Chapter 38 – Character Card: Apprentice

The card was entirely black with purple-gold trim along its edges.

On the back was a purple-haired Sorceress with her eyes closed. Before her floated a large gilded book, and hovering above the book were several cards.

It was rendered in a rather ornate comic art style.

The upper half of the card’s front featured a rectangular frame containing a realistic oil painting of the Book of Cards.

Below the frame was the card’s information.

Across the entire card, apart from the illustration inside the front frame, everything else—the decorative patterns, the text, and the image of the purple-haired Sorceress—was rendered in deep purple brushstrokes flecked with gold dust.

Exquisite and magnificent. Clearly no ordinary object.

Mo Lan excitedly waved the card in the air. “Headmistress! I did it!”

This time, Lady Amisha did not respond.

Mo Lan didn’t mind.

She still had plenty of Magic Power remaining and could try making other cards.

Now that she had the Book of Cards, she didn’t need to rush into infusing Magic Power. She could design the card’s effects first, check how much magic it would require, and then decide whether to proceed with creation. It was much safer than before.

She hadn’t completely given up on the card-making inspiration that had guided her toward increasing her strength.

While making the previous card, the suggestion under “Current Difficulty 1” had reminded her of something.

Reducing a card’s intended functions or setting an upper limit on those functions could both save energy consumption.

She indeed hadn’t set any functional limits before.

Verifying this was simple enough. She created a new card design.

It only cost 1 mana of Magic Power to test the energy consumption.

【Card Design: Unnamed Card 2】

—【Estimated Cost: Infinite mana of Magic Power】

—【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

—【Estimated Function: Guide the enhancement of one’s own strength】

Just as she expected—without any functional limits, the energy consumption had no limit either.

No wonder Lady Traci’s Grimoire Magic and Carmela’s Golden Pen Technique Magic were both divided into tiers.

It must have been to limit consumption as well!

Mo Lan revised the card’s function.

【Card Design: Unnamed Card 2】

—【Estimated Cost: 10 mana of Magic Power】

—【Estimated Appearance: Appearance Template 1】

—【Estimated Function: After binding, displays the user’s name, race, power tier, mana capacity, magic names, and magic levels. Can monitor users up to Apprentice level at maximum. Subsequent energy investment can raise the card’s monitoring cap, upgradeable up to Peak level.】

One look at the cost and Mo Lan was relieved.

It really was because she hadn’t set an upper limit.

Now she could go ahead and make it without worry.

Soon, a new card appeared in the Slot.

character card – Apprentice Level – Unbound

【Binding is irreversible once applied. Bind?】

A text prompt appeared on the card’s surface.

Mo Lan selected yes.

【Strength exceeds card usage cap. Cannot bind. You may inject 100 mana of Magic Power into the card to upgrade its usage cap to Beginner.】

A hundred mana—Mo Lan could still afford that. She injected 100 mana of Magic Power into the card.

character card – Beginner

【Strength exceeds card usage cap. Cannot bind. You may inject 500 mana of Magic Power into the card to upgrade its usage cap to Intermediate.】

Five hundred mana. Mo Lan gritted her teeth and paid!

character card – Intermediate – Mo Lan

Her figure appeared on the card’s surface.

Below it were all her stats.

【Name: Mo Lan】

【Race: Witch / Sorceress】

【Tier: Intermediate】

【Magic Power: 195/989 mana】

【Magic: Golden Pen Technique (Apprentice), Grimoire (Apprentice)】

“Done!” Mo Lan’s delight was plain to see.

Just having a real-time display of her mana alone was already incredibly useful.

It was far more accurate than estimating by observing the brightness of her energy Halo.

Mo Lan recalled that during the Talent assessment, her measured Magic Power had been 998 mana.

Signing the Sorceress contracts for the Golden Pen Technique (Apprentice) and the Grimoire (Apprentice) had cost 10 mana from her maximum, so her full capacity should have been 988.

But the card now showed a full capacity of 989. There was only one explanation: over these past few days, her Magic Power cap had increased by 1 point.

Magic Infusion, which could only be considered a mana manipulation technique, wasn’t listed under the magic section.

The Golden Pen Technique and Grimoire were clearly displayed, complete with their magic levels.

But… now that magic levels could be shown, could magic learning progress be displayed too?

If every magic had its own progress bar, wouldn’t that make studying incredibly motivating?

Those proficiency panels that served as cheat abilities in novels from her previous life were absolute must-haves for any dedicated grinder.

Could she turn the character card into something like that?

Mo Lan wasted no time. Using the Book of Cards, she redesigned the character card’s functions.

Just adding an “ability progress” display to the estimated functions caused the Apprentice-level character card’s creation cost to jump from 10 mana all the way to 50.

Mo Lan tried to create the new version of the character card in the Slot.

But she discovered that even after filling it with enough Magic Power, the estimated function still only showed 50% completion.

A difficulty had appeared.

【Current Difficulty: Magic progress differentiation unclear. Suggest supplementing relevant knowledge and refining the progress distinctions for all magics at the Apprentice tier.】

This was similar to the issue with mana classification.

The problem was that she herself didn’t understand how to differentiate the practice progress of various magics within the Apprentice tier.

If she didn’t know, then the cards born from her Will naturally couldn’t quantify magic practice progress either!

This problem wasn’t as easy to solve as the mana capacity issue.

As far as Mo Lan knew, Apprentice, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced—these were the only existing distinctions for magic levels.

Further refinement beyond that had no established theoretical framework to support it.

This meant that if she wanted the character card to display magic learning progress, she would need to study various magics herself and develop a feel for more granular classifications.

Mo Lan hadn’t formally studied a single magic yet. Reaching that level of understanding was still a long way off—not something she could accomplish anytime soon.

She quietly saved this design in her card-making History, thinking she could give it another try once she’d broken through to Beginner level in all schools of magic.

The unfinished card in the Slot dissipated, and a soft white glow flowed into the purple gemstone above the Slot.

The stored energy field on the Book of Cards had changed too—it was no longer zero.

【Stored Energy: 50 mana of Magic Power】

Only then did Mo Lan realize that this gemstone could store card-making energy.

She pressed her finger directly against the gemstone and carefully channeled Magic Power into it.

This time, there was no suction force strong enough to make her immediately lose control.

When she lifted her finger, the stored energy had gone from 50 mana to 51 mana.

Her Magic Power had also dropped by another point, leaving only 143.

So she could slowly store Magic Power in the purple gemstone and save it for making cards later.

With not much mana left and classes tomorrow, Mo Lan had no choice but to pause her card-making research for now.

(End of Chapter)