For 30 advance/early chapters : p atreon.com/AutumnXd
The entrance exam wasn't ordinary card crafting. The mental burden was orders of magnitude higher, and many candidates who could comfortably craft a card under standard conditions failed under exam conditions because their composure broke.
Across the four hours that had passed since Phase One opened, the principals at Victor's Mansion had watched several normally-competent students fail two, three, even four crafting attempts in a row. Each failure compounded the next. By the third or fourth attempt, the candidate's hands were shaking, their breath was unsteady, and the materials were being deployed into a card structure that no longer matched their original mental design.
Most of those students would not be passing Phase One.
"He'll be fine," Victor said, clapping Harrison on the shoulder with diplomatic firmness. "Anyone who can construct two Original Worldviews has already demonstrated mental fortitude that exceeds anything we've seen before. In that specific dimension, Luke might genuinely outclass everyone in this room."
In raw combat power, every senior in the Mansion would still beat Luke at his current realm. Realm and combat experience differentials weren't going to be erased by talent alone. But in mental discipline, in the focused composure required to architect Original concepts under pressure, Luke had already proven himself in a different category.
"Victor's right," Lawrence Cromwell added. "And even if the Original Card crafting fails, that doesn't mean Luke can't craft a non-Original card. He has more than enough talent to produce a high-tier conventional card with no issue. He'll pass Phase One regardless. The only question is how spectacular the passing card is."
Harrison nodded, accepting the reasoning. His worry hadn't fully receded, but it had stabilized.
-----
*Capital Card Master Association. Edmund Hargrove's office.*
Edmund and Roland watched the same monitoring feed with similar measured disappointment. Neither of them was overly surprised. Original Card crafting was difficult, and a single failed attempt during a high-pressure exam was within reasonable variance.
"How is Ellie doing?" Edmund asked, pivoting away from Luke's feed for a moment. He cared about his granddaughter, regardless of how the Eastern Region first-place race was shaping up.
Roland's expression softened slightly. "She's stable. Composed. The loss to Luke at the Youth Training Competition didn't break her, but it pushed her. Naomi mentioned she's been working toward a Seven-Star card construction during this exam. Apparently she wants to channel the pressure into a breakthrough."
Naomi was Roland's wife, Elise's mother. Of the three of them, she had the closest relationship with Elise, and she was the one Elise actually confided in about emotional matters.
"Pressure produces growth, when it's calibrated correctly," Edmund said. "I told you, after the tournament, that her loss wasn't entirely a setback. Looks like she's proving the point on her own."
"If she pulls off a Seven-Star construction during the entrance exam, it'll be a significant breakthrough. The mid-tier-to-high-tier transition has always been her ceiling. The exam pressure might be exactly what she needs to push past it."
"As the daughter of an Immortal-Realm grandfather, her foundation is exceptional. Without Luke's appearance, she would be the strongest of this year's exam cohort by a comfortable margin. With Luke's appearance, she's now second by a comfortable margin. Neither outcome is bad for her career."
Edmund returned his attention to Luke's feed.
-----
*Capital City Lord's Mansion. Aldric Ashford's hall.*
"So he failed."
Aldric's voice carried a note of mild disappointment. The candidate was, after all, his grandson Victor's flagship student, and a Card Master from his own Capital's territory. Reports from his old friend Edmund Hargrove had primed him to expect significant performance.
A failed first attempt wasn't a disaster, but it was a missed beat in what had otherwise been a flawless score.
"Even if this attempt failed, Luke's new worldview has been formally accepted by the Civilization," Selene Dawnford observed. Her tone carried genuine sympathy. She had quietly adjusted her mental framework to consider Luke a junior brother figure rather than a potential student of her own, and she was rooting for him with the partiality of a senior peer.
The notion of refusing to accept Luke as Lilith's eventual student hadn't seriously crossed her mind. Within the Ancient Kingdom, only four Undying Realm Card Masters held Region Governor positions, and any one of them taking on a personal student was news that would cross the country within weeks. Card Masters from every region would line up to be considered. Luke turning down such an arrangement, in Selene's view, would have been unprecedented foolishness.
If Lilith decided not to accept Luke, that was a different matter, but Lilith showing up in person had effectively settled that question already.
"Perhaps Luke didn't fail."
Lilith's voice was soft and carried an unhurried quality, her peach-blossom eyes still fixed on the monitoring feed.
Selene and Aldric both turned toward her.
"Didn't fail?" Selene repeated, processing the implication. "But there was no creation pillar of light. Aldric and I both watched. The construction completed without the standard manifestation."
The pillar of creation was the unmistakable signal of Original Card birth. Across all documented cases, every Original Card's successful construction had been accompanied by the pillar's appearance. Its absence was the most reliable indicator of failure.
Selene and Aldric weren't Original Card crafters themselves. Their understanding of the phenomenon's edge cases was secondhand at best.
But Lilith was an Original Card crafter. And she clearly knew something they didn't.
"In the current era," Lilith began, her voice taking on the cadence of someone delivering knowledge from a private archive, "Card Masters predominantly craft Spirit Cards, the cards we now refer to simply as cards or card spirits. In the Ancient Era, these were called Spirit-class Magic Cards, to distinguish them from a different category."
Aldric leaned forward slightly.
"The Ancient Era had multiple card categories beyond Spirit-class. Equipment Cards, which augmented the capabilities of card spirits. Counter Cards, which provided defensive responses to spirit-targeted threats. Skill Cards, which conferred specific abilities to either spirits or, in rare cases, to Card Masters directly. These three together were called Special Cards."
"Skill Cards," Aldric repeated, eyes narrowing.
He had heard the term before. In fact, he held several Skill Cards in the Capital City Lord's Mansion's vault. The Crystallization Technique he'd given Luke as part of the Black Gate reward was one of them. The Mansion had inherited a small collection of Skill Cards from his predecessor as Capital Governor, who had inherited them from his predecessor in turn. The cards had passed down through the office of Capital Governor for considerably longer than Aldric had held the position.
Aldric had never thought of the Skill Cards as part of a broader category. He'd treated them as eccentric historical artifacts, items inherited from his predecessor that no longer had active production lines. He'd given the Crystallization Technique to Luke specifically because Commander Realm Card Masters who wielded Six-Star or Seven-Star spirits ran into mana exhaustion problems, and the Crystallization Technique addressed that exact issue elegantly.
He hadn't realized he was passing along an example of an entire forgotten card category.
"Card spirits could use Special Cards to enhance their own capabilities further," Lilith continued. "Equipment Cards augmented their offensive or defensive output. Counter Cards gave them dynamic response options. Skill Cards expanded their ability rosters. A spirit equipped with appropriate Special Cards operated at a meaningfully higher tier than a spirit fielded alone."
"In the Ancient Era, Card Masters who could craft Special Cards were already rare. The skill required to design and produce them was one tier above standard Spirit Card crafting. By the current era, the production techniques have been almost entirely lost. Special Cards exist primarily in legends and fragmentary ancient texts. Encountering one in active circulation is, conventionally, almost impossible."
She paused.
"Even I, across my career, have only crafted a handful of Special Cards."
Her gaze, when she returned it to Luke's monitoring feed, carried a heavier weight of interest than before.
"The signal that distinguishes Special Card construction from Spirit Card construction is precisely what Aldric and Selene noticed. Special Card construction does not produce a creation pillar. The pillar is unique to Spirit Cards, including Original Spirit Cards. Special Cards complete silently."
The implication settled.
If the card had been a Special Card construction rather than a Spirit Card construction, then the absence of the pillar wasn't a failure indicator. It was the correct indicator for a successful Special Card.
Luke might not have failed at all.
He might have just constructed something rarer than an Original Spirit Card.