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

"puff"

He spat out a mouthful of tea, then burst into laughter, "That's it?"

A burst of laughter erupted from the cubicle.

"I told you, a newbie is a newbie!"

"Give me the hundred bucks, and I win, right?"

"Wait, was I betting three seconds or five seconds...?"

Xiang Qian stood up, walked to the glass, and looked down at the stiff person in front of the control panel.

"Miss Qin." His voice, coming through the loudspeaker, made no attempt to hide his smugness. "You see? This is the card maker you hired. This time, he even wasted a Purple Domain Card. What a huge loss!"

Laughter from the cubicle echoed jarringly through the loudspeakers into the card-making room.

Qin Muyao didn't speak, but simply looked at Lin Fan, quietly waiting for him to raise his head.

Lin Fan propped his head up, his face pale, looked at Qin Muyao, put the useless card aside, and said with a resentful expression, "I'm sorry, my mental strength is not enough, these material cards are wasted."

Xiang Qian's voice came through the loudspeaker again: "Not enough mental strength? Still making excuses like that. You, an intern, don't even know how to make cards? We've never even heard of your 'Yang Jian,' and you're still pretending..."

"Exactly, exactly, hahaha..."

Lin Fan looked at the glass wall, his brows furrowing slightly. Once he made Guankou Erlang, he would make sure they experienced the power of the True Lord.

He glanced at Qin Muyao, slowly stood up, and prepared to leave this place of trouble.

This must have been embarrassing for the young lady, considering how much she trusted him, and yet he...

Just then, Qin Muyao suddenly spoke into the glass, "Have you all finished arguing? Say one more word and get out of here right now! You're giving me a headache!"

Immediately afterwards, Qin Muyao took a small bottle out of her bag and tossed it to Lin Fan.

"I drank it."

Lin Fan caught the small, transparent bottle that was tossed to him. It contained a pale blue liquid that shimmered slightly.

"Mental recovery fluid?" He paused, taken aback. "That must be expensive, right?"

"Enough with the nonsense!" Qin Muyao raised an eyebrow. "Hurry up and drink, then continue. Let these people see what I'm made of, otherwise they'll think I have bad taste!"

Lin Fan held the small, clear bottle without moving it. "There aren't enough materials to make another card! It would be a waste for me to drink this."

"Take a look at these, see if there's anything you can use." Qin Muyao took out three cards, two of which were the [Bone-Eating Hound] she had seen before, and the other was the [Spine-Breaking Serpent Spear].

They even brought out the priceless [Bone-Eating Hound]!

[The Broken Bridge Stone of Dangyang], [The Aura of a Hundred Battles], [The Broken-Spine Serpent Spear], and one more. Lin Fan's eyes lit up, he unscrewed the bottle cap, tilted his head back and gulped it down.

The cool liquid slid down his throat, and a comfortable feeling instantly filled his body. He could feel his depleted mental sea being filled little by little.

He closed his eyes, felt for a moment, and then picked up another blank card.

Inside the cubicle, the card makers led by Xiang Qian started again, but this time they didn't dare turn on the loudspeaker.

"As expected of the Qin family, this bottle of mental recovery fluid must cost at least tens of thousands of yuan. They're just using it like this."

"Stop talking nonsense, tell me how many seconds it took him to fail this time."

"Failure? He doesn't even have enough material." Xiang Qian took a sip from the purple clay teapot and pointed at the three cards in Lin Fan's hand.

Upon closer inspection, the group realized that Lin Fan indeed only had three cards in front of him, which couldn't even form the most basic formula of 4 materials.

"Three cards?" One person couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Is he here to be funny?!"

"Look, he's started again. What is he writing?"

On the other side of the glass, Lin Fan picked up a blank card and, without hesitation, engraved the words "Zhang Fei" on it.

"Zhang Fei, what is this now?"

[Throughout his life, he slaughtered countless enemies; his roar at Changban Bridge sent thousands of troops packing; even in death, his murderous intent remained.]

[The resentment and bitterness seeped into the eighteen-foot spear, transforming it into a fierce ghost wandering on Changban Slope, whose hoarse roars could still be heard on stormy nights.]

The cubicle was quiet for a few seconds.

"How did he come up with all this?" a young card maker murmured, a complex expression on his face.

"Even if it's well-written, if there's not enough material, it's all for nothing..."

Before the man could finish speaking, everyone shut their mouths.

Because at that moment, Lin Fan pulled out another card from his pocket.

[Black-faced Demon] Eerie Value: 97%

The moment that card was taken out, the air in the entire cubicle seemed to freeze.

The purple clay teapot held by Xiang Qian was suspended in mid-air. He subconsciously extended his spiritual power, and after only a moment of sensing, his expression changed. "The feeling of that card... is not right."

"A card that hasn't been purified yet!" The others also noticed something was wrong. "With such a high level of demonic transformation, has he gone mad?!"

"This thing could go berserk at any moment! If the card spirit gets out of control, this entire card-making room will be finished!"

"Notify the Card Association!" Xiang Qian turned around abruptly, his previous leisurely expression gone, and his voice changed. "There are people illegally making cards here. Tell them to send someone over immediately."

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the other side of the glass, on the [Black-faced Demon] in Lin Fan's hand, which exuded an eerie aura.

At this moment, Lin Fan's world was filled only with this blank card, and only with the image that was forming in his mind, the figure holding a long spear, standing alone on the bridgehead of Changban Slope.

He took a deep breath, and all four cards merged into the blank card at the same time.

His mental energy was suddenly pulled away from his body and rushed straight to the blank card.

Zhang Fei's silhouette gradually took shape on the card.

A dark-faced, fierce general stood alone at the Dangyang Bridge, with a bottomless abyss behind him and thousands of troops in front of him. He gripped a long spear in his hand, the tip of which was still wet with blood, and his feet were treading on the corpses of his enemies.

Killing intent condensed within the card, so intense it almost overflowed. The [Broken Bridge Stone of Dangyang] transformed into a bridge, the [Hundred Battles Killing Aura] transformed into killing intent, and the [Broken Spine Serpent Spear] transformed into a weapon. Most importantly, its form was that of the [Black-faced Fiend Ghost]!

A violent and resentful aura emanated from the card, and the glass partition shattered instantly.

It, the black-faced demon, resists becoming a material for crafting cards.

"It's out of control! That card's evil spirit is backfiring. If this continues..." Xiang Qian suddenly stood up, the purple clay teapot in his hand fell to the ground, and his face had completely changed.

He didn't need to finish speaking; everyone understood that the backlash from the evil spirit could cause anything from minor damage and injury to the reappearance of strange occurrences.

Lin Fan's face was deathly pale, and the last trace of color had faded from his lips.

"Not enough... mental strength..." His voice was hoarse as he looked up at Qin Muyao. There was no fear in his eyes, only an almost obsessive determination.

Because he knew that at this moment, if he was not careful, the strange creature would escape again, and not only him, but everyone present could also be in danger.

Qin Muyao paused for a moment, and after a brief thought, she took out another bottle of "Mental Recovery Fluid". It wasn't that she didn't want to give it to Lin Fan, but that continuous use of this stuff would be a drain on the body.

"Are you sure!" Qin Muyao asked, holding the small transparent bottle.

"Give it to me!" Lin Fan stared at Qin Muyao and nodded firmly.

Qin Muyao unscrewed the small bottle and brought it to Lin Fan's lips.

Unlike the first time he drank the recovery fluid, this time Lin Fan only felt a sharp pain, and large beads of sweat dripped down his forehead.

"Give it to me...!" He gritted his teeth and poured all the new mental energy into the card.

A blue light suddenly flashed on the card.

"Blue Domain Card! How could it be like this..." While everyone in the room was still in shock, the light in the card flashed again, and the blue color gradually faded.

Three seconds later, everything fell completely silent.

"it's over?"

"Has this failed?"

Lin Fan lay on the control panel, panting heavily, his fingers resting on the card surface, gently touching it.

The card lit up.

It wasn't blue light; it was pure purple light.

"Purple Domain Card!"

The card-making room was completely silent.

Xiang Qian leaned against the wall, his face ashen, his mouth agape, unable to utter a single word.

The card makers behind him had incredibly varied expressions on their faces: shock, jealousy, disbelief, and a hint of barely concealed... awe.

Purple Card.

That threshold that they had never even touched was crossed by an intern card maker, using a card with 97% unpurified monster value!