Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3134: Clients

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Azorheim, Temporal Cave Valley, Temporal Cave No. ES3030

Creating the elixir recipes with the help of Hive Spirit, the Soul Pathway data I had accumulated on humans and Card Apprentices, the temporal cave, and the mountain of reference material was proving to be rather challenging.

When I said challenging, I meant it was taking considerably more time than I had initially expected.

Well, in my defense, I wasn’t simply trying to recreate existing recipes.

I wanted every elixir I developed to have multiple versions, each suited to different circumstances, while also optimizing them to be at least ten percent more efficient than their counterparts currently available in the Dark Realm and the Demon Merchant Code’s markets.

And yes, I wasn’t limiting my research to humans and Card Apprentices either. I was tailoring elixirs for various Dark races as well as there was a ridiculous amount of money to be made in this market.

Take the lifespan-extending elixir known as Trospano.

It was originally developed for the Impreans, a halfling scaled race. As the Impreans grew old, the soft scales around their joints gradually hardened. What had once been flexible and barely noticeable eventually became stiff enough to restrict their movement. They could pluck the hardened scales off themselves, but that came with its own discomfort. Alternatively, they could wait for their natural shedding cycle, but the older an Imprean became, the longer that process took.

Trospano solved part of that problem while extending their lifespan by a whopping fifty years. It could keep the scales around their joints soft for at least forty percent of that extended lifespan, allowing an elderly Imprean to remain mobile and independent for much longer.

But even Trospano had limitations.

And more importantly, there was no comparable lifespan-extending elixir on either the Dark Realm market or the Demon Merchant Code’s market that specifically addressed the hardening of Imprean scales.

That meant there was a gap in the market. A rather obvious one. If I could create something better, I could practically monopolize that particular niche.

So I did.

The recipe I developed didn’t merely delay the hardening of their scales. It completely eliminated the problem associated with aging.

That gave me two potential markets immediately.

Impreans who were already approaching the end of their natural lifespan and desperately needed an additional few decades, and younger Impreans who had only begun showing the early signs of age-related scale hardening and wanted to prevent the problem before it became debilitating.

And that was just one race.

Once I started looking at the various Dark races through the same lens, I realized just how enormous the market for specialized lifespan-extending elixirs actually was.

Every race had its own aging process, had its own struggles , and, apparently, every struggle could be turned into a product. I had come to Azorheim intending to fulfill requests for my citizens. Somewhere along the way, I had also stumbled onto a rather lucrative business opportunity.

I was so immersed in the research and development that I completely lost track of time. It wasn’t until Henricks contacted me, informing me that he was standing outside my cave with the first batch of clients, that I realized just how much time had passed.

I immediately expanded the cave’s available space and divided it into 3,463 sections, each with the same temporal dilution and an environment familiar to the people coming from Card World. It was easier to let everyone have their own space rather than cram thousands of people into a single area and turn the cave into a glorified refugee camp.

With Henricks and my clones helping me, we quickly got everyone settled.

Those who required additional assistance were taken care of by my clones, while Hive Spirit coordinated the process and ensured nobody was overlooked. Once everyone had been properly settled, I asked Henricks to wait outside the cave.

Thanks to the temporal dilution, from his perspective I would probably be finished in the time it took him to take a few breaths.

Inside the cave, I returned to my research and development while my clones, with Hive Spirit’s assistance, began diagnosing the clients one by one. They didn’t merely examine their physical condition. They listened to their concerns, recorded their individual difficulties and requirements, and assessed what they actually needed from me.

Once that was done, we used Soul Pupils to examine their cultivation foundations and determine whether any of them still had a chance of breaking through into a higher realm.

There were 3,463 clients and 1,026 clones.

Dividing the workload between us made the diagnosis considerably faster than it would have been if I had attempted to examine everyone personally.

It didn’t take long before the results were compiled.

Each clone, working alongside Hive Spirit, recorded their findings, potential for breakthrough, physical condition, accumulated ailments, and what they believed would be the most appropriate course of action for each individual.

When I finally went through the reports myself, I was surprised by what I found.

To my surprise, almost all of the humans were already an inch away from becoming Card Apprentices. Their problem wasn’t a lack of potential. It was age.

Years of inactivity and a lack of activity had caused their active soul energy to gradually become stagnant. Their bodies had grown accustomed to their current state, and whatever momentum they once possessed had slowly faded away.

Thankfully, stagnant wasn’t the same as ruined. With a little help from me, none of their conditions were irreversible. In fact, for many of them, becoming Card Apprentices might require far less than they had imagined.

I couldn’t help but feel that this batch of requests was going to be considerably more interesting than I had initially expected.

The best part was that I didn’t need to personally administer the treatment; all they needed was to be prescribed a specific dosage of Silver milk powder, and the concoction would work its magic.