Magic Card Era: Infinite Deck Enhancement — Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Want to Slack Off? Impossible!

“It’s the briefing for the second stage.” Sensing the familiar, soft warmth pressing against his back, Luke reached back and playfully flicked Mana’s nose. He pulled up the terminal screen, carefully reviewing the details.

The second stage would take place within a Dimensional Plane known as the Mist Relic. Upon entry, all contestants would be randomly scattered across the map.

Victory conditions were straightforward: reach the core of the Mist Relic and claim the designated victory prop. The moment a contestant secured the item, the Youth Training Competition would instantly conclude, regardless of how many others were still wandering the plane.

“That rule sounds pretty simple,” Mana murmured, leaning her chin on his shoulder as she read along.

“It looks simple on the surface,” Luke replied, shaking his head. “But the Mist Relic has a unique environmental hazard. It’s blanketed year-round in a dense fog with abysmal visibility. Even a Commander Realm or Battle General Realm Magic Card Master doesn’t have the means to disperse it, and their mental perception is severely restricted.”

He zoomed in on a specific clause on the glowing screen. “, there’s a hard prerequisite to even enter the core and grab that final prop. You have to collect ten Magic Card Vouchers.”

“Every contestant receives exactly one Magic Card Voucher upon entering. As for how to get the other nine… the implication is pretty obvious.”

The Magic Card Voucher was the key to clearing the stage. To win, contestants had no choice but to hunt each other down. Passive survival meant guaranteed elimination.

The organizers had deliberately designed a bloodbath, forcing every single participant into an adversarial stance.

“The victor takes the Magic Card Voucher, and the loser is stripped of their qualifications and teleported out of the Dimensional Plane.” Luke smiled faintly. “After all, the core purpose of the Youth Training Competition is to pit the top rookies from every Magic Card Association in Cang Capital against one another. The organizers wouldn’t design a peaceful, conflict-free stage. That would be completely dull.”

“Ah, I see…” Mana stuck out her tongue, a faint, embarrassed blush dusting her fair cheeks. She genuinely hadn’t read between the lines.

“Alright, let’s get some rest.” Luke turned off the personal terminal and pulled Mana into his arms, enjoying the quiet intimacy of the night. “We have to be up early tomorrow.”

The next morning, under Mana’s attentive care, Luke finished getting dressed and headed toward the Cangling City assembly point. Many of the contestants who had survived the first round were already waiting.

The moment Luke arrived, the Cangling City representatives offered warm, respectful greetings. After witnessing his performance in the first stage yesterday, they finally understood why Chairman Yu treated him with such high regard.

If they possessed Luke’s overwhelming strength, the Chairman would naturally look at them with admiration, too.

“Did everyone rest well?” A moment later, Chairman Yu arrived at the assembly point. He swept his gaze over the gathered youths, and after receiving a chorus of affirmative nods, he led them out.

Simultaneously, contestants from the Cang Capital General Association and the various satellite cities were also mobilizing under the leadership of their respective branch presidents.

Before long, the massive crowd reconvened in the same grand square as yesterday. Shangguan Hong was already waiting at the forefront, his presence commanding absolute silence.

“I trust you all reviewed the rules for the second stage yesterday, so I will spare you the pleasantries. I expect you to push your limits, demonstrate your true strength, and seize the final victory.”

“The reward for the ultimate winner will not disappoint.”

As his voice echoed across the square, Shangguan Hong casually waved his hand. A massive spatial portal slowly tore open in the center of the plaza. A biting, icy draft spilled out from the rift, causing several contestants to involuntarily shiver.

Immediately, several staff members moved swiftly through the ranks, handing two specialized Magic Cards to every participant.

“These two cards are your Magic Card Voucher and your Teleportation Magic Card,” Shangguan Hong explained, his tone authoritative. “The function of the Voucher needs no further explanation. As for the Teleportation Magic Card, its function will activate the moment you enter the Mist Relic. You must judge for yourselves whether a situation is dangerous enough to warrant using it to escape.”

“However, keep this in mind: the Teleportation Magic Card is a single-use item, and its spatial coordinates are permanently locked to the very spot you are standing on right now.”

“Using it means you forfeit your place in the competition. You will be instantly pulled out of the Mist Relic and disqualified.”

“Therefore, think very carefully about if and when you choose to play it.”

The Youth Training Competition was not a deathmatch. The Magic Card Association wouldn’t just throw their most talented fresh blood into a meat grinder without a safety net.

But as Shangguan Hong emphasized, the choice of when to retreat was entirely in the hands of the contestants. It was a test of judgment.

If a contestant overestimated their own abilities and failed to activate the Teleportation Magic Card in time to escape a fatal blow, their death in the Mist Relic would be entirely their own fault.

An inability to accurately assess a battlefield situation would only lead to ruin—a fatal flaw for any Magic Card Master.

The contestants exchanged nervous glances. Breaking the tension, Shangguan Wan’er stepped forward and walked directly into the portal. As the representative of the Cang Capital General Association and the undisputed strongest contender on paper, her taking the lead drew no objections.

With the ice broken, the rest of the competitors filed into the swirling rift one after another. Luke followed the tide, stepping through the spatial threshold.

Once the final contestant vanished into the Mist Relic, Shangguan Hong waved his hand again. Dozens of glowing light screens materialized in the air above the square, each broadcasting an independent, real-time feed of a contestant.

Just as Cangling City possessed the technology to monitor the Demon Spirit Home, the Cang Capital Magic Card Association had their own surveillance network for the Mist Relic—and their methods were significantly more advanced.

“So this is the Mist Relic?”

Luke’s vision was immediately swallowed by a dense, drifting white haze. Anything beyond a few meters was completely obscured from the naked eye. Even when he extended his mental perception, the sensory feedback hit a hard wall of static. “It’s exactly as the briefing described.”

The moment his mental power brushed against the drifting fog, Luke felt a strange, corrosive energy eating away at his probing senses. If he maintained contact with the mist for too long, the drain would eventually trigger a painful mental backlash.

He looked around. The Cangling City contestants who had stepped through the portal right beside him were nowhere to be seen. In fact, he couldn’t spot a single person.

“Were we completely scattered? Or is everyone actually dropped in the same general area, but the fog is just too thick to see them?” Luke raised his hand, channeling his energy. In a flash of light, Dark Magician Girl materialized by his side. “Information is still too scarce.”

“Let’s go. For now, we just have to take it one step at a time,” Luke said, giving Dark Magician Girl a reassuring nod. He picked a random direction and began to walk.

The old saying about not being able to see one’s own fingers might have been a slight exaggeration, but with the oppressive fog suffocating the environment, even maintaining a straight line was a challenge.

handling toward the core of the Mist Relic was going to require a healthy dose of luck. But then again, luck had always been a crucial component of true strength.