“The Human Who Helped the Demon Princess Reclaim Her Kingdom”

 

Talia moved her gaze away from the card emanating purple light, her eyes revealing a hint of helplessness as she let out an almost imperceptible sigh.

It had been so long since she last made a card that she had almost forgotten the glow that accompanied the flow of magic on cards.

Especially when completed and activated, the colors would be extremely vibrant.

This quality largely reflected the card's strength, value, and rarity.

The lowest [White Common] could be seen everywhere and was the most circulated magic card on the market.

Most were just life spells, with little additional equipment effects or summons.

[Blue Rare] magic cards would have complete and practical effects, considered flawless works that required stable and superb skills to produce.

If novice card makers could make magic cards of this quality, they often had exceptional talent.

The higher-grade [Purple Rare] magic cards began to have qualitative changes in both value and strength, with prices that ordinary people simply couldn't afford.

For wealthy nobles and most strong individuals, purple quality magic cards were often key cards that matched their combat professions and formed their personal systems.

If magic cards of this quality had some practical additional effects, they might have unexpected results even with low numerical values.

As for higher qualities, ordinary people wouldn't even know much about them.

After all, [Pink Holy] quality magic cards were more like a distant symbol for most humans.

In a border city of this kingdom, it would probably be difficult to see traces of holy card owners for years.

The reason for its rarity was not just its scarcity, but also because careful consideration was needed before soul binding.

Generally speaking, magic cards weren't permanently bound to oneself after use.

It's just that the higher the quality, the greater the cost of removing the soul binding.

However, once it was a [Pink Holy] quality magic card, it couldn't be unbound and rebound at will when out of combat like the first three types of cards. It required complicated re-encapsulation steps and would cause long-term damage to the binder themselves.

As for [Orange Epic], it was the highest level of magic card that living beings could conceptually see in the world.

Each epic card was unique, anchored to the world, and spanned history.

Once bound to one's soul, it was difficult to unbind even at a cost.

Forcibly breaking the contract would cause irreversible severe damage to both the user and the card.

So white, blue, and purple had high mobility and could be swapped and combined according to tactics at any time. While pink and orange had more powerful strength, considering the long term, even if there was an opportunity to bind, one must think carefully about whether it matched their system.

In the ancient legends of the demon world, there was a quality above epic, but it hadn't appeared for thousands of years. With the fall of the demon kingdom, clues about this type of card became increasingly untraceable...

For the experienced Talia, even the noble purple rare quality wasn't anything special.

She had made countless herself.

But compared to the quality of the card Lanqi made, Talia was more surprised by the card's strange effect.

Generally speaking.

A card maker's early works often reflected their career card-making style.

So Talia found it a bit difficult to predict what more outrageous things this guy would make in the future.

Talia, lost in thought for a moment, caused the card-making workshop to fall into silence again.

"..."

Seeing that she didn't speak, Lanqi didn't disturb her either.

The gentle afternoon sunlight quietly penetrated through the clouds, the shadow of the window frame flickering on the brown floor.

After two weeks of work that neglected sleep and food, Lanqi finally got results and gradually relaxed. He leaned back in his chair, feeling drowsy for once during this nap time.

Time seemed to freeze briefly in the card-making workshop, permeating a strange peaceful atmosphere. The engraving pens, alchemy pots, ink bottles, and other tools on the workbench also seemed to be given souls, whispering lullabies in this fantastic realm.

However, just as Lanqi was about to sink into dreams, like a string in the wind, Talia's question once again awakened his mind.

"How old are you."

Her tone was still as cold as water, without any emotional color.

"I'll be 17 next year."

Lanqi raised his head and looked at Talia.

He used a relatively rigorous wording to answer.

After all, he didn't know if saying 16 directly would be judged as a lie by Talia.

The age of his body was definitely 16, while the age of his soul should probably be calculated from before he transmigrated.

"Then it's not too late for you to learn card making now."

Talia re-examined the youth before her.

These days she had watched with her own eyes as Lanqi went from completely unfamiliar practice to gradually becoming somewhat skilled, so she was very sure that Lanqi didn't have much card-making experience before.

According to her experiences traveling from the northernmost part of the continent southward through many human countries over these years, this youth named Lanqi could already be called a natural magical craftsman among human card makers, except for starting to learn relatively late and having a low rank himself.

"Tata, in your opinion, are the magic cards I made pretty good?"

Lanqi's face still wore a natural smile.

There was no boasting in his words, he just seemed very certain that Talia had extraordinary knowledge, so he sincerely sought her advice.

"...If it could be mass-produced, once it enters the market, it might become a new versatile card."

After a brief silence, Talia answered.

The reason this card was versatile was simple.

Because everyone would want to buy it.

Once this card circulates, the nature of combat might have already changed.

Making enemies kneel might become more important than winning or losing.

And in fair competitions, this was also a deterrent - "If you dare to make me kneel, I'll make you kneel right back". It might not be used, but it couldn't be absent.

Although Talia thought that Lanqi really deserved to die just thinking about having to guard against enemies using this kind of sword graveyard spell at any time in the future.

But in the long run, if the human combat atmosphere became chaotic, it would also be beneficial for her cause of restoring her country.

So she wouldn't actively stop Lanqi from abusing this card to pollute the human magic card system and environment.

"I see."

Lanqi picked up the [Basic Etiquette] card in his hand and looked at it, the corners of his mouth curling into a rather friendly smile as he turned to Talia,

"Although I can't give you this one, I can sell you the next one. But given the success rate, it might take several more days of work. I'm busy preparing for exams recently, so I can only help you make it after the exams are over."

"How much."

Talia didn't use a questioning tone, or perhaps questions from her mouth would all turn into statements.

She knew that before this versatile card officially circulated, it undoubtedly had the highest value while still in a scarce state.

In fact, as the initial version, it contained the value known as "formula".

Since Lanqi was willing to trade the second one to her, the price would certainly not be small.