Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3140: Young And Ambitious

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Azorheim, Temporal Cave Valley, Temporal Cave No. ES3030

I planned to help the third batch of Card Apprentices forge Soul Gems, not merely Ego Gems.

After all, a Soul Gem was far more advanced than the Ego Gem they were asking me to help forge. If I was already willing to give them something that could take their cultivation to the next level, there was little reason to settle for merely improving their Ego Gems.

Besides, once I had my army of Array Masters install the various Array Formations across the New Empire, Soul Gems would inevitably become the new gold standard.

The moment ordinary Card Apprentices realized that they could use the arrays to reforge their Soul Cores into Soul Gems, the demand would explode. It would no longer be something reserved for a handful of talented cultivators or those fortunate enough to receive my personal assistance.

Soon, everyone below the Semi-Card Demigod realm would be scrambling to forge a Soul Gem, even if doing so meant sacrificing one Original Card slot. After all, an Original Card slot was valuable, but the benefits of a Soul Gem were even more valuable in the long run. A stronger foundation, greater synchronization, superior potential, and access to martial path that could continue developing alongside their regular realm, etc. these were not benefits most cultivators would willingly give up simply to keep one additional card slot.

Once the Soul Core condensation and reforging arrays became widespread, choosing between an ordinary Original Card and a Soul Gem would no longer feel like much of a choice.

The only real question would be how quickly they could afford to make the switch.

So I didn’t need to create a smart array formation that helped Card Apprentices forge better Ego Gems in the first place. I could simply create one that helped them reforge their Soul Cores into Soul Gems.

Also, instead of giving this batch a merit rebate, I planned to offset their merits by giving them Soul Gem Origin Cards and helping them reforge those cards into Soul Cores.

There was, however, one problem.

This batch wasn’t anything like the previous two. They were young and ambitious. And most importantly, they hadn’t yet run into an iron wall. They lacked desperation and were overflowing with hope.

They were essentially greenhouse flowers. They had grown up protected by their families, surrounded by resources and opportunities, and hadn’t yet experienced the kind of setbacks that forced someone to question whether their chosen path was actually possible.

With their age and current realms, there was simply no way they could have earned such an absurd amount of merits themselves.

Their families had given them those merits.

And that meant they viewed every merit they spent very differently from the previous batches.

For the older Card Apprentices, a merit was often a price they had willingly paid for another chance at life or strength.

For these youngsters, a merit was a resource their family had entrusted to them.

That made the decision much more complicated.

I could offer them a Soul Core Origin Card with an excellent synchronization rate, a foundation capable of eventually becoming a Soul Gem, and a path far superior to the Ego Gem they had originally planned to forge.

But there was one catch.

They would have to use one of their precious Origin Card slots to equip it.

And I wasn’t sure they would be willing to make that trade.

After all, unlike the previous batches, these youngsters weren’t desperate for any sort of progress. They still believed they had plenty of time. They still believed that with enough effort, resources, and perhaps a little luck, they could forge their own Ego Gems later.

They hadn’t yet learned the cruelest lesson of cultivation. Sometimes, hard work couldn’t make up for a lack of talent. And until they experienced that reality themselves, convincing them to give up one of their Origin Card slots for my solution might be harder than creating the solution itself.

Yes, a Soul Core, and eventually a Soul Gem, would give them far greater advantages than an Ego Gem ever could. In terms of cultivation potential, foundation, and future growth, there was hardly any comparison. But the possibility of obtaining an additional Origin Card was an allure their young and ambitious minds simply could not ignore.

Even though I had rarely seen a Card Apprentice with both of their Origin Card slots occupied, even among those who had reached the pinnacle of the Card World, they still dreamed of filling both.

They knew better than anyone how absurdly difficult it was. Finding even a single suitable Fate Ingredient was already a matter of incredible luck. Finding two in a single lifetime was so rare that most cultivators would never even encounter the possibility. Yet knowing something was nearly impossible had never stopped young cultivators from dreaming about it.

If anything, youth made such dreams more stubborn.

They had talent, ambition, time, and a future that had yet to be written. Why would they willingly give up one of their precious Origin Card slots when they could still dream of filling it with some extraordinary Fate Ingredient in the future?

Even if the chances were practically negligible, the possibility existed.

And as long as that possibility existed, these young Card Apprentices would cling to it believing they were the one exception to grounded reality.

I couldn’t really blame them. They were still children compared to the older card apprentices of the Card World. They had yet to encounter enough walls to understand just how cruelly reality could grind down ambition. Let them dream big while they still could. There was nothing wrong with that.

Unfortunately, this realization put a rather sizable dent in my plan.

I had already been considering creating the required smart Array Formation to help them reforge their Soul Cores into Soul Gems. I had assumed that once I explained the benefits, they would happily accept the Soul Core Origin Card as the price.

Now I realized that wasn’t necessarily the case.

For these young Card Apprentices, the question wasn’t simply whether a Soul Gem was stronger than an Ego Gem. It was whether the certainty of gaining a Soul Gem was worth sacrificing the possibility, however remote, of obtaining another Origin Card someday.

That was a completely different calculation.

I stared at the incomplete design in front of me and sighed. I hadn’t even started creating the smart Array Formation yet, and my carefully laid-out plan had already developed its first crack. Anyway I planned to see it through since it would be used by the older card apprentices. And eventually everyone in the New Empire.

…

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