Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3124: Pursuit of Transcendence

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Lil’ Red Storm Realm

As the Frost Elf broke through, an immense Ruler-class presence exploded outward. The pressure swept across the realm like an invisible tidal wave, causing the surrounding space to tremble violently. Thalorien’s pupils shrank as his entire body stiffened.

The Frost Elf had broken through, right then and there. Right in front of him. The very breakthrough he had just declared practically impossible had occurred within moments.

Thalorien stared at the Frost Elf in disbelief. As the creator of the Frost Elves, he knew precisely what he was looking at. This wasn’t some temporary surge. It wasn’t a pseudo-breakthrough. It wasn’t an illusion, the Frost Elf had genuinely stepped into the Ruler-class realm.

Its newly awakened Ruler-class aura pressed heavily against Thalorien, forcing his exhausted body to tremble. For several seconds, he simply stared. His mind struggled to reconcile what his senses were telling him with what he believed he knew.

The Frost Elf turned toward him and smiled smugly. Thalorien’s face slowly stiffened. The reality he had been refusing to acknowledge was now standing directly in front of him. The despair and desperation immediately covered his face.

However, Dalia wasn’t satisfied. She was far from satisfied. With another snap of her fingers, nearly a thousand Frost Elves assembled behind her rose into the sky simultaneously. Their auras surged as one, and without hesitation, they began attempting to break through into the Ruler-class realm.

Thalorien stared at them. The madness in his bloodshot eyes slowly mixed with despair.

For a moment, the mighty Snow Elven Crown Prince looked almost like a frightened mortal watching a miracle he desperately wanted to deny unfold before him.

Please fail. He almost found himself praying to his ancestors. Just one of you. Please.

In his desperation, he even cursed the Frost Elves in his mind, hoping that at least some of them would fail their breakthroughs and prove that his understanding had been correct.

But then the first aura erupted. Then another. Then another. One after another, the barriers separating the Frost Elves from the Ruler-class realm began collapsing.

Thalorien’s face went blank. The next instant, nearly a thousand Ruler-class presences erupted simultaneously. The pressure swept across the realm. Thalorien’s exhausted body trembled beneath the collective might. His eyes widened, and whatever remaining light of disbelief had been present in them seemed to disappear beneath the overwhelming reality standing before him.

Nearly a thousand Ruler-class beings. His Frost Elves had all broken through on their first attempts effortlessly. At least, that was how it appeared to Thalorien.

There was no prolonged struggle, no catastrophic backlash, no desperate accumulation of power. They simply crossed the threshold as though the Ruler-class realm had been waiting for them to arrive.

Thalorien’s understanding of the breakthrough was being shattered before his eyes. Yet, ironically, there was one thing he had been absolutely correct about.

The Ruler-class realm was not something one could reach simply because one possessed enough potential and desired it badly enough. Potential was only a possibility. It was not a guarantee.

A foundation could be extraordinary and still fail. A bloodline could be unparalleled and still encounter an insurmountable bottleneck. A cultivator could spend eternity accumulating strength and remain trapped beneath that final threshold.

Thalorien knew this better than most. His mistake had been assuming he understood what Dalia had given them. The seed he had examined through Tarnished Glacier’s vision was not merely a World-Devouring Tree seed. It was a Primordial Calamity Daughter Gem.

The distinction was enormous. The World-Devouring Tree heritage was only one part of what it contained. The Primordial Calamity Daughter Gem carried something far beyond the ordinary potential of a World-Devouring Tree seed, something capable of fundamentally transforming the foundation and possibilities of those who accepted it.

Thalorien had evaluated it according to what he knew about World-Devouring Trees. That was where his judgment had failed. He had seen the ceiling. He had seen the reinforced door. But he had never understood that Dalia had given them the means to break the door itself.

The nearly thousand Frost Elves hovered in the air, each radiating the unmistakable might of a newly ascended Ruler-class existence. Thalorien stared at them. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.

“Now, who’s ignorant?” Dalia remarked, looking at the haggard, exhausted, and thoroughly defeated Thalorien, with nearly a thousand Ruler-class Frost Elves standing behind her. “You saw the ingredients of the seed and jumped to an assumption, but you failed to understand what those ingredients were capable of when mixed in the right ratio. That is what the seed is. It turned what took years of preparation, precise timing, countless resources, and luck into a mere effortless whim.”

“It not only contains the answer you need to complete your experiment, but would enable you to take that success even further and conquer the Dark Realm. So what Librarian? What Demon Merchant Code? We could conquer the Myriad Realms if we wanted to, but our ultimate goal is the pursuit of transcendence. If it were up to me, I would have killed you long ago and unleashed the Frost Elves upon the Snow Elven race. But…” Dalia sighed, her expression turning slightly annoyed. “I don’t know what my younger brother sees in you. So I’ll ask you one last time, Thalorien. What do you choose?”

Thalorien stared at Dalia, unable to refute any of her claims. He had just watched her create a small army of powerful Ruler-class beings as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He didn’t believe even the Librarian or the Demon Merchant Code possessed such capabilities.

The answer to his problems, his dreams, and perhaps even transcendence itself was standing right in front of him. All he had to do was reach for it.

No longer willing to hesitate or think it over, he made his choice, shouting it out loud, “Yes, Your Highness, I will offer my eternal servitude to His Highness.”