Golden Finger

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the wooden window lattice. Just as Lin Qi lay down on the table for a nap, a heavy shadow suddenly fell over him, blocking the sun.

"Shopkeeper, do you buy Card Beast meat?"

Lin Qi raised his head, and a towering figure came into view.

The man was wrapped in beast hide tanned stiff, its edges still stained with blood and flecked with grass. His exposed forearms were knotted with muscle, and scars of varying depths covered his bronze skin.

Such hunter's attire was a rare sight in the city.

"Card Beast meat? That's something we..."

Lin Qi instinctively started to wave him off.

Most butcher shops in the city only bought domesticated livestock. Low-level Card Beast meat was usually gamey and tough, and few people showed any interest unless it came from a high-level Card Beast.

But halfway through his answer, his gaze swept over the Card Beast slung across the burly man's shoulder, and he forcibly swallowed the rest of his words.

"Uncle, how are you selling this Card Beast? By weight or by the animal?"

The burly man frowned and scratched the back of his head, his beast-hide sleeve mussing his hair even more.

He hunted in the mountains year-round and only knew how to barter. He had never given the details of buying and selling any thought, so he simply set the Card Beast on the ground and said in a muffled voice:

"I don't know anything about weights. I'll sell it whole. Tell me, how much can you give me for it?"

Lin Qi crouched down and pinched the Card Beast's fur.

He frowned, looking troubled. "Uncle, this fox Card Beast is pretty common in the mountains. There's not much meat on it, and it smells gamey. Usually, it would only fetch fifteen Ka'en. But since you came all this way to the city, I'll round it up for you. How about twenty Ka'en?"

"Twenty?"

The big man frowned. He had chased this Card Beast through the woods for most of the day to catch it, and its claws had scratched his arm. He had thought he could get more money for it, but it turned out to be so little.

Lin Qi remained calm and patiently persuaded him:

"Uncle, don't be upset. If you're not happy with it, you can ask at the butcher shop on West Street. They'll offer fifteen Ka'en at most, and they might not even take it.

"Twenty Ka'en isn't a small sum. You can buy a big bag of black bread and a jug of ale with it, enough to feed you for days. But if you roast this Card Beast meat yourself, it'll take work and won't even fill you up. That's hardly worth it."

The big man thought about it and decided it made sense. Even if he roasted the fox, it wouldn't fill him up, but twenty Ka'en could buy him plenty of black bread and ale.

After a moment's silence, he nodded firmly.

"All right, twenty Ka'en it is!"

Smiling, Lin Qi took out a twenty-Ka'en note and accepted the fox Card Beast.

The Card Beast's carcass was still warm, and its fur felt a little prickly to the touch.

Lin Qi turned and took the wooden "Closed" sign from behind the door, hung it outside, then carried the Card Beast quickly into the kitchen.

"Card Beast meat contains a tiny amount of Source Power. Even if my guess is wrong, the meat will still be worth ten Ka'en roasted, so I won't lose much," Lin Qi muttered as he laid the Card Beast on the bluestone counter.

As a merchant who ran a general store, he was best at finding the unusual in ordinary things.

This fox Card Beast looked ordinary, but Lin Qi had noticed something different about its tail.

"A normal fox's tail should be brown, but this Card Beast's tail is pink. That's really strange."

He took a boning knife down from the wall and sliced along the Card Beast's belly.

As soon as the tip of the knife opened its stomach, a pink stone the size of a fingernail rolled out.

"It really is pink fluorite!"

Lin Qi's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly picked up the stone.

When his fingertips touched it, he felt a faint coolness. A soft fluorescent glow shimmered on its surface.

"Although this stuff doesn't compare to materials for advancing Beast Taming Cards, it can change the color of a Card Beast's fur.

"A while ago, the city lord's daughter was offering a high price for it everywhere, so she could style her Card Beast. This one stone alone will sell for at least five hundred Ka'en. I've made an absolute killing!"

After washing the stone with clean water and putting it away, Lin Qi continued dissecting the Card Beast, but in the end, he found no second piece of pink fluorite.

"Separate the meat from the bones. If the bones really aren't useful, I can still make soup with them..."

He put the bones he had removed into a bamboo basket, carried it to the table, and sat down.

"The book said the white Summoning Card Skeleton Foot Soldier can advance to the green-quality Summoning Card Skeleton General through a special method. Since my Natal Card is a bone, shouldn't it be able to advance into the white card Skeleton Foot Soldier?"

Lin Qi took a deep breath and gently placed his Natal Card on the pile of bones. He stared at it without blinking, even quieting his breathing.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

A full minute passed, but the bone card still showed no reaction.

At first, his face had flushed with excitement, then grown hot with anticipation. Later, it calmed, before finally falling completely, his eyes full of disappointment.

"Just as I thought. It won't work..."

He got up and dragged his feet toward the bedroom on the second floor, like a soulless, walking corpse. The wooden stairs creaked beneath him, and every step felt as soft and unsteady as walking on cotton.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Lin Qi flopped heavily onto the bed and held his Natal Card up before his eyes.

Sunlight slipped through a gap in the window and fell on the card. He stared at the design in its center.

As he stared, his vision suddenly went hazy.

The design in the center of the card, which he had always taken for a stone, seemed to be spinning!

No, that wasn't right!

Lin Qi sat bolt upright, rubbed his eyes, and brought the card close to his face again, squinting at it carefully.

"These concentric lines don't look like a stone..."

This time, he saw it clearly.

The card didn't show the texture of a stone at all. It was unmistakably a series of fine, closely spaced spirals, turning at an extremely slow pace like a miniature black vortex, giving off a mysterious pull.

"This... is a vortex?"

Only then did Lin Qi realize that his Natal Card, which he had always thought was a core or a stone, was actually a vortex!

"I knew it! Ordinary people only have one Natal Card. Since I have two, how could I possibly be ordinary?"

Lin Qi was instantly excited, his earlier disappointment thrown to the winds.

"My Source Power was too low before. After awakening my Natal Card, my Source Power has at least tripled. This time, I can definitely summon this thing."

He immediately sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began circulating the Source Power in his body.

After discovering that his Natal Card was no ordinary card, the more Lin Qi thought about it, the clearer everything became. Once he understood one thing, the rest fell into place.

If this vortex were just an ordinary Natal Card, why couldn't he summon it?

Why could he summon the bone?

This was enough to prove that the vortex card was definitely no ordinary card!

"Back then, Xiao Yan exhausted his Dou Qi before he could feed his golden finger enough to awaken it. So my Natal Card is a golden finger too."

Having figured that out, all the gloom in Lin Qi's heart vanished, leaving him full of anticipation.

He focused all his attention and poured the Source Power in his body into the Natal Card bit by bit. Feeling the faint pull coming from the card, he couldn't help the slight upward curve of his lips.

Over the following week,

Lin Qi devoted almost all his time to cultivating and studying his Natal Card.

While tending the shop during the day, he circulated his Source Power whenever no one was around. After closing at night, he sat cross-legged until dawn, concentrating entirely on pouring Source Power into his Natal Card.

Although he still hadn't summoned his Natal Card, there was a welcome development. Before, he had only possessed a single small droplet of Source Power, but now he had ten, and they carried a distinct warmth as they circulated through his body.

During that time, Lin Qi also asked A Ming next door, who had awakened his Natal Card at the same time. A Ming still had only one small droplet of Source Power, and he couldn't even circulate it as fast as Lin Qi.

After discovering what set him apart, the flame of hope in Lin Qi's heart burned brighter, and he cultivated even harder.

Then, on this day, the shop door was suddenly flung open with a bang, and a disheveled figure staggered inside.

"Xiao Qi! This is bad! Something terrible has happened!"

When Lin Qi saw who it was, his heart sank.

"Uncle Ruilian, what happened?"

Ruilian's coarse blue clothes were now torn to shreds. His exposed arms were covered in dust and blood, his face was black and blue, blood stained the corner of his mouth, and his hair had been pulled into a mess.

Ruilian panted heavily and grabbed Lin Qi's arm, his voice trembling. "Xiao Qi, your father and I... We went outside the city to buy blood coagulation grass, and a gang of robbers stopped us on the way back! Your father... They're holding him and the goods. They said... they want a ransom of a hundred thousand Ka'en. If we can't get it together within three days, they'll... they'll kill him!"

Lin Qi's expression grew increasingly grim. Forcing down his panic, he walked quickly to the shelves, took out several bottles of the best wound medicine, and handed them over.

"Uncle, dress your wounds first. I'm going to the city lord's residence."

Ruilian nodded. He knew Lin Qi was quick-witted and had more ideas than he did, so he obediently found a stool, sat down, and began treating his wounds.