Lanchi's New Scheme

Talia moved her gaze away from the card wreathed in purple light, a hint of helplessness appearing in her eyes as she let out a faint sigh.

It had been so long since she had last made a card that she had nearly forgotten this glow produced by the flow of magical power within one.

Especially the brilliant colors that appeared when a card was completed or activated.

To a great extent, these grades reflected a card's strength, value, and rarity.

The lowest grade, White Common, could be found everywhere and was also the most widely circulated type of Magic Cards on the market.

Most of them were everyday spells, equipment, and summons without many additional effects.

Blue Precious Magic Cards possessed complete and practical effects. They were refined, flawless creations that required steady and exceptional skill to produce.

If a novice Card Maker could create Magic Cards of this quality, they often possessed extraordinary talent.

At the higher Purple Rare grade, Magic Cards underwent a qualitative leap in both value and power, and ordinary people simply could not afford them.

For wealthy nobles and most powerful individuals, Purple-grade Magic Cards were often key cards that matched their combat professions and formed the foundation of their own systems.

If Magic Cards of this grade came with practical additional effects, then even if their numerical values were low, they might still produce unexpected results.

As for grades beyond that, ordinary people would not even know much about them.

After all, Pink Divine Magic Cards were more like distant symbols and legends to most humans.

In a city on the border of this kingdom, one would likely struggle to find even a trace of a Divine cardholder all year round.

The reason they were so rare was not merely their scarcity, but also because one had to consider very carefully before Soul Binding one.

Under normal circumstances, using a Magic Card did not permanently bind it to its user.

It was simply that the higher the grade, the greater the price of removing a Soul Binding.

However, once a Magic Card reached the Pink Divine grade, it could no longer be freely unbound and rebound outside of combat like the previous three grades. It required a complicated resealing process and would inflict lasting damage on the binder.

As for Orange Epic cards, they were the highest-grade Magic Cards that living beings could conceive of seeing in this world.

Every Epic card was unique, anchoring the world and spanning history.

Once it was bound to one's soul, even paying a price would make it difficult to remove the binding.

Forcibly terminating the contract would inflict irreversible trauma and damage upon both the user and the card.

Thus, White, Blue, and Purple cards offered tremendous flexibility and could be swapped and combined at any time according to one's tactics. Pink and Orange cards possessed greater power, but in the long run, even if one had the chance to bind them, one had to carefully consider whether they suited one's own system.

In ancient legends of the Demon Realm, there was supposedly a grade beyond Epic, but it had not appeared for thousands of years. With the fall of the demon race's nation, clues regarding such cards had become increasingly impossible to find...

For the well-traveled Talia, even the noble Purple Rare quality was nothing remarkable.

She had made more of them herself than she could count.

Yet compared to the quality of Lanchi's card, Talia was more astonished by its bizarre effect.

Generally speaking,

a Card Maker's early works could reflect the card-making style of their future career.

That made it somewhat difficult for Talia to predict what even more outrageous things this fellow might create in the future.

As Talia sank into thought, silence once more fell over the Card Making Workshop.

"..."

Seeing that she did not speak, Lanchi stopped disturbing her as well.

The gentle afternoon sunlight quietly filtered through the clouds, and the shadows of the Window Lattice fell across the brown floor, flickering between light and dark.

After two weeks of work so consuming that he had forgotten food and sleep finally yielded results, Lanchi gradually relaxed. Leaning back in his chair, he felt a rare drowsiness during this afternoon nap hour.

Time within the Card Making Workshop seemed briefly frozen, permeated by a strange tranquility. The engraving pen, alchemy jar, ink bottles, and other tools on the workbench seemed to have been granted souls, whispering lullabies in this fantastical land.

Yet just as Lanchi might have been about to drift into sleep, Talia's question awakened his mind once more, like the sound of strings in the wind.

"How old are you?"

Her voice was as cool and flat as water, devoid of any emotion.

"I'll be seventeen next year."

Lanchi raised his head and looked at Talia.

He had chosen a rather precise way of putting it.

After all, he did not know whether Talia would judge him to be lying if he directly said he was sixteen.

His body was definitely sixteen years old, but his soul's age should probably be counted from before he had transmigrated.

"Then it is not too late for you to start learning card making."

Talia scrutinized the boy before her once more.

Over the past few days, she had watched Lanchi go from being utterly unfamiliar with the craft to becoming somewhat proficient, so she was certain he had not possessed much card-making experience before.

Based on what she had seen during her years of wandering south from the continent's far north, passing through countless human nations, this boy named Lanchi could already be called a natural-born Magic Artisan among human Card Makers, aside from his late start and low rank.

"Tata, do you think the Magic Cards I make are fairly good?"

Lanchi still wore his naturally cheerful smile.

There was no boastfulness in his words. He simply seemed certain that Talia possessed extraordinary knowledge, so he sincerely sought her advice.

"...If it can be mass-produced, then once it enters the market, it may become a new universally useful card."

After a brief silence, Talia answered.

The reason this card was universally useful was simple.

Everyone would want to buy it.

Once this card began circulating, the nature of battle might already have changed.

Making one's enemy kneel might become more important than victory or defeat.

And in a fair match, it was also a deterrent—If you dare make me kneel, I'll make you kneel right back. One might not need to use it, but one could not afford not to have it.

Although Talia felt that Lanchi truly deserved to die whenever she thought about having to guard against enemies using this Sword Mound spell at all times in the future,

in the long term, if humanity's combat culture was thrown into utter chaos, that would also benefit her grand cause of restoring her nation.

Therefore, she would not take the initiative to stop Lanchi from abusing this card and contaminating humanity's Magic Card system and environment.

"I see."

Lanchi picked up the Basic Etiquette card in his hand and looked it over. A rather friendly smile curled at the corner of his lips before he turned toward Talia.

"I can't give you this one, but I'm willing to sell you the next one. Given the success rate, I'll probably have to spend several more days on it. I'm busy preparing for exams lately, so I can only make it for you after they're over."

"How much?"

Though Talia was somewhat surprised inwardly, she asked without hesitation. There was no questioning intonation in her voice; any question from her mouth became a statement.

She knew that before this universally useful card officially entered circulation, its scarcity undoubtedly gave it the greatest possible value.

Moreover, as the first edition, it contained the value of something called a "formula."

Since Lanchi was willing to trade the second card to her, the price would certainly not be small.