Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2540: Past Prowler, Parallel Present, & Future Finding

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

”Yeah, you’ll have to do better than that. Just listing the time-rule meanings you’ve grasped isn’t enough. I need details. I am a complete layman when it comes to the time rule. I haven’t even begun to comprehend it yet. You can’t expect me to know what these random time rule meanings are capable of just by their titles. You need to give me more substance than that,” I said, noting how my words made Lucine’s expression turn awkward.

”Sorry, I thought I’d already told you. This is why I hate using the ’Future Finding’ time-rule meaning,” Lucine said, apologizing before drifting into her own thoughts.

I was starting to realize she’d been relying on her time-rule meanings to decide how to deal with me. But why? Maybe she was trying to avoid a certain future—or steer things toward one she preferred. It sounded ridiculous the moment it crossed my mind, yet it was the only explanation that made sense for the way her attitude kept shifting.

She kept revealing Morningstar University’s secrets to me even though she knew exactly how deep my grudge ran: they’d partnered with the central government to abduct me in the Southern Capital under the flimsy cover of an early admission interview.

Why tell me anything, let alone the darkest secrets of her family and her university? I couldn’t think of any reason other than her trying to bend the future—either away from something she feared or toward something she wanted. At first I thought it was because she wanted me to enroll in Morningstar University but now I am starting to think there was more to it.

Why wasn’t I offended by any of this? I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because I had no idea what kind of future she was trying to steer toward—or away from. That was assuming she was actually doing it. And honestly, if she was capable of something like that, I’d happily sign up for her fan club. The very idea that someone could pull this off just by comprehending the time rule was incredible. The geek in me was screaming, I want to comprehend the time rule! I want to comprehend the time rule!

If anything, Lucine had only made me admire her more. Still, I figured there had to be some kind of drawback to her Future Finding ability. Otherwise, knowing her love and loyalty for Morningstar University, it would have already been the unrivaled top university in all five regions—or ruling them outright.

”Ah! I did it again. You don’t even know what the Future Finding time-rule meaning is,” Lucine said, knocking her head with her knuckles in a cute little gesture before moving on. ”Let me start with the first time-rule meaning I comprehended: Past Prowler.

”In the early tiers, it only let me travel spiritually into the past—mine, or the past of anything else, living or not. At the advanced tiers, I could physically enter those past moments. And in the higher tiers, it reduces the punishment of breaking the time taboos like disturbing the past, breathing soul energy and air from the past, bringing soul energy or other tiny particles from the past to the present, etc. Achieving ultimate-tier mastery in this rule is one of the reasons I’ve managed to survive this long despite suffering from time-rule dementia.

”The second time-rule meaning I comprehended was Parallel Present. In the early tiers, it let me observe my parallel selves living out different present moments across the card world’s timelines. The advanced tiers allowed me to communicate with those versions of myself. And at the higher tiers, I could actually visit their timelines—or bring them into mine. But the punishment for breaking the time taboo by stepping into a parallel timeline is severe, so I only use it when I have no other choice.

”The third and last time-rule meaning I grasped was Future Finding. It basically lets me search through the countless possible futures of the card world and locate the one I want to witness. At the early tiers, it’s little more than a dream—because that’s all it does: show me the future I want to see, nothing more. If I wanted to see you doing something absurd like drinking piss, I could locate a future where you’re doing exactly that and watch it. I hope that helps you understand what I mean.”

”Only at the advanced stage do I gain the ability to locate the strand of the future where the card world starts moving toward the outcome I want to see. At first, I thought I could use that to guide Morningstar University toward the future I envisioned. But I eventually learned the hard way that the future is constantly shifting. Every action I took to pull things closer to my ideal outcome ended up altering the future itself, pushing me even farther away from what I was trying to shape.

”No matter how tightly I tried to control things, I would always hit a dead end sooner or later. And that was the best outcome. In the worst case, my interference could trigger disasters—like the Way Beyond massacre. My regret over what happened back then was so overwhelming that I pushed myself to comprehend the entire Future Finding meaning all the way to its ultimate tier in a single month.

”In the higher tiers, Future Finding lets me pinpoint the exact fragments of future I need to orchestrate in order to build toward the outcome I want. But the cost is enormous. It burns through my time-rule power just to see the future to help me negotiate the right price for a single card I plan to buy in the present. And the farther the future I’m aiming for, the more power it takes to track down every anchor event and orchestrate them flawlessly in the present. Only by completing these events one by one can I shape the future I dream of into the future we eventually reach.”