Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2556: Stealing? No, Its Archeology

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning, Time Vestige, Morningstar University 2nd Campus

”...” Lucine stared at me, unsure how to respond. She didn’t want to beg me for the recipe, nor did she dare ask me to name my price to trade it, because she knew exactly what I would demand—the university’s precious time-rule runes. It wasn’t that she thought my price was too high or the exchange unfair, but those runes were limited, and she couldn’t bring herself to part with even one.

Still, the fertilizer recipe for the virgin Clay of Giga was extremely important to her and to the university.

One thing had to be understood: during her treatment in the time-expansion chamber, the entire chamber had been flooded with raw time-rule power. Anything that would come in contact with raw time-rule power would be reduced to dust. She had spent what amounted to countless years surrounded by that raw time-rule power, yet had emerged with three newly refined bodies, without even a scratch to show for it.

That was only possible because she had been buried inside the pot filled with the fertilized virgin clay of Giga. It ensured that the rampant raw temporal energy couldn’t reach them or interfere with the procedure.

She had discovered this during her treatment and was genuinely amazed by my ingenuity—how I had come up with a way to tame raw temporal forces inside the time expansion chamber due to the use of raw time-rule energy. She tried to figure out how I accomplished it, studying the list of ingredients I used and the fertilized virgin clay of giga she had been buried in.

But she couldn’t unravel the secret. All she managed to discover was that when raw or refined temporal forces acted on the fertilized virgin clay of giga, it triggered a unique reaction: the clay converted that temporal power into nourishment for itself, indirectly benefiting anyone buried within it. The array carved onto the pots amplified this effect, producing enough nourishment such that those inside wouldn’t exhaust the nourishment meant for the clay and unknowingly kill the clay, but instead would absorb the overflowing energy.

Because of this, the cycle could continue indefinitely—without any external interference—for years, centuries, millennia, or even billions of years.

This reaction between the time-rule power and the fertilized virgin clay of giga made it impossible for her to extract any trace of the original fertilizer I had used. Without that original sample and the little information she knew, she had no way to begin analyzing the ratios of the ingredients that went into creating it.

Lucine wanted the recipe because, with it, she could build an entire time-expansion chamber out of fertilized virgin Clay of Giga—one that could run directly on raw time-rule power while keeping the interior safe for experimentation from the raw temporal force that would be introduced in the chamber’s atmosphere for using raw time-rule power to power the time expansion array instead of refined time-rule power.

Such a chamber would eliminate the need to use refined time-rule energy to power the time expansion array entirely. Replacing their current chambers with ones made from fertilized clay would save the university a massive amount of refined time-rule power, freeing it for other purposes.

And so, once again, Lucine found herself trapped in a dilemma because of me—a fact that visibly irritated her. If she could have gotten away with it, she probably would’ve beaten me up just to vent the sheer frustration she felt every time she had to discuss or negotiate with me.

”If you have nothing else to add, let’s head to the space-rule comprehension chamber. I want to grasp a couple or more space–time rule meanings and push them to ultimate mastery before we return to our present,” I said. Lucine didn’t respond, clearly unwilling—or unprepared—to pay the price I demanded for the fertilizer recipe. She just needed time. Eventually, she would come around; once her potential gains outweighed her losses, she always did.

We both enjoyed a good bargain, but only one of us held the leverage this time. The only things she had that interested me were the time-rule runes, the time vestige, and the labyrinth of Myriad Pasts. Without those, I wouldn’t have entertained this conversation at all. I would have already gone into seclusion to study space-rule comprehension. After witnessing Field Marshal Lorn’s pseudo-celestial space-rule domain in action, I wanted one of my own. Ranking space-rule second on the list of rules I wanted to comprehend.

”Wyatt, how about this—you don’t have to give me the recipe, just help me build a time-expansion chamber using the fertilized virgin Clay of Giga (red) in the time vestige? What do you say?” Lucine proposed. If she couldn’t afford the recipe, then spending a smaller price to have me construct the chamber for her was the next best option. She had already seen what I was capable of; she knew I could lay a time-expansion array without issue. Building a few chambers out of clay was well within my skill set.

More importantly, once I started working on the structure, it would give her the perfect opportunity to obtain a sample of the original fertilizer used on the virgin Clay of Giga (red). She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but that was her real aim. It was to be expected from someone who had raided countless variant pasts, stolen their unique inventions and discoveries, then reintroduced them in our present as their inventions and discoveries while shamelessly calling it archaeology, lying to their consciousness.

”As long as I’m compensated for my services, I don’t mind helping you,” I said, fully aware of what Lucine was plotting. ”One time-rule rune of your choice per chamber—same dimensions as the one you’re using now.”

”What? Why don’t you just take me hostage and rob our rune vault instead?” Lucine snapped, practically choking on my rates. What she failed to grasp was that I held a complete monopoly in this field. The rates for my services were mine—and mine alone—to decide.