Teenage card master

The Bizarre One-Star Energy Card

Zuo Tingyi’s soft gasp roused Jia Ziling, whose eyelids had grown heavy. Forcing his eyes open, Jia adjusted his appearance, checked that his hair was still neat, and then cleared his throat before asking, “Tingyi, what’s wrong?”

Zuo Tingyi didn’t respond, his eyes fixed blankly on the card in his hand.

Jia Ziling slightly furrowed his brows, raised his voice, and said with a hint of displeasure, "Tingyi, what’s going on?"

Zuo Tingyi snapped back to reality and quickly turned around: "Teacher, there’s something odd about this card."

"Odd? What do you mean?" Jia Ziling asked, somewhat puzzled.

Zuo Tingyi hurriedly handed the one-star energy card to his teacher: "It’s this card, this card... this card..."

He was considering how to phrase it.

What’s wrong with him today? Jia Ziling frowned slightly. Zuo Tingyi was usually decisive and straightforward, never hesitant. Jia Ziling said directly, "Let me see it."

Taking the card from Zuo Tingyi’s hand—a one-star energy card—Jia Ziling thought there was nothing to make a fuss about. Still, he gave it a couple of glances.

"Huh!"

He abruptly sat up straight. The dismissive look on his face vanished instantly, replaced by intense seriousness.

"There really is something odd about it," Jia Ziling muttered to himself, staring fixedly at the one-star energy card in his hand. Even he, a senior card maker at Dongwei Academy, couldn’t tell at a glance whether this card was flawed or not.

The structure of this one-star energy card differed significantly from the standard. Jia Ziling, with his extensive experience, could see that the changes were based on the standard structure. But were these changes intentional or mistakes? He couldn’t be sure—he had never seen such modifications before.

Noticing Jia Ziling’s dilemma, Zuo Tingyi spoke up: "Teacher, why don’t we test it to see if this energy card works?"

Jia Ziling’s eyes lit up. Yes! Testing whether the card functioned would reveal if it was flawed. But he pretended he had already thought of it, clearing his throat: "Hmm, Tingyi, you’ve improved. You and I think alike."

Zuo Tingyi replied humbly, "Teacher, your wisdom is as vast as the ocean. How could a student compare?"

Jia Ziling was inwardly pleased but said, "No need for such modesty. Among all my students, few can match you."

"It’s all thanks to your teaching that I am where I am today," Zuo Tingyi said with a slight bow.

"Tingyi never forgets his teacher’s kindness, truly rare." After the two finished complimenting each other, Jia ZilingPretend to be deep:"Alright, let’s see what’s so remarkable about this one-star energy card."

Jia Ziling’s card-making studio was equipped with an extremely comprehensive array of devices.

Although card-making is a profound field of study, it has many learners. Among card-makers, polarization is extremely severe, with a vast disparity between the rich and the poor. Low-level card-makers often struggle to make ends meet, finding it difficult to sustain a livelihood. Intermediate card-makers can already earn a decent income. And once one becomes a high-level card-maker, they immediately become highly sought-after, the object of recruitment by various factions.

Low-level card-makers can only produce one-star and two-star cards, but nowadays, one-star and two-star cards can basically be mass-produced industrially, which is why low-level card-makers find it hard to survive. Cards of three stars and above, however, can only be made by card-makers, which is why intermediate and high-level card-makers are in such high demand.

To attract high-level card-makers to teach, Dongwei Academy offered extremely generous terms. Not only were the salaries, but even the annual research funds were enviable. Jia Ziling had his own personal card-making studio, with all the equipment inside funded by Dongwei Academy.

He was currently using a card analyzer, a highly specialized instrument with complex operations, purchased and mastered only by card-makers. But its functions were also incredibly powerful—it could analyze a card’s materials, structure, production time, and more. Of course, its price was equally exorbitant.

"It really is a new structure!" Seeing the final analysis report, Jia Ziling ignored Zuo Tingyi’s stunned expression and fell into deep thought. His knowledge far surpassed Zuo Tingyi’s, and he knew well that aside from the standard structure, there were many other types of structural designs for one-star energy cards.

The analysis report was extremely detailed. This one-star energy card used the same materials as a standard one-star energy card, and while the design differed, its performance was identical, with no optimizations whatsoever.

Utterly worthless! Shaking his head, Jia Ziling felt somewhat disheartened. After half a day’s effort, he had gained nothing of value. As a high-level card-maker, it never occurred to him that the optimization of this one-star energy card lay not in its performance but in its cost!

In his view, going to such lengths to optimize the cost of a one-star energy card might itself be a rather peculiar notion.

Tossing the card aside casually, Jia Ziling decided not to waste any more time on the matter—after all, the time of a distinguished senior card artisan was far too precious!

Zuo Tingyi also never expected that this one-star energy card would be optimized for cost. Coming from a wealthy family, he viewed money as dirt and couldn’t fathom someone scheming to profit from a one-star energy card that cost just over a hundred Oudi. In fact, he had never even used an energy card below three stars.

However, as the only intact card among the three paper bags, Zuo Tingyi, after enduring countless ruined cards, held a certain appreciation for its creator. Initially intending to help him take the advancement exam, he searched in vain for the creator’s identity, and the matter was eventually dropped.

Chen Mu’s life remained unchanged. He continued making one-star energy cards daily as before. Yet, thanks to the gains from his recent training period, his progress had skyrocketed. The most noticeable improvement was in the strokes of his energy card drawings, now smoother and more fluid. He estimated this could boost the efficiency of his cards by three percent.

With one-star energy cards already low in energy, a mere three percent increase was hardly noticeable.