Trump Card

Trump Card — There was a saying among the people of the Gloria Empire.

'Even a starving Earth Horned Rhinoceros is bigger than the strongest wild horse—'

Although the Olyvendi Family had nearly been wiped out, the final reserves it left behind were still enough to support Little Anvis in accomplishing many things.

It was a spherical crystal, about the size of an apple, with both ends slightly flattened.

Its shape resembled a globe Anvis had once seen.

It possessed highly unusual properties. Its exterior was semi-transparent, its color constantly shifting, while the core alternated between glowing and dimming.

Mana spectrum analysis showed that it did not belong to any known substance.

Its name was a single syllable in the Ancient Manni Language: yīn.

Every thousand years, the radiance within the crystal sphere reached its peak. At that time, it became an unparalleled medium for the Wish Spell.

No ritual was required to use it, nor were there any restrictions. Even an ordinary person could simply hold it and state a wish, and that wish would be granted directly.

Most importantly, wishes made through yīn were twisted to an almost negligible degree!

For example, suppose a spellcaster wished to raise their own rank.

An ordinary Wish Spell had an eighty percent chance of failing. The remaining twenty percent meant a wish would be granted—but in a distorted form.

The result was usually catastrophic. The Wish Spell might connect them to some enormous energy source, such as the mana pool of a Mage Tower.

The caster's fate would then be obvious.

But if the Wish Spell was cast through yīn, the energy within the crystal sphere would drive their transformation in an instant and provide all the power consumed in the process.

Of course, if the wisher was too greedy and tried to raise several major ranks at once, only to be annihilated by the immense mana they could not control, that had nothing to do with yīn.

While in the family's possession, it had been used twice, and detailed records remained for both occasions.

Its first owner was Odrich, then a Ninth Rank Peak sorcerer. After obtaining yīn, he spent a year studying it and roughly determined the crystal sphere's properties.

It was an aggregation of wish power unlike anything he had ever seen!

Although wishes could be made directly, the best way to fully utilize the crystal sphere's power was still to guide it through a formal Wish Spell ritual.

Thus, with yīn as the core, Odrich arranged a Wish Spell ritual of the highest standard.

His wish was simple: to advance to the Legendary Rank—

After the wish was made, the entire Ritual Magic Circle erupted with dazzling radiance, and an incomparably vast mysterious power wound itself around him.

The observers could clearly feel that the pressure emanating from him, after having been stalled at the Ninth Rank Limit for many years, began rising once more, becoming profoundly terrifying.

When that power reached its peak, endless light suddenly burst from Odrich's body, and he instantly transformed into a sun! The next moment, the light vanished. The observers, the magic circle, and yīn itself were all completely unharmed, but Odrich himself had vanished into thin air.

No one could sense where he had gone. There were no spatial fluctuations at the scene, and the bloodline crystal sphere left in the family had also turned a strange gray.

The family could only vaguely sense through their deepest bloodline connection that he was still alive.

A thousand years after Odrich's disappearance, the crystal's radiance reached fullness once again.

This time, the one who used it was Lois, the then-current Head of Olyvendi Family. By seniority, he was Odrich's grandson.

Taking Odrich's fate into consideration, he did not directly wish to raise his own rank or someone else's. Instead, he attempted to wish for Odrich's return.

However, the wish failed to take effect. Neither the Ritual Magic Circle nor the crystal sphere reacted at all.

From these results, Lois drew two conclusions: first, yīn was an Artifact capable of granting wishes at the Legendary Rank.

Second, yīn was not truly omnipotent. At the very least, bringing Odrich back exceeded the limits of its power.

Combined with certain secret information the family had obtained over the past thousand years, Lois formed a vague Guess.

He began making wishes again. This time, his wish was to become Ninth Rank Limit! The crystal emitted the same radiance it had when Odrich made his wish, and the light wound around Lois like ribbons.

Once his strength had risen to the Ninth Rank Limit, the light dispersed once more.

Lois struggled to control the tremendous power that had suddenly risen within him—the wish had been granted, and he had not disappeared.

Half a month later, after completely gaining Mastery over his own power, Lois left behind the rules for using yīn:

1. Do not wish for a rank too far beyond one's own strength.

2. Do not make a wish exceeding the Legendary Rank. 3. Refer to Boltzmann's Wish Rule.

In fact, the reason the family had left yīn to Little Anvis was precisely because they hoped that once he reached the Ninth Rank, he could use the Wish Spell to raise his strength to the Ninth Rank Limit and lead the family to a resurgence.

During the time he had spent living under an assumed name, yīn's radiance had finally filled once more.

He had originally planned to raise his own strength according to plan, but the news of Fiona's reappearance made him change his mind.

Not to mention that he could not reach the Ninth Rank anytime soon—even if he became Ninth Rank Limit, it would be of no help in the current situation.

The enemy had already proven through their actions that they were not something one or two Ninth Rank Limits could contend with.

Rather than use yīn on himself, it would be better to use it somewhere more crucial.

After weighing the matter repeatedly, he made a decision that could only be called insane: to make an ambiguous wish.

In Wish Rule, written by the Ninth Rank Mystic Mage Star Wish Boltzmann Fenirz, ambiguous wishing ranked first among the wrong ways to make a wish.

More than ninety percent of Wish Spell accidents were caused by the caster failing to describe their wish clearly enough.

But Boltzmann also acknowledged that the more precise a wish was, the more power it required and the greater the probability of failure.

A precise wish required more power to maintain that precision.

Every additional specific restriction doubled the cost of the wish.

Little Anvis had once studied this book carefully and knew full well the drawbacks of vague wishes.

But powerless to change anything, in the despair of having nowhere left to turn, he had placed all his hopes on the Wish Spell—on that faint sliver of fate.

His final wish had been simple: to restore the glory of the Olyvendi Family.

It was a textbook example of an incorrect way to make a wish, but it was also the way to maximize the Wish Spell's power.

He had succeeded, but the price had been everything he possessed, including his soul...

The Wish Spell had produced a true miracle. A soul from a distant other world had transcended time and space, descending upon the crucial moment before the Olyvendi Family's decline and inheriting all of Little Anvis's memories from his previous life.

As an important part of this miracle, Anvis, who had been inexplicably dragged here, now had no choice but to focus with utmost concentration and carefully consider how to break the deadlock.

Otherwise, Little Anvis's fate in his previous life would be the ending he was destined to face.