155: Basic Consumables Refining

An indescribable excitement surged from his limbs to his brain.

Calm down.

He had to calm down.

Lin Yu forced himself to settle down and continued to deduce along this line of thought.

The goal was clear: to obtain these three types of cards.

So, how to obtain them?

Two paths.

The first path: Card Innovation.

It was the path he was most familiar with, the path that made him rich. As long as he had enough basic cards, he could continuously innovate, relying on probability to brute-force it.

But this idea was almost instantly rejected by him.

The randomness was too strong.

He had spent five years, through countless innovations, to barely assemble a Ghost Card system.

That system was still missing just one card at the time.

Who could guarantee how much time he would need to get what he wanted again?

A day? A month? Or a year?

He didn't lack time, but he also didn't like to waste it.

More importantly, he didn't know what would happen in the future; a sense of insecurity constantly spurred him on.

Whether it was the threat from Fengxing Technology or the two mysterious visitors from the Abyss Domain, they were like swords hanging over his head, ready to fall at any moment.

He couldn't gamble everything on illusory luck like before.

Then, only the second path remained.

That initial skill, which he had sealed away for five years and almost forgotten.

Card Creation LV1.

Following a fixed formula and investing the corresponding materials, if successful, he could create the desired cards.

The only drawback was that each creation would consume the invested materials.

There was a possibility of failure, and it was quite high, especially in the early stages.

In that impoverished stage five years ago, this drawback was fatal.

He even had trouble affording food; where would he get extra money to buy those expensive Card Creation materials? Any single failure could mean he wouldn't eat a full meal for several days.

Yes, he couldn't even afford compressed biscuits.

So, he had unhesitatingly chosen Card Transformation, which only consumed mental energy, back then.

But now... times have changed.

Lin Yu spread his palm.

With a thought, the replication and multiplication effects of the Ghost Card quietly activated.

A piece of white basic material, shimmering with white luster and 99.99% purity, appeared out of thin air in his palm.

This was a common material needed for creating many basic equipment cards and basic non-life-form follower cards.

In the black market, a standard unit of such white basic material cost one hundred, whether it was for equipment cards or follower cards, one card could easily consume dozens of pieces.

This meant thousands per attempt, and if practice cost ten attempts, it would be tens of thousands.

Adding other miscellaneous costs, the principal for one card would probably start at one hundred thousand... it was truly a money pit.

But for him, the cost was zero.

If he wanted, he could replicate enough white basic material to fill the entire room in a second.

The so-called "material loss" had become a joke to him.

Possessing infinite materials meant he could try an infinite number of times.

Infinite economy... it was too authoritative.

Whenever such moments arose, Lin Yu would subconsciously feel that the five lost years were well worth it.

The biggest constraint of the Card Creation skill had been completely crushed by him in the most unreasonable way.

Weighing the pros and cons, the choice was clear.

This was it.

Lin Yu put away the white basic material in his palm and began to rummage through the memories that had also been sealed for five years.

Those were a few of the most basic Card Creation formulas he had exchanged from the public database during the first month of his awakening, using all his savings at the time.

Card Creation Formula: White Quality · Apprentice Longsword

Main Material: Standard Metal Material x300

Auxiliary Materials: Standard Wood Material x5, Standard Leather Material x2

Catalyst: Primary Magic Dust x1

Success Rate: 10% (Affected by mental power, Card Creation skill level, material purity)

...Card Creation Formula: White Quality · Simple Round Shield

...Card Creation Formula: White Quality · Crude Leather Armor

...One by one, they were all the lowest-grade, most basic white equipment.

Five years ago, the ninety percent failure rate and the complete loss of materials upon failure were insurmountable obstacles for him.

But now... Lin Yu's consciousness returned to reality, and he spread his hand again.

A standard unit of white basic material, weighing about one kilogram, lay quietly in his palm.

This type of material was called "basic" precisely because it possessed extreme malleability and was one of the cornerstones of all things.

In the Card Creator system, it could be refined into various more specific materials.

Iron, wood, charcoal, cloth, leather... almost all non-living conventional substances could be extracted from the white basic material through specific mental power operations.

Of course, this process would be accompanied by a certain proportion of loss.

Lin Yu concentrated, following the method recorded in the database, and began to "refine" the material in his palm.

His mental power, like an invisible carving knife, precisely penetrated the internal structure of the material, stripping away the non-metallic components, and then reorganizing and compressing the remaining substances.

Buzz.

A slight tremor.

The original one-kilogram white block rapidly shrank at a visible speed, and its color also changed from pure white to a metallic silvery-gray.

Finally, a highly dense metal block, only the size of a fist, floated in his palm.

Standard Metal Material x1 (100g)

One kilogram of basic material could only yield one hundred grams of metal material.

A ten-to-one loss.

If calculated according to the black market price of one hundred per kilogram of basic material, the cost of this small piece of metal reached one hundred.

And to create the most trashy Apprentice Longsword, three hundred units, or thirty kilograms, of metal material were needed.

The cost of the main material alone was as high as thirty thousand.

Adding other auxiliary materials and catalysts, as well as the pitiful success rate... ordinary people simply couldn't afford it.

But Lin Yu was clearly not among them.

With a thought, piles and piles of white basic material began to appear out of thin air on the floor of the room.

One pile.

Ten piles.

One hundred piles.

In just a few breaths, a small mountain of pure white blocks had accumulated in the room.

Infinite materials meant infinite trial-and-error costs.

Lin Yu didn't hesitate at all and immediately began large-scale refining.

Mental power surged wildly.

In the room, buzzing sounds were incessant.

The piled-up white blocks rapidly transformed into piles of materials of various colors.

Silvery-gray metal, brownish wood, dark black leather...