Most of the martial arts cards sold on the Devil’s Island auction website are single cards, and many martial arts cards have necessary prerequisites for learning them—the most common being the card of the previous level. To learn the second level of a technique, you must first practice the first level; this is basically common sense.

As for entry-level martial arts cards, their prices are generally outrageously high. The cheapest one records a martial art that is extremely famous—even someone like me, who isn’t much of a fan of martial arts novels, has heard of it countless times. “Famous” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Chapter 9: Devil’s Island Auction House

Iron Sand Palm

Level 1 Martial Arts Card (×1)

A martial art commonly used by wandering heroes

Requires 50 points of masculine internal energy and 20 points of basic palm technique to learn.

Price: 15,000 Devil Coins

“Fifteen thousand Devil Coins is fifteen thousand US dollars. In real life, if you apprenticed yourself to a master and took a 100-day crash course in Iron Sand Palm, it would cost at most five thousand bucks. Things here are really expensive! But I don’t have any internal energy, and I don’t know basic palm techniques—buying it would be pointless.”

Whenever I saw “requires XX attribute internal energy, XX basic martial arts,” I would immediately give up. Online, I couldn’t find a single basic martial arts card, so I had to focus on those martial arts cards that didn’t have such requirements.

After repeated searching, my eyes finally landed on a set of martial arts cards that looked great. “A set of Fierce Internal Energy martial arts cards, incomplete, not sold separately, price: 1.2 million Devil Coins.”

1.2 million Devil Coins—no matter which country’s currency you convert it to, it’s enough to buy a villa you could live in for a lifetime. Even if you drop the “million,” it’s still equivalent to my three months’ pocket money. After hesitating several times, I finally made up my mind. “Might as well buy it! After all, it’s not my money I’m spending.”

When I pressed the “Pay Now” button, a prompt immediately appeared on the screen: Please insert your Devil’s Island bank card. Half-doubting, I took out my Devil’s Island bank card and inserted it into the special slot on my computer, then followed the instructions to enter my account number and password. Sure enough, the payment completed page popped up right away.

“Even more convenient than PayPal! But how am I supposed to receive my goods?”

I waited a long time without any prompt, and I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. As I was still fiddling with the auction house cards, suddenly there was a knock at the door. “I’m a delivery person from Devil’s Island Express. The item you purchased has arrived.”

I opened the door and saw a sizzling hot, youthful beauty who could rival Julia, beaming as she handed me a package. After I signed for it, she gave me a rather suggestive wink, then sashayed away with a captivating sway.

Looking at that nearly perfect figure, I could even feel a certain part of me getting hard.

“I wonder if Devil’s Island Hotel offers special services. Is this delivery girl moonlighting as… What am I even thinking?” Realizing my face was burning, I gave my impure brain a hard slap, closed the door, and went to open the package.

“What a tightly wrapped package! Where can I find a letter opener?” As I was searching the room for something to open the package, a thought suddenly popped into my head. I shouted, “I’m such an idiot! Why don’t I just bid for a Wish Fruit? Wouldn’t I be able to go home right away?”

“Hehe, Wish Fruits are rarely sold on Devil’s Island. Don’t get your hopes up! Even if someone did sell one, are you sure you could afford it? The price of a single Wish Fruit outside exceeds one billion US dollars—many big corporations are willing to pay a fortune for it.”

Julia’s voice sounded behind me. When I turned around and saw the devilish beauty fresh out of the bath, my face instantly flushed. She was wrapped in nothing but a bath towel, her voluptuous and charming body on full display, and the pair of cute wings on her head were wet and drooping behind her ears. Julia looked absolutely irresistible. If it weren’t for the Wish Fruit issue occupying part of my mind, I might have done something embarrassing.

Tearing my eyes away from Julia’s beautiful body, I asked dejectedly, “Then how can I get a Wish Fruit?”

“If you’re strong enough, you could just go to the source—the Island of Wishes—and rob one. But let me warn you, the guardian there is a three-headed dragon that breathes three kinds of fire, and its strength is at the Demon King level.”

“A three-headed dragon that breathes three kinds of fire! Demon King!” I was instantly petrified.

“Or you could exchange for one using treasures or high-level cards you obtain! The going rate for a Wish Fruit on Devil’s Island is about a level 10 treasure or card. As long as you stay on Devil’s Island for three to five years, you’ll have a good chance of getting something of that level!”

“A level 10 treasure or card… three to five years!” I had just gotten rid of the negative effects, and now I was petrified again.

“Three to five years—there goes my education!” Just thinking about having to attend classes with juniors four or five years younger than me, and being laughed at for being an old man, sent chills down my spine. “Never mind being looked down on by classmates—my mom would kill me!”

“Huh, you actually bought something? Let me see what it is!”