Seven Days

This card contained only a single Dao Boy with his hair tied in a topknot, rather than the densely packed crowd found in other Human Cards.

Human Cards were not necessarily White. Zhang Zhi still had more than ten Gray Human Cards in his Sea of Consciousness, each containing only around ten people.

This showed that it took more than ten ordinary humans to reach the Gray rank.

Yet the Dao Boy in this White Card was White Rank all by himself. He looked only six or seven years old, and he was already a White Card before he had even grown up.

By that calculation, this six- or seven-year-old Dao Boy possessed strength and potential equal to the combined total of more than a hundred ordinary humans.

That was enough to show just how formidable the Dao Boy in this card truly was.

When Zhang Zhi had previously planned the development path of his world, he had been hesitating over whether to merge the Daoist Apprentice Card into the World Embryo when Opening a Small World.

Once all Small World Prototypes became genuine Small Worlds, meaning after the Mental Power transmission had been severed, they would undergo self-projection—or rather, reproduce—for a period of time.

During this period, the time difference between the Small World and the Main World could exceed a thousandfold.

In other words, one day in the Main World was already a thousand days in the Small World.

This time acceleration was essentially a "newbie gift package," allowing a newly formed Small World to rapidly develop and take shape.

Yet during the evolution of a Small World, the Realm Lord could not project himself inside. In other words, for those first few thousand days, he would be completely unable to guide the Dao Boy in any way.

There was a good chance that this Daoist Apprentice Card would be ruined outright.

But after what had happened today, his first decision was to merge it. He definitely had to merge it.

The more White Rank, or Elite Tier, Retainers he had in his Small World, the better his odds of surviving and escaping.

Besides, he understood now. He was an orphan, and every resource he had could only be obtained through his own abilities.

The graduation assessment in ten days and the admission rewards from secondary academies were one thing; those were only one-time rewards. The Secondary Education entrance examination a month from now was what truly mattered to him.

At better secondary academies, the entrance examinations involved real Small World battles. As long as one earned a good ranking, the academy would provide elite students with abundant resources every month according to their ranking.

The better the academy, the more resources it provided each month.

At the same time, an academy was also a source of backing. The stronger the academy, the more he could Borrow the Tiger's Might outside its walls.

Why were Lei Aigou and the others waiting ten days before making a move on him? Wasn't it because he would no longer be a student of Yizhou Elementary School after ten days?

The only things he could rely on right now were his exceptionally strong Mental Power and the hundreds of cards in his Sea of Consciousness.

Only by investing enough cards while Opening a Small World, giving his Small World sufficiently complete rules and enough strength, could he escape from Lei Aigou and the others.

Only then could he capitalize on the snowballing advantage during Secondary Education and continue growing stronger.

Otherwise, even if he acquired enough resources, without sufficient strength or a powerful enough backer, what happened today would certainly happen again.

With that thought, Zhang Zhi no longer hesitated. The Daoist Apprentice Card slowly merged into the White Light!

This Daoist Apprentice Card alone took a full four hours!

One had to know that his world already "digested" cards about twice as fast as other people's. If this White Card had been handled by someone else, it would have taken at least eight hours, not even counting the time needed to refine the card.

No wonder Teacher had always said not to carelessly merge strange and unusual cards when Opening a Small World. There might be unexpected pleasant surprises, but there were even more frightening surprises. Only Zhang Zhi could manage it; for anyone else, merely merging this one card might have exhausted all their Mental Power.

As the Daoist Apprentice Card merged in, the White Light emitted by the World Embryo became even more dazzling.

At this point, even if Zhang Zhi could no longer sustain it with his Mental Power, the world that formed would not be too bad.

But the Mental Power consumed so far was only a small portion of what he possessed.

Freed of his concerns, he became even bolder with the card mergers that followed.

Next, twenty-three Gray Cards flew directly toward the World Embryo. They were all Gray Human Cards, each containing between ten and fifteen people.

Gray Human Cards were still relatively easy to obtain.

After all the Human Cards had merged into the World Embryo, A Thought Moved, and the last White Card slowly rose.

It was a White Skill Card: "Blood Forging Technique."

It was a cultivation method that improved one's strength by forging the blood. Compared with Gray cultivation method cards, its threshold was relatively high. After obtaining that White Daoist Apprentice Card, Zhang Zhi had deliberately collected this card.

With that Dao Boy present, he was not worried that this cultivation method card would go to waste. As long as one person learned it, the technique would naturally slowly spread throughout the Small World.

After the "Blood Forging Technique" merged in, Zhang Zhi sensed that he still had abundant Mental Power remaining and began merging the rest of the Gray Cards.

Among the remaining two hundred or so Gray Cards were several rather special ones.

There were five Wind Cards, three Rain Cards, and four Thunder Cards. These were all weather-type cards. They were neither necessary nor useless, since most worlds could evolve their own weather systems, which was why they were Gray.

When Opening a Small World, many people would not even consider merging rules that the Small World could evolve on its own.

Zhang Zhi felt that the more rules a Small World Prototype merged with, the more complete and powerful the final Small World would certainly be. Besides, weather cards were basically unwanted and inexpensive, so he had collected a few.

There were also two Magma Cards.

Earth, water, fire, and wind—the four great elements that made up the world were now all complete.

Although this knowledge came from Earth, he had the spare capacity, so he might as well gather all four elements and see whether there would be any unexpected surprises.

Twenty-three hours later, only a dozen or so Gray Cards remained in his Sea of Consciousness.

Lei Aigou came once during that time. He threatened and tempted Zhang Zhi for a while, but when he saw that Zhang Zhi gave no response, he sneered a few times and left.

Sensing that his Mental Power was nearly exhausted, Zhang Zhi severed the Mental Power sustaining the World Embryo.

The next moment, the originally incomparably dazzling World Embryo paused, then abruptly contracted inward. It transformed into a bead gleaming with White Light and spun rapidly within his Sea of Consciousness!

Watching the rapidly spinning white bead, Zhang Zhi let out a deep sigh.

That white bead was the World Bead. A Realm Lord controlled his Small World through the World Bead.

The World Bead was spinning rapidly now because the Small World Prototype was evolving on its own.

This process generally took three to five days.

Once the Small World finished evolving, it would become the Small World he possessed—his human Small World.

That would also be the time for him to escape his predicament.

The Small World's evolution took longer than Zhang Zhi had expected.

Three days later, the world was still evolving.

Over those three days, Lei Aigou seemed to thoroughly enjoy tormenting Zhang Zhi. Every day, he came to interrogate Zhang Zhi about where his cards were, using it as an excuse to torture him.

As for the Realm Lord behind him, he seemed to want to use Lei Aigou's hands to humiliate Zhang Zhi before stepping in to clean up the mess himself. He had not shown his face these past few days.

Five days later, the world was still evolving.

Lei Aigou's methods of torturing Zhang Zhi grew increasingly brutal. By then, Zhang Zhi's limbs had all been broken into several sections.

Seven days later, Zhang Zhi, barely alive after Lei Aigou's torture, looked at the bead floating quietly in his Sea of Consciousness and let out a deep sigh!

This damned Small World had finally finished evolving.