Perhaps Chen Mu's modifications to the card had been too astonishing; the whole group fell silent instead. Fortunately, Chen Mu was not much of a talker to begin with, so he felt no discomfort. Cheng Ying was still immersed in excitement and joy. She had always hoped to own a powerful combat card. But for an ordinary Card Adept like her, with neither influence nor much money, a card like the one Chen Mu had modified was far beyond her reach.
Bo Wen, meanwhile, was considering the question of the spices. Of the materials he had noted down, only duo lian stone was particularly rare. The others were expensive, but not difficult to obtain. If this really worked, the enormous profits involved made his heart race. He was not particularly concerned about Cheng Ying's card, despite the dramatic increase in its power after Chen Mu's modifications. He did not have a great many cards of that caliber, but neither did he have very few. Besides, he could already use four-star cards, and was quite proficient with them.
There was an almost unbridgeable gulf between three-star and four-star cards in terms of power. Exceptions existed, of course, but they were so rare that one could count them on one's fingers. For Bo Wen, his efforts should now go toward mastering four-star cards more thoroughly, rather than wasting time on an unfamiliar three-star card, however outstanding it might be. With cards, mastery mattered more than quantity.
Liduhong was silent too, though the occasional glance he cast at Chen Mu burned with eagerness. At his age, life was filled with countless fantasies. Driven by his curiosity as well, he felt that Chen Mu possessed a wondrous power: a few effortless strokes of his pen seemed capable of producing an entirely different result.
Having