Chapter 116: Lances Artistry is Pushed to the Limit

Chapter 116: Lance's Artistry is Pushed to the Limit

Inside the card making workshop, which was styled like a headmaster's office, Lance cleared off the spacious workbench and began the process of preparing and proportioning a brand-new set of materials.

On a low side table nearby, several partitioned trays held a wide assortment of materials. The setup bore a striking resemblance to the time Talia had crafted the Poet of Boundless Love. These were materials Lance had spent a considerable amount of time carefully measuring.

After moving the trays to the main workbench, he processed the materials with a calm, practiced ease. Making this card was somewhat of a high-stakes gamble. The materials alone had cost him nearly every penny he owned.

To harmonize with the core ingredient, a Divine grade Unnamed Light Elemental Stone, he had to use a complex array of Light and Sealing attributed materials.

An ordinary card maker when handling materials that represented their entire fortune might well have been trembling with nerves. In contrast, Lance remained composed. He felt far less pressure here than he had when crafting at Talia's home.

Rather than lamenting his tendency to fail at critical moments, he chose to simply accept his abilities for what they were. That was Lance's mindset: treating every attempt as just another routine crafting session. It was the best state of mind for total focus.

His hands moved with speed and precision. His expression was calm yet resolute, and he completed all the preparations in fewer than ten minutes. His acts quickly caught the attention of the broadcast director.

The live feed began cutting to Lance's station periodically. After all, when materials of this caliber were involved, the outcome would either be a disastrous failure or a truly exceptional finished product.

On screen, Lance let out a breath. An enchanted card instantly appeared in his hand, and he summoned it. After double-checking that every preparatory step was complete, Lance asked the newly summoned Poet of Boundless Love, "Poet, are you ready?"

The Poet cheerfully raised both arms and spun around in a graceful motion before answering, "Mm-hmm, no problem!"

At that moment, shouts of surprise rang out, not just in the Card Maker's Association, but even out in the Hutton Pedestrian Plaza.

One person gasped, "An Epic grade summon?"

Summons of that caliber usually only appeared in broadcasts from extremely high-level Shadow Realm challenges. It was unexpected to see one during the card maker exam.

A knowledgeable onlooker seated in the open-air area of a nearby shop soon remarked on this, "Card makers are indeed permitted to use any spells or enchanted cards during the exam."

Theoretically, an Epic grade summon with a high level of self-awareness could serve as an assistant. It was rumored that certain prominent figures, provided they possessed a summon with a particularly agreeable temperament, might keep an enchanted card summoned indefinitely to act as a butler or attendant.

The mere appearance of an Epic grade summon was usually enough to draw a crowd of curious spectators. That was doubly true for a summon like the Poet, whose appearance was magnificent, adorable, and captivating.

Someone seemed to recall something and they said, "Wait, a beauty with gray hair and a red dress, exuding a captivating charm... Could it be the Poet of Boundless Love? The same summon of that headmaster of Purgatory Corridor Academy—the one everyone's been talking about lately?"

As the chatter grew louder, more and more passersby in the Hutton Pedestrian Plaza stopped to gaze at the live feed displayed on the Association's glass facade.

Inside the highly conspicuous headmaster's office, Lance had already begun making a card without a moment's hesitation. Although more than two hours remained in the exam, his mana had started draining the moment he summoned the Poet, so he had no time to waste.

She began to coordinate with Lance with the seamless rapport of a surgical nurse working alongside a lead surgeon. Back when he was making cards in his dormitory, he had often summoned the Poet to collaborate with him.

What eventually made Lance question his own abilities was the discovery that the Poet possessed an even greater talent for card making than he did. Even though she herself was a summon card, she mastered card making techniques the moment she learned them.

While the Poet lacked Lance's exceptional artistic talent, her understanding and mastery of magical engineering actually surpassed his own. Unfortunately, she was fixed at Tier 1. If higher tier enchanted cards needed to be crafted, she could only serve as his assistant. Consequently, whenever Lance set out to make high-difficulty cards, he would summon the Poet to help.

Lance mixed the ink, combining finely ground Light attributed magic crystal powder with a specialized sealing magic core fluid. He instructed, "This card making session is crucial. I need you to put some pressure on me."

The Poet immediately understood what he needed. Her expression tightened, and she shed her previous lively and carefree demeanor, becoming icy cold. She was like a stern overseer keeping a close watch on Lance.

She then asked coldly, "Is this enough?"

"That hits the spot." Lance felt himself slipping into a state of deep immersion.

In short, the Poet was cosplaying as Talia to apply pressure on him. Beyond this kind of assistance that she could offer, there was another compelling reason for Lance to summon her during this card making session.

The enchanted card he intended to create was modeled after Enchanting Notes, originally Voice of Purgatory, which was an Epic Tier 3 card already in his possession. It emulated the core principles of demonic magic.

Few humans used cards of other races for extended periods. Excessive use of demonic magic caused irreversible, localized demonic deformation of both body and soul. This abnormal demonic transformation did not actually turn a human into a demon. Rather, it was a malignant mutation that drastically shortened the person's lifespan and could even drive them to madness or turn them into a monster.

To avoid these side effects, humans needed to find a suitable demonic medium. While using demonic materials as consumables was the standard approach, it drove up costs enormously and still carried risks.

Lance, however, could use the Poet, with whom he shared a soul contract, as both medium and assistant. He basically leveraged her presence to shield himself from the harmful effects of demonic magic.

However, this required Lance to maintain the Poet's summoned form throughout the lengthy crafting process, consuming vast amounts of mana. Furthermore, the outcome depended heavily on their coordination and her performance.

Working in tandem with the Poet would be impossible for an ordinary card maker. In the state of intense mental focus required for crafting, merely hearing a sound from her could trigger a tenfold surge of anxiety and tension, leading to a mental breakdown and the failure of the process.

Only someone with Lance's unique state of mind could remain immune to the Poet's overwhelming negative influence. Having entered a state of deep immersion, he skillfully and effortlessly determined the optimal ratio of ingredients.

The Poet then began helping him synchronize his mana with the ink. Before long, she had harmonized the ink using her unique mana energy. After filling the inscription pen with the ink, Lance broke the seal on a magical scroll and began inscribing the prototype of the summon, which he had previously crafted from core materials, onto a blank card.

The next crucial step involved rewriting and stabilizing the enchantment structure. This would activate the materials' properties and truly imbue the summon card with magical attributes.

Lance sat hunched over the workbench, fully absorbed in the slow, meticulous process of inscription. Meanwhile, the Poet stood at the opposite end, helping him organize and map out the card's magical circuits, collaborating to channel their mana in perfect balance into every intricate rune.

The sheer volume of inscription work made his progress appear agonizingly slow. He lost all sense of time as he focused entirely on completing this stage.

Outside the Shadow Realm exam venue, the midday sun had been beating down on Hutton Pedestrian Plaza for quite some time. Nearly two hours had passed, yet Lance was still at work.

As the exam neared its conclusion, fewer and fewer candidates remained within the artificial Shadow Realm venue, so the broadcast focused increasingly on him. The screen currently displayed Lance inside the headmaster's office. Every part of him except his hands and eyes was as motionless as a statue as he poured his entire being into the critical task of imbuing the summon card with its magical structure and form.

The unfinished enchanted card was largely obscured by the hands of Lance and the Poet, but it had begun to emit dangerous arcs of light. It looked highly unstable, teetering on the brink of an explosion.

Despite that, Lance was oblivious to the danger. Without a moment's hesitation, he proceeded with the final steps: completing the inscription, followed by the ultimate calibration, processing, and sealing of the card.

At that moment, beneath the glass facade of the Card Maker's Association, many onlookers in the Hutton Pedestrian Plaza had their mouths hanging open in astonishment.

When the broadcast director finally locked the camera onto Lance, everyone knew that the success or failure of the card hinged on this very moment. Someone commented, "This card won't stabilize. Even if there were no errors in the magic circuits or the principles of the spell, the image he intends to imbue into the summoned entity is simply too crazy."

Another sighed, "What a blunder... He had already managed to complete the hardest parts. Had he just proceeded normally, it would have been at least a Purple card. Yet, it's as if he is hell-bent on destroying it."

"How could a human possibly depict something so magnificent..."

Some marveled, some were dumbfounded, and others felt a sense of regret.

Even those who knew Lance was bound to fail couldn't tear their eyes away from the enchanted card that was flickering in and out of existence as it was taking shape beneath the hands of Lance and the Poet. It was as if its creator was attempting to sketch the sun itself with his pen!

By now, Lance's face had grown deathly pale. Despite having reached Rank 3, he was nearly exhausting his spirit and mana reserves on this final stage of the illustration. Maintaining the Poet for so long had pushed his mana levels to the brink of collapse.

Yet, perhaps because Lance was so utterly engrossed in his work, he was completely oblivious to his own physical state or the shifting appearance of the card. He had entered a state of nirvana that transcended mere immersion. He was determined to complete this masterpiece, even if it cost him his life.

The changes on the enchanted card unfolded gradually. It was only when the transformation was fully complete that Lance finally became aware of them. A blinding radiance erupted—a light so intense that his eyes could not withstand it.

In the instant he squeezed his eyes shut, a dazzling flash seemed poised to swallow everything within the headmaster's office. Against the overwhelming whiteness, only the gray outlines of Lance and the Poet remained visible, before they, too, vanished completely.

***

The eyes of the onlookers in the Hutton Pedestrian Plaza were so focused on this most amazing moment that the air seemed to freeze. The light on the screen expanded instantly, as if it was about to swallow up the real world.

At that moment, almost everyone held their breath, and their eyes were firmly locked on the screen.

"...destroyed?" asked one person.

Another lamented, "In the end, it failed. He was too greedy. If he really did this, I don't even know what certification he would be assigned!"

A third commented, "Fortunately, the artificial Shadow Realm has a protection mechanism. Even if he gets injured, he will return to normal after coming out. What a pity."

Just when many people were sighing, preparing to go back and continue their weekend plans, the display on the glass flickered and continued to broadcast. When all the light finally dissipated and returned to calmness, a card that was wreathed by a conspicuous orange glow finally appeared on the screen!

[Glorious Virtue]

Category: Summon Card

Grade: Orange (Epic)

Attribute: Light/Sealing

Tier: 3

Continuously consume a large amount of mana to summon a small, extremely bright sun with no damaging properties. Blinds all targets within range and raises the ambient temperature nearby. The blinding radiant effect gradually intensifies in confined spaces and gradually weakens in open terrain.

Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee, piercing the clouds to reach the Most High, the merciful and mighty one, all saints adore thee. Glory and praise belong to the radiant body of the Sun, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. Ten thousand heavenly hosts bow in worship, together chanting the true name of our Lord. Amen!