But then he reconsidered. No, Amber had only said that he was a "Reborn Person."
Rebirth ≠ transmigration
Amber might have thought the original owner had been reborn, when in reality, Lin Chen, a soul from another world, had taken his place.
So he had been worrying for nothing. Amber's final words had messed with his head and scared him. Damn it!
There was no use worrying about such things. Only by growing stronger without cease could he become impervious to all evil.
Looking back over the tragic battlefield, the grapevines were still lush and vigorous, but the people who had planted them were already dead.
All that remained of Amber's painstakingly managed Joy Bar, Blood-Brewed Wine Cellar, and vast plantation was utter devastation.
"It's time to clean up the battlefield."
The victor had the right to loot everything.
Lin Chen muttered resentfully:
"I fought for my life all night, even killed a whole round of gods. I'm exhausted. I have to at least recoup some of my costs."
He suddenly froze. "Wait, that's not right. Why don't I feel tired at all?"
This prolonged, bloody battle should have nearly drained Lin Chen's spiritual power. Yet at that moment, he felt no fatigue whatsoever. Instead, his blood and qi were brimming, and his spiritual power was flourishing.
The Door God's blessing and body-tempering effect had not yet faded!
Lin Chen rolled his shoulders and flexed his limbs, then smiled. "That works out perfectly."
Now he had all the strength he needed to empty this wine cellar!
Although Amber had transferred away his most important divine artifacts,
the other remnants were still incredibly plentiful.
For example, these remains of the defeated could all serve as kindling.
First were the Maenads of the God of Wine. They had all died after exhausting themselves;
these fanatical believers of pleasure and brutality had harmed many Card Masters.
So Lin Chen felt no guilt whatsoever. He immediately sealed their corpses into a green-grade material card: Maenad of the God of Wine · Maenads.
Lin Chen flicked the card face and said, "Those who kill will always be killed in turn... Now it's your turn to become consumable materials."
Strangely enough, even the Maenads could become materials, yet Amber's soulless body had no spirituality at all and gradually dissipated.
Lin Chen frowned but stopped paying attention to him.
Next was this century-old wine cellar. Spirituality had settled deep within it, and with the right techniques, it could produce spiritual wine endlessly!
It was basically a hen that laid golden eggs.
Then there was the first-floor bar. After undergoing repeated baptisms by the Cult of the God of Wine's feasts of pleasure, its "pleasure" attribute was exceptionally strong.
As for the VIP hall on the second floor, the richer the lingering stench of blood from the sacrificed Card Masters, the denser the spiritual energy!
Even this plantation had always been nurtured by the "harvest" power of the God of Wine Staff;
it was bursting with vitality and had fertile soil. Even if he moved it home to grow vegetables, it would produce enough to stuff him full!
They were all wicked yet spiritual "treasure grounds"!
But there was no way he could move the whole thing away.
A mountain of gold stood before him, yet he could not claim it.
Lin Chen fretted. "I have to at least scrape off a layer of grease before I leave!"
Suddenly, he realized that if he could not move these mountains of gold and treasure grounds, why not refine them into a card and take them with him?
In other words, a Venue Building Card!
A Venue Building Card was an extremely special type of card;
as its name suggested, it could materialize a card containing an entire architectural venue.
But this type of card was exceedingly rare in the Card Master world. It was not because materials were lacking, but because it was simply too difficult to make!
The first problem was that it consumed spiritual power like a breached dam!
Building cards covered vast areas and had enormous volumes. An ordinary Card Master could drain every last bit of spiritual power and still not have enough to make a thatched hut, let alone a more advanced building.
Thus came the second difficulty—manpower limitations!
Without three or four Card Masters, it was impossible to support such colossal spiritual-power consumption;
moreover, because a venue card covered such a broad area, its production required dispersed "Field Resonance."
Multiple Spiritual Space Anchor Points had to be located so spiritual power could be output simultaneously. The collaborators also had to coordinate perfectly, with no spiritual-power disruptions.
Finally, the Blank Card capable of sealing an entire architectural venue had to be a specially customized, extra-large expanded-capacity model.
The already difficult production requirements, combined with the exorbitant cost of custom Blank Cards,
meant ordinary Card Masters would never make Venue Building Cards. That was why Lin Chen had subconsciously forgotten that venue cards even existed.
But Lin Chen was no ordinary Card Master. He had just undergone the tempering of a natal bond God Card. His Sea of Consciousness was vast, his spiritual platform stable, and he was worth three men!
He also had the Door God, with whom he shared a bond of minds, as his assistant—a naturally formed card-making squad.
He had the right time, the Terrain Advantage, human harmony, and divine aid.
Now he had no choice but to give it a try!
Today, he had to loot the entire Cult of the God of Wine!
Lin Chen immediately placed an order for a Venue Blank Card, but when he saw the price—100,000!
He did not have enough money...
Unbelievable. It was just a Blank Card. Wasn't it merely expanded-capacity? And they wanted to sell it for 100,000!
He suddenly remembered that Amber still owed him the deposit for two batches of spiritual wine. He had to get that money back!
He searched Amber's corpse thoroughly and actually found quite a few savings cards.
These should belong to the Card Masters who had been sacrificed earlier. They were the victims' property, and Lin Chen did not want to touch it either. He would leave it to the authorities to return everything to its rightful owners.
Lin Chen felt his way into Amber's office and finally found his deposit money—80,000 in total!
There was also some loose change, which was probably the bar's daily revenue. This place really did not make much money; it was purely generating electricity for faith.
With the deposit and his remaining savings, he just barely had enough to buy a Venue Blank Card.
The rush order was soon delivered to Lin Chen by a Mecha Scout Bird.
So what kind of architectural card should he make?
The answer was already obvious. It had revelry, a wine cellar, and a plantation;
there was no place more suitable than "Happy Forest" from Water Margin.
"Happy Forest" was a large entertainment and leisure venue in Water Margin, combining restaurants, hotels, red-light districts, and more.
The imagery of "happiness" in its name matched the "pleasure" attribute of Amber Tavern.
Both places were entertainment venues for drinking and leisure, with highly overlapping symbolic attributes.
How could he possibly fail?
As Lin Chen continued measuring the venue's spirituality, he sensed a heavy aura of blood and a hallucinogenic scent in the second-floor VIP hall;
Amber had sacrificed quite a few Card Masters there through feasts and the Blood Sacrifice Ritual.
Lin Chen had another thought. Wasn't this basically a blatant black shop?!
And Water Margin had another extremely famous black shop!
It also used hallucinogens to daze its guests, then brewed their flesh and blood into blood food;
it was none other than "Cross Slope Human Meat Shop," opened by Mother Yaksa Sun Erniang!
It was practically a replica of Amber's operation: one used intoxication to hold sacrificial feasts and sell Flesh and Blood Wine Brew; the other spiked liquor with Methanol and sold meat buns made of human flesh.
If he used this to make a card, every element matched perfectly. The conversion would be seamless!
Besides, Happy Forest and Cross Slope Human Meat Shop were both located in the same region in the original work, and were extremely close to each other.
Since visiting three shops was worse than settling into one, he might as well combine the two venues into one!
The architectural design gradually became clear in Lin Chen's Sea of Consciousness:
The most important front hall would be modeled after Happy Forest, perfectly corresponding to Amber Tavern's Joy Bar;
the rear courtyard would transplant the Datura Flower Field from Crossroads Slope—the source of Methanol—to echo the God of Wine's harvest plantation;
and the best part was the private VIP reception hall—it would be modeled directly after Sun Erniang's Skinning Workshop!
The card-making concept and formula were crystal clear!
And so he began making the card:
He needed to find multiple Spiritual Space Anchor Points and output spiritual power simultaneously.
That was no challenge for Lin Chen.
He found the spot in the wine cellar with the densest wine aura and stood at that core position himself;
then he sent Qin Qiong to the VIP room on the second floor of the bar, where there were rich elements of "pleasure," "lust," and "flesh and blood";
Yuchi Gong, meanwhile, stood within the plantation, where vitality was at its strongest.
Under Lin Chen's guidance, they condensed their spiritual power together, becoming three spatial anchor points;
then Lin Chen raised the enormous Venue Blank Card. The venue card projected a void model that covered all three anchor points;
and he began visualizing and drawing the spirit!
One was a den of luxury along the Mengzhou Road, with people inside raising cups and exchanging toasts in boisterous revelry;
the other was a burial ground beneath Crossroads Slope, where flesh was skinned and meat carved in the kitchen—truly spine-chilling!
Beneath Lin Chen and the others, the spiritual earth and wall plaster of the venue were pulled out and absorbed into the Blank Venue Card;
following the images Lin Chen visualized, they began filling in the void model, and a hotel was slowly constructed...
Before you continue