The "softening" here was naturally not softening in the conventional sense.
It referred to reducing an item's reality from one hundred percent to ninety-nine point nine nine nine...
Even if it was only zero point zero zero zero zero one percent, it still counted as destroying the item's "complete reality."
Only by crossing this boundary was it possible to refine an item into an "Item Card."
The magic potions used for this were collectively known as "Temporary Reality-Reversal Illusion Potions."
However, magi were more accustomed to calling them "softening agents."
As the name implied, a "softening agent" was only temporary.
Magi therefore had to complete the entire Item Card transmutation within the time limit.
The shorter the softening duration, the more difficult the transmutation became.
Moreover, each type of item required a different "softening agent," which magi had to formulate themselves. Thus, the threshold for refining an "Item Card" was not low.
Without a universal tome like Three Thousand Items, Eight Thousand Refinement Methods, Dark would have needed at least one or two weeks just to research and formulate the "softening agent" for the Perception Orb.
Fortunately, his luck was not bad.
After the Perception Orb had soaked in the "softening agent" for about five minutes, a strange sense of illusion appeared over its surface.
Though it still looked like an entirely unchanged orb to the naked eye, it somehow felt slightly blurry.
That sensation of hovering between reality and illusion was extremely eerie. Staring at it for too long made one's scalp tingle.
Dark abruptly withdrew his gaze and began the next step.
The second step in refining an Item Card was to adjust the surface properties of a blank Magitech Card, making it compatible with the item to be refined.
This required formulating "pigment"—that is, the core substance