Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3145: Body Morphing Martial Arts

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Azorheim, Temporal Cave Valley, Temporal Cave No. ES3030

After giving the matter some serious thought, I decided to give them what they wanted. There was just one catch: if they wanted to change their appearance that badly, they could do it themselves. I wanted no part in personally reshaping their bodies to satisfy what were, frankly, some rather questionable romantic ambitions.

My solution was Martial Arts Cards.

Yes, Martial Arts Cards.

Instead of creating some permanent transformation that could potentially damage their bodies, I could give them a method that allowed them to alter their appearance through their own cultivation. If they wanted to look like a Frosling, they could work toward it themselves. If they wanted to change their height, facial structure, proportions, or other physical characteristics, they could do that too.

There were two major advantages to this approach, and they were precisely why I chose martial arts to fulfill this absurd batch of requests. The first was that a Martial Arts Card only granted the mastery level of the person who created the card.

That limitation was important.

I could create the cards with only basic-tier mastery of the body-morphing martial art. At that level, the practitioner would have enough control to make changes that remained within the natural limits of a human body. They could adjust their height, manipulate the positioning of their bones and joints, alter their skin pigmentation, reshape their facial structure, modify their proportions, and make countless other minor adjustments.

In other words, they could become a more attractive version of themselves without fundamentally turning their bodies into something they weren’t.

If they wanted more dramatic changes, they would have to cultivate the martial art themselves.

The greater their mastery, the greater control they would gain over their own bodies. If someone wanted to push their appearance beyond ordinary human limitations, they would have to put in the effort and reach the appropriate level of mastery. The responsibility would remain in their own hands.

I wasn’t going to hand them a permanent transformation and take responsibility for whatever consequences followed. I would give them the tools, teach them the method, and let them decide how far they wanted to take it.

If they truly wanted to become beautiful enough to compete with the Froslings, they were welcome to try.

This way, if their feelings were genuine, they would have to endure the process themselves and master the martial art well enough to eventually achieve the appearance they desired. It would take time, effort, and probably more than a little frustration, but at least the result would truly belong to them.

And even if they eventually got their hearts broken, none of that effort would be wasted.

The mastery would remain. And they can switch back to their original appearance if they chose to.

A basic-tier Martial Arts Card alone wasn’t enough to justify the merits they had spent, though. If I simply handed them a card with barely enough mastery to alter their appearance, they could rightfully wonder what exactly they had paid me for.

So I decided to give them something far more valuable.

A Ruler-class martial art.

That would also make it clear that I wasn’t simply handing them a tool for their ridiculous requests and washing my hands of the matter. I was genuinely willing to support them, even if I couldn’t endorse the reason behind their obsession.

The card would only grant them the initial mastery I chose to imprint, but the martial art itself would possess enormous potential. If they were willing to practice and push their mastery all the way to the Master level, the benefits would extend far beyond changing their appearance.

By then, even a broken heart would hardly qualify as a total loss.

They would have spent their time chasing someone they loved, only to come away with a powerful Ruler-class martial art, a vastly improved understanding and control of their own bodies, and the ability to reshape themselves far beyond what the initial card allowed.

That was the second advantage of using Martial Arts Cards.

I wasn’t giving them the finished result.

I was giving them a starting point.

The card could open the door, but they would have to walk through it themselves. The more effort they put into mastering the martial art, the more freedom they would gain over their own bodies and the greater the rewards waiting for them.

If their love succeeded, they would get the person they wanted.

If it failed, they would still become stronger.

Either way, they wouldn’t walk away empty-handed.

What actually mattered was that no one could blame me for being an irresponsible ruler or a misogynist. I would be able to walk away from this with my hands clean.

I knew many of the clients wouldn’t support this, but I would simply tell them that this was all I could do for them. Yes, these fuckers had finally found my limit. Debating the ethics and morality of their request with them would be like trying to talk to a pig. The conversation would go nowhere.

Their only options were to take the martial card and test their love through resolve and sweat, or leave it behind and give up on their stupid infatuation before reality came crashing down on them.

With the solution decided, I had Dredre pull out every body-morphing, transformation, and shapeshifting martial art suitable for humanoids from the Infinity Library. I went through all of them, absorbing their knowledge and using it to create a martial art that would suit the Card Apprentices, especially those who possessed a Soul Core or Soul Gem.

Once I had created the martial art, I immediately pushed it to Master-level mastery.

Then, I freed one of my clones and had it create body-morphing martial art cards for the entire fourth batch of Card Apprentices.

I couldn’t use an array formation for this one, since Arrays couldn’t learn martial arts. To create a martial arts card, one had to pour their personal understanding and mastery of the martial art into it. That way, the card would grow alongside the Card Apprentice who equipped it, developing as their mastery of the martial art increased.

Even a smart Array couldn’t do that. Maybe Dalia could because she could learn martial arts.