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"President Cole, the dragon material you requested has been prepared." Nina Ashby, Harrison Cole's personal secretary at the Ashenvale Card Master Association, stood at attention in his office doorway. "Should I arrange a courier?"
Her tone was professional, but her eyes betrayed a curiosity she couldn't quite contain.
Nina had worked for Harrison for years. In all that time, the man had never once broken protocol for anyone. Every Card Master who wanted Association membership went through the standard examination process. No exceptions. No shortcuts. Dozens of wealthy families and influential figures had tried to buy their way in with gifts and favors, and Harrison had turned down every single one.
Then, out of nowhere, he'd direct-enrolled a student named Luke Mercer. No exam. No waiting period. Just a command to process the membership immediately.
And now, the Association's last pair of Dragon Eyes, a material that half the Card Masters in Ashenvale had been eyeing for months, was being packaged for delivery to a recipient Harrison refused to name.
"No courier." Harrison waved the suggestion away. "Give them to me. I'll deliver them personally."
Nina's internal composure cracked. Personally?
The branch president of the Card Master Association, a Sovereign Realm Card Master, was going to hand-deliver materials like a courier service. This was treatment reserved for the City Lord at minimum, but if it were for the City Lord, there'd be no reason for secrecy.
So who was this mystery recipient?
Nina had her guesses. The direct-enrolled student was at the top of the list. But the sheer scale of preferential treatment Harrison was showing made her second-guess herself. A student? Getting the last Dragon Eyes in the Association's inventory, hand-delivered by the branch president?
"Anything else?" Harrison asked, pointedly ignoring the curiosity radiating off his secretary like heat from a furnace.
Nina composed herself. "The roster for the upcoming Youth Training Competition needs your final approval before submission. I've compiled the candidate list." She placed a folder on his desk.
"Leave it. I'll review and authorize later." Harrison glanced at the folder without opening it, then returned to the stack of paperwork that had accumulated during his absence.
Nina withdrew, curiosity unsatisfied. The mystery of Harrison Cole's sudden personality change would have to wait.
Days passed.
Luke divided his time between two parallel workstreams with a focused intensity that left little room for anything else. Mana kept him fed, reminded him to sleep, and occasionally dragged him away from the Card Editor when his eyes started glazing over.
The Digital World simulation crept forward steadily. Ten percent. The progress was glacial compared to individual card simulations, but worldview construction was a fundamentally different scale of work. Building the foundation for an entire civilization of digital creatures took time. There were no shortcuts.
On the manual side, the Eye of Timaeus was nearly ready. Luke had completed the bulk of the card's background and lore, sketching out how the Legendary Dragon's power would be channeled through the "Eye" aspect rather than the full dragon form. The fusion mechanic was the heart of the design: when activated, the Eye of Timaeus would merge with an existing Spellcaster-type card spirit, creating a hybrid form that combined both sets of abilities.
Dark Magician Girl plus the Eye of Timaeus equaled Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight. That fusion would push Mana into a tier of power she couldn't reach on her own.
All that remained was the final simulation polish and the Dragon Eye material from Harrison.
Sistermon, on the other hand, was proving more stubborn.
The card itself wasn't the problem. Luke had a clear picture of the puppet-type Digimon, its three variants, and its material requirements. The problem was the mechanic that made Digimon fundamentally different from every other card type: Net Evolution.
Evolution was the entire point. A single Digimon card that could branch into Angewomon or LadyDevimon, Ophanimon or Lilithmon, depending on which path was triggered. If he couldn't figure out how to make evolution work as a functional card mechanic within Magic Card Civilization's framework, the Digimon worldview lost its greatest advantage.
And right now, he didn't have the answer.
He'd sketched dozens of approaches. Conditional triggers. Material-based switching. Mana-channeling redirects. Each one came close but fell short. The existing card system wasn't designed for a spirit that could fundamentally change its identity mid-deployment. Luke wasn't just designing a card. He was designing a system within a system, and the engineering challenge was unlike anything he'd faced before.
Once I solve this, every Digimon card I ever build will use the same framework. It's worth getting right.
He set down his pen and leaned back. Sheets of paper covered the table, dense with diagrams, evolution trees, and crossed-out formulas. Days of work. Progress, but not a breakthrough.
"Master, it's late. Rest for a bit?" Mana's voice came from behind him, soft and warm. He felt her hands settle on his temples, fingers gently rubbing the tension away.
"Yeah." He didn't argue. Even with the Moon Spirit Ring maintaining his spiritual recovery, the combination of constant simulation drain plus intensive manual design work was grinding him down. His body could keep going. His brain was starting to lag.
When is Harrison going to deliver that Dragon Eye? And the evolution mechanic... that's the key to everything.
He let Mana guide his head down to her lap. Her fingers moved to his hair, combing through it slowly.
"You work too hard, Master."
"Mm." His eyes were already closing. "Wake me up if anything happens."
"Of course!" She said it with the brightness of someone who had absolutely no intention of waking him up for anything short of an apocalypse.
Luke drifted off, the Digital World simulation ticking forward in the background of his consciousness, one fraction of a percent at a time.