Card Making: My Card Game Starts with the White Dragon

When Zhou Hao returned to his dormitory, it was already 10 p.m.

He eagerly pulled out the notebook and began to carefully read through it.

This notebook records Guo Chen's insights from his journey as a card-making trainee to a master card maker, as well as the card-making knowledge he has gained along the way.

It even includes a lot of thoughts on card-making ideas and speculations about ancient secrets in the secret realm.

For a card maker who values ​​knowledge above all else, the value of such a notebook far exceeds that of a few material cards; it is a true priceless treasure.

"This is far too valuable."

Zhou Hao understood that having such a notebook meant that even though he and Guo Chen were not officially master and disciple, they were in fact master and disciple in reality.

The key lies in the ancient legends and secrets recorded within, as well as the conjectures and extensions of thought in the annotations—these are the most crucial secrets of every card maker.

Guo Chen gave it to Zhou Hao without any conditions, which was incredibly generous.

Unfortunately, when it comes to ancient legends and secrets, probably no one knows more about them than Zhou Hao.

Therefore, this notebook was far less valuable to Zhou Hao than it was to an ordinary card maker.

But after all, it's the culmination of a lifetime's work by a top-tier card maker.

Guo Chen's unique insights and expertise in card making are of great value to Zhou Hao.

For example, on page 88, Guo Chen mentions that he was promoted to senior card maker when he was a sophomore at Peking University.

Then they entered a place called the "Spirit Altar," where they found out that their constitution was predominantly water-based, and then chose a cultivation technique called the "Thousand Waves Technique."

For example, the content that Guo Chen asked Ma Ling'er to photograph is on page 168: [Spirit of the Field] Spiritual Circuit Pattern.

In the very center of this page is a dense and exquisite pattern, which looks mysterious and beautiful.

Its drawing difficulty is significantly greater than that of the spirit patterns of [Summoning Cards] and [Legion Cards], by more than one order of magnitude.

Below the pattern is a text annotation: This pattern was seen on a stone tablet in a secret realm called [Jade Cauldron Cave], and it seems to involve a concept called [Immortal].

Then the next line is:

"This pattern seems to allow monster material cards to be incorporated into the creation of [Field Cards]."

……

"It really works! It seems that the River God has formed some unknown connection with the ancient Yellow River."

……

"Only after becoming a grandmaster did I understand its profound mystery."

……

The handwriting in the following lines was much newer than the previous lines:

"Zhou Hao, this design wasn't drawn on the back of the card."

Instead, it's drawn on top of the material card's illusory image. You need to concentrate your mental energy into more delicate brushstrokes, and then...

……

When he got to the last line, Zhou Hao only saw one sentence:

"I know your potential is far greater than what you've shown, but this mental loop should also help you a lot."

……

After reading the handwriting, Zhou Hao was filled with mixed emotions.

"【River God】? ​​【Ancient Yellow River】? It seems that Chairman Guo's success today is partly due to a series of fortunate events."

Zhou Hao felt that through this notebook he saw a young card maker groping in the darkness of history and mythology, and also saw the most authentic side of a card maker.

But Guo Chen is already a recognized genius. Even he struggled to explore the field, let alone ordinary card makers who lacked historical knowledge and special talents.

At the same time, it must be said that the eyesight of a master-level card maker is also top-notch.

He dared to assert that Zhou Hao's potential was definitely not limited to what he had achieved when Zhou Hao was only an intermediate card maker.

But it was precisely this keen insight that made Guo Chen's last sentence reveal a hint of awkwardness, like "a poor man trying to save face."

It's as if Guo Chen already knew that Zhou Hao was guarding the treasure trove of Chinese mythology; those conjectures and ideas that are valuable to others are nothing but wrong answers to Zhou Hao.

The only thing Zhou Hao could be proud of was the [Spirit of the Field] spiritual pattern that he had obtained by chance in the secret realm, which was something he was certain could help him.

However, Zhou Hao would not underestimate the value of this gift just because he possessed the Chinese mythology.

In his view, Guo Chen's teaching was a genuine act of kindness.

"What a huge debt of gratitude I owe..."

He wasn't the kind of person who would forget kindness; such an expensive gift even made Zhou Hao feel somewhat uneasy.

But he quickly suppressed these random thoughts, took out paper and pen, and began to focus on practicing the [Spirit of the Field] mental patterns.

Even though Zhou Hao had advanced to the intermediate card maker level and his control over mental energy was better than before, it still took him an entire night to barely master it.

As dawn broke, Zhou Hao remained filled with excitement.

But he also plans to take a break and relax first.

Zhou Hao turned on his computer and began selecting auxiliary materials for the field card [West Sea Dragon Palace].

He has already bought some suitable auxiliary materials in the past few days.

Because the new accommodation location had not yet been determined, Zhou Hao held back the shipment.

"I just bought everything today, it should arrive when I wake up."

After all, within the Shanhai City area, the delivery speed of the online material library is still quite fast.

Zhou Hao lost interest in watching the game before his bye ended.

After all, yesterday's battle between Zhang Yaoyang and Dugu Baisui was the most valuable of the first two rounds.

In most cases, the students' levels were so low that it was difficult for Zhou Hao to learn anything from them.

Wouldn't it be better to use this time to practice the [Spirit of the Field] mental patterns and improve your strength by crafting cards?

After picking out another item, the [Clam Essence Pearl Cultivation Pool] (blue), Zhou Hao, who had been up all night, finally decided to go to bed, even though he was still not sleepy.

Boss Zhou tossed and turned in bed, occasionally picking up the [Dilapidated Fuxian Royal City] (purple) to look at it, and occasionally pinching the [Fire Seed Source Fragment] (purple) to look at it.

Looking at that [Fragment of the Spark Source] (purple), Zhou Hao still felt as if he were in a dream.

He couldn't help but recall the mechanical-themed cards that Ma Ling'er had discussed with him on their way back to the dormitory.

According to Ma Ling'er, the [Fire Seed Fragment] is a material that has a chance to be obtained from boss-level or higher monsters in the S-rank secret realm [Mechanical City].

Without the [Spark Fragment], the difficulty of creating a Mech-type card deck increases significantly.

These materials are naturally suited to serve as the energy source for mechanical cards.

Furthermore, as mechanical cards advance, the [Spark Fragment] can develop into an intelligent entity similar to consciousness, which Ma Huateng calls the [Mech Soul].

The intelligence level of [Machine Soul] is no less than that of cards that have normally awakened intelligence; in fact, its calculation ability is even stronger.

Ma Ling'er also specifically mentioned that among all mechanical cards, the one with the highest success rate is the humanoid armor summoning card, such as [Crimson Flame-21].

The exact reason is still unknown, but a large amount of data has confirmed this.

Zhou Hao didn't intend to be stubborn. In his mind, there were too many choices for humanoid battle armor summoning cards.

Giant-sized ones like Gundam, EVA, Light Warrior, Ryujinmaru, Pacific Rim Jaeger, and Super Robot Wars.

For characters the size of a normal person, there are many such as Fruit Warriors, Super Beast Armed, Iron Man, and so on, there are too many to count.

But actually, when Zhou Hao first saw Ma Ling'er descending from the sky wearing that [Crimson Flame-21] outfit, he already had an idea in his mind.

……

(P.S.: There will be another chapter at 12:08 AM)