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"Just as I guessed. The ring concentrated the Demon Plane's mana, which means its holder could draw on that mana at will." Luke had felt the change himself, and the system's notice had spelled out the rest.
"And the Eternal Sun, in a sense, is the Magic Card Civilization's own edition of the Sovereign Ring. I was already wondering whether the two could fuse. Turns out they could, and the result is excellent."
"Total mana up, the ceiling up with it, and the conversion rate got its own bump on top, when that's supposed to move only with level. The first item alone makes up for the thin count."
A strong opening, then. Luke turned to the rest of the pile.
*「 Mobile Shell Drum 」*
A relic of a certain machine civilization. Stores and chambers attacks at several times its own destructive power, then releases everything stored in a single burst.
*「 Mana-Reflection Armor 」*
A relic of a certain machine civilization. Typically mounted on large frames, this specialized armor was developed to counter transcendent civilizations. Sharply weakens mana-based destruction and reflects transcendent power.
"Low count, but the quality of this pull isn't bad at all." Luke had barely finished the two descriptions before the uses snapped into place, and one brow went up. "These two wouldn't happen to be off the same machine civilization, would they?"
The Mobile Shell Drum was, without question, the core material for the Loaded Cylinder Drum, the special card he'd promised Mana. Craft it, and her Magic Cylinder would climb a full grade in strength.
He'd made that promise a while ago. Then the exam and the Trial Road had swallowed every spare hour, and the project had sat waiting ever since. He hadn't even found time to run his junk materials through Rewrite and Reorganize.
"Good timing, then. The material's sitting right here, and with Rewrite and Reorganize plus Multiple Fusion, I can design and craft the Loaded Cylinder Drum in this stretch. And if the Chaos Ritual card comes together too, with the Chaos Aura as its core, then the jump in Mana's strength this round will be no ordinary thing."
His gaze moved to the second material as he talked it through. "And Red-Eyes' kit happens to include a card built for exactly this. Metalmorph, the Metalized Magic Reflection Armor. No telling how far the crafted version will land from the anime's, but either way, it pushes Red-Eyes up another step."
With the rough uses of both settled, Luke went through the remaining pieces.
It was a mild pity. The next several items were rare in their own right, but set against the Sovereign Ring, the Mobile Shell Drum, and the Mana-Reflection Armor, none of them did much for him right now.
"Last one. And something about it gives me a bad feeling." A single item remained in front of him, the drop off the Abyss Devourer itself, and its surface was grey and misted over, looking like nothing good at all.
*「 Tainted Sacred Spirit 」*
One of the countless existences the Abyss Devourer swallowed. By its undying nature, the sacred spirit survived even being devoured, but as time passed it was gradually tainted. Purify it to obtain a Pure Sacred Spirit.
"A sacred spirit?" Surprise flickered through Luke's eyes as he read, and then he laughed outright. "Fine. I take back everything I said. The Abyss Devourer came through!"
A sacred spirit was the special soul-body that light-faith species had a vanishingly small chance of becoming at death, and its defining trait was that it did not die. Even swallowed whole, the Devourer had never been able to erase the thing. All it could do was erode and stain it.
And for a Card Master, a sacred spirit was top-shelf material for apex light-attribute cards. Luke already knew exactly where this one was going. It would be the crafting core for Kisara.
Strip the language away and a sacred spirit was a soul-body with no consciousness at all, pure and unstained, running on instinct alone. As a soul core for Kisara, it could hardly fit better.
In the background Luke had designed, Kisara and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon shared a symbiotic bond. Or put more precisely, the Blue-Eyes was Kisara's soul spirit-beast.
The Holy Dragon Furnace Heart from the Youth Training Competition was already enough to serve as the Blue-Eyes' core material. But Luke had never planned on crafting a plain Blue-Eyes. In his design, the true core of the Blue-Eyes deck was Kisara herself.
So beyond the Furnace Heart, he'd needed a material worthy of Kisara's core, and the sacred spirit in front of him fit like it had been made for the job.
"Except this one's been tainted by the Devourer. Fold it into the crafting as it is, and the finished card takes the damage." The tainted spirit felt like nothing at all between his fingers, no texture, no weight. "So first, I find a way to purify it."
"The Loaded Cylinder Drum, Metalmorph, and the Chaos Ritual. Busy days ahead again." He gathered the items away and shook his head. "And that's before the Union Evolution and Ultimate Evolution cards, and the whole ship-girl worldview. It genuinely feels like more than one man can get to."
"A pity I don't have the power of purification." Celestine had drifted to his side at some point, and hearing him talk to himself, she spoke softly.
"Don't dwell on it. You've already helped me plenty." Luke pulled her in and kissed her, firm and unhurried.
It was hardly their first closeness, but a tempting flush still climbed her fair face, and at his words, the corner of the Reincarnated Goddess's mouth curved into something lovely.
"Master! You and Big Sister Celestine are sneaking treats again!" Fair little hands looped around Luke's neck as Mana hugged him from behind, her complaint arriving on a puff of warm fragrance.
Celestine shot the troublemaker a flat look. Luke reached back and flicked Mana's forehead lightly. "Who's sneaking? That was open and aboveboard."
"And can't you learn a little something from Blanc?" As he said it, he reached over and delivered a proper head-pat to Blanc, who had been waiting for one with visible hope.
Where Mana ran wild, Blanc was pure comfort, so well-behaved that your arms opened for her on their own.
"I'm well-behaved too!" Mana rubbed her flicked forehead and pouted, then grabbed the innocent, long-suffering Blanc and went whirling off through the rooms again like a small storm.
"Honestly. It's like raising a daughter who never grew up." Watching them go, Luke felt something strange and warm settle over his face.
"A daughter?" Nestled in his arms, Celestine wore a soft, contented look. She liked this feeling, right now, very much.
EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.