I think you’re just guilty! You bullied our Qiangqiang and want to get away with it? No way!”

People around pointed and whispered, many used their neural interfaces to record and upload the scene to the StarNet.

The girl was nearly in tears: “What exactly do you want?”

“An apology! Or I’ll report you to your school!” The woman aimed her neural interface camera at the girl’s face. “Apologize quickly, I’m posting this online.”

“Why should I!”

Jiang Tang chuckled, “Go ahead and post. Let’s see if netizens side with you or her.”

Her clear voice immediately drew the woman’s glare.

Seeing Jiang Tang’s uniform, the woman snarled, “Mind your own business! Say another word and I’ll drag you in too!”

Jiang Tang’s greatest strength was her thick skin. Facing the crowd calmly, she said, “Ma’am, this face is expensive. You can’t afford it.”

The woman spat harshly and shouted, “Look at this, a student already knows how to use the Card Master identity to oppress others!”

Security finally arrived, accompanied by the terminal manager on duty.

Jiang Tang was too lazy to argue and gave the manager a half-smile: “She doesn’t recognize this face, but you should, right?”

The manager bowed repeatedly: “Ah, Young Mistress!”

The Cangwu Star Terminal was also a Jiang family business.

The manager turned to the woman sternly: “Ma’am, Cangwu Star Terminal is fully monitored. Defamation and insults are punishable by seven days’ detention under Federation law. You understand, right?”

Hearing this, the woman quickly backed down: “It’s a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding.”

Jiang Tang asked the girl, “What do you want to do?”

“Forget it, or I’ll miss the spaceship,” the girl whispered.

Jiang Tang nodded and raised her chin toward the mother and child: “Apologize.”

After the big one and the small one obediently apologized, they slunk away.

Peace finally returned to her ears. Jiang Tang smiled at the still-dazed girl: “Classmate, the spaceship is about to depart.”

The girl snapped back to reality and met Jiang Tang’s gaze, blushing again and shyly nodding, “O-okay…”

They happened to be on the same flight.

Along the way, the girl quietly introduced herself: “I’m Chen Xiaoyu, a second-year student at Nebula Academy, a Class D Card Master.”

Jiang Tang replied, “Jiang Tang. You should know me, right?”

Chen Xiaoyu nodded weakly, quickly waving her hand and stammering, “S-senior, you’re different from the rumors. Today’s incident was all thanks to you!”

“Just a small favor,” Jiang Tang said casually, then suddenly shifted tone, “Let me quiz you—how do you quickly restore spiritual energy?”

Chen Xiaoyu was taken aback but hurried to answer, “Oh, meditation or using a spiritual energy recovery pod both work!”

Jiang Tang shook her head seriously: “Xiaoyu, your answer is too vague. This is a key exam point; you need to be more specific!”

“Ah, well, let me think again!” Chen Xiaoyu panicked.

Jiang Tang had no qualms about teasing her.

With a ready Card Master here, it saved time and effort. She was determined to ask all the questions swirling in her mind.

Chen Xiaoyu gave her answer, then was stumped by the next question, pondering hard, completely unaware something was off.

During the Q&A, they boarded the spaceship. Jiang Tang was content.

Chen Xiaoyu had a solid foundation; she could answer many basic questions.

Jiang Tang took the initiative: “Let’s exchange contacts.”

“Sure!” Chen Xiaoyu was flattered and quickly took out her neural interface to connect with Jiang Tang’s.

That made them friends.

Jiang Tang waved goodbye and headed straight upstairs.

Chen Xiaoyu sighed in relief, looking at Jiang Tang’s retreating figure with a hint of envy.

Upstairs was first class, vastly superior to the main deck.

For a poor student with average talent like her, she might never get upstairs in her lifetime.

...

After settling in, Jiang Tang closed her eyes and began meditating as Chen Xiaoyu had described.

But relying on meditation alone to restore spiritual energy was too slow.

An hour passed, and Jiang Tang stared wordlessly at her spiritual energy reading: [1/20].

She’d try the recovery pod once at the academy.

Suddenly, the spaceship shook violently, causing chaos inside the cabin.

A voice broadcast played: “Dear passengers, turbulence is a normal phenomenon…”

“I swear, mutants!” a shout drowned out the announcement.

Jiang Tang opened her eyes and turned to look, locking eyes with a gray-white mutant tentacle outside the window.

Her expression flickered subtly. “This unlucky?”

The butler had just warned of mutant disturbances, and here she was encountering one.

Maybe she’d exhausted all her luck drawing cards.

The tentacle outside was enormous, filling the entire window, covered with countless eyes, but the suction cups below had fangs.

Yet, why hadn’t the patrol forces guarding the route detected such a massive mutant?

Soon, Jiang Tang understood why.

That huge tentacle disappeared right beneath her eyes.