Private Message

"Buffer Cards don't mean just blowing up any random cards."

Sun Qi raised his chin, looking utterly superior. "For example, for your Main Card going from 7 to 8, the Buffer Cards you need must also be 7-strength Cards. I have to blow up those Cards to figure out the point where a Card will succeed, so... have you prepared them in advance?"

"Yeah."

Yang Ming knew the basics of Buffer Cards, so he swept his hand through the air. With a clattering sound, a row of silver-glowing Cards appeared before him, linked together like a chain of stars.

Lin Xia noticed that these Cards were all 7-strength, too.

Their OVR Values were just extremely low.

Lin Xia counted them. Of the fifteen Cards, the highest OVR was only 52.

A 7-strength Card with a rating of just 52... It was fair to call it "trash." It was completely useless on the battlefield.

"Is this enough?" Yang Ming glanced at Sun Qi out of the corner of his eye, speaking with complete indifference. "If it's not, I have more."

Without another word, he summoned fifteen more Cards and arranged them neatly above the others.

Sun Qi could no longer hide the delight in his eyes at such a show of wealth. He realized that this man really could be slaughtered like a "pig"!

He really is still just a kid at heart.

Lin Xia shook his head helplessly.

From Yang Ming's plain clothes and deliberate use of a fake name, he could tell the man wanted to keep a low profile and hide his identity.

But now he'd gone and revealed that he was loaded... Wasn't that completely contradictory?

Lin Xia had also noticed Sun Qi's greedy gaze.

That only made him more suspicious of the Reinforcer.

"Since Young Master Wang is so well prepared, I'll get started."

After speaking, Sun Qi picked up a Card and placed it in the Reinforcement Pillar's device.

The next second, he started the reinforcement process.

Whoosh!

The Card was enveloped in a ghostly glow and began to tremble violently.

Whoosh!

The ghostly glow faded rapidly, like air leaking from a punctured ball. The Card inside the device immediately turned into black smoke and dispersed in all directions.

Just like that, a 7-strength Silver Card vanished from the world in a matter of seconds.

Yang Ming showed no sign of heartache.

Sun Qi's expression didn't change either. To him, this was only the beginning. After all, he had to get eighteen explosions in a row!

The next moment, another Card turned into a wisp of black smoke and was gently scattered by the breeze.

Then the third Card went, followed by the fourth.

But when they reached the fifth Card, a golden gleam flashed across its surface.

Success!

The Gold Card had been successfully reinforced!

But Sun Qi looked disappointed. He first took the Gold Card out of the device, then casually tossed it aside into the air, as if it were nothing important.

He picked up another Silver Card and put it into the device. "It's fine, let's keep going. If a Buffer Card succeeds, then it succeeds. We haven't lost anything. It's a Gold Card, after all—we can sell it on the market."

"Yeah."

Yang Ming nodded. He knew this kind of thing was unavoidable while using Buffer Cards.

After all, no Reinforcer dared claim they could pinpoint the exact moment a Card would succeed.

They weren't gods. They could misjudge the point of success, causing the Main Card's reinforcement to fail.

Still, they were much better than ordinary Awakeners.

After all, you had to leave professional work to professionals.

That was why Yang Ming had found a Reinforcer.

A Reinforcer's odds of success were far higher than his own.

If even a Reinforcer could fail, then he would definitely fail too.

Meanwhile, Lin Xia let out a cold laugh. The successful reinforcement of that Buffer Card into a Gold Card convinced him that Sun Qi couldn't see the reinforcement points.

So he decided to use his one remaining use of [Eye of Insight] to snatch the opportunity from this vice president of the [Gold Guild]!

He'd been worrying about where to find a Material Card with a value of 94 to reinforce Vegeta.

What if the vice president was pleased and rewarded him with one?

Even if Yang Ming was a miser and didn't give him a Material Card this time, that was fine.

At least he could make a friend through this.

That kind of connection would definitely help him in the future!

No sooner said than done!

Faced with an opportunity that might never come again, Lin Xia immediately used Eye of Insight.

A streak of light passed through his eyes. The gray question marks scattered and reassembled, and the number [3] appeared beside the Reinforcement Pillar.

That meant that, counting from the Gold Card that had just succeeded, he needed to blow up two more Buffer Cards before putting in the Main Card!

As it happened, Sun Qi had just blown up the second Buffer Card and was about to put the third one into the device.

"Wait!"

At Lin Xia's shout, Sun Qi's hand froze in midair.

He and Yang Ming both turned around, eyeing Lin Xia warily and searchingly.

"I think the Card's about to succeed."

By "succeed," he meant that the reinforcement would work.

Lin Xia felt a little awkward. He'd seen Sun Qi about to put the Buffer Card in, so he'd hurriedly stopped him. But he hadn't thought of how to explain himself so Yang Ming would believe him.

He couldn't exactly reveal that he could see the reinforcement points, could he?

"...Uh."

Yang Ming's gaze shifted back and forth between Lin Xia and Sun Qi, finally settling on the latter as if he'd made his choice.

To him, Lin Xia was just a "brat" around his own age, with no reputation or track record in the world of reinforcement. Who would believe a word he said?

"Heh."

Sun Qi looked down at Lin Xia and answered with a cold laugh.

The scene of Lin Xia successfully reinforcing a 2-strength Card just now flashed through his mind. Combined with Lin Xia's cheap clothes, Sun Qi felt that even exchanging a single word with the kid would make him look bad.

But experience counted for something. Though Sun Qi looked down on Lin Xia, he still considered what he'd said.

When reinforcing Cards, a Card that succeeded within ten explosions was called a [Short-Hand].

If it took more than ten explosions, it was called a [Long-Hand].

The Buffer Card that had succeeded on the fifth attempt just now was an example of the Short-Hand mechanism.

Generally speaking, Short-Hand success was rare, so a Long-Hand usually followed it.

Thinking it over, Sun Qi became even more certain that the reinforcement would succeed after eighteen explosions.

And, of course, even more certain that Lin Xia was "talking nonsense."

So he snorted, turned around, and prepared to continue.

But Lin Xia couldn't afford to miss this chance to get a successful reinforcement.

After all, he had no uses of Eye of Insight left. If he missed this guaranteed success point, who knew how many explosions it would take before the next one?

Meanwhile.

Looks like I can make a little extra money.

As his companions watched, the short-haired young man who'd been watching the show opened his panel and sent the Blue Eagle Guild's president a private message.

[The vice president is here. He seems to be reinforcing his Main Card...]