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The reward for first place in the Eastern Region's entrance exam.
Luke wasn't surprised that the exam came with a top-placement reward. Every exam in the country offered some kind of prize for the leading scorers; that was standard. But Victor Ashford had specifically singled this one out, which suggested something more than a routine accolade.
Then again, it was just the Eastern Region's first place. How extreme could the reward really be?
"The Ancient Kingdom is divided into four greater regions," Victor began. He wasn't drawing the explanation out. "The entrance exam is taken at the same time across all four regions, but the scoring is regionally segregated. Ashenmere is one of the Eastern Region's three capitals. Each year's exam is, fundamentally, a competition between the younger generations of those three capitals."
Luke nodded. That much he'd already understood from Edmund's earlier remarks.
"Each year, the reward for placing first in the Eastern Region exam is fixed. The first-place finisher receives an entry slot to the Crescent Moon Land."
Crescent Moon Land.
Luke tilted his head slightly. The name didn't ring a bell. Through any of his usual research channels, in any reading he'd done since arriving in Magic Card Civilization, he'd never come across it.
He didn't rush Victor. The City Lord had introduced the topic. The explanation would follow.
"Crescent Moon Land," Victor continued, "is a Dimensional Plane unique to the Eastern Region. Its history is unusually long. Even I don't know exactly how old it is. The Card Master records on it are inconsistent. What's consistent is that any Card Master who enters Crescent Moon Land receives a Crescent Moon Blessing."
Crescent Moon Blessing.
Luke filed the term internally. The fact that the entrance exam's top reward had remained fixed for generations strongly implied the Crescent Moon Blessing was substantial. Anything less would have been replaced by a more compelling prize over time.
"The Blessing's nature varies wildly between recipients," Victor went on. "The variance is part of what makes Crescent Moon Land famous. As examples, some Card Masters who enter receive a permanent affinity bonus toward a specific category of card crafting. After receiving such a Blessing, that Card Master's success rate when crafting cards in the affinity category stabilizes at seventy percent or higher."
A stable seventy-percent success rate on a specific card type was, by industry standards, a significant gift. Card crafting wasn't reliable even for skilled practitioners. Failure rates of forty to sixty percent were common at high tiers.
For Luke, the comparison was less impressive. Simulation Construction already pushed his success rate to one hundred percent on any card he could afford to invest the time in. The Crescent Moon Blessing's affinity bonus was redundant against his existing toolkit.
"Some Card Masters receive a different type of Blessing entirely," Victor continued. "A permanent quality upgrade applied to one of their existing cards. The minimum upgrade is one tier. Two-tier upgrades have happened. Three-tier upgrades are documented but vanishingly rare, perhaps once or twice a generation. Most upgrades are single-tier."
A permanent tier upgrade was a reward that genuinely altered a Card Master's career trajectory. The difference between Red-Eyes Black Star Dragon at six-star versus Red-Eyes Black Dragon at seven-star was the difference between a strong card and a definitive one. Luke had personally exploited that exact transition during the Spirit Home expedition.
A two-tier upgrade applied to a Six-Star Perfect would push it to Eight-Star, into upper-tier card territory. A three-tier upgrade would push a Six-Star to Nine-Star, the absolute peak of the high-tier classification. Even in the late stages of a Card Master's career, those were main-deck cards.
"In every documented case," Victor concluded, "the Crescent Moon Blessing has measurably increased the receiving Card Master's combat capability. The exact mechanism varies, but the outcome doesn't."
"That's a serious reward."
Luke had been mentally dismissive at the start of the explanation. By the end, he'd reversed that position. The Crescent Moon Blessing wasn't a token prize. It was a regional exam reward that justified the entire competitive structure of the entrance exam season.
The two specific Blessing types Victor had mentioned weren't ideal for him personally. Both were redundant against capabilities he already possessed. But the Blessing variance Victor had emphasized meant he'd be eligible for any of the documented variants, and some of those would presumably be more useful than the two examples cited.
"City Lord," Luke asked, the question surfacing naturally, "have you been to Crescent Moon Land?"
Each year's Eastern Region exam produced one first-place finisher. As the City Lord of one of Ashenmere's twelve satellite cities and the grandson of Aldric Ashford, Victor had to be a strong Card Master in his cohort. The probability that he'd taken first place in his own exam year was higher than average. Which would mean he'd entered Crescent Moon Land personally and could share firsthand impressions.
"Ahem."
Victor's expression shifted into something complicated. He cleared his throat twice.
"You may be disappointed. I never entered Crescent Moon Land."
Luke registered the implication and immediately wished he hadn't asked. Victor hadn't been the first-place finisher in his own exam year. The question had inadvertently exposed a sensitive piece of personal history.
"I apologize, City Lord. I didn't mean to…"
"It's fine." Victor waved off the apology. He wasn't actually offended; Luke's question had been reasonable. "I didn't take first place that year. The boy who did is a Sovereign Realm Card Master in Mistvale now. Quite accomplished. We exchange correspondence occasionally."
He recovered quickly and refocused.
"You, however, are a different case. Based on your performances at the Youth Training Competition, your odds of taking first place in this year's Eastern Region exam are excellent. That's why I'm raising Crescent Moon Land with you specifically. I want you prepared."
He paused.
"Both publicly and privately, I want you to take first. The City Lord's Mansion does, the branch Association does, Old Cole does. We all do. Ashenvale's reputation rides on it, and so do my personal hopes for your career."
Luke's mouth quirked into a slight smile.
"In that case," he said, "I won't disappoint."
He hadn't planned to hold back in the entrance exam regardless. With Crescent Moon Land now on the table, his motivation level had simply doubled. There was no scenario in which he treated this exam as anything less than the highest-effort performance he could deliver.
"Good." Victor nodded once, satisfied. "I won't keep you any longer. The City Lord's Mansion has a stack of paperwork waiting for me, and you have your own preparations to handle."
He stood. Luke stood with him. They exchanged a final round of polite courtesies, and the City Lord left through the front door with his guards re-formed around him.
-----
The street outside had returned to relative normalcy. Spectators had mostly retreated indoors after the dispersal. Within ten minutes, the only evidence that the City Lord had been here at all was the lingering scent of formal cologne in Luke's living room.
Luke closed the door behind Victor and exhaled slowly.
"Crescent Moon Land," he murmured. "What Blessing would I get, if I made it inside?"
The question was idle. He shelved it for later. The actual entrance exam was still some time away, and Crescent Moon Land was a post-exam concern even if he won the slot. What needed handling immediately was the Storage Card Victor had given him.
He retrieved it from his pocket and examined the seal stamped along its edge.
The seal was the official insignia of the Capital City Lord's Mansion. Luke recognized it from his time in Ashenmere during the Youth Training Competition. The Mansion was a peer institution to the Capital Card Master Association, and its seal carried the same weight in formal contexts.
He swept the contents with his spiritual perception.
His prior assessment of the Mansion's likely generosity, he realized within seconds, had significantly underestimated reality.