74: Chapter 74 Rob him!

He took a card out of the drawer.

It wasn't pink.

It was gold and red.

The surface of the card shimmered with a familiar sword intent light, and a beast-bone-shaped shoulder armor totem pulsed slowly on the card.

"This is—?!" Zhao Dahai's eyes widened like copper bells.

"Tier 2 Beast God Armament. My master sent it over via Space Folding last night. There seemed to be a Tier 7 card too, but the Tier 2 one is just right for me. She swiped a mass-produced sample from the Sanctuary's appraisal room."

Su Bai flipped the card over and pointed to several nodes circled with a red marker on the back. "Look here. The Space Folding framework was modified from my Seven-Axis Circuit. They changed the rotation to translation and broke the seven axes down into five. The mana conductivity is indeed high, but it has a fatal flaw."

"What flaw?"

"It lacks a Concept Construction core. The core of a Kyubey Card isn't the Spatial Circuit, but Concept Construction—the law of deception, the Causality Contract, and the forced exchange of wishes and costs. They can't copy this set. That's why the Beast God Armament they made is essentially hollow. It transforms, yes, but after the transformation, apart from an increase in physical stats, it has nothing."

Su Bai tossed the card onto the table.

"No independent spellcasting, no exclusive magic, no Law of Time, and certainly no immortal body from a soul gem. Once you put on that silver-white armor, you can only do one thing."

"What thing?" Zhao Dahai pressed.

"Basic attacks."

Zhao Dahai blinked.

"…What does that mean?"

"It means ordinary attacks," Lin Xiao explained for Su Bai. "No skills, no magic, no additional effects whatsoever. It's just a pure boost in strength and speed, equivalent to a blank-slate Berserker wearing a glowing skin."

Su Bai picked up his coffee again.

"That's why I said—don't rush. The more people use this thing, the more obvious the contrast will be. When the time comes, I won't even need to advertise. People who bought the Beast God Armament will post questions themselves—'Why does the Magical Girl next door have Time Stop, while I only have basic attacks?'"

Lin Xiao stared at Su Bai for a full three seconds.

"You're waiting for your opponents to help you with the marketing?"

"Pretty much."

"But what if they don't post after buying it? What if they suffer a loss but don't say anything? You know how it is with face; those guild bigwigs value their face more than their lives."

"That doesn't matter either."

"Why?"

Su Bai set down his cup.

"If they don't use the Beast God Armament, there won't be a comparison. But once they use the Beast God Armament, there will inevitably be a comparison. And as long as there is a comparison—my card wins. It doesn't matter if they don't say anything; the battlefield data will speak for me. Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan already has 10,000 military orders going through the approval process. Once the first batch of real-world military data comes out—"

He paused.

"By then, it won't be a question of whether they want to buy it or not. It will be a question of whether I'm willing to sell it to them."

Zhao Dahai's mouth hung open.

Lin Xiao's mouth hung open too.

It was quiet for several seconds.

"So you actually have a plan?" Zhao Dahai confirmed cautiously.

"I do."

"What plan?"

"Wait."

"…Just one word?"

"Wait for them to discover on their own that the Beast God Armament is inferior to the Magical Girl." Su Bai nodded seriously.

"But what if they don't discover it?!" Lin Xiao was getting anxious. "Even good wine fears a deep alley! No matter how good your card is, if no one buys it, you won't get the blessing! If you don't get the blessing, you can't level up! If you can't level up, how can you make high-tier cards?! This is a vicious cycle!"

"Someone will discover it."

"Who?!"

Su Bai thought for a moment.

Then he said something that almost made Zhao Dahai flip over the card-making table.

"I don't know."

"You—!" Zhao Dahai pointed at Su Bai's nose, his fingertips trembling violently. "You were analyzing everything so logically just now! And the result is 'I don't know'?!"

"Analysis is analysis. Results are results." Su Bai said righteously. "But I feel there will be a turning point."

"What turning point?!"

"I don't know."

"Then what are you feeling for!!"

Lin Xiao took a deep breath.

She picked up her phone from the sofa, opened her contact list, and said in a calm tone that was on the verge of snapping: "Su Bai, I'm calling my dad right now to have him use the Lin family's media resources to push your card. If you won't do the marketing, I'll do it for you."

"No need."

"Why no need?!"

"Because pushing it now is useless. The public opinion has been locked down by the Beast God Armament. No matter how capable your family's media department is, they can't beat the double bombardment of thirteen guilds' joint publicity and the Abyss's internet trolls. Instead of wasting resources on a hard push, it's better to wait until their cards are on the market."

Su Bai stood up and stretched.

"Alright, stop worrying. Let's go out for a stroll."

"A stroll?!" Zhao Dahai's voice cracked. "The enemy is at the gates and you're telling me to go for a stroll?!"

"The enemy being at the gates is a matter for three days from now. Today is only the first day." Su Bai picked up his jacket and put it on. "Let's go. My treat for dinner. I haven't used that black card Uncle Lin gave me yet."

Lin Xiao's expression fluctuated between [I should stay angry] and [What he said actually makes some sense] for a few seconds.

Then she stood up.

"We're eating the most expensive stuff."

"Fine."

"I'm also ordering dessert."

"Order it."

Zhao Dahai looked at Su Bai, then at Lin Xiao.

Then he climbed up from the floor and brushed the dust off his knees.

"…I'm eating three servings."

— —

Chu Yin sat cross-legged on her dorm bed, clutching a pillow printed with the Kendo Association emblem. Her chin was buried deep into the pillow, revealing only a pair of slightly red eyes.

Her holographic screen floated in front of her, with seventeen forum alt accounts open on it.

[Orthodox Kendo]: The magical girl card is a disgrace to the card-making world! Who agrees, who opposes!

[Duyin's True Self]: Making transformation-type cards into pink dresses, what on earth is the Card Creator thinking?

[Anonymous User 8472]: Wearing a lace miniskirt to the battlefield, whose fault is it if a monster bites your thigh off?

After posting these three, she quickly switched accounts and liked her own posts.

Then she fell backward, collapsing into her quilt and letting out a muffled scream.

"Ugh…"

Transforming into a Magical Girl—this is just too cute.

When she first saw the recording of Su Bai's Monthly Exam, she screamed in her dorm for a full fifteen seconds, earning a warning from the senior sister next door who knocked on her door.

That card, that lace dress, those over-the-knee boots, that ribbon—every pixel was precisely striking the softest part of her heart.

That same night, she registered six alt accounts. One of them pretended to be a passerby posting a request to buy, while the other five rushed into the comment section, firing on all cylinders to bash it.

The harder she bashed it, the fewer people would queue. The fewer people in the queue, the higher the probability she could snag one.

This was the perfect strategy Chu Yin had spent a full three seconds coming up with.

However, the strategy collapsed quickly. Because that card was too popular. While using her alt accounts on the forum to berate [How dare they sell such indecent cards], she was using her main account to refresh the pre-sale page, watching helplessly as the queue number jumped from two digits to three, and then to four. That night, she punched her Kendo pillow for a full half hour.

Then something even more outrageous happened.

A card called the Beast God Armament suddenly appeared out of nowhere, with overwhelming publicity across the entire web, taking up four of the top ten trending spots. Tier 1 to Tier 8 customization, Causality Contract sub-system, Sanctuary SS certification—Chu Yin actually understood these technical indicators perfectly, because she was the direct disciple of Sword Saint Lu Changsheng, and she had a copy of the Sanctuary's internal appraisal report. She was silent for a long time after reading it.

It wasn't because the opponent was strong. It was because the opponent had crushed the magical girl card.

She scrolled through the posts on the forum one by one. "Orthodox vs. Heresy," "Adults vs. Children," "Lace Dress vs. Beast Bone Armor." She should have been happy—someone had driven away all those competitors fighting for the cards, she should have been happy. But she couldn't be.

Because every time those posts bashed the Magical Girl, every word felt like it was bashing her.

[Who would wear something like this to the battlefield.]

I would. She whispered in her heart.

[The Card Creator is just using this gimmick to grab attention.]

I think it looks very good. She whispered again in her heart.

[Cross-dressing and gender-bending, it's indecent.]

You don't know jack.

She covered her face with the pillow and curled into a ball. Since she was little, she had been her master's most prized disciple, the number one person in the youth group of the Jinghai Kendo Association. Everyone thought she was serious, proper, and unsmiling. She had spent over a decade polishing her shell until it was impenetrable, and then a pink ribbon knocked a crack into that shell.

She wanted to patch the crack. But she also secretly peeked into the crack.

"So annoying…" Chu Yin threw the pillow aside, rolled off the bed, and decided to go for a walk.

The aurora canopy of the commercial district dyed the entire street a pale silver. Chu Yin put a loose black jacket over her Kendo uniform, hands in her pockets, and walked aimlessly along the edge of the square. Her mind was still spinning—the Beast God Armament would be released in three days, the magical girl card was being suppressed and couldn't hold its head up, and her plan to bash it with alt accounts had officially gone bankrupt.

Then she stopped.

Across the street. In front of a milk tea shop.

A young man was handing two cups of milk tea to the people next to him. His figure was slender, his face handsome, and his expression carried a kind of calmness that didn't really care about anything around him.

Chu Yin's feet were nailed to the spot.

That face—she had seen it no less than twenty times in the Monthly Exam recording. Su Bai. The creator of the magical girl card. The ultimate source of the target for her six alt accounts. She also recognized the chubby guy next to him; his name was Zhao Dahai, the customer service rep at Su Bai's shop. There was also a girl holding a bag of cream puffs named Lin Xiao, who seemed to be their companion.

Her heart slammed against her chest cavity with a thud.

She took three steps back, hiding in the shadow of a narrow alley nearby, her back pressed against the cold wall. She pressed her right hand to her chest and could feel her heartbeat pounding at a completely abnormal frequency under her palm.

Their voices drifted from outside the alley entrance.

"Lin Xiao's red bean pudding, fatty's full-sugar with pearls." It was Su Bai's voice, very flat, as if he were reading a menu.

"I still have to do quality control tonight." The chubby guy's voice carried a hint of grievance. "It's one thing that you're not marketing your card, but you're actually taking us out for a stroll. You really don't take the Beast God Armament seriously."

"I do take it seriously."

"Then why are you still drinking milk tea?!"

"Milk tea is tasty."

Chu Yin quietly peeked half her head out from the alley entrance and saw Su Bai lowering his head to sip a pearl, his expression as serious as if he were completing some major mission. She quickly pulled her head back, pressing her back against the wall again.

What to do.

Eight thoughts ran through Chu Yin's mind simultaneously, none of them lined up.

The first thought—go up and ask for an autograph. No, her forum verified ID had the [Direct Disciple of the Sword Saint of Breaking Seas] badge, and she had written half of the posts bashing the Magical Girl. If Su Bai recognized her and said, "So you're the one who's been bashing me every day," where would she put her face?

The second thought—go up and ask for a custom card. Even worse, why would Su Bai give her a custom card? She hadn't helped him with anything, and her current persona was the number one Magical Girl hater on the entire web.

The third thought hadn't even finished running when the fourth one slammed right into it—rob him.

Chu Yin blinked.

This thought didn't run. It stood its ground.

That's right, rob him!

She was Tier 7, the number one person in the youth group of the Jinghai Kendo Association; wouldn't robbing a Tier 2 Card Creator be as easy as pie?

Suppress her mana to Tier 2 and fight him fairly. If she won, she'd force him to hand over the magical girl card, then go back to the dorm and use it secretly; no one would ever know.

The only loophole in this plan was—what if she didn't suppress her mana and accidentally beat Su Bai into a serious injury with one punch?

Then she would suppress it to Tier 2. Regardless, at Tier 2, her foundation in swordsmanship was enough to crush anyone of the same tier.

Chu Yin took a deep breath and walked out of the alley entrance.