44: Chapter 44 The Concept of a Magical Girl Army

Su Bai hadn't even had a chance to digest the value of the job transfer quest when his phone buzzed again.

This time, it wasn't a group chat.

It was a private message from Lin Xiao.

[Lin Xiao]: [My dad wants to see you. Now.]

[Su Bai]: [??? Your dad?]

[Lin Xiao]: [The Chairman of the Lins Chamber of Commerce. He watched the Monthly Exam live stream.]

[Su Bai]: [So?]

[Lin Xiao]: [So he brought a Black Card and a contract, and has been waiting at the school gate since yesterday afternoon. I stopped him three times. I couldn't stop him anymore.]

[Su Bai]: [...Are all the people in your Lin family people of action?]

[Lin Xiao]: [It's our family's genetic trait. Hurry over, Third Reception Room. Don't make my dad wait too long—he's capable of doing anything when he gets excited.]

Su Bai sighed.

He put away the gold job transfer card, climbed out of bed, grabbed a jacket, threw it on, and left.

The Third Reception Room was on the top floor of the teaching building.

The moment Su Bai pushed open the door, he almost thought he had walked into the wrong place.

It was a middle-aged man.

He was around fifty. He was dressed in a crisp suit, and his hair was combed meticulously. His features bore a four or five-part resemblance to Lin Xiao's, but his lines were sharper, and the corners of his eyes were etched with the shrewd lines that could only be ground out by decades of ups and downs in the business world.

At this moment, this Chairman Lin, a man worth at least ten billion, was kneeling in the center of the reception room in a standard kneeling posture.

His legs were pressed together.

His back was straight.

He held a pitch-black card in both hands, raised high above his head.

It was like a royal audience.

"Uncle Lin, what are you doing—"

"Student Su Bai!!"

Chairman Lin's voice was full of energy, as if he were giving an inaugural address, "Please, you must accept this Black Card! This is the highest-level cooperation voucher of our Lins Chamber of Commerce! No spending limit! Unlimited material supply! It's accepted at all branches globally! Please, you must give our Lin family exclusive agency rights! Money is no object! You can set any conditions! As long as you are willing to entrust this business to us!"

He finished it in one breath.

He didn't stop to breathe in between.

Su Bai subconsciously took half a step back.

"Uncle Lin, please get up first—"

"I won't get up until you nod!!"

"...You are the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, right?"

"In front of a Rainbow Card, the Chairman is nothing but a fart!!"

Su Bai fell silent.

Then, he turned his head and looked at Lin Xiao, who was standing in the corner.

Lin Xiao had her back to the door, facing the wall, one hand propped against the wall, her shoulders twitching slightly. He didn't know if she was crying or laughing; probably both.

"...Is your dad usually like this?"

"Never." Lin Xiao didn't turn her head, her voice muffled, "I've lived for eighteen years, and I've never seen him kneel to anyone. Including my mom."

"Then pull him up!"

"I tried, I can't move him. He said this is the only chance for the Lin family to rise." Lin Xiao finally turned her head, her expression twisted, "Su Bai, do you know what my dad's biggest regret in life is? It's that even though the Lin family has money, mines, and a supply chain, we've never had a system core card of our own. Now that you, a second-year student, have created an SSS-rank Rainbow Card, do you know what that means in the business world?"

"What?"

"It means you've discovered an oasis in the desert. And the first person to get the development rights to that oasis can lie back and count money for centuries."

"—Yes! That's exactly it!!"

Chairman Lin suddenly looked up, his eyes shining, "Student Su Bai! Your Kyubey Card is a Tier 1 card! Tier 1!! Do you know what a Tier 1 card means? It means controllable costs! It means mass production is possible! It means extremely high versatility! The potential market for this card—"

He stood up and pulled a crumpled document from his chest pocket.

It was covered in dense business analysis.

The handwriting was messy, obviously written in a rush overnight.

"I've already done a preliminary market survey! Based on the characteristics of your Kyubey Card, the potential customer base includes, but is not limited to: Abyss Front mercenaries, private armies of major families, the combat division of the Card Creator Association, and the Abyss Expeditionary Force's suicide squads—among which mercenaries and suicide squads have the highest willingness to buy, because they are the daredevils truly risking their lives on the front lines!"

His fingers were trembling with excitement.

"For a mercenary who could die in their next mission at any time, to be able to trade one life for an 'immortal body', even if the price is turning into a girl—that's not a price at all!! That's a damn benefit!!"

Su Bai was stunned for a moment.

He realized that when this middle-aged man got excited, he had the same problem as Lin Xiao: he didn't stop to breathe when talking.

But he was right.

Su Bai himself hadn't thought about it from this angle.

But thinking about it carefully, a whole bunch of old men suddenly turning into Magical Girls... wouldn't that mess up the dating market? Would these people be the female side or the male side in the future? Holy crap, it seems like he accidentally created a crazy situation...

"So Uncle Lin, what do you mean—?"

"Mass production!"

Chairman Lin slammed his fist on the table, "Mass-produce this cat—no, mass-produce this Kyubey Card! Then sell it to those rough mercenaries who don't care about face, only about whether they can survive! Sell it to those Berserkers who weigh over two hundred pounds and spend their days fighting monsters hand-to-hand on the edge of the Abyss! Sell it to those scarred daredevils who have never known what 'shame' is!"

He took a breath.

"The 'immortal cannon fodder legion' you mentioned—please, you must let me make it a reality!"

"I never said that."

"You just said it now."

"...You just made that up?"

"Business packaging, this is business packaging."

Su Bai was silent for a few seconds.

He glanced at Lin Xiao.

Lin Xiao gave him a look—the gist of which was: "I'm also desperate, but my dad is just that kind of person, you're on your own."

Su Bai took a deep breath.

Then he walked to the conference table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

"Uncle Lin, sit down, let's talk properly."

Chairman Lin sat down immediately. The movement was so fast, it was as if there were magnets on the chair.

"First. Mass-producing the Kyubey Card is technically feasible. Although its core materials are expensive, two million fifty thousand, Lin Xiao previously showed me your family's material supply chain."

He paused.

"If we purchase in bulk through the Lin family's supply chain, how much can the cost be compressed?"

A flash of light appeared in Chairman Lin's eyes.

"If we go through the Lins Chamber of Commerce's internal channels: Ghoul Vulture white feathers can be shipped directly from our northern warehouse, reducing costs by 30%; for Deep Sea Blood Demon gel, we have a fixed supply from Deep Sea hunting groups, and the bulk price can be reduced to 60%; we have two breeding bases for Shadow Silkworm silk in the south... if we build a dedicated dark environment breeding line for you, the cost can be slashed to 40%."

He quickly did the mental math.

"All in all. The batch production cost for the first one hundred cards would be around nine hundred thousand each. If we can expand to a scale of one thousand cards, we can push it down to seven hundred thousand or even lower."

"Seven hundred thousand for a Tier 1 card."

Su Bai chewed over this number.

"Sounds a bit expensive still?"

"Not expensive! Not expensive at all!!"

Chairman Lin sprang up from his chair, "What is the average market price of a Tier 1 Armament Card? An ordinary C-rank card is about tens of thousands. But, can a C-rank card make a mercenary fearless in the face of death? Can it allow a person to keep fighting after losing hands or feet? Can it allow someone who is about to die to have a wish granted? No! Only yours can! So it cannot be priced as a Tier 1 card!"

He held up one finger.

"A Kyubey Card should sell for at least three million; that's the bare minimum I'm talking about. Of course, we usually sell at double, and in reality, an SSS-rank card, even if it is Tier 1, has to sell for over ten million."

"As for why it's this price... you should know that a Rainbow Card is generally a core card, and bundled with it are system cards. Although I don't know if you intend to sell system cards, believe me, there will definitely be people on the market who will make system cards!!"

He held up a second finger.

"So counting the system cards, our Rainbow Card has at least two super values."

He held up a third finger.

"Most importantly, the soul gem and the body that acts like a war weapon—that is the commodity. It is the commodity we sell, and it is also the second life the customer buys."

Su Bai leaned back in his chair.

He suddenly remembered what Zhao Dahai had said— "You clearly have such an awesome mastery of Spatial Circuits, can't you make normal cards? Why do you have to go and make a cat?"

How had he answered back then?

[It can induce humans to become Magical Girls.]

[Sounds very romantic, doesn't it.]

Zhao Dahai had scolded him for it.

And now, in the Third Reception Room, the Chairman of the Lins Chamber of Commerce was pointing with trembling fingers at that business plan, saying words that were completely different from Zhao Dahai's roar, but essentially pointed to the same conclusion—the cat you made can truly change the rules.

But what is a system card?

Su Bai had heard this term before, and hearing Chairman Lin discuss it again, he couldn't help but ask, surprised: "Can you explain this system card to me in detail? What do you mean by 'there will definitely be people on the market who will make them'?"

"You actually don't know?"

Chairman Lin was stunned for a moment, then immediately explained: "A system card, you can understand it as an entirely new system... Let me give you an example. When we read novels, there are different worldviews. For instance, fantasy novels have their fantasy upgrade systems, like soul rings or battle qi; cultivation novels have their cultivation systems, like Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Nascent Soul, etc. They themselves represent their respective cultivation systems."

"And system cards are in a similar form. Your Magical Girl is an extremely unique system! This is unheard of in all our current card decks, so once it appeared, its value was immense. It might even push the progress of the entire world. Just based on this one card, you could graduate with a doctorate directly!"

Speaking of this, Chairman Lin talked eloquently: "The core of a system card is the Rainbow Card, which is your Kyubey, and its significance is extraordinary. And the cards built around it are system-compatible cards! For example, if someone uses your card to become a Magical Girl, then based on the characteristics of a Magical Girl, there will inevitably be card faces that provide exclusive enhancements to the user in Magical Girl form, or offer unique benefits, or execute combos, etc. This is the value of a card deck!!"

Su Bai's heart stirred; so that was it! Looking at it this way, so-called Rainbow Cards must be various different cores... No wonder everyone was so excited when he launched the Magical Girl concept.

He couldn't help but ask in surprise: "I think I understand. But, can a Rainbow Card only be a system card?"

Chairman Lin pondered for a while and shook his head: "Not necessarily. I can only say that most Rainbow Cards are core cards, but a small portion of Rainbow Cards are promoted to Rainbow Cards directly because their own effects are too terrifying. For example, Her Excellency Qingyue has a card named 'Transcending Dimensions', which is a top-tier Rainbow Card that can directly allow her to travel to other worlds; or the once widely circulated summoning card—Sky-Glory Shield Armor. The effect of this card is said to be summoning a legendary existence, immortal and indestructible, unaffected by anything..."

Holy crap!

Su Bai's pupils quaked; are Rainbow Card effects actually this insane?

It seems he had underestimated this world...