Card Adept

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Card Adept
Original Name	卡修
Occupation/Role	Professional card user specializing in controlling cards and drawing out their power 6.
Affiliation	Varies: academies, lineages, the military, Card Adept Corps, specialist associations, or independent employment 181 209 351 494 516.
First Appearance	Explained as a distinct profession in Chapter 6 6.

Power Progression

Card Adepts assess Perception primarily by strength and precision of control. The strength scale has ten levels, each divided into lower, middle, and upper tiers. These levels do not fully measure combat ability: experience, awareness, card compatibility, and training also matter 175 192.

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Above level three	209	Minimum Perception strength required even for the lowest-ranking Medical Card Adept; medical education and proficiency with medical cards are also mandatory.
Level four	264 313	Sufficient to control the optimized Energy Shuttle structure in Chen Mu’s three-person system. Four-star cards are usable at this level, but impose heavy Perception expenditure and are rarely used in combat by level-four Adepts.
Level five	313 359	Generally sufficient for skilled use of four-star cards. Level-five Adepts are plentiful compared with higher-level practitioners.
Level six	359 484	Scarce on the employment market. Contemporary Sniper Card Adepts generally require middle-tier level-six strength or above, unless their Perception has special properties.
Level seven	540	Advancement from level six changes the nature, not merely the quantity, of Perception. Wood Character Camp members reach it through the Snow Pit Method, grueling training, and actual combat; deeper understanding becomes essential for further advancement.

• Card stars and Perception levels are separate ratings. Advanced techniques with a three-star card can demand as much Perception as ordinary four- or five-star cards 386.
• Suitability can outweigh grade. A suitable three-star card may serve its user better than an unsuitable five-star card 516.
• Training legacies affect strength within the same level. Generations of refinement give academy practitioners interconnected techniques that can make them substantially stronger than peers using other cards 313.

History

In Rosenberg’s era, Card Adepts did not exist as a separate profession. Card makers also used their own creations, and practitioners who trained in both construction and card techniques were known as Card Masters 6.

By Hainer Vincent’s era, roughly three hundred years before the story, cards had become more numerous, varied, and widely circulated. Their increasing complexity encouraged card makers to concentrate on research, while Card Adepts emerged as specialists in practical use. Hainer Vincent himself excelled in both disciplines and became the last Card Master in recorded history 6.

The Vincent System formalized the separation between crafting and combat. Their Perception-training methods diverged, and later practitioners attempting both professions were generally low-level. Academy-style education also helped preserve theories that had frequently been scattered or lost during the Faction Era 249 277.

Ranged fighters were the earliest Card Adepts. Close-combat practitioners developed later from ranged outliers and remained heavily outnumbered, leaving their tactical system and physical training less developed. The Hundred Abyss Prefecture and Mohadi Domain were stronger in these areas 131.

Abilities & Skills

Perception and Energy Control

Perception allows Card Adepts to control energy; card makers traditionally emphasize sensing it instead 6.

• Construct formation: Energy from an Energy Card passes through an Illusion Card to form an energy construct before release 261.
• Structural optimization: High-level Adepts can adjust a construct before firing. Better understanding of energy structures permits stronger optimization 261.
• Sensitivity: Strong Perception gives Adepts unusual intuition toward other practitioners. Bitter Solitude Temple students are rumored to estimate another person’s strength with a glance 23.
• Compatibility: Training mediums shape Perception’s properties. Bitter Solitude Temple’s Mind Cards are almost unusable by outsiders, who cannot draw out their full power even when they can activate them 6.

Simultaneous Card Control

• A reasonably skilled Adept commonly controls an Airflow Card alongside either a combat card or an Energy Shield Card 458.
• Exceptional practitioners—including Tang Hanpei, Jiao Si, Xize, and the Bronze Mask Man—can control three cards simultaneously 458.
• Controlling more cards weakens control over each one. Even these experts rarely use three at once in actual combat 458.

Flight and Aerial Maneuvering

• Long-distance flight: Practiced by almost every Adept; performance depends heavily on Perception strength 121.
• Aerial tailing: Ranged fighters use it to maintain firing distance, while close-combat fighters use it to approach enemies 121.
• Precise positioning: A core ranged-combat skill for maintaining a stable position in the air 121.
• Tactical evasion: Especially important to close-combat fighters, who must confuse opponents and survive incoming attacks 113 121.
• Physical limits: Rapid repeated turns demand both fine Airflow Card control and a strong body. Exceeding the body’s tolerance can cause fatal brain hemorrhage 348.

Detection and Concealment

• Detection Card specialists are essential to law enforcement and exploration teams 6.
• Counter-reconnaissance cards place unusually high demands on their users; Assassin Card Adepts are particularly suited to them 290.
• Concealed Perception and extremely faint energy fluctuations can prevent opponents from reliably reading attacks 368 568.
• Perception-based detection has gaps: Uncard Flow attacks exploit weaknesses that conventional Adepts may overlook 350.

Material Gathering

• Gathering card-making materials is an essential field skill for both Card Adepts and Card Crafters 141.
• Most materials originate from wild plants, animals, and minerals, making wilderness work important to the card industry 35.
• Freshly harvested materials are usually superior to shop-bought equivalents 526.

Specializations

Ranged Combat

• Ranged Adepts vastly outnumber close-combat practitioners and possess a more developed tactical system 131.
• Individual fighters generally specialize in a card type and build mature tactics around it 101.
• Staying within a familiar type reduces the time needed to adapt when stronger cards become available 123.
• Heavy-firepower cards may suit siege warfare rather than duels: the Giant Wave Slash Card’s fifteen-second activation makes it impractical for most individual combat 101.

Close Combat

• Short-range cards trade reach for rapid attacks. The Autumn Moon Narrow Blade Card reaches only five meters but releases fifteen blades per second, exceeding twenty-five in expert hands 113.
• Some practitioners use defensive cards to withstand attacks while closing the distance. Shape-changing shields can also form blades or spears 113.
• Close-combat Adepts generally have better flying skills because distance control is central to their survival 113.
• High-quality close-combat cards are scarce, limiting how selective most practitioners can be 123.
• Complex evasive maneuvers can leave a brief opening when bodily strain peaks at their conclusion 131.

Energy Shield Defense

• Dedicated Energy Shield specialists are rare and have virtually no independent offensive capability 181.
• Their usual work is protecting important people; some major lineages train them, and some security companies employ them 181.
• Exceptional mastery can extend protection to companions rather than only the user 181.
• Against powerful long-range siege attacks, specialists may survive where ordinary Adepts’ shields cannot 254.

Sniping

• Sniper cards must combine exceptional range, accuracy, and killing power. Suitable cards are so scarce that they cannot be bought on the open market 484.
• Users need extremely precise Perception control and a sufficiently large detection range 484.
• Nicknamed “the spokesmen of death,” snipers reportedly kill ninety-nine percent of their chosen targets 484.
• In a Card Adept Association survey of level-seven-and-above practitioners, 81.9 percent named snipers as the opponents they least wanted to face 484.
• Their scarcity makes large concentrations remarkable: the Blood Card Adept Corps has twenty-one, and the Snowflake Corps fifteen, while spectators witness forty-eight simultaneous sniper attacks from the Snow Silk Worm Corps 484.

Assassination and Intelligence

• Assassin Card Adepts specialize in concealment, agility, timing, and exploiting darkness 204.
• Many undergo brutal training from childhood; their training is described as harsher and more inhuman than that of snipers 204 489.
• Their silent killing style and counter-detection skills make them particularly difficult to locate 290 489.
• They carry little baggage because excess weight impairs mobility 290.
• Assassination factions did not entirely disappear with the Faction Era; some survived covertly and continued influencing major events 204.

Support

• Support Adepts are more difficult and costly to train than ordinary practitioners and cannot fight independently 259.
• Electricity Band specialists require superb control to arrange charges precisely and begin specialized training in childhood 259.
• Support cards need not inflict damage directly: Number Series card 002 modifies energy configurations to strengthen allies in group combat 239.

Medicine

• Medical Adepts use specialized cards for diagnosis and treatment, including Blood Test Cards and Bone-Nourishing Cards 209.
• Keen Perception helps them identify subtle pathological changes; solidified energy constructs can serve as surgical needles 209.
• Fewer than one in fifty applicants qualify through the Medical Card Adept Association 209.
• Nearly seventy percent belong to the association. Women form the overwhelming majority of practitioners 209.
• They enjoy high standing and generous remuneration, but consultations are generally expensive outside charitable care 209.

Other Professional Roles

• Bodyguards and mercenaries: Common employment outside specialist branches 6.
• Underwater exploration: Water Shuttle Card users can move freely underwater, making them suited to seabed exploration and surveying 6.
• Construction and mining: Dedicated specialists support base-building and resource extraction 355 356.

Equipment

• Wrist Device / card device: An arm-mounted device connecting an Energy Card to another card. Basic models have at least two slots; advanced models have more 3.
• Energy Cards: Supply the power for other cards. Depletion during flight can cause a fatal fall, forcing fighters to land and replace them 511.
• Illusion Skill Cards: Advanced Illusion Cards that arrange energy to simulate physical objects; unlike harmless image-projecting cards, they are powerful weapons used by Card Adepts 6.
• Airflow Cards: Provide flight and maneuvering; precise control is crucial to aerial evasion 131.
• Energy Shield Cards: Standard defensive equipment, with specialized variants demanding greater control 113 181.
• Detection and Communication Cards: Support reconnaissance and coordination. Losing communication can isolate an Adept or disable battlefield command 61 599.

Training and Institutions

Education and Access

• Adepts require ten years or more to mature through conventional training 342.
• The Six Great Academies control many powerful cards and their training legacies, placing independent practitioners at a disadvantage 410.
• Academy-trained level-seven Adepts display systematic training and better equipment than independent peers of comparable Perception strength 516.
• Established corps attract recruits through salaries, benefits, and professional training; some also train members’ children 351.
• Adepts whose abilities have plateaued can struggle to find work despite graduating from a school 260.

Cooperation with Card Crafters

• Adepts are more numerous than card makers, and outstanding crafters are highly sought-after partners 6 192.
• A custom card can account for its user’s control, agility, preferred range, and attack style 114.
• Close-combat Adepts may partner with crafters as testers, reporting a card’s practical strengths and weaknesses so its design can be improved 119.
• Superior equipment does not replace mastery: Chen Mu argues that sustained study can make even an ordinary card formidable 410.

Exceptions to Professional Separation

• Modern practitioners generally believe crafting and combat cannot be pursued together because they require different Perception-training methods 141.
• Chen Mu verifies through the Mysterious Card that the disciplines can coexist, making his dual proficiency startling to Bo Wen and Jiao Si 141 277.
• Xize’s unusual Perception combines traits of both professions, although he never pursued card crafting 493.

Collective Combat and Changing Warfare

Deck Tactics

Deck Tactics divide complex attacks among several Adepts, combining lower-level practitioners into a force with greater overall strength 261 359.

• Shared tasks: One user adjusts the energy structure while others scan, lock onto targets, and fire through synchronized cards 264.
• Early result: A three-person prototype produces a damage value of 998, approximately four-star-card power 264.
• Threaded Sniper Shuttle: A later set reaches ten kilometers with precise targeting and a damage rating of three thousand, at the cost of a reduced firing rate 366.
• Odi Burner: Suppressive flames draw energy from defenses, but one full attack consumes an entire Three-Star Energy Card 367.
• Stasis Ring: A three-person defensive set slows energy constructs within a fifteen-meter zone. It cannot move after deployment and offers no protection against physical attacks 367 368.
• Training burden: New sets require coordinated formations, specialist practice, and substantial energy expenditure—not merely distribution to troops 368.

Card Machinery and Uncard Flow

• Faya’s mass-produced Combat Shuttlecraft allow ordinary pilots to wield card-based firepower, challenging a military framework dependent on years of Adept training 342.
• Card Adepts account for ninety-nine percent of combatants in the period discussed by Chen Mu, but conventional detection and defenses can remain vulnerable to Uncard Flow 350 368.
• Hybrid fighters exist: at Snowridge Valley, Chen Mu encounters Card Adepts using air techniques alongside dedicated Uncard Flow practitioners, whose air techniques are stronger 569.
• Energy Gloves combine Perception-based operation with physical strength. Card implantation can quickly strengthen the body, but causes the recipient’s Perception to stagnate 577.
• Against Uncard Flow opponents, flight and ranged attacks remain major advantages, especially when used together to maintain distance 616.