For 30 advance/early chapters : p atreon.com/AutumnXd
( Bonus chapter)
"The pressure is staggering."
Every eye in the Capital Association's main hall snapped to Luke and the Dragon Knight Dark Magician Girl the instant they materialized. The fusion spirit was still deployed, still radiating Timaeus's full Dragon Pressure, and at close range the effect was considerably more intense than it had been through the monitoring screens.
Several newly-teleported competitors reacted on pure instinct. A handful of them began summoning their own card spirits, hands moving to cards before conscious thought caught up with the fact that attacking in the middle of the Association's main hall, against the tournament winner, would be a career-ending decision. Their teammates caught their wrists or physically stepped between them and Luke before the reflexes escalated into something disastrous.
The surviving competitors, those who had been teleported out without reaching the core, needed a moment to process what had happened. The teleportation had been sudden and unexplained from their perspective. Only when their teammates gestured at Luke and the Holy Dragon Furnace Heart in his hand did they connect the dots.
It's over. He won. The prize has already been claimed.
And then the secondary realization landed.
We were going up against this thing. We were trying to reach a core that HE was going to reach first.
The realization carried a strange mixture of relief and lingering dread. Relief because they didn't have to face the Dragon Knight in direct combat. Dread because the Dragon Knight was standing fifteen meters away, and even at that distance, the pressure her dragon mount exuded was making the hall's atmosphere feel thicker than it should.
Close-range Dragon Pressure was qualitatively different from watching it on a screen. Lily Fairchild felt her knees lock, her body refusing to take another step closer. Serena Frost's pale composure had slipped entirely, her hand braced against the nearest column for support. Vance Ashton had gone completely still, his face carefully blank in a way that communicated absolute terror to anyone who'd known him for more than an hour.
Even the competitors who hadn't seen the Dragon Knight in combat were understanding, viscerally, what Elise had faced alone in the core chamber. Their legs trembled under the pressure. Their card spirits, still manifested from their teleportation returns, radiated fear signals back to their masters in waves.
This is who Audrey Langford tried to use as a diversion, several of them thought simultaneously, in various phrasings of the same horrified epiphany.
The takeaway was universal. Making Luke Mercer an ally was probably impossible at this point, his accomplishments had already outstripped anything they could offer. But making him an enemy was a decision that would follow a person for the rest of their career. Possibly for a shorter period than that career might otherwise have lasted.
"Luke, recall your card spirit." Edmund Hargrove's voice carried across the hall, quiet but absolute. A gentle pressure radiated outward from his position, not opposing Timaeus's Dragon Pressure but absorbing and neutralizing it, spreading a cushion of calm across the main hall.
The competitors released breaths they hadn't realized they were holding. They straightened. Color returned to faces. The Card Masters whose spirits had been trembling felt those spirits stabilize as Edmund's aura dampened the external threat.
Every one of them registered the contrast. Whatever the Dragon Knight was, Edmund was unquestionably higher on the hierarchy. That was Immortal Realm in action, quietly and efficiently suppressing a Seven-Star dragon's pressure with no visible effort.
"Ah." Luke noticed, belatedly, that the hall had gone still in response to his lingering deployment. He'd been preoccupied with the mechanics of collecting the Holy Dragon Furnace Heart, wondering whether the automated defenses would actually let him take it, and he'd forgotten to recall the Dragon Knight in the transition.
He waved his hand. Dragon Knight Dark Magician Girl dissolved into streams of violet and sapphire light, which coiled back into Luke's card space. The Dragon Pressure cut off in the same instant, and the entire hall's atmosphere lightened.
Luke also felt the mana drain stop.
Maintaining the fusion spirit, especially at Seven-Star capability levels, had consumed vast quantities of his reserves. He'd dropped close to empty during the fight with Elise. Even now, several minutes after the Dragon Knight had ceased active combat, his mana pool was sitting at dangerously low levels. Seven-Star combat output was too much for his Commander Realm framework to sustain. He'd need to treat the Dragon Knight as a last-resort option for now, not a standard deployment.
As the fusion disappeared, Lily, Serena, and the other first-tier survivors exhaled audibly.
-----
"The Youth Training Competition is concluded," Edmund announced, his voice carrying across the hall with practiced ease. "Each of you demonstrated talents that speak well of your respective cities. Continue to develop those talents. The Eastern Region's future depends on Card Masters who can face challenges honestly and grow from them."
The rest of his closing remarks were the standard mixture of encouragement and mild expectations that every tournament ended with. Harmless ceremony. Nothing that would shape anyone's career directly, but also nothing that would waste anyone's time.
Thirty minutes later, he dismissed the competitors to return to their quarters.
The survivors filed out in waves, organized by branch affiliation, shepherded by their respective presidents. Every single one of them looked exhausted. And every single one of them had the same gleam in their eyes.
The banquet was tonight.
-----
The tournament's closing banquet was a tradition. A chance for competitors across branches to mingle in a non-combat context, exchange contacts, and begin the long process of building the professional networks that would define their careers.
And tonight, every competitor with functioning survival instincts had the same priority target.
Luke Mercer.
Intelligence was unanimous: Luke was a generational talent whose career arc had no visible ceiling. Anyone who could attach themselves to his orbit now, even loosely, would benefit enormously over the coming decades. Only a fool would miss the opportunity. And since every competitor here had made it through two elimination stages, fools were in short supply.
-----
"Luke, you performed beautifully."
Back at the Ashenvale quarters, Harrison Cole clapped Luke on the shoulder with a grin that had been threatening to break out for hours. His satisfaction was palpable. Nothing he said or did would have been able to fully contain it at this point.
The rest of the Ashenvale delegation watched with equally bright expressions. Edmund's closing speech had included explicit praise for Luke, and that praise spilled over onto the whole city's representation. They'd arrived as the mid-tier satellite city nobody expected to do well. They were leaving with the competition's first-place trophy and bragging rights that would carry Ashenvale's reputation for years.
"Here. These are for you." Harrison reached into his storage card and produced two items. "The Light Sword and the Holy Spirit Ring. I won them in a wager against Crestbrook City's branch president."
He explained the bet briefly, the terms, Webb's skepticism, the stakes. He did not dwell on the satisfaction he'd felt collecting.
Both items were heirloom-grade materials. The Light Sword alone would command an eye-watering price on the Association's trading platform. The Holy Spirit Ring was even rarer. Either one, handled by a competent Card Master, could serve as the primary material for a high-tier Light-aligned card construction.
Harrison himself had no particular need for light-aligned materials. His specialty ran in other directions, and the wager had been less about acquisition and more about making Dorian Webb eat his own words. The fact that the spoils had substantial practical value was a bonus.
He also had the instinct that Luke's talent was worth investing in early and generously. A Light Sword and Holy Spirit Ring in Luke's hands would produce something remarkable. The same materials sitting in Harrison's storage would produce nothing.
"The formal competition reward will be processed when we get back to Ashenvale," Harrison added. "Consider these… a personal bonus."
The other Ashenvale delegation members watched this exchange with visible envy, but also with the understanding that their envy was pointless. Luke had earned every advantage he was receiving. None of them had soloed Vance Ashton. None of them had demolished Elise Hargrove's three-card formation. They hadn't even made it to the Relic's core.
"Thanks, President Cole." Luke accepted the two materials without unnecessary deflection. He'd learned, during his time in Magic Card Civilization, that refusing legitimately-earned rewards wasn't modesty. It was a way of devaluing what had been offered.
As he tucked the items into his own storage card, a small wry thought surfaced. Didn't I get the Moon Spirit Ring from a similar friendly exchange with Moonvale? At this rate, I'm going to start a collection.
*「 Light Sword 」*
Description: A legendary sword said to contain the power of sealing-light. It is rumored to have once been wielded by a sacred swordsman who used it to imprison a demon that destroyed an entire kingdom. Possesses exceptional effectiveness against dark-aligned enemies.
*「 Holy Spirit Ring 」*
Description: The only evidence remaining of an angel's death, and the sole proof that the angel ever existed. Contains the residual power of the fallen angel. Holders aligned with light can activate the power within the ring, converting its angelic essence to their own use.