Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2817: New Fear Unlocked: Ruler-Class Viltronian

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Three Mischief Encampment, Limitless Celestial Blood Fate Rule Domain

”Wow,” I blurted as I sifted through Karl’s mind. It wasn’t just the history of the Viltronians—it was everything, even details about the Masters. The sheer volume of information was staggering. Compared to this, what I had gleaned from Sansa’s memories felt like idle gossip.

Karl had focused on understanding how the Masters managed to govern and control all five regions for so long, and that too from the shadows. Sansa, on the other hand, dug for the dirtiest secrets of those who wore virtue like a veil, using them as her pawns. Their approaches couldn’t have been more different.

That difference showed in the organizations they led. The Circle was a renowned organization, its influence spread across all five regions. The Paw Clan, by contrast, operated in the shadows, hunted and listed among the most wanted.

One focused on building a powerful organization that could one day shape the fate of the five regions. The other built a web of shadow organizations to handle her dirty work, all while she played the part of a perfect wife to the man she loved.

Their priorities were completely different. Sansa placed Baylor above her ambitions—the very same ambitions that had made her one of the Three Mischiefs.

What truly baffled me, though, was Karl’s ancestral side of things. The faction of Viltronians led by his family had willingly abandoned their heritage, choosing to live as the very weak their race despised and sought to cull.

Madox believed Viltronians could only truly understand the perspective of the weak if they gave up their Viltronian bodies and lived as one of them. What began as a way to expose the flaws in their ideology slowly gained momentum—especially after Karl’s ancestor, Madox Masters, became the killer of the strongest despite having forsaken his Viltronian body and heritage.

The old faction, still fiercely devoted to the teachings of Varox the Undefeated, would not sit back and watch a new faction rise among them—especially one responsible for their leader’s death. Once again, the Viltronians turned on themselves.

The splinter faction chose a different path. They separated their Viltronian core from their bodies and lived as mortals, experiencing the fear and suffering their kind had long inflicted. Only after gaining that perspective did they reintegrate their cores and take up arms—not to cull the weak, but to protect them.

In time, they formalized this belief into a ritual. Every newborn had their Viltronian core removed, allowing them to grow up as ordinary mortals, to struggle, age, and understand the weight of weakness before ever touching strength. When they matured enough to bear that burden of their Viltronian strength and heritage, the Viltronian core would call back to them.

In this way, the peace-seeking faction learned to take responsibility for the power their race had received from nature—unlike their counterparts, who believed it was their duty as the strongest to eliminate those they deemed weak.

It was ironic how Karl’s Viltronian core had been destroyed during his escape, while Jaya’s survived. Even though she was abandoned in a B-rank dungeon where her family was slaughtered. Not to mention, her adopted sister had no idea what it was, or how important it was to her. Diana chose to keep it safe as a keepsake of her little sister’s lost family.

Karl now possessed a hybrid Viltronian core, thanks to my Primordial Calamity Daughter Gem that had fused with him. It was one of the reasons he had willingly surrendered himself to it. The Eye of Prosperity had shown him that if he accepted my offer without doubt or malice, he would become a Viltronian again and live among his people.

The Eye had revealed countless possible futures to him since he acquired it, but never once had it shown him returning to his people—until now.

He would be lying if he said he didn’t miss them—his family, his elders, his people. Not the card apprentices, but the Viltronians. At the heart of his ambition was a simple goal: to create a safe haven for any Viltronians who might arrive in the Card World in the future. He didn’t want to stand by helplessly and watch his people be slaughtered again, as he had in the case of Jaya’s family.

This helped me understand why Karl never left the Card World to venture into the Myriad Realms—even though, in Clown Mask’s future vision, he clearly had the power to do so, possessing the same Soul Pupils I now held. I had assumed his ambition ended with conquering the five regions alongside the other Mischiefs. But I was wrong. He wasn’t aiming beyond the Card World—he was waiting. Waiting for his people. Waiting for the dungeons of the Card World to bring Viltronians into the safe haven he created for them. However, till he met his end at the hands of the Hero Aba Windsor they never show.

In this timeline, when he saw that joining me could make that future possible, he chose a different approach than he did in the Clown Mask’s future vision. He didn’t hesitate any longer and chose to surrender his life to me becoming my calamity daughter gem.

I’ll be honest—understanding Karl’s reasons for joining me as my Calamity Daughter Gem brought a new concern to the surface. What if one of the unranked dungeons in the Card World were to carry ruler-class Viltronians? Would I even be able to stop them?

It wasn’t an unreasonable fear. From what I’d gathered through Karl’s knowledge, Viltron was likely a realm even larger than the Dark Realm itself. And if the Dark Realm could produce ruler-class beings, then Viltron certainly could too.

For a moment, I could almost hear a voice in my head announcing, ’New fear unlocked: ruler-class Viltronians.’

I could only hope I was overthinking it—that this wasn’t a likely possibility, but only time would tell.