Magic Card Era: Infinite Deck Enhancement — Chapter 59

Chapter 59: What Star Level Is This Magic Card?

Compared to the serene composure of the Dark Magician Girl standing nearby, Chairman Yu was practically vibrating with barely contained excitement.

A deep, resonant dragon roar suddenly echoed through the room. That primordial sound was the ultimate confirmation: the background lore, structural setting, and complex card art of the Dragon-type Magic Card Luke was currently forging had been fully recognized by the laws of the world. All that remained was the final infusion of color and spiritual energy to complete the masterpiece.

From the very first stroke of the spiritual pen to this key moment, Chairman Yu had watched Luke’s entire card-making process without blinking.

Even as a mighty Sovereign Realm powerhouse, he had to admit that the young man’s technique possessed a hypnotic, almost artistic beauty. There was a deep composure in Luke’s movements, a steady rhythm that ordinary Magic Card Masters could never hope to emulate.

That specific brand of effortless charm was something usually reserved for legendary card masters who had spent centuries honing their craft. Chairman Yu found it genuinely difficult to believe he was witnessing such deep mastery radiating from a newly awakened rookie.

He let out a soft, self-deprecating sigh. The younger generation these days truly left no room for the old guard to breathe.

While the Chairman lamented his age, Luke’s hands never stopped moving. His focus was absolute. One by one, the carefully prepared materials—resulting in the radiant Dragon Eyes of the Heavenly Azure Dragon—were fed into the swirling vortex of the Magic Card Editor.

Seeing this critical step, Chairman Yu instinctively leaned forward, his posture tightening as his gaze locked onto the young man. The next phase was the final card formation. If this succeeded, he would have the distinct honor of personally witnessing Luke forge his third Original Magic Card.

The liquified material solution bled into the card’s ethereal blueprint. An instant later, a blinding golden pillar of light erupted, tearing upward toward the ceiling, identical to the phenomenon that had accompanied the birth of the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon just days prior.

However, the brilliant beam slammed into the translucent magical barrier Mana had proactively erected, failing to pierce the ceiling and instead flooding the enclosed room with a dense, suffocatingly rich golden glow.

“Eh?” A soft gasp escaped Mana’s lips.

Though the pillar’s upward trajectory had been halted, the Dark Magician Girl’s beautiful emerald eyes widened in sheer astonishment. Hovering gracefully around the surface of that surging golden light were eight distinct, newly formed stars.

They pulsed with a faint, ethereal dimness, but they were undeniably suspended within the pillar’s halo. This was an unmatched anomaly—something that had never occurred during the creation of equipment cards, counter cards, or even regular Magic Card Elves.

Mana wasn’t the only one caught off guard. Chairman Yu was thoroughly bewildered. The initial thrill of witnessing a successful creation instantly dissolved into absolute shock and deep confusion.

The manifestation of the golden pillar of light was absolute proof that Luke had successfully forged a Magic Card, and the sheer scale of the phenomenon confirmed it was an Original Magic Card. Only completely unique, world-first creations triggered such a dramatic response from the world’s laws.

Given the precedents set by the Dark Magician Girl and the Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon, coupled with the mental preparation he had done beforehand, Chairman Yu was fully capable of accepting that Luke had birthed another Original card.

But those eight faint, spectral stars orbiting the golden pillar? That shattered everything he knew.

According to every historical text and inherited legacy within the Magic Card Civilization, a creation pillar of light would always manifest upon the birth of an Original Magic Card. Yet, in all those millennia of recorded history, there was absolutely no mention of stars physically manifesting on the pillar itself.

At the very least, in all the vast archives Chairman Yu had personally scoured, such an anomaly simply did not exist.

‘Could it be… do those eight stars represent the actual grade of the Magic Card he just created?’ Staring blankly at the illusory constellation, Chairman Yu could only formulate wild guesses in the absence of historical precedent.

To his experienced mind, it was the only logical conclusion. The immediate visual association of stars in this world was always tied to a card’s inherent rank.

But if that hypothesis was true—if those stars truly denoted the card’s rank—it meant Luke had completely bypassed the Seven-Star threshold and directly forged an Eight-Star Magic Card. That realization sent a cold shiver of absolute horror down the Sovereign’s spine.

He suddenly had a terrifying premonition. In terms of pure, unadulterated talent for card creation, this boy might not be inferior to the legendary Undying Realm powerhouses.

If Luke was given enough time to safely mature, could the Ancient Kingdom actually witness the birth of a fifth Undying Realm sovereign in the future?

The moment the thought crossed his mind, Chairman Yu violently suppressed it.

Yes, Luke’s talent was monstrous, and his potential was seemingly limitless, but the Undying Realm was a domain of gods, far more complex than mere talent could overcome. If it were that simple, the entire Ancient Kingdom wouldn’t be solely reliant on its four Undying Realm domain lords.

Forget the Undying Realm—even shattering the bottleneck to reach the Immortal Realm was a monumental trial. Countless brilliant Magic Card Masters spent their entire lives trapped at the peak of the Sovereign Realm, ultimately turning to dust without ever taking that final half-step.

Even Chairman Yu himself harbored deep doubts about his own ability to ever break through to the Immortal Realm.

, Luke had only just taken his first steps onto the path of a Magic Card Master. Regardless of his heaven-defying talent or the miraculous opportunities he might encounter, the Undying Realm was a distant, almost mythical horizon. It was far too early to entertain such grandiose delusions.

The golden creation pillar, still wreathed by those eight illusory stars, lingered for only a few moments more before shattering into countless specks of radiant light. The golden dust swirled through the air, slowly sinking into Luke’s body.

What followed was a violent, surging wave of Magic Power Feedback, forcefully pushing Luke’s cultivation base to new heights!

[Construction successful. Magic Power Feedback gained. Level increased to Six-Star Battle General!]

[Construction successful. Magic Power Feedback gained. Level increased to Seven-Star Battle General!]

[Construction successful. Magic Power Feedback gained. Level increased to Eight-Star Battle General!]

Standing just a few feet away, Chairman Yu clearly sensed the violent fluctuations of Luke’s rapidly expanding mana pool. But when the young man’s soaring cultivation finally stabilized at the Eight-Star Battle General realm, the older man’s confusion only deepened.

‘What the hell kind of star-rank is this Magic Card? Did those eight stars not represent the card’s level after all?’

The fundamental rule of the world was simple: the higher the grade of the created Magic Card, the more potent the Magic Power Feedback, and naturally, the higher the creator’s cultivation would rise.

After countless eras of development, the Magic Card Civilization had established a reliable formula to deduce a newly created card’s rank simply by observing the magnitude of the creator’s advancement.

Granted, this metric was most accurate for lower-tier Magic Card Masters. As a master’s realm grew higher, the sheer volume of mana required to level up became so astronomical that even the feedback from a high-tier card wasn’t enough to trigger a breakthrough.

But Luke was only a Five-Star Battle General before this! If he had truly birthed an Eight-Star Magic Card, the resulting tsunami of Magic Power Feedback wouldn’t have just nudged him up three minor realms to Eight-Star Battle General. The total volume of energy he absorbed was entirely disproportionate to an Eight-Star creation.

‘Was my assumption wrong? Do those eight spectral stars have nothing to do with the card’s rank? Do they symbolize something else entirely?’

“What… what exactly does this mean?” Unable to unravel the mystery no matter how hard he racked his brain, Chairman Yu couldn’t help but massage his throbbing temples. This was the first time he had felt so utterly clueless since his ascension to the Sovereign Realm.

While the Chairman was agonizing over the unmatched anomaly, completely unable to comprehend the true nature of the Eye of Timaeus, Luke was relishing the sensation of his newly expanded mana pool. He had reached the Eight-Star Battle General realm, standing just a hair’s breadth away from Nine-Star.

‘My total mana reserves have spiked again, and the passive drain rate has been noticeably alleviated. With this, I should be able to sustain the summoning of the Red-Eyes Black Dragon for a little while longer.’

With a mere thought, the shimmering holographic attributes of his brand-new Magic Card materialized before his eyes.