78: Chapter 78 is nothing special, just pure power.

The materials needed this time were different from before. All four cards were combat terminal types, so they did not need conceptual carriers like Phantom Demon crystals. What he needed were high-density mana conduction materials—things that could allow Tier 7 mana to pass through a Tier 1 circuit without burning the card surface.

Three fragments of a Tier 9 Abyss Mana Crystal Core. The purpose was to coat the surface of the circuit as an insulating layer, not as the main circuit trunk. The biggest problem with pouring Tier 7 mana into a Tier 1 circuit was that the circuit itself would burn through. Coating it with a layer of Tier 9 crystal powder was equivalent to plating a piece of paper with titanium alloy.

Two hundred fifty thousand each. Seven hundred fifty thousand for three.

Chu Yin's wallet let out a whimper.

Abyss Sea Silver, six grams. It was the most stable type of mana conduction material, with high conductivity and almost no mana congestion. Six grams sounded like a small amount, but the density of Abyss Sea Silver was over ten times that of gold, so six grams was only the size of a grain of rice.

One hundred eighty thousand per gram. One million eighty thousand for six grams.

Chu Yin's wallet screamed again.

Su Bai continued flipping through the pages without changing his expression.

During this time, the group chat between Zhao Dahai and Lin Xiao was still scrolling rapidly.

[Zhao Dahai]: [He said he's awake! But he's not replying to messages! That means he's spending money right now!!]

[Lin Xiao]: [Look at the Truth Sanctuary shop; the things being consumed are already scary enough.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [What? I'll have someone from the Truth Sanctuary check for me. By the way, how much did that female swordsman named Chu Yin give?]

[Lin Xiao]: [It doesn't seem to be cash.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [That's good.]

[Lin Xiao]: [It's a Star Card.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [A Star Card is ten thousand times more terrifying than cash!! That's hard currency converted from military merit points!! A single Star Card from a Tier 7 swordsman could buy the entire material street!!!]

Su Bai found the last thing he needed in the third shop.

A Rainbow-grade Spirit Pattern Paper.

The best Spirit Pattern Paper available on the market was usually just standard, and anything that could support a Tier 3 or higher circuit was considered qualified. Rainbow-grade was the exception. Its mana inertia was almost zero, and mana of any attribute passing through it would not produce any rejection reaction. Using Rainbow-grade as the card base could increase the circuit's mana conductivity by several percentage points.

Of course, the price was also quite "beautiful."

One sheet. Several million.

When Su Bai handed the Star Card to the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper's hands were shaking. He had seen many large transactions before. What made his hands shake was a teenager wearing a school uniform—who swiped away several million without even blinking, then pulled a purchase list from his pocket and continued flipping pages. Scanning the list from the shopkeeper's perspective, there were at least seven or eight more items left unchecked.

"Student... which big family are you from?"

"I'm not. I'm a Card Creator."

Su Bai answered naturally, continuing to check off the fifth item on the list.

The entire purchasing process lasted two and a half hours. Chu Yin's Star Card balance dropped all the way from six digits to five. Su Bai looked at the final total—it was about twenty percent more than he had estimated. This was mainly because the price of the Rainbow-grade Spirit Pattern Paper was five percent higher than the market rate, and the Tier 9 crystal core fragments could only be bought in small sizes, as the larger pieces had long been reserved by various big families.

However, it was generally within budget.

He stuffed the last batch of materials into his storage box and turned to walk out of the black market.

Sunlight shone on his face, he squinted, and then took out his phone.

There were already hundreds of messages in the group chat.

The latest one was from Lin Xiao.

[Lin Xiao]: [@Su Bai, my dad just had someone check your Truth Sanctuary shop's transaction records. The money you spent today is enough to buy a small material supply chain. Honestly, what kind of cards did you make for that female swordsman?]

[Su Bai]: [A deck. Four cards.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [Four cards?? You designed four cards in one day???]

[Su Bai]: [Designed them overnight yesterday. Bought materials today. Starting to create the cards tomorrow.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [...Are you even human?]

[Lin Xiao]: [What are the effects of the four cards? Send them over and let me see.]

Su Bai thought about it.

[Su Bai]: [The first one, soul gem enhancement. The second one, Unlimited Blade Works. The third one, Explosion Magic staff. The fourth one—]

He paused.

[Su Bai]: [One-shot clear.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [?? Clear what? Clear what out?]

[Su Bai]: [Mana. All mana. Fire one shot. Then collapse.]

The group chat went quiet for about three seconds.

[Zhao Dahai]: [...Where did you get this design concept from?]

[Su Bai]: [Anime.]

[Zhao Dahai]: [Anime again!!!]

Truth Sanctuary. Card Creation Room.

Li Qingyue sat on a floating chair, her bare feet crossed and resting on the edge of the card creation table. The golden light of the universal balance flowed slowly at her fingertips, and a holographic screen that only she could see floated in front of her.

On the screen were the four card design plans that Su Bai had written overnight.

She had originally intended to check the backend of Su Bai's Truth Sanctuary shop to examine her disciple's business data. Instead, she found this file named [Chu Yin Exclusive · Deck Component Draft] in the shared directory of Su Bai's card creation room. After opening it, she never looked away.

First page. soul gem enhancement card.

Li Qingyue nodded slightly. Standard and steady. The soul gem's impurity purification mechanism was a small module intercepted from the conceptual fusion matrix of a Tier 9 Kyubey Card; using it in actual combat could indeed improve emotional conversion efficiency. The logic was self-consistent, and the design was reasonable.

Second page. Unlimited Blade Works.

Her eyebrows twitched slightly. Designing weapons as consumables and utilizing the depth of a Tier 7 mana pool to compensate for the lack of durability in Tier 1 cards. This idea was quite fresh. Making more swords, not pursuing hardness. A very clever approach. Coupled with high-speed healing... hmm, understandable, it was indeed quite good.

Then she flipped to the third page.

The design drawing for that Explosion Magic staff.

Li Qingyue's pupils contracted suddenly.

Ten times.

Sealing all other abilities in exchange for a tenfold increase in Explosion Magic power. She recognized this design logic—this was [Cost Replacement] in Concept Construction. Paying a cost to exchange for another enhancement; the greater the cost, the higher the enhancement. Sealing all skills in exchange for doubling the power, this framework itself had no problems. But—

Her finger swiped through the air, flipping to the fourth page.

That End of the World Explosion Magic.

Li Qingyue stared for a full ten seconds.

Then, like a real little girl, she buried her face in her palms.

The design of the previous cards made her marvel that her disciple could already stand on his own, but now...

No. No. Let her confirm first. Maybe she had misunderstood.

She lifted her head again and read the trigger conditions for the fourth card word by word.

[Chant the complete chuunibyou incantation. Not one word can be missed. Not one syllable can be wrong.]

Below, an example was attached—

[He who is darker than darkness, he who is deeper than the night, oh golden king of the foreign land drifting in the sea of chaos. I, in the name of Magical Girl Chu Yin, summon thee; show forth the explosion of miracles here!]

Li Qingyue read it over and over again.

This card required a Tier 7 sword cultivator, on the battlefield, in front of everyone, to loudly shout these lines, and then—release an "Explosion Magic."

The cost was total mana depletion. The soul gem's impurity would be maxed out. Then collapse to the ground, striking a pose with the head buried in the ground—the sketch actually showed a real-person illustration.

The problem was, what is Explosion Magic?

Why would a lousy magic spell have such a huge cost!

And unlike Su Bai's time magic...

Speaking of time magic, Li Qingyue's expression changed.

That's right, what was this kid doing? Clearly, when Su Bai transformed into a Magical Girl himself, his magic ability was incredibly devious, and Time Stop had almost no cost. Yes, that kid's Time Stop definitely had no cost; the only thing with a cost should be spacetime regression?

But what did he install for Chu Yin?

A... magic spell she didn't know what it was!

This guy, what exactly did he want to do?

Li Qingyue jumped off the floating chair, her bare feet stepping on the cold floor of the card creation room. She paced around the room twice with her arms crossed, then stopped and took a deep breath. Forget it, she'd take it one step at a time. She took out her communicator, opened QQ, and clicked on Su Bai's chat box.

[Li Qingyue]: [Su Bai, I've seen your deck design.]

[Su Bai]: [What do you think, Master?]

[Li Qingyue]: [It's logically self-consistent. The closed-loop framework of the deck components is very complete. Four Tier 1 cards connected into a Tier 7 combat system, driven by the user's own mana—this idea has no problems. However.]

[Su Bai]: [However?]

[Li Qingyue]: [The End of the World Explosion Magic. What is the point of chanting that line?]

[Su Bai]: [A catalyst. Designing the chant as a trigger condition, the circuit will only unlock the mana charging module after recognizing the complete sequence of syllables in the lines. It can't be activated without the chant—it's very reasonable, right.]

[Li Qingyue]: [You made up the lines yourself.]

[Su Bai]: [Yeah. Designed to match Chu Yin's personality. Full chuunibyou vibes.]

[Li Qingyue]: [Did she know about this when she signed the contract?]

[Su Bai]: [Haven't told her yet. But she said she was willing to accept the full transformation animation without skipping frames. The lines shouldn't be a problem either. Probably.]

Li Qingyue was silent for a few seconds.

[Li Qingyue]: [Su Bai, let me confirm one thing. This staff card seals all of the user's cards and skills, meaning that after Chu Yin activates the staff, she can't use anything except Explosion Magic. She can't even open the most basic defensive skills.]

[Su Bai]: [Yes. This is a very pure design—a mage who only knows how to fire cannons.]

Pure.

She chewed on these two words in her mouth several times.

[Li Qingyue]: [And this staff itself... are you sure you want to make the debuff of sealing skills a fixed attribute?]

[Su Bai]: [This is called cost replacement. Paying one ability to exchange for another with tenfold power. Equivalent exchange.]

[Li Qingyue]: [The premise of equivalent exchange is that both parties recognize the reasonableness of the cost. Do you think Chu Yin will accept it?]

[Su Bai]: [Don't worry, Master. She was crying on the street earlier, telling me she was willing to do anything. The tone was very sincere.]

[Li Qingyue]: [I don't think you understood what I meant. I mean, your own ability when transforming into a Magical Girl is Time Stop, which is the Law of Time, a very powerful one, right? But you gave Chu Yin... well, she is at least a Tier 7 swordsman, and you gave her such a... chuunibyou magic. What is the advantage of this magic?]

[Su Bai]: [It packs a punch.]

Packs a punch?

Li Qingyue's fingertips hovered above the screen.