159: Follower Growth Card

Create a formula.

Once this thought took root, it could no longer be suppressed.

Inside Lin Yu's body, a long-dormant flame was rekindled.

It was the instinct of a Card Maker, and the madness of a trailblazer.

He no longer thought about the black market, nor about the monopolized knowledge.

If there was no path, he would carve one out himself.

Before him, mountains of green base consumables were piled up.

Behind him, the endless confidence brought by infinite replication.

He could afford to lose this gamble.

The experiment began.

His mental power transformed into invisible tentacles, probing into a brand new green base consumable.

Deconstruct.

Analyze.

Reconstruct.

What he wanted to do was not to “cook” according to a fixed formula, but to thoroughly understand the “molecular formula” of each ingredient.

He mixed a small portion of standard flesh consumable with primary magic dust in different ratios.

Boom!

A charred substance exploded.

Failure.

He changed his approach, attempting to add trace amounts of bat wing specimen powder during the refining process of the flesh consumable.

Sizzle... Pungent acidic smoke rose, and the material turned into a puddle of green viscous liquid.

Failure.

He began to record data.

Every failure was not a meaningless waste.

Ratios, temperatures, frequency of mental power injection, order of material fusion... A vast amount of data converged, filtered, and categorized in his mind.

Time lost its meaning at this moment.

The top-notch soundproofing of Insect Dwelling kept him from hearing any outside sounds.

The light in the virtual environment always maintained the optimal brightness for work.

He forgot day and night.

When hungry, he would replicate a high-energy compressed biscuit.

When thirsty, he would replicate a bottle of pure water.

Mainly, this was the fastest way to maintain vital signs.

When mentally exhausted to the extreme, he would use Vitality Nourishment on himself to forcefully restore his energy.

He became a tireless machine.

A machine with creation as its sole goal.

The scene in the room grew more horrifying day by day.

On the ground, layers upon layers of black powder accumulated, the residue left from countless failures.

In the corners, puddles of colorful, bizarre liquids gathered, emitting various strange odors.

The air was filled with a mixture of burnt, sour, and bloody smells.

If not for the powerful ventilation system of Insect Dwelling, this place would have long since become a highly toxic biochemical laboratory.

One day.

Two days.

Three days.

Lin Yu worked tirelessly, making tens of thousands of attempts.

Failed products piled up like mountains at his feet.

He himself became disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, and a greenish stubble grew on his chin.

But his state of mind was more focused than ever before.

Those tens of thousands of failures built a massive database for him.

He began to understand that a peculiar “affinity” existed between materials.

He began to perceive how fluctuations in mental power could guide energy to produce entirely different “chemical reactions.”

He was peering into the underlying laws of the domain of “creation.”

Combined with his understanding of the origin-level Vitality Nourishment, he felt that what he could most comprehend was related to life... Late on the third night.

As another plume of black smoke from a failed attempt dissipated, Lin Yu finally stopped.

He did not proceed with the next attempt.

He sat in the center of the mountain of waste, closing his eyes.

In his mind, tens of thousands of data sets furiously circulated, collided, and combined.

Countless incorrect paths were eliminated.

Innumerable possible combinations were verified.

Finally, amidst the storm of chaotic data, a faint but clear clue emerged.

Not complex materials.

Not vast energy.

But... structure.

A stable energy structure capable of embodying the concept of “buff.”

Just as magnificent cathedrals can be built with the most basic bricks.

What he needed was that “blueprint” for construction.

And now, after three days and three nights, having expended materials worth hundreds of millions, he finally deduced the prototype of this blueprint.

An extremely simple plan.

So simple it was almost crude.

Lin Yu opened his eyes, a nearly crazed light flickering in his bloodshot pupils.

He slowly stood up, using his mental power to clear a clean space in the ruins.

He took one green base consumable and one primary magic dust.

That was all.

No flesh consumable, no bat wing specimen.

This time, what he wanted to create was the purest “concept.”

Mental power surged.

The pale blue flame reignited.

But this time, the flame did not burn wildly; instead, it transformed into countless delicate threads, gently enveloping the green consumable.

His mental power was no longer a crude impact, but transformed into the most precise carving knives.

Inside the consumable, an incredibly complex microscopic structure began to be sculpted.

It was a profound energy circuit.

The primary magic dust was activated, transforming into the most basic energy, slowly injecting into this circuit.

No explosion.

No unusual phenomena.

The entire process was eerily quiet.

The green consumable slowly shrank in the flame, all its matter condensing towards the constructed energy structure.

Finally, when all the materials were consumed.

The flame contracted inward and extinguished.

A card floated silently in mid-air.

It was entirely a soft white, with a faint, emerald green halo around its edges, symbolizing life.

The center of the card had no specific pattern drawn on it.

Only an upward-growing green arrow symbol.

Simple, yet full of some primitive meaning.

Lin Yu reached out, trembling slightly as he grasped it.

[Card: Growth]

[Quality: White · Special]

[Type: Effect Card · Minion Exclusive]

[Effect: Target one friendly minion unit, causing it to permanently gain the “Growth” status. Minions with this status gain +1 to their maximum health.]

[Trigger: This effect naturally triggers once every 24 hours.]

[Note: Great first steps are usually small.]

It succeeded.

He had truly created a brand new card.

A card that absolutely did not exist in any database!

A huge sense of accomplishment swept over him, almost making him dizzy from three consecutive days of exhaustion.

But immediately after, when he carefully read the card's effect description, the ecstasy quickly cooled down.

Maximum health +1.

That's it?

Is that all? He spent three days and three nights, burned countless materials, just to give a minion one point of health?

This was simply... the most useless effect card ever!

Any low-level healing skill had an effect a hundred times stronger than this.

Lin Yu held the card, falling into a long silence.

Was his direction wrong?

He refocused his gaze on the card's description, reading it word by word.

“Permanently gain ‘Growth’ status.”

“Triggers once every 24 hours.”