Zhong Xiao lives in District Seven of the underdeveloped X1208 Star, broke and about to be kicked out of her rental room.
Other material-makers perform all kinds of rituals to summon spiritual energy and try their luck. She's so poor she can't even afford a standard material pack, and can only dig through expired, discarded packs in the underground market, looking for remnants of spiritual energy.
When the souls of two planes merge, her missing inspiration is finally made whole.
Dismantle and rebuild. It turns out expired materials can be put to use after all, letting her create cards of her very own!
From then on, the interstellar materials scene gains an oddball. While everyone else makes money by taking materials apart, she dives headfirst into piles of expired material packs.
The comments in her livestream go from "Where'd this pauper come from?" to "This card is amazing! Please sell it to me!"
Soon, her name is all over the interstellar web:
"What rare treasure has that material-maker dismantled this time?!"
"You mean she just turned materials from an expired white-tier pack into a purple-tier card?!"
"Wait, when did she start making orange-tier cards herself?!!"
Before long, custom card orders from all the major powers are pouring in like snowflakes.
Some say she's a once-in-a-century card-making genius. Others are absolutely certain she's descended from a legendary family.
Zhong Xiao smiles. Honestly, I'm just an ordinary card-maker.
Everyone: ???
You call that ordinary?
Theme: Gold will always shine
