National destiny: Global tower climbing skills have decreased by 10,000 times.

This is "Neo, the Mother of Rebirth," who gives players three buff options at the start, which largely determine the direction of the game's development.

Players of both Tower 1 and Tower 2 are very familiar with this mechanism.

Ye Fei looked at the three options and saw that they were 'Arcane Roll', 'Cursed Pearl', and 'Loosening Wool'.

The Arcane Reel adds a random rare card to your deck.

"Roaring Conch": Draw 2 extra cards at the start of a battle against an elite.

"Loosen the Wool": When picked up, take 13 damage and remove any 2 cards from your deck.

Ye Fei smiled, knowing without even thinking what to choose.

"Wow! I'm so lucky, I got the 'Arcane Scroll'!"

"Yeah, we get a rare card right at the start, it's free, why not take it?"

"Yeah, thank goodness I got an 'Arcane Scroll,' otherwise the other two would have been garbage, especially that wool, which was a pure side effect."

"I think the second one is good too, but it's still not as good as the first one."

"No need, we won't be playing elite matches in this beginner's game, so we'll all just choose the first one."

Ye Fei listened to their conversation and couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

Because he knew that the "starting with a rare card" setting, while seemingly attractive, was actually fraught with uncertainty and danger.

If you draw a high-quality one-cost transitional card, that's fine; it can indeed provide a significant boost in the early game.

However, if you draw a two- or three-cost card, it's a "curse" card in the early game if you don't have any ways to increase your cost; it will just rot in your hand and you won't be able to play it.

Moreover, if a key card is drawn too early, the entire deck-building process can only revolve around that one card, greatly reducing the flexibility of decision-making, which is unacceptable to a player on a winning streak.

But he also noticed something: in this version, every teammate had the same three starting options.

Perhaps this change was made in the international version to encourage player discussion. In his memory, in the original Tower of Trials II, the choices each character faced were independent and random.

Fortunately, although the options are the same, each person's choice is still independent and will not be affected by teammates, nor do they have to choose "Arcane Scroll" like them.

Ye Fei silently clicked on the bottom option—'Loosen the wool'.

With quick mouse clicks, you can easily select and delete the "one attack, one defense" strategy.

Just then, he clearly felt that the room suddenly became quieter.

"Hei Xi, is this your first time playing? That 'Loosening the Wool' skill deducts health and removes cards, it's all negative buffs, didn't you read the description carefully?"

"Are you sure you want to choose this? How about we start over? This time, you need to be more careful."

Ye Fei didn't want to get entangled, so he turned on his microphone and said, "No need, no need. Just think of it as me trying to make things a little more difficult for myself. Don't worry about me."

The room fell silent for a few seconds, but quickly returned to normal; thankfully, no one dwelled on it too much.

"Alright, alright, let's get started. First, let's discuss which route we should take."

The map unfolds, and four routes appear on the screen, each marked with the locations of monsters, elites, question marks, shops, and campfires.

Ye Fei had already scanned the map once, and before he could think about it, the host, "My Sword and Shield Cannot Be Used," spoke up first:

"Let's choose this route: three campfires, four question marks, and I've checked it out; only this route can avoid the elites."

As he spoke, a yellow line appeared on the map, stretching from the starting point all the way to the final boss, and indeed, there wasn't a single elite enemy to be encountered.

"Wow, this one will do. No need to look anymore. It's good that we don't have to fight elites."

"Last time, I lost because I ran into an elite opponent. I was defeated in less than five minutes, especially that four-eel one. I had no idea how I could win."

Ye Fei was deep in thought. If he chose this path, he could avoid the elites and be very safe, but he would miss the shop on the other path.

On the other path, a layout of four campfires and one shop might be more beneficial for early-game growth.

The only elite enemy happened to have two campfires on either side, so if you had enough health and medicine, you could try to take him down.

Next up is the shop. With plenty of gold after defeating elites, going to the shop can greatly accelerate the early development of your deck. So from a development perspective, this path might be the most suitable.

But he remembered that he was playing in online mode, and if he encountered strong elites like "Four Eels" or "Coral", even with a good hand, the risk would be very high.

"So? Have you decided? If you have no objections, then we'll choose this path."

Ye Fei didn't say much; avoiding the elites might indeed be the best option right now.

"Okay, that's settled then, I have no objections," Ye Fei said calmly into his microphone.

"Okay, let's start with this route."

At the beginning, the first few monsters were very easy to defeat, and you could easily push through them without anything special.

The teammates were busy adding all sorts of new cards they had just acquired to their decks. They were clearly seeing many of the card terms for the first time, and they were often quite shocked.

"Holy crap! This card is amazing! It instantly adds 21 stacks of Calamity to all monsters. Is this some kind of cheat code?"

The player who was playing Soul Contract Master was shouting excitedly into the microphone.

"Look at mine, it's pretty powerful too. It can generate three different types of energy orbs at once."

This is the voice of a player using a malfunctioning robot.

"Huh? Really? Let me see... Wow, you got a rare card so quickly!"

"Oh, it's a rare card. I didn't even notice until you told me. No wonder it's so powerful."

"Wow, I'm so envious! I heard that a chicken stew with all three types of energy balls has no weaknesses. Looks like I'll have to rely on you to carry me this round."

"Really? Hahahaha!"

The homeowner listened to their conversation, pretending to be calm, and remained silent.

He looked at the ability card he had just drawn, "Furnace"—which forges 4 swords per turn—and smiled.

He silently opened the "DPS counter" again and glanced at it: "'Faulty Robot' is first, 'Crown Prince' is second... 'Silent Hunter' is fourth." He breathed a sigh of relief.

Everything is going according to his plan!

Only Ye Fei, watching the cards flash by on the screen, mostly clicked "skip".

He only drew one "Deadly Poison" card from the first few monsters, along with some defensive cards and rotations, but didn't have any high-quality damage output.

For the later question marks and monsters, he only drew one "Calculate Bets" card, and after much hesitation, he finally drew one "Poisonous Strike".

"Sigh, my luck was so-so this round, all the cards were low-quality transitional, I'll just have to make do with these few for now."

Everything was normal, the atmosphere was cheerful, the communication was harmonious, and there were no unexpected incidents.

Soon, they arrived at the final boss of the first level—'Grandma Le Jia'.

This boss starts in a sleeping state and will remain asleep for three rounds as long as the block is not broken, giving the player three rounds to activate the attack.

Later on, "Grandma Le Jia" will start absorbing the player's agility, so it will severely test the player's average card value and ability to kill quickly. The longer the battle goes on, the lower the chance of winning.

As expected, Chicken Pot and Crown Prince broke through the boss's block in the first round.

Actually, there were still three drops of health left before it broke, but Chicken Pot's lightning ball triggered it.

"Wow! It has to be chicken stew again! We actually broke through his shield in just one round!"

The room was filled with a cheerful atmosphere, except for Ye Fei, who was speechless to the extreme.

Seeing the boss's large health bar, he silently clicked on the 'Skill Potion' and selected the gold skill card with the green wave pattern printed on it:

—『Corrosion Wave』.