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

Card Name: [Zhang Fei (Deceptive), an Enemy of Ten Thousand Men]

Type: Summoning Card

Quality: Purple Domain 1 Star

Characteristic: The more you fight, the stronger you become (can extract mental energy from defeated enemies to maintain peak condition)

Skill: [Dangyang Shout] Intimidates the enemy with a roar, causing them to be stunned. Low-level monsters will shatter instantly.

【Soul-Slaying Serpent Spear】Condenses killing intent into a spearhead, the serpent spear can tear flesh and blood, and even tear the soul apart, leaving a wound called 'Serpent Entanglement' on the body of the one pierced, which is difficult to heal.

【Asura Descends】When severely injured, the ferocious nature of the demon within can be unleashed. The more injured one is, the more enraged one becomes, with power surging and attacks becoming unrestrained and difficult to control.

Overview: A roar at Dangyang Bridge broke the bridge and caused the water to flow backward. Every stormy night, that hoarse shout can still be heard on Changban Slope. It is the sound that makes thousands of troops dare not cross the line.

Qin Muyao looked down at the card, a slight smile playing on her lips. "It's done!"

Lin Fan looked up at the card that was glowing with purple light, and secretly rejoiced. If it weren't for Qin Muyao's bottle of recovery fluid, he wouldn't have been able to make this purple card at all.

His mental strength was still too weak; making a blue card was already his limit.

He rubbed his temples, his head throbbing with pain, and his mental energy was on the verge of depletion, showing no signs of recovery. This was the consequence of overusing the mental recovery fluid.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from outside the door.

"Bang"

The door to the card-making room was pushed open from the outside, and three people dressed in dark uniforms with the Card Association emblem embroidered on their chests appeared in the doorway.

The leader was a square-faced man whose gaze swept around the room. Scattered on the floor were shattered pieces of glass, people slumped in chairs, the shocked crowd in the cubicle, and the cards on the table gleaming with purple light.

"Who is Xiang Qian? Who did you report for irregular card production?" His voice wasn't loud, but his tone carried an undeniable air of authority.

"I... I'm the one who signed up."

Xiang Qian raised his hand in the cubicle, his initial shock and jealousy vanishing, replaced by a righteous and awe-inspiring expression.

He jogged up to the square-faced man and pointed at Lin Fan, who was slumped in a chair.

"It's him, the one who illegally created the card. We all saw him use an unpurified card with a high level of strangeness." He said, looking at the people in the cubicle.

The card makers nodded in agreement, saying, "Yes, yes, we all saw it. The degree of distortion must be at least 80% or more."

The square-faced man's gaze fell on Lin Fan. He slowly walked to the control panel and showed Lin Fan his identification: "Card Inspection Team Two: Wei Ming".

Then he bent down and picked up the cards on the table. "Did you make these cards?"

Lin Fan, holding his head, replied hoarsely, "Yes."

"What materials were used?"

Just as Lin Fan was about to speak, Qin Muyao spoke first, "The card maker's synthesis formula is their private property; they are not obligated to disclose it!"

Wei Ming raised an eyebrow, looking at Qin Muyao with some shock. He never expected that this young woman in front of him would say "no" to the Card Association.

Qin Muyao met his gaze. "Article 37 of the 'Card Maker Compliance Regulations' states that card makers have the right to refuse to disclose synthesis formulas unless subject to mandatory review. What, have the Card Association members forgotten the rules themselves?"

Wei Ming paused for two seconds before continuing, "Miss, you may not know this, but according to Article 78 of the Card Association, card makers using unconventional card-making methods must provide the card-making formula."

Qin Muyao choked, and immediately lost her temper.

Wei Ming's gaze passed over Qin Muyao and landed on Lin Fan again.

What is the synthesis formula?

"【The Broken Bridge Stone of Dangyang】, 【The Aura of a Hundred Battles】, 【The Broken-Spine Serpent Spear】, and..." Lin Fan paused, "and 【The Black-Faced Fiend Ghost】 with a 97% transformation value."

"Holy crap, 97%! Such a high level of weirdness! Only those guys from the 'All Souls Society' would use cards like this to make cards." Xiang Qian exclaimed in surprise. At this moment, he had already classified Lin Fan as a cult like the 'All Souls Society'.

Without turning his head, Wei Ming coldly replied, "Quiet, we have our own inspection methods."

Then he waved his hand, and the person standing behind him took out an instrument from a box he was carrying and assembled it on the control panel in front of Lin Fan.

"Do you know what the consequences are of using unpurified cards with high levels of malice to create cards?" Wei Ming asked in an interrogative tone.

"I know." Lin Fan didn't dodge. "If the card spirit goes berserk, it will backfire on the card maker. The worst-case scenario is death!"

"You know that, why are you still using it?"

Lin Fan gave a wry smile: "I only realized it after the cards were made!"

Wei Ming stared at him for a few seconds. Seeing that he did not flinch and did not seem to be lying, he placed the [Enemy of Ten Thousand Men - Zhang Fei (Deceptive)] into the detection card slot on the table.

The instrument hummed, and the indicator lights for the test began to flash.

All eyes were fixed on that instrument.

One minute later, the instrument emitted a slight sound, and the green indicator light lit up.

Wei Ming frowned as he looked at the instrument. After circling the machine to test it, he looked puzzled. "25%? You used materials with 97% monster value to create a Card Spirit with only 25% monster value? How did you do that?!"

These words shocked everyone present.

"Impossible!" Xiang Qianli stepped forward, staring at the gleaming 25% on the instrument, and said incredulously, "97% material should produce something with at least 87% accuracy, that's common sense! Down to 25%? I've never heard of that in all my years of making cards!"

"Is the equipment broken?"

"That shouldn't be the case; I just proofread it this morning."

"The data might be incorrect. Should we test it again?"

After receiving permission from Wei Ming, the team members behind him rescanned the image of "Zhang Fei (Deceptive), the Enemy of Ten Thousand Men". A minute later, the green indicator light lit up again, and the number on the screen remained unchanged at 25%.

"Team Leader Wei, do we still need to send this card for purification?" a team member asked.

"You don't know that the synthesized mutated value is permanently fixed and cannot be purified at all." Before Wei Ming could speak, another team member spoke first.

The card makers in the cubicle whispered among themselves upon hearing this.

"If it can't be purified, then it's like having a card 'spirit' that doesn't obey commands, and the card is useless."

"25%! Anything below 30% is within a safe and controllable range. It can be used normally even without purification. This level will not affect normal transactions at all, after all, it is a purple card."

"But this was made from 97% of the original materials! Who would dare use it!"

"This is ridiculous! Where did the missing transformation points go? They should have been left in this card!"

Indeed, the weirdness value in the material will remain on the card forever, like blood dissolving in water; it cannot be washed away or erased.

Xiang Qian stared at the card that glowed with purple light, his expression shifting between anger and uncertainty. He had been a card maker for fifteen years and had never seen anything like it.

Lin Fan lowered his head. Of course, he wouldn't tell them that the 97% of the Deviant Value hadn't disappeared or been purified. It had been suppressed into the other side of [Zhang Fei], which was the skill [Asura's Descent]. As long as it was used, the fully Deviant Zhang Fei would appear, but as long as it wasn't used, there wouldn't be any problems at all.

Only Lin Fan, the card maker, knew all of this.