Chapter 2 Innate Talent: Refinement

Gu Ye had originally thought his cheat was the stories he brought from his past life. Little did he know that three weeks ago, when he condensed his Natal card, a furnace suddenly popped out from the depths of his sea of consciousness and fused with it.

Since then, Gu Ye gained his first Natal Talent:

【Refinement】 (Rank 1: 0/100)

Effects:

【card Usage Level +1】

【Decompose any card; card crafting materials will become random Refinement materials. Decomposition time varies with card level.】

【Purify all harmful substances within the card during decomposition.】

【Decomposing cards of different levels grants different amounts of experience points, used to upgrade the Furnace.】

【Refinement materials can be used as card crafting materials. Regardless of success or failure, a certain amount of experience points will be gained.】

...

Upon seeing the first effect of the talent, only one sentence exploded in Gu Ye's mind: "This is simply invincible!"

A high-level card crushing a low-level one is like a father beating his son.

One must know that the limit for a peak Bronze-rank Card Master's Natal card is only a single Light Blue card. Once overloaded, the Natal card could be damaged at best, or shatter entirely at worst, causing one's cultivation to dissipate and turning them into a complete cripple.

But now, with the support of the 【Refinement】 talent, he could directly use Blue cards at the Bronze stage. In contrast, most other Card Masters of the same rank were still using Green cards. This gap was a literal dimensional strike!

At first, Gu Ye didn't think much of the subsequent effects of his Natal Talent. card crafting materials could be bought in the material market as long as you had money, and decomposing cards seemed like something only people with more money than they knew what to do with would do.

That was until he decomposed a 【Lighting Art】 card at home and obtained a Blue 【Refinement Material】.

Holding the material, Gu Ye realized that this Natal Talent of his was likely far more heaven-defying than he had imagined.

...

With a slight thought from Gu Ye, an illusory furnace suddenly floated before him. He sorted out the useful crafting materials and finished cards, then threw all the other cards into the furnace. Under his gaze, the 【Furnace】 ignited with white flames, quietly beginning the calcination process.

Through his perception, Gu Ye knew it would take six hours for the materials to fully transform into 【Refinement Materials】.

"It seems the Furnace's Refinement time is unrelated to the quantity."

Soon, six hours passed! For Gu Ye, this period of time truly felt like years.

The 【Furnace】 shook violently in the air twice before spitting out 【Refinement Materials】.

【Gained EXP +5!】

【Gained EXP +5!】

...

Gu Ye reached out to catch them, staring at the materials in his hand as he murmured:

"This decomposition rate is so high! Six cards decomposed into ten pieces of 【Refinement Material】."

"【Breath of Spiritual Energy】, 【Fire Fan】, 【Street Lamp】, 【Black Snow Horse】..."

Gu Ye counted them up; among these ten 【Refinement Materials】, there were seven White materials, two Green materials, and one Blue material.

"It seems my hypothesis was indeed correct."

【Refinement】 doesn't just decompose into unique materials; it also yields the card's original materials and potentially items from the world and timeline the card belongs to.

"If I can refine a Color-grade material from a certain world, won't I be rich!"

At the thought of countless treasures swarming toward him, Gu Ye's mouth almost watered.

Gu Ye stared at the furnace before him with burning eyes, let out a long sigh, and then burst into unrestrained laughter.

"Hahaha~~"

"Things are finally looking up for me!"

"Are you summoning spirits? You brat!" Suddenly, an impatient shout came from upstairs.

Gu Ye awkwardly and quickly silenced himself.

"Sorry about that, Uncle Wang! I got a bit excited, my apologies!"

Composing himself, Gu Ye's gaze instantly became sharp. He withdrew the 【Furnace】, walked to his computer desk, and took out the pre-prepared spirit drawing pen, Spiritual Fluid, blank cards, and other card-crafting tools from the drawer.

"Time to start crafting the card. I only have one chance; I must succeed, failure is not an option!"

"I don't want to end up becoming a woman!"

Gu Ye steadied his mind and began to think about what kind of card to make.

His fingers unconsciously toyed with the 【Refinement Materials】 before him. The previous world background of the 【Heavy Armored Soldier】 definitely couldn't be used anymore; its upper limit was too low. He needed to switch to a new world background.

Suddenly, Gu Ye thought about how the Card Domain Trial in three days would undoubtedly be a massive challenge for commoner students like them.

"What was the Card Domain Trial called again?"

"I remember it was called Blood-something..."

Since he didn't know, he opened the computer and searched on Baidu...

"I remember now, it's called 【Blood Fiend Mechanical Forest】, a typical high-monster-density, medium Trial-level difficulty."

"Card Domain levels are divided into: Trial, Nest, Earth Sea, Rift, Nightmare, Abyss, and Purgatory. For a Card Master who just normally awakened their Natal card, reaching Bronze Three-Star in one week is the limit, and the cards they master are at most trash White-tier. Can they even beat this?"

"Whoa~"

"The intensity just ramped up instantly!"

"Was the first Trial before the College Entrance Examination always this difficult in the past?"

The bright screen reflected Gu Ye's surprised expression.

He propped his chin on his hand, thinking about the direction for his card crafting.

"High monster density, demonic beasts, intelligent mechs, Guai Monsters..."

"Should I just go with the backup plan!"

Gu Ye stared at the cards before him with a face full of worry when suddenly, a general from a board game in his past life flooded into his mind.

He had a leopard-like head and round eyes, a dark and rugged face, and an eighteen-foot serpent spear that struck terror into the hearts of his enemies, his roar echoing through the heavens and earth.

In the board game 'legends of the three kingdoms', Zhang Fei's skill was the infinite use of 'Slash'. If made into a card, his skill would surely be infinite slaughter. A general's blood-qi power would have a significant restraining effect on monsters.

Gu Ye had, after all, drawn fanart for 'legends of the three kingdoms' and had a deep understanding of the game in his past life. He had plenty of ideas on how to craft the card.

Moreover, based on the materials currently available, he could only fully create the basic version of Zhang Fei.

The more Gu Ye thought about it, the more feasible it seemed:

"I choose you!"

"Third Brother!"

Zhang Fei belongs to the General series, and the 【Heavy Armored Soldier】 also belongs to the General series, so there's no need to add additional materials representing the General identity.

His most famous features are his appearance, the eighteen-foot serpent spear, and the Dark Cloud Treading Snow · Black Steed. The appearance of the Heavy Armored Soldier is extremely similar to Zhang Fei, so he was just missing the crafting materials for the weapon and the mount.

Gu Ye searched through his original cards and finally found one crafting material among the refined materials.

Name: 【Black Snow Horse】

Quality: 【White · 1-Star】

Introduction: A horse king from the Barbarian War Dynasty. Its body is snow-white while its four hooves are pitch black. It is wild and hard to tame, but once tamed, it will be your most loyal partner, though it is a bit lecherous.

"The White-tier 【Black Snow Horse】 is similar to the Black Steed; it can be a substitute."

Gu Ye took the only Blue card, 【Serpent Staff】, from the pile. The original 【Heavy Armored Soldier】 used a spear.

"This should be able to substitute for the eighteen-foot serpent spear."

"What about the skill?"

In the board game 'legends of the three kingdoms', the basic Zhang Fei's skill is to ignore distance when using 'Slash' and to use 'Slash' infinitely.

"Ignoring distance."

Gu Ye pulled a card from the pile.

"Then these 【Blinking Leggings】 (Blue) should work. Ignoring distance is basically space, isn't it!" Gu Ye pulled out the Blue material he had refined from 【Lighting Art】 the first time.

Gu Ye sat on the bed with his legs crossed.

The materials were ready. He mentally reviewed the card-crafting steps and took a deep breath.

Closing his eyes to clear his mind, his Bronze-rank spiritual energy activated the Natal card within his sea of consciousness. The Natal card emitted a wave like a rising tide, pulling his consciousness into a hazy, ethereal space-time.

"Is this the spiritual space within the Natal card!!"

Seeing such a sight for the first time, Gu Ye suppressed the curiosity in his heart and waved his hand. The materials needed for card crafting appeared in the void.

"First step of card crafting: Material Smelting."

Gu Ye channeled his spiritual energy, and the materials in the void gradually melted. Wisps of black gas emerged, gathering into a black sphere. The melted materials also gathered into an illusory card. With the help of his spiritual energy, the black sphere and the illusory card fused further, forming a brand-new illusory card.

Next, he took out the blank card. The two cards merged into one, and countless spiritual energy manifestations appeared around the card. Knowing the time had come, he took out the spirit drawing pen and began to draw on the card face.

Spiritual energy danced with the spirit drawing pen. With eighteen years of drawing practice and the added bonus of a 'state of enlightenment' during his first card crafting, a figure full of tension gradually appeared on the card face.

"If I had this level in my past life, there's no way I would have just been an art student!"

Looking at the character presented on the card face, Gu Ye couldn't help but feel a surge of pride!

The card face was overall dark red, with a battlefield piled with corpses as the background.

With a leopard-like head and round eyes, the dark-faced Zhang Fei furiously gripped the eighteen-foot serpent spear in one hand. Dressed in black armor and mounted on the Black Steed, he stared forward. Countless ghosts were behind him, and the flag symbolizing the Kingdom of Shu fluttered in the wind. His other hand's fingers were curled with force, his palm lifting the head of an anonymous soldier, revealing his ferocity and unparalleled combat power.

So cool!

Gu Ye had to praise his own masterpiece. Next was the most important part: the story filling.

He held the spirit drawing pen and wrote the true name 【Zhang Fei】 in large, bold characters in the void.

The card lit up, and the two characters flew toward it, etching themselves onto the card. The spirit drawing pen also began to drain Gu Ye's mental spiritual energy as he continued to add information to it: