Chapter Twenty: Scene Summoning Card – Kung Fu

Wang Ling extended his right hand and took hold of the strange card that floated before him, spinning slowly, with the words "Kung Fu" inscribed upon it.

"You have obtained a precious and rare item: Scenario Card: Kung Fu!"

"Scenario cards are divided into five types: Quest Cards, Summon Cards, Training Cards, Reward Cards, and Competition Cards."

"The Kung Fu card you have acquired is a Summon Card. It allows you to summon characters from this scenario to fight for you. Before you can summon them, you must activate the scenario card, enter the scene, and defeat the corresponding characters."

"Each time you enter the scenario for a challenge, you must pay 1,000 currency points."

"The Kung Fu scenario contains five storyline characters: Staff Master Wang Long, Yoga Fire Peach Fairy, Meteor Chain Chen Heng, Dagger Girl Blue Moon, and the Grand Commander Wu Tian."

"During the scenario challenge, you cannot die. For each character you defeat, you may pay a certain amount of currency points in the quest world to summon that character. If a summoned character dies, they will be reset in the scenario card and cannot be summoned again for the current main quest."

"This card can be used repeatedly."

After receiving these instructions from the Dream Badge, Wang Ling was astonished. This was actually the "Kung Fu" from the FC game console!

Of course, this Kung Fu was not the Stephen Chow movie, but the 1985 fighting game released by Konami. If one were to ask what the ancestor of fighting games was, it was not Street Fighter nor King of Fighters, but this very game—simple graphics, simple characters, yet rigorous in its design and containing the blueprint for all fighting games: "Kung Fu!"

Even in the movie Kung Fu, one can see shadows of this founding game. One particularly obvious example is the Toad Style, where Fire Cloud Evil God hurls himself like a missile—this is a skill possessed by the Grand Commander Wu Tian in the game!

Wang Ling had played this game before. After all, it was one of the titles that led the FC era, gaining worldwide popularity and introducing countless foreign gamers to the ancestral fighting game of Chinese kung fu. However, so much time had passed that he hadn’t recognized the words "Kung Fu" on the card at first glance.

Now that he recalled it, the simple and bright theme song of the game immediately played in his mind. Anyone who had played this game would never forget that music.

"A Summon Card… So if I defeat all the characters, I’ll have five fearless summoned fighters for every main quest!"

Wang Ling immediately grew excited. As a fan of both games and novels, he instantly recognized the value of this Summon Card!

Although he had a strong urge to activate the scenario card and immediately enter combat, he had not yet allocated his newly acquired attribute points or strengthened his skills. Reluctantly, he set the Summon Card aside to distribute his points first. Unexpectedly, when he checked his Dream Badge, he found that each of his personal attributes had already increased.

He clearly remembered that when he first entered the Mario world, his personal attributes were: "Strength: 8, Agility: 9, Stamina: 9, Intelligence: ..." Now, they had become: "Strength: 9, Agility: 12, Stamina: 10, Intelligence: 11."

Apart from Intelligence, which remained unchanged, Strength had increased by 1, Stamina by 1, and Agility by 3!

Wang Ling thought this was likely due to constantly smashing bricks with his head and running and jumping in the novice world, which had sparked the development of his physical potential.

In any case, more attribute points were a good thing. He still had 19 spare points, which could now be added. But when it came time to distribute them, he hesitated. Each attribute represented a different path of development. In games, if you assigned points poorly, you could buy a reset item with real money, but in reality, a poor allocation could lead to endless regret.

"Every attribute is important… How should I distribute them? Stamina is essential, but I can’t neglect Strength or Agility. Should I give up on Intelligence? But Intelligence affects the damage of magic and energy attacks and increases magic defense, while Iron Head and Iron Leg only reduce physical damage. This seems important to me as well..."

After much deliberation, Wang Ling decided to distribute the points evenly. All 19 attribute points were allocated, leaving him with the following stats:

Strength: 15, Agility: 15, Stamina: 16, Intelligence: 15.
Health: 80; Spirit: 75.

These attributes now surpassed the standard value of 10 in each category. On Earth, this would be the equivalent of a special forces soldier's physical prowess.

With his attributes increased, Wang Ling prepared to enhance his skills. His current three skills—Sprint, Iron Head, and Iron Leg—were all at Level 1, but none could be used yet since he hadn’t learned the necessary basic skills.

He could purchase basic skills at the central computer terminal in his personal room. He checked his currency points: currently, he had 1,480 from four attempts, 2,200 from another, 9,600 from completing the quest, and 3,000 from the Black Iron Shining Chest.

The essential basic footwork, basic parry, and basic endurance skill books all together cost 6,000 currency points at the terminal.

Wang Ling realized that other Dreamers might be selling these skills, perhaps even for less than the terminal price, so he decided to leave his private room and look around—after all, the next quest wouldn’t begin for seven days, so there was no need to rush.

The central terminal also allowed him to expand the capacity of his Dream Badge's storage pouch. Each additional slot cost 1,000 currency points. Wang Ling’s inventory was getting full, and storage space was extremely important during missions, so he paid 2,000 points for two more slots—just enough to store the unbound Heart of Peach and the Kung Fu card.

He saw that the terminal also sold clothing and shoes—ordinary items from the real world, not equipment. Glancing at his own appearance, he realized that after swimming out of the water with Princess Peach, it was as if he’d bathed; there was no dust on him, but his school uniform was in tatters, barely decent. So he spent one currency point to buy a set of clothes: underwear, durable jeans, a simple white T-shirt, cotton socks, and running shoes.

Leaving the personal room was easy—he simply commanded the Dream Badge, and the next moment, Wang Ling appeared in a large plaza.

"Upon leaving your personal room, you will enter the public area of Dreamspace. The public area is divided into low, intermediate, and high-level zones. You are now in the low-level zone. When you successfully complete a C-level main quest scenario, you will be transferred to the intermediate zone; successfully completing an A-level main quest scenario will transfer you to the high-level zone."

"In principle, Dreamers are not allowed to enter other zones, but by paying a certain amount of currency points, high-level Dreamers can enter the intermediate zone, and intermediate Dreamers can enter the low-level zone."

"The public area consists of the following sections: Entry Plaza, Free Market, Entertainment District, Training Hall, and Arena."

After this brief introduction, Wang Ling began to observe his surroundings. He found himself in a plaza—this must be the so-called Entry Plaza. The ground was paved with pristine white marble, and there were sculptures and fountains in the center. Some people appeared or disappeared in flashes of white light, presumably arriving from their private rooms or returning to them.

The number of people entering or leaving the plaza in this short time was around fifty or sixty. There were black people, white people, and East Asians like Wang Ling himself. Most were young or middle-aged adults between twenty and forty. Someone like him, only seventeen and with traces of youthful innocence, was almost nonexistent.

Seeing the coldness on these people's faces, Wang Ling gave up on the idea of approaching anyone for information. Although curious about the Entertainment District, Training Hall, and Arena, his primary goal was to purchase basic skill books, so he headed toward the Free Market.

The Free Market was another large plaza, but upon entering, each person's body was immediately shrouded in a hazy aura, making it only barely possible to distinguish skin color or race—facial features were completely obscured. Wang Ling understood this as the space's way of protecting Dreamers, preventing them from being identified by ill-intentioned individuals during transactions.

Hundreds of people were setting up stalls, and hundreds more were browsing—such a crowd surprised Wang Ling. He realized that since they were all in the low-level public area, they must all be low-level Dreamers like himself. Seeing so many people here, it was clear that Dreamspace contained a large number of Dreamers.

Aside from stalls, the Free Market had a consignment area, where Dreamers could leave items for sale when returning to their private rooms or entering a quest world. The advantage was longer exposure, meaning more Dreamers might see and buy the items. The downside was that Dreamspace took a 20% handling fee and required a 100-point payment to rent a consignment slot.

Wang Ling first checked the consignment area, finding very few items for sale, all at exorbitant prices. Leaving the consignment area, he wandered through the stalls, discovering that most of the items for sale were E- and D-grade equipment.

Most were ordinary white items, with a few blue attribute items and gray socketed items—green sets and red elite gear were even rarer! The prices were so high that even Wang Ling, who’d made a small fortune in the novice quest, couldn’t afford them. As for purple, dark gold, or rainbow items, no one was selling any at all.

There were some skill books as well, but again, only E- and D-grade. Among over three hundred stalls, not a single C-grade skill book could be found!

Learning skills from items and upgrading them cost twice the currency and skill points. Unless he encountered a truly tempting skill book, Wang Ling wouldn’t consider buying one. Besides, the prices weren’t cheap. For example, an E-grade "Eagle Claw" skill from the FC game Legend of Sacred Fire was priced at 5,500 currency points, and you had to pay an additional 3,000 points to use the skill book and obtain the Level 1 "Eagle Claw" skill!

(For those unfamiliar with the game "Kung Fu," there’s a humorous rap about it on Youku called "FC Kung Fu Funny Rap." It’s quite entertaining and gives a good idea of what the five scenario characters are like.)