As Lanqi stepped through the massive Void Gate with his customary stride, he once again felt enveloped in boundless darkness.
He could see nothing, and even the sound of his own heartbeat vanished. It was a familiar sensation.
Only this time, when the surroundings brightened again, it would no longer be that academy.
Gradually, a faint glimmer of light came into view, like the break of dawn glimpsed by a mariner lost in the dark of night.
As a silver-white glow emerged, a series of text rushed before him like meteors streaking across the sky—
[Welcome to the examination venue for the registered card maker exam, an artificial Shadow World simulation.]
[You are currently in the preparation period. The official exam will begin after the preparation period ends.]
[Remaining preparation time: 29 minutes and 50 seconds.]
[Before the exam begins and throughout its duration, you may make payments and purchase required materials at any time. Purchased materials will be delivered to your artificial Shadow World within five minutes.]
[Materials of Purple Rare quality and above purchased by examinees may only be used to craft exam cards and cannot be taken out of the artificial Shadow World exam grounds. Unused materials will be reclaimed by the association, with an 80% refund returned to the examinee.]
[If materials are successfully crafted into magic cards during the exam, a portion of the material cost will be refunded as a bonus: 10% for White Common, 20% for Blue Precious, 30% for Purple Rare, 40% for Pink Sacred, and 50% for Orange Epic.]
[Finished magic cards and their patents belong entirely to the examinee; the Southern Continent Card Makers Association retains only exhibition rights.]
[Examinees must craft magic cards of no lower than Tier 3. Cards higher than Tier 3 will receive a minor scoring bonus, while cards lower than the examinee's tier will suffer a minor score reduction.]
[Upon leaving the artificial Shadow World exam grounds, the registered exam score and evaluation results will be automatically tallied for the examinee.]
[...]
[The above information may be viewed and consulted at any time during the exam.]
[Have you finished reading and do you agree to enter the exam environment?]
[Continue / Exit]
Lanqi quickly skimmed through the text.
Familiar with the law, he knew every regulation had practical reasoning behind it.
For example, refunding only eighty percent for leftover materials was not simply out of greed on the association's part; it prevented overly wealthy examinees from recklessly buying up vast quantities of scarce inventory right at the start and stockpiling them, leaving other examinees unable to purchase what they needed.
Banning materials from being taken out of the exam grounds was likewise meant to prevent scalpers from exploiting the system to buy high-grade materials and manipulate market prices.
Lanqi also found the score adjustments for card tiers quite fair. If a Tier 4 or Tier 5 card maker took the registration exam and produced only Tier 3 cards, they would lose points, but crafting Tier 4 or Tier 5 cards earned extra bonuses.
For a Tier 3 examinee like Lanqi, crafting Tier 3 cards was expected, with no additional increase or deduction to his score.
As Lanqi's fingertip touched [Continue], ripples spread across the silver-white screen of light, expanding rapidly before vanishing completely.
The surroundings swiftly illuminated, and Lanqi found himself standing in a standard-sized card-crafting workshop.
On the examinee control panel before him, various functions had appeared, such as [Select Scene] and [Procure Materials].
During the preparation period, examinees could not start crafting cards and were restricted to preparatory tasks.
So Lanqi leisurely set about picking a scene.
The available environments ranged from indoors to outdoors, covering an array of styles that encompassed virtually every map ever recorded in artificial Shadow Worlds.
Before long, Lanqi selected a spacious room styled after the Headmaster's Office.
Only in a place like this did he feel most comfortable and work with peak efficiency.
Next, Lanqi began purchasing materials.
The browser panel displayed the full inventory and detailed information of the Ikerite Card Makers Association Branch.
Certain essential materials were already included in the exam registration fee. The association provided five sets of basic magic card crafting consumables, which would be delivered to the examinee's solo Shadow World the instant the exam officially began.
These basic materials represented five attempts and could not be purchased additionally.
All other materials could be freely selected and bought according to the examinee's crafting needs.
Lanqi set the material filter categories to [Seal], [Spirit], [Light], and [Healing], browsing through the inventory and descriptions.
[Curse Seal Magic Ring: Blue Precious item; required for minor sealing magic or biological magic; £12.]
[Mysterious Gem: White Common item; can serve as a medium for sealing power; £1.]
[Holy Seal: Purple Rare item; produced by the Church, stamped with divine magic; suppresses evil-aligned beings; £65.]
[Holy Water: Purple Rare item; consumable with potent restorative properties; can also serve as a projectile against the undead or a blending agent for crafting items; £20.]
[Healing Magic Flower: White Common item; can be ground into powder or blended into mana ink; £0.50.]
[Feather of Light: Purple Rare item; sourced from light fairies; can serve as a medium for casting powerful light magic; £115.]
[...]
Tapping on an entry revealed its fine quality, detailed introduction, evaluation, and recommended usage.
Although Lanqi prioritized sealing cards for the sake of success rate, raising his score with high-quality cards still required referencing the high-rarity materials available in the Ikerite branch's current inventory.
He might need to integrate other categories on top of the sealing school to create a composite magic type.
Lanqi swiftly added several essential consumables for crafting sealing-type magic cards to his list with hardly a moment's hesitation.
Only when coming across materials of other magic types along the way did he pause to consider whether to keep them as backups for the high-quality magic cards he might craft today.
Although he had half an hour to prepare, he had practically finalized his purchases in under ten minutes.
Lanqi's strategy was to aim for a guaranteed White quality baseline on equipment cards—his weakest category—while striving for Blue or Purple on summon cards and spell cards, where he was more proficient.
That way, as long as his crafting succeeded, he would at least secure Bronze rank. And if one of the Purple cards between his two purples and one white performed exceptionally well in evaluation, he might even reach Silver rank.
Just as Lanqi finished quickly scanning through the inventory across the four filtered categories...
His eyes caught something on a page he had just casually skimmed past, and he immediately swiped back.
Lanqi's hand slowed, coming to a halt.
He saw an extraordinary Pink Sacred material: [Unnamed Light Elemental Stone].
According to the Card Makers Association's assessment, there was currently no viable method to catalyze and process it. Used directly in the conventional manner for elemental stones, it would likely yield only the effects of a Purple Rare material.
Even so, this solitary stone alone cost a staggering 1,250 pounds.
Lanqi had not initially intended to consider such an expensive single material.
Yet the more he scrutinized the elemental stone's appearance, the more his brow furrowed.
He had seen this chondritic structure in science magazines in his past life.
This did not appear to be a stone from the earth at all, but a solid body condensed from a solar nebula, its exterior formed through accretion and the passage of countless ages!
In other words, it was actually a cosmic meteorite...
Lanqi rested his chin on his hand before the glowing procurement screen and sank into thought.
From the last 650-pound bonus, Hyperion had taken not a single pence, giving it all to him.
As for the roughly 1,000 pounds of wealth he had carried when leaving the South Vantina frontier territory, he had already given a substantial portion to Talia and would need to keep paying her in the future.
Which meant that if he bought this material and managed to successfully craft a magic card, the bonus would leave him with some leftover money.
If he failed, however, he would instantly be impoverished. Before earning money in the next Shadow World, he might even have to ask his family for financial support.
If possible, he preferred not to ask home for money again so soon.
Lanqi knew Butler Hans undoubtedly wanted to enjoy the spectacle, so he had temporarily kept Lanqi's father, Noe, who was far away in a foreign land, in the dark about Lanqi passing the entrance exam for the School of Sages.
Lanqi himself did not mind. He planned to make a name for himself in the royal capital of Ikerite and show what he could do before giving his father a pleasant surprise—preferably after returning from a massive score on the Northern Continent.
Since his father, Noe, had invested in him, Lanqi was determined to repay that expectation!
After a final moment of deliberation...
Lanqi made his choice.
He removed most of the Purple Rare materials he had initially lined up as backups, purchased the elemental stone, and reselected matching materials to accompany it.
Time ticked away, minute by minute.
At last, the chime signaling the official start of the exam rang out!
Chapter 112