Mythical Card Maker: Starting with the Mountain Spirit

Chapter 96 Forbidden Wasteland, Fusion Card

"Forbidden Wasteland?"

Lin Mo frowned slightly; this wasn't the first time he'd heard this term.

He had heard the square-faced man mention it during the practical assessment, and Yang Shuang'er, Yang Xue'er, and Vice Dean Lu Yu also mentioned it later, but he didn't know what this forbidden wasteland was.

Mentor Meng Li's words today have completely resolved his doubts.

However, he still didn't have a clear image in his mind, so he couldn't help but look around and found that many students' expressions didn't change much, obviously they were quite familiar with this forbidden wasteland.

Those who are completely unaware, like him, are ultimately only a minority.

As Lin Mo's thoughts raced, Meng Li's voice rang out again: "The Forbidden Wasteland is a very magical place. You can think of it as a subspace or an alternate world."

It has its own set of rules, and it is a completely different pattern from fissures.

Of course, you only need to have a basic understanding of this term for now, just enough to keep it in mind.

It's too far away for you to get involved in. It's not too late to try it when you reach the level of a Gold Card Maker!

Besides the forbidden wasteland, there are many other dangerous places in this world that you should not venture into with your current strength.

For example, the Ten Thousand Mountains in the south, the Arctic Ice Plains in the north, the Meteor Desert in the far west, and the Blackwater Swamp on the eastern coast are places rarely visited by humans, where strange beasts roam and monsters abound, and are known as "forbidden zones of life".

Of course, the most forbidden zone for life is none other than the endless sea.

Since the sky was torn apart, countless spiritual energies have poured in, and this world has officially entered the extraordinary era. Mountains, rivers, plants, flowers, birds, insects, and fish have all undergone strange changes.

Various strange beasts and monsters emerged one after another, among which the giant sea beasts were the most powerful.

Don't be fooled by the fact that humans and alien beasts are currently at peace. That's because they have a common enemy. Once the mutants are completely defeated, humans and alien beasts may have to fight each other.

However, it's unlikely we'll see it in the short term.

Of course, my purpose in saying this today is not to encourage you to be hostile to alien beasts, but to hope that you can view the world with a dialectical perspective.

This should be of great help to your future card-making career!

At this point, Meng Li paused for a moment, waiting for everyone in the room to digest what she had just said before continuing: "After understanding the world, the next step is to return to ourselves as humans. Why can some people become card masters, while others can only be ordinary people for their whole lives?"

The universe operates according to its constant laws, and all things in the world are bound by these rules.

The ebb and flow of tides, the rotation of seasons, and the passing of time are grand rules established by heaven and earth.

Eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, and seeking advantage while avoiding harm are the innate survival rules of living beings.

Spring blossoms and autumn harvests, day and night alternate, birds and beasts reproduce and plants wither and flourish. From the birth, aging, sickness and death of ants and insects to the changes and rises and falls of mountains and rivers, everything follows a predetermined law.

Similarly, to become a card master, one cannot escape the rules of the lowest rungs of society.

So, what exactly are these rules?

The so-called rules are actually the fundamental order that supports the operation of this world. They constitute the framework of the world and determine the underlying structure and power system of all things.

Unseen and intangible, yet omnipresent, like an invisible shackle, it also illuminates the path for all things to move forward.

Those who follow the rules can move forward by taking advantage of the great power of heaven and earth;

Those who break the rules will ultimately be devoured by heaven and earth.

At this point, everyone should understand that the rules chose you, not the other way around.

Everyone in this world has spiritual power, which comes from the power of the soul. However, some people, like everyone here, can become card makers, while others can only become battle card makers. The vast majority of people remain ordinary people throughout their lives.

This is the inevitable result of the rules. You are stronger than ordinary people and can better absorb power. It's that simple.

But then again, where does power come from?

It stems from the card maker's understanding of the rules and their utilization of materials —

Power is not actually complicated; it can be manifested as cards, but it's not as simple as having a few more stars on the card. Although a nine-star bronze card is definitely stronger than a one-star bronze card, other factors cannot be ignored.

For example, rank, quality, version, skills, and traits are all equally important.

Let's start with the slots. I believe that after you create a card, you will be able to find the slot to which your card belongs. Take the humanoid summon card as an example, some show "Heroes", some show "Heroic Spirits", and some may show "Deities".

So what exactly do "outstanding people," "heroic spirits," and "deities" mean?

Why do cards made from materials of the same star rating have such a large difference in the final slot display?

To understand these two questions, we must go back to the three steps of card making.

Finalizing the real name, constructing the narrative, and creating the card pattern.

From a rules-based perspective, finalizing the real name is merely a starting point; the main focus is on narrative construction, resonating with the rules, while the final card design is simply a continuation of the authority granted by the rules.

In this way, it becomes easy to understand that the hierarchy of positions is essentially the rule hierarchy within the narrative background you construct, and the degree of resonance with existing rules.

For example, in the narrative background you set, Kaling is a living legend, the pinnacle of the era.

To do extraordinary things with a mortal body.

After resonating with the rules of this world, one will be granted the status of "outstanding person".

Why not "heroic spirits" or "deities"?

Because its essence still belongs to the realm of human beings.

If you were to set the Card Spirit apart from its mortal form, achieving spiritual immortality, its unwavering will ensure it receives offerings from future generations.

After resonating with the rules of this world, one will be granted the status of "Heroic Spirit".

Similarly, the same applies to deities.

The position is determined by the strength of the world rules you set, and has nothing to do with the quality of the materials.

Of course, if you think that you can directly create a mythological world when constructing a narrative in the future and then obtain a divine status, then you are very wrong. At present, the mainstream divine cards in the world are basically based on the mythological stories that have been passed down from the old calendar era, which is why they can barely achieve resonance.

There are no successful examples of myths created during the Neolithic era.

Scholars have conducted special research and concluded that the myths created in the Neolithic era lack depth and do not meet the requirements for resonance.

In layman's terms, it was passed down for too short a period of time.

Of course, you can just take this as a casual remark and not take it to heart. As for the Kyushu settlement, due to various reasons, the mythology has been interrupted many times. Not many mythological stories that can resonate with people have been passed down. In addition, so many years have passed, and the mythological stories have basically been divided up.

Making another deity card is as difficult as ascending to heaven!

Of course, I'm not trying to undermine your confidence, but rather to encourage you to be rational and not blindly pursue high positions while ignoring other factors.

As I said before, only those who achieve resonance can be given a status.

Instead of simply fabricating or inventing, one can obtain a high-ranking position.

Don't put the cart before the horse!

As for how to ensure that the constructed narrative background resonates 100% with the rules of heaven and earth, that is not something I can teach you, because I also want to know!

It's worth noting that only the cardholder can see the location; others cannot.

After speaking at length, Meng Li finally stopped, took out a girlish pink water bottle with one hand, took a sip, and then said: "As for quality, I believe everyone is familiar with this, so I won't go into too much detail. However, one thing to note is that at your current level, to be precise, below the Gold Card Maker level, the highest quality card you can make is an Orange Card."

Even if you manage to obtain a few golden materials by chance later, you still won't be able to craft golden cards. This is because once a card reaches legendary quality or higher, specific auxiliary materials must be added, and these materials can only be found in the Forbidden Wasteland.

On the other hand, the immense spiritual power required to obtain a gold card is far beyond your imagination.

I'm telling you all in advance to prevent any of you from wasting gold material cards in pursuit of high quality, or even losing your lives—that would be a losing proposition.

Meng Li then went on to talk about professional knowledge such as geometric composition, aberration analysis, and the history of fracture research.

Everyone in the room listened very attentively.

After all, they had rarely learned about these things systematically before, let alone thought of connecting them together. Lin Mo benefited greatly from this lesson.

Not only did they learn another, more mentally efficient method of creating card patterns, but they also gained a clearer understanding of rifts. Rifts are divided into several levels, from faint, beginner, intermediate, advanced, super, and finally to the dimensional level.

As the severity of the fissure increases, the level of danger also increases exponentially.

The appearance of fissures is highly random, so the authorities have established a dedicated agency, the "Fissure Monitoring Bureau," to conduct 24/7 monitoring. Even so, there are still situations that are difficult to monitor.

The consequence of this is that all living beings in the surrounding area are assimilated into aberrant variants. Therefore, once a rift appears, all card masters in the vicinity have the obligation and right to go and suppress it as soon as possible to prevent its spread.

The four major universities are the main force among them, and the most frequent task issued by the Imperial Capital is to suppress the mutants.

At the end of the lesson, Meng Li looked at everyone and asked, "Is there anything you don't understand and need to ask me? You can ask now!"

Upon hearing this, everyone in the room exchanged bewildered glances. After a short while, a boy with three cowlicks on his head, whose hairstyle resembled Ultraman's, raised his hand and voiced his doubts: "Mentor, you just said that the star rating of a card is closely related to the card maker's skill level at the time of creation. As the skill level increases, the star rating of the previously inlaid cards inevitably falls behind, eventually becoming less noticeable. And because of the limitations of card slots, cards cannot be easily replaced. So—how can this situation be changed?"

"That's a very good question!"

Instructor Meng Li nodded slightly, a look of appreciation on her face, and slowly said, "There are three ways to change this situation. The first method is nothing to say, just like when you are leveling up, you can hunt down the mutants on a large scale."

Each time Kaling kills a mutant, it can absorb a wisp of spiritual energy that has escaped from the mutant's body. As the number of kills increases, the spiritual energy will gradually accumulate and eventually reach the threshold to complete the breakthrough. As long as the card's star-up speed is fast enough, there is no need to worry about this situation.

The second method is similar to the first, but it is much easier and simpler, and there is no danger involved.

Simply find a nurturing place like a spirit-nurturing pool, immerse the card in it, and you can steadily increase the card's star rating.

Most major powers possess such treasure troves, though it comes at a considerable cost.

The third method, however, is much more complicated and expensive.

But the effects are also the most immediate. It's not something you should be dealing with at this stage, but since we're on the topic, I'll just mention it.

Regarding your question, it was actually raised hundreds of years ago. The solutions at that time were the first two methods I mentioned at the beginning, the essence of which is to increase the star rating of the cards as quickly as possible.

Years later, a brilliant card maker, while training in the Forbidden Wasteland, accidentally discovered a mysterious substance called "Fusion Crystal." To his surprise, he found that this peculiar substance possessed the mysterious power to fuse everything. Thus, he had a sudden inspiration and invented a prop card called "Fusion Card."

This card can combine two or more independent cards through a specific ritual to create a brand new card with a higher star rating.

In this way, not only is the problem of low card combat power solved, but the card-making slot is also left vacant.

It can be said that, both then and now, the Fusion Card is one of the greatest inventions.

However, these [Fusion Cards] are quite expensive to create, and [Fusion Crystals] are extremely rare. Without sufficient financial resources and strength, it's best not to pursue this idea for now.

As soon as he finished speaking, a look of realization appeared on the faces of everyone present.

Lin Mo couldn't help but secretly admire the card maker who invented the [Fusion Card]—truly a peerless genius!

They actually came up with a brilliant idea that kills two birds with one stone!

Meng Li's words suddenly enlightened him, filling his mind with many strange and wonderful ideas, which he couldn't wait to put into practice.

By the time Lin Mo regained his composure, the first lesson had officially come to an end.

"That concludes today's lesson. Two days from now, at the same time and place, I will formally teach you how to make space cards. Remember to attend on time. get out of class dismissed!"

After saying this, Meng Li gently smoothed her robes and stepped out of the lecture hall first.

Only then did everyone belatedly stand up from the prayer cushions.

I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall of the lobby; it was already two o'clock in the afternoon.

The lecture by Instructor Meng Li just lasted for five hours, and they didn't even notice the passage of time. Now that the class was over, everyone's stomachs started to rumble, and they all hurried towards the restaurant.