On the second floor of the lord's manor in Chinston City, inside the classically decorated magitech workshop, time-worn brown wood formed tiers of staggered counters, the barrier runes engraved upon their surfaces pulsing with a faint, rhythmic glow.
Side sat in an armchair in the corner, cradling the small cat, and watched Lanqi craft cards with keen interest.
Although it was her first time hearing that an artificer had a requirement like "someone must watch while crafting," she was more than happy to oblige if it helped Lanqi. In truth, she had already planned to see what her Holy Son looked like when crafting cards.
Even now, she clearly remembered the day she had taken the Extinction Branch assessment at the Knights of Extinction in Herrom and first encountered him. She had taken a liking to his work back then, and whether she was watching him carve, paint, or fashion magical tools, she never felt bored.
Deep in the workshop beside the window, the workbench was draped in a heavy silver velvet cloth designed to insulate against magic. Its purpose was to minimize interference from the room's magical facilities on his materials and tools. Beneath the warm amber light, Lanqi's shadow stretched across his surroundings, his focused emerald eyes reflecting the magical instruments before him.
To his right stood a neatly arranged row of small graduated glass vials, each filled to varying heights with liquids of different colors—mana core fluids he had personally refined and measured. The moment he set down a freshly mixed vial of core fluid, he turned toward his right with practiced ease and resumed formulating a new mixture using a set of miniature balances and precision graduated vials.
"Why is he using so many materials?"
Side bowed her head in confusion, whispering into the little black cat's ear like a breath of wind.
She had seen other card makers work before.
Typically, one prepared a single set of materials to craft a single magic card.
Lanqi, on the other hand, looked like a cafeteria cook, portioning out enough ingredients for ten or twenty batches before he even began.
"I don't get it either, meow. Every time this kid crafts cards, it looks like he's gearing up for a fifty-pull gacha. Then again, his family seems fairly rich—plenty for him to burn through..."
Boss Cat whispered back to Side.
Whenever it had stayed in Lanqi's dorm room in the past to watch him craft, his success rate for anything other than sealing-type cards—though mind and light cards were passable—had been utterly tragic.
On second thought, Boss Cat dropped the subject.
No matter how rich Lanqi's family was, they were still just commoner merchants. From the fragments of talk it had overheard at Ikerite Academy, it knew that the Wilfort Chamber of Commerce could not withstand any serious tempest, whereas Sigrid, a Cardinal of the Resurrection Church, belonged to an entirely different realm.
If Lanqi's old man ever saw Sigrid show up at the door as his prospective daughter-in-law, Boss Cat could not bear to imagine the scene.
"I see."
Side nodded and looked back at Lanqi's figure.
He was still meticulously weighing transmutation-attuned mana crystal powder. Though low-tiered, the crystals were of exceptional purity. Lanqi gently poured in the required amount. Even a breeze could have shifted the balance's reading, yet his movements were remarkably delicate, hitting the mark in a single try without a grain too much or too little.
"Practiced enough to break your heart," Side commented quietly.
"..."
Boss Cat glanced at Side and kept its mouth shut.
Lanqi slowly dripped the concentrated mana core fluid into the mana crystal powder. The instant the liquid met the powder, a mild reaction occurred, simmering and settling almost immediately as it began to give off a soft luminescence. Picking up an engraving pen, he slowly drew the prepared magical ink into the reservoir until it was eighty percent full, then carefully sealed it.
With that step complete, he took out an exquisite, translucent blank card. It was an essential medium for crafting magic cards—a material produced only in the Shadow World, capable of hosting fixed magical formulas while ensuring card durability and magical stability.
At the workbench, Lanqi unrolled several low-tier transmutation scrolls in common use. As they unfurled, runes and patterns appeared in deep blue lines upon the pale brown moonflower paper. With practiced skill, he used a custom carving knife and mana to extract the sections he needed. Components made of a specialized alloy could endure and conduct high-intensity mana, and he precisely aligned them on the card's designated areas to begin recompiling them much like resetting a scroll.
Inscribing magical circuits demanded intense focus and supreme technique. Yet even though Lanqi was engaged in work that clearly required utter concentration, his breathing and pulse remained completely steady, as though he were performing ordinary routine chores.
Even laypeople like Sigrid and Boss Cat could tell how difficult the engraving was. The dense, layered Demonic script crawled across the card like an army of ants; even if they could read it, they would have had no desire to scrutinize it.
Lanqi engraved with effortless calm, showing not the slightest hint that he anticipated failure.
He resembled a painter working on a familiar old masterpiece.
Every stroke was swift and decisive, yet remarkably delicate.
This caused Side, watching from behind, to regard him with a touch more solemnity.
His demeanor gave off the aura of a grand master at the pinnacle of his craft, making one look forward to the card he was about to produce.
A few dozen seconds passed.
Accompanied by a burst of rising flame and a sharp bang...
It blew up.
"That blew up fast,"
Side marveled, her eyes wide amid the scattering sparks.
While her Holy Son seemed somewhat extravagant and his actions a bit baffling, a situation like this usually pointed to one of two things: an intensely arrogant genius, or an overambitious fool.
She was certain her Holy Son was the former.
"Blew up again..."
Protected from harm by the light barrier in the workshop, Lanqi stared in a slight daze at the ruined card in his hands. It had happened so abruptly that even he had not reacted in time.
"Did I startle you?"
He looked back at Side with an apologetic, somewhat embarrassed expression.
"Not at all. I love fireworks,"
Side replied with an encouraging, pleased smile in her eyes.
Lanqi froze for a second, caught off guard, as if he had received a response vastly different from what he usually heard or anticipated.
After a moment, he finally recovered, lowering his eyes and letting out a sigh of relief.
From now on, he would never again say Side was an older woman who couldn't find a husband. Her personal qualities truly were just too exceptional.
Side's brows twitched slightly.
She merely tightened her grip on Boss Cat in her arms and said nothing.
And so, Lanqi turned back to resume crafting, while Side continued resting her chin on her hand, watching him.
No one knew how much time slipped by as sparks burst within the workshop from time to time.
Despite the occasional unexpected noise, the air between them in the room remained exceptionally tranquil.
By nightfall, Lanqi still had not produced his intended card.
Growing drowsy, Side closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep in her chair.
She seemed to be having a pleasant dream, sleeping soundly and even letting out faint snores. The ordinary noises of failed crafting attempts failed to wake her; blended with the rustle and clatter of tools, they sounded to her like a rainy, thundering day.
"Meow, meow."
Boss Cat retrieved a thick blanket from a second-floor guest room and used telekinetic magic to drape it over Side.
Then it could not help glancing at Lanqi with a worried look.
It felt as if Lanqi was blowing up cards even faster with Side around.
In the past, whenever it watched him blow up cards, he would at least complete a few more steps before the explosion. Now, he seemed utterly carefree, as if he were just playing with mud.
Far from feeling the slight shame typical card makers felt, he merely smiled knowingly.
It was clear that once he cast off all pressure, he was genuinely happy from the bottom of his heart, having rediscovered the purest joy of crafting cards.
Boss Cat found it hard to judge whether the reverse buff Side had placed on Lanqi was a blessing or a curse.
It only knew that when Lanqi returned to the Southern Continent, if Tata saw him crafting cards like this, her blood pressure would probably skyrocket.
As the last trace of twilight faded from view, leaving only stars winking quietly against an inky canopy, the world outside sank into fathomless night. Through the slit in the workshop curtains, the outlines of starlight and moonbeams were softly traced.
The floor clock in the corner ticked past midnight, each echoing tick ringing distinctly in the workshop.
After an unusually long stretch without any abrupt noises rattling the room, a dazzling glow finally welled up from one side of the workbench amid the silence.
"Mmh..."
Sensing the light, Side parted her eyes slightly and raised a hand to rub them.
Not far away, the glow intensified before softly receding, revealing Lanqi holding a magic card enveloped in a purple haze.
Side quickly shook off her sleepiness and turned her attention to him.
"Oh, a Purple Rare magic card. No wonder the little black cat said you were pretty capable."
Side clapped her hands in high praise.
Producing a targeted Purple Rare magic card in just over ten hours—even if it was only Tier 2—was ample proof of exceptional skill.
"Card making is my original profession, after all,"
Lanqi said. Once he returned to the Southern Continent, most of his time would probably be consumed by honing his magic engineering skills again. The Northern Continent was far freer; every day was fulfilling and fun.
Ignoring Lanqi's boast, Boss Cat hopped down from the armchair and padded over to inspect the card he had produced.
It turned out to be a Tier 2 spell Lanqi and Talia had already thoroughly researched: Polymorph: Human.
However, this one was clearly another special version featuring a targeted appearance shift.
"You went through all this trouble just to make a new disguise?"
Boss Cat asked in surprise.
It was well aware that Lanqi and Side lacked new covers, so much so that Lanqi had previously lent Side the card he used to become Luoqi McCarthy.
Lanqi only smiled without answering. He tapped Polymorph: Human, and his figure blurred and twisted. Under Boss Cat's astonished gaze, when his form snapped back into focus, he had taken on the exact likeness of the Holy Son of Extinction.
"Meow?!"
Boss Cat's fur stood completely on end as it shrieked and leapt into Side's embrace.
Yet after a brief moment of thought, it realized this was Lanqi, and poked its head out to look again.
Lanqi's unique temperament remained unmistakable; he was not actively acting the part of the Holy Son of Extinction.
Yet in appearance alone, the transformation was flawless!
"...You capture someone, and then you disguise yourself as him to slip back among his companions... I don't even know how to describe such an evil creature."
The moment Side saw Lanqi transform into the Holy Son of Extinction, she basically understood what he intended to do next, leaving her at a loss for words.
One could only say he was born to belong on the Resurrection Church's side.
Chapter 356