Natal Card

Biodata

Power Progression

A Natal Card’s star level follows its owner’s cultivation rank, while its quality can improve independently. Lin Qi’s skeleton reaches green quality while remaining a one-star card 18.

Documented Advancements

The chapter column records when each advancement is shown or explained; the Rose Count’s advancement is a historical account.

Awakening

• Requirement: An individual must first sense Source Power. There is no age limit; Old John awakens at eighty-seven 1 2.
• Ceremony: At Stone Iron City’s Furnace Church, the bishop guides participants to place a hand on an awakening Source Crystal. The newly awakened card appears within the participant’s consciousness and can then be brought out 2 3.
• Scheduling: The church holds a special ceremony for people over twenty on the fifteenth night of each month 1.
• Cultivation knowledge: Awakening naturally gives the individual knowledge of how to cultivate Source Power 4.
• No guaranteed light display: Lin Qi’s bone card awakens without the crystal emitting visible light 3.
• No immediate rank guarantee: Awakening does not make someone an official Card Apprentice. The card must first be cultivated to one star 4.

Bond and Use

Life Link and Source Power Cost

A Natal Card is linked to its owner’s life, making it substantially more economical to use than an unlinked card 14.

• Natal Cards: Normally consume very little Source Power because of their innate bond with the owner 14.
• Secondary Cards: Link through the Card Slot Space and have manageable Source Power costs 14.
• Temporary, unlinked cards: Consume much more Source Power. Lin Qi’s unlinked Mercenary’s Saber costs one-tenth of his reserves to materialize and cannot ordinarily return to card form afterward 14.
• Restoration still has a cost: Repeatedly damaging and restoring Lin Qi’s Skeleton Soldier consumes half his Source Power despite its being his Natal Card 14.

Feedback to the Owner

• Physical strengthening: Hero’s Remains advancing to two stars makes Lin Qi more muscular and increases his height from 175 to 178 centimeters 31.
• Source Power influx: A quality breakthrough provides a large surge of Source Power. Reaching blue quality or above can almost directly raise the owner by an entire star rank 42.
• Attribute benefits: The Hellfire Skeleton’s advancement grants Lin Qi fire resistance 42.

Card-Type Differences

• Implement Cards materialize objects such as walking sticks, sickles, scissors, hammers, and sabers 2 3 36.
• Summoning Cards can recreate a destroyed summon if the owner has enough Source Power. Lin Qi identifies this as a major advantage of his skeleton Natal Card 10.
• Beast Taming Cards involve living beasts whose deaths are permanent. Lin Qi warns that losing a beast used as a Natal Card would end its owner’s cultivation path 10.
• Rule Cards can possess unusual effects rather than conventional tools or creatures. Lin Qi’s vortex card enables fusion, including the transformation of his other Natal Card 9 10.

Aptitude and Advancement

Quality

Promotion Requirements

• Suitable materials and a matching path are essential. Improving Natal Card aptitude is exceptionally difficult; ordinary promotion attempts occur around the transition from Two-Star Card Apprentice to Three-Star Card Master 18.
• There can be multiple advancement paths. Facing the Wind Stone is recommended for Lin Feng’s Wind-Breaking Saber, but a fire-based alternative successfully produces the Blazing Wind Saber 35 36.
• Materials are not interchangeable between card types. Lin Feng initially copies a plant Summoning Card’s advancement materials for his wind-attribute saber; Lin Qi identifies the mismatch 35.
• High quality does not replace cultivation. After attaining blue quality, Lin Feng still needs to accumulate enough Source Power to become a Grand Card Master 36.
• Compatible Skill Cards improve performance. Their effect is stronger when they closely match the Natal Card 25.
• Other people’s Natal Cards resist Lin Qi’s fusion method. He explains that the Rule Card cannot directly interfere with another owner’s life-linked Natal Card, so he develops an advancement-material set for Lin Feng instead 32 35 36.

The Trash-Card Exception

Colorless cards are initially treated as having no advancement potential, and Laifu describes Two-Star Card Apprentice as their normal cultivation ceiling. The Rose Count disproves that this limit is absolute: his Thorny Rose becomes a blue Rose Flower Demon through the Heart of the Rose 3 8.

• His original rose’s only unusual property is that it never wilts 8.
• He takes a year to reach One-Star Card Apprentice before linking a Vine Demon as his first Secondary Card 8.
• After promotion, his Rose Flower Demon allows him to fight Four-Star Card Masters while he is only a Three-Star Card Master 8.
• Lin Feng cites his eventual rise to Card Mastery Grandmaster to encourage Lin Qi after the bone awakening 4.

Inheritance and Social Significance

• Noble inheritance: Most nobles inherit Natal Cards through their bloodlines and carefully select compatible Secondary Cards 39.
• Early recruitment: Xiaoduo selects two future church knights when they awaken at twelve and trains them into Five-Star Card Masters 44.
• Education opportunities: Laifu’s rare green-aptitude awakening leads her family to send her to Xinyao City’s junior Card Master academy 8.
• Social prejudice: Lin Qi’s apparently useless bone card attracts public ridicule and causes former followers to abandon him 3 20.
• Religious interpretation: People pray for powerful awakenings. Xiaoduo later interprets the bone’s transformation into a Hellfire Skeleton as divine intervention, while Lin Qi attributes it to his fusion experiments 1 46.