Magic Card Era: Infinite Deck Enhancement — Chapter 75

Chapter 75: A Sense of Ritual is Essential

Luke narrowed his eyes, studying the massive clock face hovering above the arena. The thirteen glowing markings etched along its perimeter didn’t represent hours of the day. Instead, they corresponded to the Cang Capital General Association and its twelve satellite city branches. Two golden hands, identical in length, rested at the center of the dial, gleaming with an ethereal light.

Shangguan Wan’er, Liu Yanran, Su Xueyi, and the rest of the gathered competitors quickly caught on to the mechanism.

Tick. Tock.

The crisp, mechanical sound echoed across the silent stadium. Under the watchful eyes of thousands, the twin golden hands began to spin. They swept past the glowing names of the various Magic Card Associations in a dizzying blur of light.

When the hands finally ground to a halt, two distinct names flared to life on the clock face: the Cangheng City Magic Card Association and the Cangyang City Magic Card Association.

Immediately after, the golden hands spun a second time, dissolving the city names to reveal the specific participants chosen for the opening bout of the Youth Training Competition.

Cangheng City: Su Xueyi!

Cangyang City: Deng Jingshen!

A collective wave of realization washed over the waiting contestants. This grand, imposing clock face was nothing more than an overly elaborate lottery wheel.

Did they really need to make it this dramatic? A ripple of exasperated murmurs swept through the crowd. When the colossal clock had first materialized with such overwhelming pressure, half the competitors had braced themselves for some deep, ancient ritual.

Before anyone could voice their complaints aloud, the two chosen combatants—Su Xueyi and Deng Jingshen—stepped forward, their auras flaring as they descended onto the sprawling battlefield. The sheer tension radiating from the arena instantly silenced the peanut gallery.

Up on the elevated rostrum, the branch presidents of the various Magic Card Associations leaned forward, their eyes locked on the stage. The presidents of Cangheng City and Cangyang City were particularly invested, their expressions tightening as their respective champions prepared to clash in the very first match of the tournament.

“Blazing Lion! Fire Elf!” Deng Jingshen roared, wasting no time. Though a flicker of genuine awe crossed his eyes at the sight of Su Xueyi’s stunning beauty, he ruthlessly suppressed it. On this stage, she was nothing but an obstacle.

Two magic cards shattered into fragments of light. A Five-Star Rare Blazing Lion materialized with a deafening, earth-shaking roar, its mane composed of pure, undulating magma. Beside it floated a Five-Star Collection Fire Elf, a volatile spirit of swirling embers.

A blistering heatwave instantly washed over the battlefield, distorting the air into shimmering mirages. The sheer intensity of the sudden temperature spike forced the spectators nearest the arena edge to stumble backward, shielding their faces from the oppressive, suffocating heat.

Su Xueyi simply frowned. Her delicate features twisted in clear distaste at the suffocating environment. With a graceful, dismissive wave of her slender hand, she summoned her own Magic Card Spirits.

A Five-Star Collection Ice Void Elf!

A Six-Star Inheritance Frost Archer!

An absolute, bone-piercing chill erupted from Su Xueyi’s position. The battlefield, which had been a roaring furnace mere seconds ago, was violently thrust into a deep freeze. Plumes of thick, hissing steam and dense white mist billowed into the sky as the extreme temperatures collided.

The retreating spectators shivered violently, wrapping their arms around themselves as the blistering heat was replaced by a biting frost. They exchanged speechless, exasperated glances. Were these two seriously just playing with ice and fire right out of the gate?

As the seconds ticked by, the relentless, biting cold steadily devoured the heat, freezing the very moisture in the air and claiming absolute dominance over the arena.

“One Five-Star and one Six-Star. The cooperation between the Frost Archer and the Ice Void Elf isn’t much weaker than the Silver Moon Fox and Nebula Rainbow Butterfly combination,” Luke murmured, an eyebrow arching in mild appreciation as he analyzed Su Xueyi’s lineup. “No wonder she managed to fight Liu Yanran to a draw.”

Having finally recovered from the whiplash of the extreme temperature shifts, the rest of the crowd also recognized the terrifying caliber of Su Xueyi’s deck. The Six-Star Frost Archer, in particular, was widely acknowledged as a top-tier card within its rank. The complexions of several competitors paled considerably. While everyone here was an elite representative of the Youth Training Competition, passing the baseline assessment only required forging Five-Star Magic Cards. Very few possessed the talent and soul strength to successfully create a Six-Star entity.

Standing directly across from her, Deng Jingshen looked as though he had swallowed a lemon. His face was a sickly shade of green.

It was bad enough that the Frost Archer was an entire major tier above his strongest card. Even if they had been on equal footing, Su Xueyi’s ice-attribute spirits held a devastating elemental advantage over his fire-types. He was completely, hopelessly outclassed from the very first second.

‘Damn it! I want to file a protest! This has to be rigged!’ Deng Jingshen screamed internally, his fists clenched tight enough to draw blood. The system was absolutely targeting him!

“Attack,” Su Xueyi commanded. Her voice was as cold and crystalline as the ice she wielded. She cared nothing for her opponent’s internal despair. As long as he stood on the opposite side of the arena, he was an enemy to be crushed.

“Counter-attack!” Deng Jingshen roared back, refusing to go down without a fight. Despite knowing the impossible gap between them, he gritted his teeth and ordered a desperate charge.

It was a futile effort. Crushed beneath the dual weight of elemental suppression and a higher tier, the Blazing Lion and Fire Elf found their power output slashed by at least twenty percent. Their flames flickered weakly against the encroaching frost.

In a single, fatal lapse of concentration, the Ice Void Elf darted forward, its chilling magic seizing the fiery beasts and freezing them solid in their tracks. Before they could even attempt to break free, the Frost Archer drew her crystalline bowstring. A relentless barrage of freezing arrows tore through the air, shattering the immobilized targets in a flawless, devastating combo.

The entire match was over in less than two minutes.

Without a word of triumph, Su Xueyi calmly recalled her Magic Cards. She turned and walked off the battlefield in absolute silence, leaving the stunned crowd staring at her elegant, unapproachable back.

“She really is freezing to the core,” Luke remarked, offering a casual shrug. Between her ruthless combat style and her utterly detached demeanor, she was undoubtedly the coldest girl he had ever encountered.

The synchronized assault of the Ice Void Elf and Frost Archer had been exceptionally refined. Since both spirits shared the exact same elemental origin, their combined strength multiplied exponentially through mutual reinforcement.

Even so, Luke didn’t feel a shred of anxiety.

If he ended up facing her in the brackets, he was genuinely curious to see which would reign supreme: Su Xueyi’s absolute zero, or the apocalyptic Dragon Flame of his Red-Eyes Meteor Dragon.

Pulling his gaze away from the retreating ice queen, Luke sank back into his own thoughts, silently tweaking and refining the complex background lore for his Sistermon card. Since he had no idea when the oversized clock would call his name, there was no point in wasting mental energy on the current matches.

High up on the rostrum, Mo Yingtian, the president of the Cangheng City Magic Card Association, stroked his chin with a thoroughly satisfied smile as he watched Su Xueyi secure the tournament’s first blood. “Old Yu, this is the peerless genius I was bragging to you about last time. What do you think?”

“Not bad,” Chairman Yu replied. His tone was perfectly bland, his weathered face an unreadable mask of calm.

Mo Yingtian might have been an insufferable braggart, but Chairman Yu had to admit that Su Xueyi’s opening performance was undeniably striking.

Perhaps, in the past, Chairman Yu would have been sweating bullets over the outcome of this Youth Training Competition. But ever since Luke had signed the contract to participate, the old chairman had been as steady as a mountain.

Luke possessed three original Six-Star Magic Cards, and two of them were terrifying Dragon-types. With a deck of that monstrous caliber, it was no exaggeration to say he could steamroll the entire roster. The number of participants who could even pose a theoretical threat to Luke could be counted on one hand.

In fact, out of the entire gathered assembly, the only individual Chairman Yu kept a wary eye on was Shangguan Wan’er, the crown jewel of the Cang Capital General Association.

The General Association’s foundation was inherently vastly superior to the twelve satellite branches. Shangguan Wan’er had already broken through to the Commander Realm, and as the direct, pure-blooded descendant of a legendary Immortal Realm expert, she was the undisputed face of the capital’s elite.

Among everyone seated in the stadium, perhaps only Shangguan Hong and Vice President Shangguan truly understood the terrifying depths of Wan’er’s power.

She was the singular, unpredictable variable in Chairman Yu’s otherwise flawless calculations for this tournament.

Su Xueyi’s overwhelming victory over Deng Jingshen officially ignited the fervor of the Youth Training Competition. Mere seconds later, the giant clock face spun again, announcing the second pair of duelists.

As the hours bled away, the tournament progressed at a brutal pace. Half the competitors advanced, while the other half were unceremoniously eliminated.

During this gauntlet, Liu Yanran stepped onto the stage. She dismantled her opponent with a suffocating dominance that easily rivaled Su Xueyi’s, her stunning performance drawing roars of approval from the stands. Up on the rostrum, Song Yongzhang nodded in deep satisfaction.

If Su Xueyi was the undisputed pride of Cangheng City, then Liu Yanran was the absolute jewel of Cang Yue City.

“It’s my turn,” Shangguan Wan’er stated softly. She looked up at the glowing characters newly etched onto the clock face, her eyes gleaming with quiet anticipation.

As she gracefully stepped out of the waiting area and descended toward the battlefield, the ambient noise of the stadium instantly died down. Every single gaze in the arena snapped toward her, drawn by the magnetic pull of the capital’s greatest prodigy.

[Akarin’s Note: “Sistermon” is a reference to the Sistermon archetype from the Digimon franchise, fitting Luke’s ability to create cards based on Earth’s anime and games.]