Inside the Headmaster's Office-style card crafting workshop.
Lanqi cleared the spacious workbench and began an entirely new process of treating and proportioning materials.
On the low auxiliary workbench, several compartmentalized trays held an assortment of materials.
The setup was rather reminiscent of the scene when Talia had crafted [Poet of Great Love].
They were materials Lanqi had spent considerable time measuring and proportioning.
After bringing the trays over to the main workbench, Lanqi handled the materials with calm, practiced ease.
Crafting this card was perhaps a massive gamble; buying the materials alone had cleaned out nearly all his money.
To harmonize with the core Sacred-quality material, [Unnamed Light Elemental Stone], the quantity and variety of light- and sealing-attribute materials Lanqi required were quite complex.
If an ordinary card maker were tasked with handling materials that staked their entire fortune, their hands would likely tremble with nerves.
Yet Lanqi maintained an ordinary peace of mind, feeling nowhere near the pressure he had felt while crafting cards at Talia's home.
Rather than lamenting that one always failed at critical moments, it was better to accept that this was simply where one's true ability lay.
Or so Lanqi felt.
No matter when, treating it like just another ordinary crafting session was the best way to remain fully devoted.
Lanqi's hands worked swiftly and precisely, his expression calm and resolute, finishing all the preparations in less than ten minutes.
His preparations quickly caught the attention of the broadcast director.
The live feed began cutting back to Lanqi every now and then.
For when materials of this caliber were used, the attempt would either end in utter catastrophe or yield an extraordinarily fine product.
On the screen, Lanqi let out a soft breath.
Immediately after, a magic card appeared in his hand, and he summoned it.
"Poet of Great Love, are you ready?"
Having double-checked that every preparatory step was complete, Lanqi asked the newly summoned Poet of Great Love.
"Mm, all set!"
Raising her arms cheerfully, the Poet of Great Love spun around like a dancer as she replied.
Instantly.
Murmurs of astonishment arose not only across the floors of the Card Makers Association, but throughout Hutton Pedestrian Plaza below.
"An Epic-grade summon?"
Summons of this tier typically only appeared in broadcasts of extremely high-tier Shadow Worlds.
No one had expected to see one in a card maker exam.
"You really are allowed to use any spells or magic cards during the card maker exam," someone knowledgeable sitting in the outdoor seating of a plaza shop soon pointed out.
If one possessed an Epic-grade summon with a high degree of self-awareness, it could theoretically serve as an assistant.
People had often heard that certain prominent figures with exceptionally mild-mannered summons would keep them summoned long-term to act as housekeepers or attendants.
Just the appearance of an Epic summon was usually enough to draw a crowd of spectators, to say nothing of one as gorgeous, adorable, and captivating as the Poet of Great Love.
"Wait, grey hair, red dress, an eye-catching beauty..."
Someone seemed to recall something.
"Could that be the [Poet of Great Love] from the recent rumors about Headmaster Lan of the Demon Academy?"
As the chatter grew louder, more and more passersby on Hutton Pedestrian Plaza paused in their tracks to look up at the live broadcast on the association's glass curtain wall.
Inside the conspicuous Headmaster's Office, Lanqi had already begun crafting without hesitation.
Though more than two hours remained in the exam, keeping the Poet of Great Love summoned was already draining his mana.
And the Poet of Great Love began working with Lanqi in perfect synergy, like a surgical nurse beside a lead surgeon in an operating room.
Back when he crafted cards in his dormitory, Lanqi had often summoned the Poet of Great Love to collaborate with him.
Later on, what gradually made Lanqi question his existence was discovering that the Poet of Great Love seemed to have an even higher talent for card making than he did.
She was clearly just a magic card, yet she picked up everything instantly.
Although the Poet of Great Love was nowhere near Lanqi's level when it came to drawing talent, her comprehension and mastery of magic engineering surpassed even his.
Unfortunately, the Poet of Great Love was fixed at Tier 1; if Lanqi wanted to craft high-tier magic cards, she could only serve as his assistant.
Thus, whenever Lanqi crafted particularly difficult magic cards, he would summon the Poet of Great Love to collaborate with him.
"This crafting is particularly important. You need to put some pressure on me," Lanqi said to the Poet of Great Love as he mixed the ground light-attribute magic crystal powder with the specialized sealing core fluid to blend the ink.
The Poet of Great Love seemed to understand.
Her expression tightened. Gone was her previous lively and carefree demeanor, replaced by an utter chill, as though a ruthless overseer were supervising Lanqi.
"Is this enough?" the Poet of Great Love asked coldly.
"That hits the spot."
Lanqi felt himself enter a state of deep immersion.
In short, the Poet of Great Love was cosplaying Talia to put pressure on him.
Aside from the assistance she provided, Lanqi had another unavoidable reason for summoning her: the magic card he was attempting to make was modeled on his highest-quality Tier 3 card, [Wonderful Notes] (Voice of Purgatory), mimicking the core principles of demon magic.
Very few humans ever used magic cards of other races over the long term, because excessive human use of Demon Magic Script would cause irreversible, localized demonic mutations in body and soul.
Such abnormal demonization did not transform a human into a demon; it was merely a malignant mutation that drastically shortened one's lifespan and could even drive a person mad or turn them into a monster.
The way to avoid these side effects was to find a suitable demonic medium. The standard method was to consume demon-attribute materials in the process, which drastically increased costs while still carrying risks. Lanqi, however, could use the soul-bound Poet of Great Love as his medium and assistant, relying on her to ward off the hazards of demon magic.
Yet Lanqi had to maintain her summons throughout the crafting process, consuming substantial amounts of mana, and crafting with her involvement depended heavily on their coordination and her performance.
An ordinary card maker could never have worked alongside the Poet of Great Love. In a state of intense concentration, merely hearing a whisper of her voice would likely trigger ten times the anxiety and stress, driving one's mind into a frenzy and ruining the card.
Only Lanqi's unique state of mind was immune to her immense negative influence.
Having entered deep immersion, Lanqi blended the optimal proportions with practiced ease.
The Poet of Great Love then helped him synchronize his mana with the ink, and before long, the ink was harmonized by her unique magic power.
Pouring the enchanted ink into his magic pen, Lanqi unsealed the magic scroll and transcribed the preliminary summon design he had previously forged from the core material onto a blank card.
The next, most critical step required rewriting and finalizing the enchantment structure, which would activate the materials' traits and truly endow the summon card with its magical properties.
Sitting before the workbench, Lanqi buried his head and engraved slowly with rapt concentration, while the Poet of Great Love stood at the opposite end of the table, helping him trace and guide the magical circuits across the card, cooperating to channel their magic power with absolute balance into every intricate rune.
Because the volume of engraving was immense, his progress appeared exceptionally slow.
Just burying his head in completing this step seemed to strip away all sense of time.
Outside the Shadow World exam hall, the midday sun had long shone over Hutton Pedestrian Plaza.
A full two hours passed, and Lanqi was still drawing.
As the end of the exam drew near, fewer and fewer examinees remained inside the artificial Shadow World exam hall, and the broadcast cut to Lanqi more and more frequently.
The screen displayed Lanqi's figure inside the Headmaster's Office. Like a sculpture, he poured his entire spirit into the crucial step of bestowing magical structure and form upon the summon.
Shielded mostly by the hands of Lanqi and the Poet of Great Love, the unfinished magic card had, at some unknown point, begun spreading perilous arcs of light outward. It seemed exceedingly unstable, on the verge of detonating at any second.
And yet.
Lanqi seemed utterly blind to it, carrying out the final steps without hesitation to finish drawing, run final adjustments, and complete the sealing!
At that moment.
Beneath the glass curtain wall of the Card Makers Association on Hutton Pedestrian Plaza, many gathered onlookers parted their lips unconsciously.
When the director finally locked the screen on Lanqi, they knew whether this card succeeded or failed hung entirely on this instant.
"That card can't be stabilized. Even if nothing went wrong with the magical circuits and spell mechanics, the form he wants to give the summon is far too insane."
"What a fool! He managed to pull off everything beforehand. As long as he performed normally, it would have been at least a Purple Rare card, yet he acts as though he's dead set on ruining it."
"How could a mortal ever depict such grandeur..."
Some marvelled, some were dumbfounded, and some felt regret.
Others, even knowing Lanqi was bound to fail, could not help but fixate on the flickering magic card beneath the hands of Lanqi and the Poet of Great Love.
Because Lanqi looked as though he intended to paint the very sun with his pen!
By now, Lanqi's complexion had grown increasingly pale. Even at Tier 3, this final drawing was pushing his mental energy and mana to the brink of collapse.
Maintaining the Poet of Great Love for so long was finally exhausting his reserves.
Yet likely due to his sheer concentration, Lanqi seemed entirely oblivious to his own condition and the changes on the card's surface.
This was a state of selflessness that transcended ordinary immersion; even if it cost him his life, he would see this work through to completion.
The transformation on the magic card unfolded gradually, and only when it had fully run its course did Lanqi truly take notice.
It came as a dazzling light that his eyes could not bear.
The instant he closed his eyes, a blinding flash of brilliance threatened to swallow everything inside the Headmaster's Office. Within the white expanse of the screen, only the grey silhouettes of Lanqi and the Poet of Great Love remained, before vanishing completely.
...
Hutton Pedestrian Plaza, beneath the glass curtain wall of the Ikerite Card Makers Association.
The crowd's gaze converged on this astonishing moment, to the point where even the air seemed frozen.
The brilliance on the screen expanded in an instant, as if poised to swallow the real world.
In that breath, every spectator nearly choked on their breath, their eyes pinned to the screen.
"...Was it destroyed?"
"He failed in the end. He was too greedy. If he'd actually pulled this off, I wouldn't even know what rank they'd give it!"
"Good thing the artificial Shadow World has protection mechanisms. Even if he's injured in a blast, he'll return to normal once he exits."
"What a pity."
However.
Just as many sighed and turned to resume their weekend plans, the broadcast on the association's glass curtain wall did not cut away.
Only after all the light faded and calm returned did the screen finally reveal a card wrapped in a cocoon of crackling orange lightning!
[Radiant Virtue]
[Type: Summon Card]
[Rarity: Orange Epic]
[Tier: 3]
[Effect: Continually consumes a large amount of mana to summon a non-damaging miniature sun of maximum brightness. Interferes with the vision of all targets and raises the ambient temperature. In enclosed spaces, the radiant effect gradually intensifies; in open terrain, the visual radiant effect gradually diminishes.]
[Remark: Early in the morning our songs shall rise to the Most High, merciful and mighty, whom all saints adore. Glory and praise be to the wondrous form of the sun. Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy shore, ten thousand heavenly hosts bow low in adoration, together singing our Lord's true name: Lanmen.]
Chapter 114