Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2530: Why Me?

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning, Time Vestige, Morningstar University 2nd Campus

After Lucine took the oath—word for word as I had dictated it—in the presence of the Card World’s will, I finally withdrew my Celestial Blood Fate Domain, relieved to no longer maintain it and worry about getting busted by Lucine as a fraud. Not long after, one of the card demigods arrived with the ingredients I had requested.

”Wyatt, do you really want to go through with this?” Lucine asked as I inspected the ingredients, making sure none of them were versions of themselves pulled from the many pasts of the Card World.

I didn’t bother answering her. Instead, I slowly flew toward an empty card lab on campus that my Hive AI had located—anything to get away from her constant whining. But, there was no escaping it otherwise; she simply wouldn’t shut up. I blamed myself for not having the foresight to include a clause in her oath that would have forced her to stay quiet throughout the entire process. Give me a few hours of peace.

”Wyatt, are you listening?” Lucine called out. Without giving me a chance to respond, she continued, ”What did I ever do to you for you to treat my life like this? Why are you doing this? What right do you have to experiment with me?”

”Shut up!” I snapped, turning to glare at her before adding, ”You’re being too loud. I can’t even hear myself think. Give me a moment, will you? You might be eager to throw your life away, but I’m not planning on killing you—not yet. My ego won’t be satisfied if you die wrapped in your own ignorance. You’re going to live long enough to understand just how wrong you were. Then maybe I might be willing to kill without giving you a chance to repent.”

”You...” Lucine glared at me, but no words followed once she realized I was trying to cure her purely out of spite. The real problem was that she didn’t believe I could cure her at all—she thought I might end up killing her in some misguided delusion.

Yes. Even after everything that had happened, this woman still believed I thought I could cure her time-rule dementia only because I had gone insane.

...

”Go sit in that corner and don’t utter a peep,” I instructed Lucine as we entered the card lab, pointing toward the far, empty corner of the room while I began arranging the ingredients in order. Lucine gave a curt nod and quietly moved to squat in the corner. She had no choice—she had taken the oath.

Despite all these ingredients, I was still missing several crucial ones needed to cure Lucine’s time-rule dementia. Morningstar University didn’t have them, since they weren’t native to the Card World, and I couldn’t access the Devil Merchant Code from inside the time vestige. Fortunately for Lucine, I always carried a handful of essentials—ingredients I considered fundamental for any card creator to keep on hand at all times.

[ — Ingredients —

> Starfall Moss x 500 grams

> Lucid Temporal Petal x 30 units

> Temporal Bloom Thyme (with stem) x 6 units

> Meridian Lotus x 18 units

> Temporal Echo Resins x 100 grams

> Rift Glass Powder x 30 grams

> Four Petal Vine (30 meters) x 3 units

> Blood Swamp Cucumber (minimum 20 cm long) x 3 units

> Clampedo cores x 6 units

> Demon Face Mushroom beard Strands x 12 units]

Among all the ingredients, the Clampedo cores and the demon-face mushroom beard were the only ones not native to the Card World. I carried them with me because Clampedo cores were essential for non-natives who wanted to begin cultivating within the Dark Realm’s power system, while the demon-face mushroom beard was necessary to cleanse the darkness contained within those cores.

Through extensive research, I had discovered that using Clampedo cores together with my understanding of Viltronian cores allowed me to transform almost any living being into a demon. I never intended to play god, of course, but certain plants, animals, and even insects—despite being trapped in the mortal realm due to their racial limits—possessed properties that, when applied correctly, could create results nothing short of miraculous.

Two such examples were the four-petal vine and the blood swamp cucumber. The fact that Morningstar University’s card apprentices even bothered to store these two ingredients should tell you they had their uses. They were very versatile, given how many purposes they could serve.

The four-petal vine’s roots would take the shape of whatever creature’s blood it fed on. In the wild, since it drank the blood of many different creatures, its roots usually formed into something that could only be described as a chimera—a twisted blend of every species it had ever fed on.

This was one of the two limitations holding the four-petal vine back from showing its true potential. The second was its racial realm limit—it was forever restricted to the mortal realm. No matter how high the realm of the creature whose blood it consumed, it could never break past its own limit. What was even more astonishing was that it wouldn’t die from devouring the blood of powerful beings, despite being a mere mortal-realm plant.

I planned to use the Clampedo core to help the four-petal vine unlock its full potential, and then use that enhanced form as part of the method to cure Lucine’s time-rule dementia. The same was true for the blood swamp cucumber.

However, the blood swamp cucumber had a much higher racial realm limit. It was an A-rank monster found only in a specific nature of dungeons known as the Blood Swamps. So far, nineteen Blood Swamp dungeons had been discovered across the five regions and the portion of the Way Beyond that had been explored—each one ranked higher than A-rank. Among card medics, these monsters were regarded as a miracle ingredient for anyone below the Card King realm.

I planned to use the Clampedo core to push this limit even further so it could be used on Card demigods too.