Being Watched

"First, make enough Energy Cards. Sell a small portion and use most of them. Use the money from sales to buy more Blank Cards for crafting, and raise my personal strength as quickly as possible. Unless absolutely necessary, there's no need to risk logging onto the Dark Web and selling knowledge and techniques through illegal channels."

After buying Yang Mao's scrap cards, Tang Jian pondered this to himself.

After school, he went straight to a card shop near the school and bought a batch of Blank Cards and five bottles of Energy Ink.

Only after carefully checking the One-Star Blank Cards and confirming they were not refurbished secondhand goods did Tang Jian count out the money and hand it to the shop owner.

Some unscrupulous merchants washed failed scrap cards with Rare Energy Water and sold them again as new cards.

If one was careless, one could easily get scammed.

"Not bad, bastard. Got money, huh? You actually bought a whole batch of Blank Cards. Looks like you're planning to burn through your family savings for the final sprint too?"

A sturdy young man walked over, patted Tang Jian on the shoulder, and gave him a thumbs-up with a grin.

Tang Jian glanced at him and vaguely remembered who he was. His name was Xie Dong, and his card energy was not low either. Tang Jian remembered that in his previous life, this guy had made it into the Rocket Class for the final training.

However, this fellow often hung around with idle youths from outside the school. Because of that, most of the well-behaved students at school were somewhat afraid of him.

Tang Jian nodded modestly. "I heard the school is about to prepare a sprint class, so I wanted to give it a shot."

Xie Dong smiled at that and glanced at the stack of cards in Tang Jian's hands. "Good luck. I think you've got potential."

With that, Xie Dong picked up his bag and walked out of the shop. "I'm off."

Tang Jian watched Xie Dong's departing back, shook his head, packed away all his cards, and headed toward his father, who was waiting by the roadside on an electric scooter.

"See that kid? He's from the class next to mine. He just bought a whole batch of Blank Cards and five bottles of Energy Ink. Keep an eye on him tomorrow. Once you pull the job, we split it thirty-seventy—you get seventy."

In the shadowed corner of an alley on the other side of the school, Xie Dong gathered with several street youths. He accepted a cigarette from one of them and lit it, then pointed at Tang Jian in the distance, who had just gotten onto the electric scooter.

The three street youths memorized Tang Jian's appearance and nodded slightly. One of them, with permed curly hair, said, "Then we'll make our move tomorrow during your dinner break. You follow him and contact us anytime."

"Sure." Xie Dong gave a cold smile, his eyes full of mockery as he watched Tang Jian disappear into the distance.

In his eyes, Tang Jian was already meat on the chopping block. Once the opportunity came tomorrow, that meat would be ready for the pot.

"Son, since you bought a batch of Blank Cards, practice well. I think you have some talent for card crafting. Once you learn properly, maybe you can teach me someday. And if you're short on money or materials, just tell me."

On the way home, Tang Lin looked at the unusually silent Tang Jian sitting behind him through the mirrors. Thinking his son was under a lot of pressure, he smiled and encouraged him.

Tang Jian felt warmth in his heart and grinned. "This batch is enough for now. Once I make enough Energy Cards, I can help cover the household expenses too."

Tang Lin smiled but said nothing.

How could Energy Cards possibly be so easy to make?

Even for the most ordinary One-Star Blank Energy Card, a beginner like Tang Jian, with little experience and weak card energy, would be doing well if he successfully made two or three cards from an entire batch.

A batch of cards, including the ink and materials, was worth 2,250 yuan. Even if he made three One-Star Blank Energy Cards, they would only sell for a little over three hundred yuan. It was guaranteed to be a loss, not a profit. How could that subsidize the household?

Although Tang Lin had some expectations for Tang Jian, to be honest, even as his father, his expectations were not high.

Tang Jian could more or less guess that his father did not have much hope, but that was not what he was thinking about right now. Instead, he was thinking about Xie Dong, who had seemingly casually struck up a conversation with him earlier.

Although Xie Dong was not in the same class as him, Tang Jian had always had some impression of him. Xie Dong often mixed with idle people from outside the school.

In his previous life, although Xie Dong later squeezed into the sixty-day Rocket Class, shortly before the college entrance exams, a scandal about him had surfaced. It was said that he had joined forces with several street youths to extort students at the school.

The last incident had even nearly brought in the police. However, it seemed that the school leadership stepped in afterward and quietly settled the matter.

Still, the impact at the time had been significant, and many students at the school knew about it.

Even after they entered society, whenever Xie Dong was mentioned, many of their classmates looked down on him.

Only now did Tang Jian remember this, and he could not help becoming wary.

He had just bought more than two thousand yuan worth of materials at the card shop. For high school students like them, that was already a huge sum.

If Xie Dong had set his sights on him, there was a good chance he would make Tang Jian a target for extortion.

Although judging someone this way without evidence might have been overly suspicious, Tang Jian still quietly kept his guard up.

After returning home, he ate the dinner his mother had made.

Tang Jian immediately and impatiently carried a bag of materials upstairs.

He vaguely heard the door to his younger sister Tang Yue's room creak softly.

Tang Jian did not think much of it. He took out the Sketching Pen from his room, went to the table in the small hall, switched on the desk lamp, and began grinding and preparing the energy solution for card crafting.

Back when he had been a Three-Star Card Master, he could not even be bothered to glance at cards of the One-Star Blank Energy Card's level.

But now that he had been reborn, he was actually excited to make such low-level cards.

Tang Jian sighed at the unpredictability of life.

Once the Energy Ink in the inkstone gradually settled, he took a stack of white-quality Blank Cards from his backpack.

Each card was roughly 0.3 millimeters thick, six centimeters long, and four centimeters wide. They were all used to make white-quality one-star cards.

There were many types of white-quality one-star cards. The most in-demand, of course, were Energy Cards, followed by Communication Cards, Illumination Cards, and so on.

These low-level cards had actually long since been industrialized and could be mass-produced by machines, so they were not particularly precious.

Similar cards made by many ordinary card apprentices were even difficult to sell.

After all, if the card-crafting technique was not refined enough, hand-crafted cards would not perform as well as machine-made ones.

An ordinary white-quality One-Star Energy Card contained 100 points of energy. The vast majority of machine-made cards met that standard.

But if a card apprentice with poor technique made one, the Energy Card might only contain around 80 to 90 points of energy, making it somewhat inferior.

Tang Jian had been a Three-Star Card Crafter in his previous life. Making such low-level cards was effortless for him, so they would naturally achieve optimal performance.

He picked up the Sketching Pen, held his breath, focused his mind, and quickly drew on a Blank Card.

About a minute later.

A white-quality One-Star Energy Card was complete. The not overly intricate lines and patterns on the card suddenly solidified, after which faint energy fluctuations began to emanate from it.

Tang Jian let out a breath. Only then did fine beads of sweat seep from his forehead, and he felt somewhat exhausted.

He had completed the card in one go, but it had also consumed a great deal of card energy.

He estimated that he had used more than 25 units of card energy.

"This time, the energy in the Energy Card wasn't absorbed directly. I should have used 25 points of card energy now. If I absorb this Energy Card now, will it be like yesterday?"

Tang Jian focused his consciousness. A red gleam began to appear in his eyes, and a data panel appeared before him.