Ground Ramming Card

The night, with a single lamp lit.

The spirit tool fan in Little Sam's Card Shop whirred noisily.

"Actually, it wouldn't be that hard to force Best's Card Repair Shop out of business," Duke said, sitting at his workstation, number four, skillfully dismantling a damaged spirit card.

His thoughts drifted further. "Run more repair promotions, poach Card Masters with high salaries, and Best would basically have to close down. But... aside from venting some anger, there's no real benefit to doing that... Once the Pioneer War starts, Snakehead Town will inevitably become a logistics hub."

At that time, a large amount of manpower and resources would be sent to Snakehead Town from all over, then assembled there to advance towards the Spirit Spring in Emerald Sea Valley.

"The era where Second Vertical Street could only have one card repair shop is long gone. Even if I force Best's Card Repair Shop out, someone else will just open a new one."

"I might as well keep Best's Card Repair Shop around as a shield... A local snake that I can crush anytime is much easier to deal with than an unknown outsider." Thinking this, Duke completely let go of his resentment towards Best's Card Repair Shop. After all, his life wasn't just about a single card repair shop; this was just the beginning.

As long as Little Sam's Card Shop could earn enough resources for his cultivation, allowing him to break free from the bottom of the extraordinary world, that would be enough.

Compared to being engrossed in shop competition all day long.

It was better to focus his energy on the research of Spiritual Arcana.

Pulling his thoughts back, Duke began to concentrate on the task at hand. This was a scrapped spirit card he'd found at the Scrap Card Station, digging through a pile of trash to barely find a repairable one.

"Ground Ramming Card, a 1-Ring Arcane spirit card. Multiple rings damaged, card material fractured," Xiao Yi reminded him in his mind.

Duke worked silently, peeling away the cracked outer layer of the spirit card piece by piece, then prying open the card face and carefully picking out the completely fractured card material.

Once these steps were completed, a scrapped spirit card was reduced to just the card core encasing the spell model.

He placed the card core onto the newly activated ring pulling device, fixed it at the four corners, and injected energy into the device. It quickly activated the spell model within the card core, and then Duke performed a series of operations, stretching and extending the compressed, flat spell model into a three-dimensional, complex energy circuit.

He held the Spirit Channeling Pen, carefully observing the broken points on the energy circuit.

"First bending angle, two breaks. Can be fused using the Light Touch Method," Xiao Yi provided a repair solution.

Duke inquired mentally, "Why use the Light Touch Method to fuse it?"

"These two energy circuit fracture surfaces have radial breaks. To prevent the breaks from continuing to spread, a light touch is needed to maintain stability..."

"Understood."

With a clear understanding, Duke began to work.

He circulated his fighting spirit slightly, and the hand holding the Spirit Channeling Pen became steady as a rock. He gently touched the tip of the pen to the break in the energy circuit. The energy lines in his Spirit Sea glowed, and a stream of Spiritual Power flowed slowly through the Spirit Channeling Pen, converging on the break.

The Spirit Channeling Pen acted as an extension of his finger, controlling these Spiritual Powers to merge with the spirit card's energy lines until they were indistinguishable.

The first break was now fused.

Duke didn't pause. He switched the Spirit Channeling Pen in his hand for a Spirit Cutting Knife and carefully trimmed away the excess Spiritual Power at the fused break point. This was to maintain the stability of energy flow within the entire circuit, preventing fluctuations that could cause overload or pressure drops.

Thus.

The first break was perfectly repaired.

Duke turned his attention to the next break, continuing the meticulous repair.

While executing Xiao Yi's plan, he also asked questions and understood the meaning of each step in the plan, increasing his own understanding of energy circuits.

Closing the energy circuit was a ring.

Each time he deepened his understanding of a ring, his cultivation speed in the Spirit Sea would increase.

At the stage of a Spiritual Apprentice, understanding Spiritual Arcana was far more important than practicing meditation methods all day. Understanding Spiritual Arcana was like expanding the size of a kettle, while practicing meditation was like filling it with water. No matter how much water was poured in, it couldn't exceed the kettle's capacity.

Therefore, according to Xiao Yi's progress chart, he still needed over two hundred days to advance to a Three-star Spiritual Apprentice, but in reality, it wouldn't take that long.

Each time he deepened his understanding of a ring, he would unleash the potential of his meditation method.

Unknowingly, half an hour had passed.

All the breaks in the energy circuits of the Ground Ramming Card's spell model, stimulated by the ring pulling device, had been meticulously repaired by Duke to a perfect state.

Then, with another series of operations, the ring pulling device slowly compressed the Ground Ramming Card's spell model back into a flat shape and embedded it into the card core.

Duke waited for the machine to completely stop, took out the card core, and placed it into the spirit card testing machine on the side.

With a series of clicks and checks, the spell model was operating normally. The core ring of this Ground Ramming Card was declared successfully repaired. Next was the repair of the spirit card material.

"It's a shame. The material itself is too severely damaged. Even if I repair it, it won't be as durable as a complete spirit card..."

Duke filled in the material, fused it, and carefully polished the joints. He restored the integrity of the Ground Ramming Card's material, polished it repeatedly for a while, smoothed the card surface, and then placed it on the sealing machine to wrap the cover.

With the entire process completed, a refurbished Ground Ramming Card was fresh out of the oven.

Holding the card and shaking it, Duke felt a little troubled. "If I were to sell this, it would be really hard to set a price. The material has been repaired, which will definitely affect its performance and durability... If I sell it to a mercenary and the Ground Ramming Card fails during combat, they might come back to cause trouble... Forget it, I'll keep it for myself to use later."

Duke was always cautious when refurbishing Arcane Cards.

After all, these types of spirit cards were mostly used in combat, and a single mistake could ruin his reputation.

It was far safer than refurbishing civilian cards.

Even if a civilian card broke, there wouldn't be major issues, and it would be easy to resolve.

Grasping the Ground Ramming Card, Duke gently injected a trace of Spiritual Power into it. He then felt the ring inside the spirit card activate, and the Spiritual Energy within could be controlled by his will at will.

This Spiritual Energy could, according to his will, continuously compress the ground, compacting the entire area.

It's very effective against prey hiding underground.

"Actually, it's not bad for building houses either. If you throw down this Ground Ramming Card, the foundation will definitely be solid!" Duke put the Ground Ramming Card into his pocket and took out another scrapped Spirit Tool.

The work of repairing Spirit Tools continued.

An extra income of 80 silver dragons a month, with a few nights of hard work occasionally, wasn't much.

"It's a shame I've searched the Scrap Card Station many times, but I've seen very few scrapped 2-Ring Spirit Tools, and even fewer that can be repaired... No, I haven't found a single one."

Compared to the common 1-Ring Spirit Tools, Duke hoped to find 2-Ring Spirit Tools more.

A civilian 1-Ring Spirit Tool could range from 1 silver dragon to 1 gold dragon, but any civilian 2-Ring Spirit Tool would start at least at ten gold dragons, with some selling for hundreds of gold dragons, which was not uncommon.

"Finding one would be enough for me to eat for a year!"