Card Apprentice Daily Log

Date- 4 April 2321

Time- 18:41

Location- Southern Region, Blossom District, Unknown Location

Jill looked at me suspiciously, I don’t know what was going in her mind right now but considering how she was not willing to take the easy explanation I gave her, it was clear she was trying to figure out how I reached the conclusion which took her years to reach within a few hours. Did not bother to remove Jill’s suspicions as this was better than her mocking for not knowing the basics that array formation can be used to mass produce cards of a kind.

“So, can you get me the ingredients or not?” If not for me needing the ingredients I would have let Jill with her thoughts but I did like the idea of wasting time when I could be doing something productive.

Jill woke up from her contemplation and then withdrew the suspicious look she unconsciously kept giving me, “Be honest, did you hack my grimoire and steal my research data.”

“Aren’t you overestimating the ability of the golden grimoire?” I said summoning my golden-grade grimoire.

Even if I could hack into Jill’s grimoire, my grimoire wouldn’t allow me to, as it was not sophisticated enough to break through the firewall protecting the platinum-grade grimoire that the authorities and Jill, herself, had placed to stop anyone from hacking into her grimoire and leaving without being noticed. If I could I would not have bothered to take an oath just to know what Jill was up to down here in the south.

“You do have a point,” Jill nodded in agreement but then added, ” So how did you do it?”

“Jill, can you just let it go? I like your curiosity and enthusiasm to find the truth, that’s what makes you a good researcher, but you have to know the basic social norms,” I liked that Jill was eager to find the unknown, but I don’t like this obsessive part of her.

“Fine,” Jill agreed to leave it alone but I could see a glint in her eyes which said, ‘We are not done here, buddy.’

Seeing that glint in Jill’s eyes I sighed. Jill ignored my sigh and said, “I have all the ingredients on your list, but my stock is not enough to meet your demand.”

“Give me what you have, and I will check if I can make do with them,” It was not surprising that Jill had the ingredients I was looking for because most of the ingredients in my list were the ingredients required for the creation of the dungeon prevention array and Jill’s device.

Even though the quantity of the ingredients did not meet my requirement, I decided to make do with what from Jill because the ingredients were free and I could not wait to put the theory I came up with to practical use. The ingredients for the dungeon prevention array and Jill’s device were very rare and expensive. Some were even regulated ingredients. Therefore I had no complaints about their quantity.

“Aren’t you flexible?” Jill was surprised by the boy’s reply because most researchers would not be willing to risk continuing their experiment with even a small variable out of their calculation let alone insufficient ingredients.

“Don’t worry, I know what I am doing,” I assured Jill I extended my hand toward her, indicating to her to hand me the ingredients.

Jill took out a storage card and before handing it to me she said, ” I will cut the cost of these ingredients from your share of the phantom sword wood.”

“Fine,” Only when I agreed to pay the cost of the ingredients she gave me with phantom sword wood did Jill hand the storage card to me saying, “I will be charging you for the storage card too.”

“Sure,” I snatched the storage card from Jill.

“Don’t take it personally, I just did not want the money to come between our relationship,” Jill came up with an excuse to deny that she was a penny pincher.

“Sure,” I nodded and equipped the storage card in my grimoire’s attack page. Having gotten the ingredients I no longer wanted to waste time bickering with Jill but could not wait to get to the experimenting as soon as possible.

Seeing the boy give her a half-hearted nod out of eagerness to start his experiment, Jill for the second time in her life felt sad for not being able to spend time with a man, the first time was with her dad, she wanted the boy to prioritize spending time her over starting his stupid experiment.

Suppressing her emotions Jill prepared herself for the second greatest thing after winning, being able to say I told you so.

Having gone through the list of ingredients the boy asked for Jill knew what experiment the boy was going to conduct. Though she did not use the exact ingredients she too had tried this experiment, to modify the dungeon prevention array into a soul energy vein detection array. After conducting numerous experiments to achieve the same, be it a different set of ingredients or a different approach, Jill had tried it all and had already come to learn that the dungeon prevention array was too volatile to change by default, so trying modifying it was just a fool’s errand, Jill had exchanged decades of her to come to the disappointing conclusion.

Even Jill prepared to say I told you so to the boy yet a part of her hoped the boy would come through. Jill had a hint of expectation that the boy would be able to find something she missed. Jill had this shiver of expectation from the boy not because she thought the boy was better than her but instead because she hoped that the boy she liked succeeded where she failed. Not to mention he was conducting this experiment despite knowing that the creator of the dungeon prevention array purposefully designed the array such that it cannot tolerate even a slight change, making it impossible to modify the array formation.