The Mysterious Card Maker: Starting with Zhang Jiao's Deification

Lin Fan glanced at Qin Muyao. This young lady didn't doubt his card-making skills at all. Was it because his intern card-making clothes weren't conspicuous enough?

"You trust an intern like me?"

"Didn't you succeed before?" Qin Muyao asked.

Lin Fan touched the [Great Teacher Zhang Jiao] in his hand. Since she trusted him so much, he couldn't let her down.

Lin Fan stood up, glanced at the livid supervisor beside him, then at Xiang Qian who was frozen in place, and said to Qin Muyao, "Alright, let's go, but I'll decide on the materials."

"No problem, you can choose any materials from the card-making room!"

"here?"

Qin Muyao raised an eyebrow: "Your company belongs to our Qin Group, using a few materials is nothing!"

Xiang Qian's face stiffened; this person clearly didn't take him, the card maker, seriously at all.

Seeing the two head towards the card-making room, Xiang Qian suddenly chuckled: "Miss Qin, are you sure you want a greenhorn who hasn't even finished his internship to make cards for you? Card making isn't something you can learn just by reading a few books. If something goes wrong, the cards could hurt someone, which would be a real problem."

The bald manager chimed in, "That's right, Miss Qin, why don't we leave it to Master Xiang?"

Qin Muyao paused, turning back to look at Xiang Qian with an expression as if she were looking at a clown: "Him? Can he make the card I want?"

Xiang Qian paused for a moment under that questioning gaze. The Qin Group had no shortage of card makers more skilled than him. If they couldn't even make what this young lady wanted, what right did he have?

But he couldn't swallow this insult. How could he let an intern steal the spotlight on his own turf? If he couldn't even do it, how could this intern possibly do it?

"I've been making cards for fifteen years, and I've successfully made 137 Blue Domain Cards and countless Green Domain Cards. What about you? How many have you made?" Xiang Qian looked at the ungrateful intern in front of him with a hint of arrogance.

"One!" Lin Fan didn't flinch, meeting Xiang Qian's gaze.

"One? Even my new apprentice made more than one, he..." Xiang Qian didn't continue, because he saw Qin Muyao staring at him with eyes so cold they could freeze.

"One card is enough!" Qin Muyao's gaze swept over the two of them. "As long as he can make what I want, I don't care how many cards he made before. You don't believe me? Then let him make one on the spot, and you can open your eyes and see for yourselves."

Upon hearing this, the two didn't say much more, but simply sent someone to tidy up the card-making room, saying it was to clean up the card synthesis formulas. These were formulas that the card makers had researched themselves, so cleaning them up was understandable.

After waiting for several tens of minutes, Lin Fan and Qin Muyao were finally invited into the card-making room.

Lin Fan sat down at the workbench. One side of the wall was separated by a one-way glass partition. At that moment, Xiang Qian called over a few card makers, who sat together in the cubicle behind the glass, waiting to see Lin Fan make a fool of himself.

Qin Muyao stood in front of Lin Fan. "You know what I want, right?"

"A summoning card similar to Zhang Jiao's?"

"Yes, just take whatever materials you need!" Qin Muyao said, pointing to the materials cabinet next to her.

Lin Fan nodded, looked in the direction Qin Muyao was pointing, and a troubled expression appeared on his face.

The cabinet, which was originally full of cards, is now reduced to just a few scattered pieces, as if they had been carefully selected, leaving only unrelated scraps.

Lin Fan let out a breath, suppressing his anger. These people are really ruthless; they even came up with such a dirty trick.

"Where are the cards for the resource cabinet?!" Qin Muyao said through gritted teeth, staring at the glass wall. "You all took all the cards while you were organizing, didn't you?!"

Through the speaker on the other side of the glass, Qian said, "Ms. Qin, those are all client data cards; we can't just dispose of them arbitrarily."

Just as Qin Muyao was about to go find them, Lin Fan stood up and stopped her.

"Never mind, let me see what I can use first." With that, Lin Fan walked to the materials cabinet.

【Three-Eyed Ghost General】(Purple), 【Broken Bridge Stone of Dangyang】(Green), 【Three-Foot White Silk】(Gray), 【Three-Pointed Soul-Slaying Blade】(Green), 【Blood-Piercing Demon-Revealing Eye】(Blue), 【Hundred Battles Killing Aura】(Gray), 【Mountain-Splitting Remnant Soul】(Green).

That's it? He counted them: seven cards.

Qin Muyao looked at him: "How is it? Is there anything usable?"

Lin Fan quickly scanned the card several times with his glasses and finalized the formula for making the card in his mind.

The materials [Three-Eyed Ghost General] + [Three-Pointed Soul-Slaying Blade] + [Demon-Illuminating Blood Pupil] + [Mountain-Splitting Remnant Soul] were put together to create a person.

Yang Jian!

"Yes." He took a deep breath, pulled the four cards out of the cabinet, and walked back to the control panel.

Behind the glass, Xiang Qian saw that he had taken four cards and immediately burst out laughing: "Oh, he even took a Purple Domain level card. Is he planning to make a Purple Card? Who does he think he is?"

A card maker nearby laughed, "A newbie is a newbie. He doesn't even know the basic rules. With that little mental strength, he thinks he can make a purple card? Can he even last ten seconds?"

"Ten seconds?" another card maker scoffed. "I bet five seconds."

"I'll bet three seconds, I'll bet a hundred dollars."

"I followed."

A low chuckle came through the loudspeaker from inside the cubicle, as if it were intentional.

Lin Fan ignored them, focusing only on picking up the blank card, closing his eyes, and beginning to mobilize his mental energy.

The two characters "Yang Jian" were quickly engraved on the blank card.

Behind the glass, someone leaned closer for a look: "Yang Jian? What's that? Never heard of him."

"I guess he just made it up. Newcomers like to do all this fancy stuff."

"Let's see how he writes it first."

Lin Fan began to construct a story in his mind.

Yang Jian was tainted by human obsessions; he once split a mountain with his own body to save his mother, and he also defied the might of heaven with his mortal form.

On every full moon night, a figure in silver armor sits alone, overlooking the mortal realm. He refuses the Heavenly Court's decrees and attends the Jade Pool Banquet, choosing instead to guard this land and its people.

Lin Fan stopped, took a deep breath, and began to visualize the inscription in his mind.

He has three eyes, and the divine eye between his forehead can see through demons and illusions. He takes the form of the "Three-Eyed Ghost General".

Wielding a three-pointed double-edged sword, he slays countless demons and evil spirits, using the [Three-Pointed Soul-Slaying Blade] as his weapon.

With a divine eye that sees through the darkness, it perceives the true nature of all things, using the [Demon-Revealing Blood Pupil] as its eye.

Splitting the mountain to save his mother was his destined tribulation; the lingering spirits of the mother and son haunted him, and he kept the "lingering spirits of the split mountain" in his thoughts.

Lin Fan raised his hand, and four cards simultaneously hovered on the blank card. As he flipped his wrist, the four cards merged into the blank card at the same time.

With a "whoosh," an invisible wave exploded from the control panel, and Lin Fan's body jolted violently.

His face turned pale instantly.

"It's starting! It's starting!" someone excitedly slammed their hand on the table inside the cubicle. "Look at his face! His mental strength is about to give out!"

"It's only been a few seconds? Ten seconds or less?"

"Holy crap, his lips are all white!"

"I knew it! A newbie daring to show off in front of the master—serves him right!"

"Shh, don't make a sound, let's see how long he can hold out."

Lin Fan was indeed nearing his limit.

His mental energy surged out of his body like water from a burst dam. The blank card that had fused with the card was now desperately absorbing his mental energy, trying to drain him dry.

"Just a little bit more, just a little bit more..." he gritted his teeth, squeezing the words out from between them.

Qin Muyao stood to the side, her fingers clenched so tightly they turned white, but she dared not utter a sound, for fear of disturbing Lin Fan.

Behind the glass, Xiang Qian crossed his legs and watched leisurely.

"That's about enough." He picked up the purple clay teapot, took a sip, and said, "My spiritual energy is almost depleted."

"Click."

A crisp sound rang out, a thin crack appeared on the blank card, and then the entire card dimmed.

Lin Fan's aura collapsed instantly. He covered his head and slumped onto the table, pounding his fists on the surface.

"So close, so very close!"

Card production failed!