281: Improvement path

Great!

The massive exclamation mark on the screen carried a sense of exhaustion, as if having just survived a disaster.

Lin Yu casually turned off the screen and tossed his phone into a corner of the sofa.

The room was very quiet, except for the faint sounds Lin Yao was making in the bedroom, likely venting her battle enthusiasm in a frenzy.

Lin Yu sank into the soft backrest, his gaze landing on the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

Two hundred and fifty trillion.

The number circled in his mind before being forcibly kicked into a corner.

Wealth was merely a byproduct of strength; in this world of Class-changers, the power held in one's own hands was the only truth.

He pulled up his attribute panel.

[Name: Lin Yu]

[Class: Myriad Card Creator (Unique · Origin)]

[Strength: 500]

[Agility: 500]

[Constitution: 500]

[Spiritual Power: 500]

All four attributes were capped at the five-hundred-point limit for potion-based improvements.

In Lin Yu's eyes, this was too weak.

It was even weak enough to be an eyesore.

Although he could rely on the cyclic Stacking of twenty Multiplication Cards to instantly unleash world-destroying damage,

and that single golden Lightning Spell was enough to make even Abyss Messengers tremble,

the problem lay right there.

The wind-up.

Before completing twenty stacks of multiplication, he was just a squishy unit with five hundred points in every attribute.

If he encountered a top-tier expert of the speed or assassin type, his head might be separated from his body in the instant before the first card even took effect.

This fatal shortcoming could perhaps be masked by striking first in a closed environment like the Black Market, especially with Zhao Tianyang keeping others in check.

But once in the complex environment of the College Entrance Examination, or even when facing unknown existences, this was a guillotine hanging over his head.

It had to be resolved.

Lin Yu's fingers tapped lightly on the sofa's armrest as scenes from the library a few days ago surfaced in his mind.

That day, he had flipped through countless old books; although it was to find information regarding Skill Proficiency, he had unexpectedly grasped a certain feeling.

A logic regarding "space" and "overlap."

When he saw those ancient books closely arranged and layered on the shelves, a brand-new inspiration exploded in his sea of consciousness.

That was Stacking.

Previous copying was a horizontal spread—one card became two, two became four.

Although supported by the Ghost Card and Multiplication Card, the speed was already extremely fast, yet it was still limited by some invisible rule of physical space.

Stacking, however, was vertical compression.

It involved taking the information of tens of thousands of cards and, like origami, performing infinite overlaps at a single coordinate point.

This was why he could stuff five point three trillion Potions into that tiny storage ring.

It wasn't simple Stacking, but folding at the logical level.

He couldn't yet perform Card Transformation on a storage ring full of Potions and then copy it... perhaps he could in the future.

So he had manually copied all those Potions; before understanding Stacking, this would have been an impossible task.

His current copying efficiency had improved by more than ten thousand times compared to before.

Lin Yu raised his right hand, his fingertips moving slightly.

A card glowing with a faint light danced between his fingers.

Growth.

This was his line of thinking.

A Follower Card does not occupy a card slot.

This meant he could summon an army in unlimited quantities without any wind-up.

As long as the followers were strong enough, they would be the most perfect meat shields and bodyguards.

The performance of the "Blood Pack" had already proven the feasibility of this path.

After that Small Bat had stacked fifteen billion layers of the Growth state, its health points had reached a terrifying value.

Even if it just stood still, it could make most experts hack at it until they doubted their very existence.

But it wasn't enough.

Lin Yu sat up straight, and two choices slowly emerged in the void before him.

First, continue to squeeze the base values of the Growth card.

The current base effect was a one-point increase to the maximum health limit every twenty-four hours.

If he could somehow turn that base one point into ten points, or even a hundred points,

combined with million-fold Stacking,

the Growth speed of his followers would reach an unimaginable dimension.

Second, utilize his current Stacking efficiency to employ human-wave tactics.

If one bat wasn't enough, then ten thousand, or a million.

Each one stacked with tens of billions of layers of health.

When millions of "undead creatures" covered the entire examination site, that sight would be enough to make any examiner break down on the spot.

Lin Yu fell into deep thought.

The card at his fingertips spun faster and faster, tracing out fragments of flowing light.

Improving the base values meant challenging the underlying logic of the card.

Even for a Card Maker, without enough information and research, trying to complete such a breakthrough in a short time was extremely difficult.

With the College Entrance Examination imminent, time was the greatest enemy. This kind of research-based breakthrough was full of uncertainty.

He couldn't predict when he would succeed; he might even spend a vast amount of time and gain nothing.

The risk was too high.

As for human-wave tactics... Lin Yu glanced at his Spiritual Power reserves.

Although the Stacking divine technique was highly efficient, its consumption of Spiritual Power was also massive.

Mass-producing these high-intensity followers required extremely fine control.

Moreover, the whole process was as boring as an assembly line.

Was he going to spend his final moments before the exam like an assembly line worker?

However... while it was tedious now, the returns were stable. It guaranteed an improvement, and a massive one at that!

Then again,

researching a card breakthrough wouldn't be a one-time gain, but a long-term one!

It would be even more beneficial for his future Growth.

It really was a difficult choice!

After thinking for a long time, Lin Yu decided to take the more stable path.

He was a gambler, true, but not a gambler in the traditional sense; he would quantify gains and expenditures, choosing the more stable and known path.

He didn't do things he wasn't sure of. Researching breakthroughs was something to be done during leisure time; researching right before the exam made the returns too unstable.

Having cleared his mind on this point, Lin Yu exhaled. It seemed he was back to tedious work.

To make a qualified Small Bat or another follower, Lin Yu previously needed over twenty hours, but now it only took five to ten minutes.

The increase in efficiency gave him more room to operate.

What he needed were "Blood Packs" that could both tank and fight, holding the line on the battlefield.

This meant every follower needed to be stacked with enough instances of the Growth card.

Though the process was mechanical, it was exactly what he needed most right now.

The time he had agreed upon with Old Ghost, Li Mo, and the others was two days from now. These two days were the golden period for mass-producing "Blood Packs."

By eating Nutrition Paste and drinking Potions without resting or sleeping, he had twenty-three and a half hours a day.

Forty-seven hours over two days.

He did the mental math.

If the production time for each follower was five minutes, he could make twelve in an hour. In forty-seven hours, he could make five hundred and sixty-four followers.

If the production time for each follower was ten minutes, he could make six in an hour. In forty-seven hours, he could still make two hundred and eighty-two followers.

Two hundred and eighty-two to five hundred and sixty-four followers. This number was already quite considerable.