Date- 7 April 2321

Time- 14:35

Location- Southern Region, Southern Capital, Southern Card Creationist Association, Auction House

The referee faded into the background after declaring the commencement of the trial giving the spotlight to the announcer who glanced at the challenger and said, “Master Chris since Master Wyatt has home-field advantage, why don’t you choose the first audience to give us the first random ingredient for the trial.” 

“Okay,” Chris nodded, and glancing over the audience his eyes stopped at a card king realm card apprentice, everything about this gentleman from the clothes he wore to his hairstyle screamed that he was not a local but a Westerner visiting the Southern Captial for the auction, “I chose the gentleman seated on in left section’s seat no.17 of the 4th row.” 

“Sir, please introduce yourself and then state one random ingredient for the trial,” the announcer requested, shining the spotlight on the card king that Chris pointed out. 

“Hello, I am Tom. As for the random ingredient for the trial, I choose A-rank Dream Sandalwood. West Rules,” the card king named Tom exclaimed enthusiastically. 

There were two reasons why Tom had stated A-rank Dream Sandalwood as the first random ingredient for the trial. The first reason was the obvious one, that a card soldier realm card creationist will have a hard time using an A-rank ingredient in card creation, increasing their card creation time. The second one was that he had checked the card creationist profile of Chris Ainsworth on the network and learned that Chris had used Dream Sandalwood in one of his previous custom card creations. Which meant Chris was familiar with the soul pathway arrangements of the A-rank Dream Sandalwood. 

“The first random ingredient for the trial is A-rank Dream Sandalwood. Master Wyatt, your turn,” the announcer invited the representative of the Southern card creationist association to select someone from the audience who will state the second random ingredient for the trial. 

To everyone’s surprise before the representative could choose they heard a melodious female voice yell, “Wyatt, choose me.” 

The audience tracked the source of the melodious voice to the balcony of the exclusive VIP box of the Southern royal family, “Wait, is that Aba Windsor?” 

“By Aba Windsor, do you mean the only daughter of demigod Windsor?” 

“What is she doing here in Southern Capital?” 

“Obviously she is an esteemed guest of the Southern Royal family.” 

Seeing the daughter of Demigod Windsor in the company of Southern royalty caused quite a stir among the audience because Demigod Windsor claimed to be neutral and stayed out of all forms of disputes so seeing his daughter with Southern Royalty was scandalous. 

“I chose this gentleman seated at the front,” Despite hearing Aba’s call, I causally chose someone not local to the Southern region from the audience. Because I proposed this trial to show that the last challenge was not rigged for me to win. Therefore choosing someone I knew or a Southerner would not help my case.

“Sir, please introduce yourself and state the second random ingredient for the trail,” the announcer requested shining the spotlight on the selected card apprentice. 

“Hi, I am Dick. I choose A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood as the second random ingredient. West is the Best,” The reasons for Dick choosing an A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood as the second random ingredient for the trial were the same as the reasons why Tom had chosen A-rank Dream Sandalwood as the first random ingredient for the trial. 

“The second random ingredient for the trial is A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood. Master Chris, please,” the announcer invited Chris to select a third person from the audience to announce the last random ingredient for the trial.

“I choose the gentleman on the left of Mister Dick,” Chris selected knowing that Dick’s companion must be a Westerner too. 

“Will the gentleman please rise and announce the third and final random ingredient for the trial?” the announcer requested Dick’s companion. 

“Hi, I am Harry. I choose the core of the A-rank monster Sleepy Caterpillar as the third and last ingredient for the trial. Love from the west,” announcing the random ingredient Harry immediately took his seat. His reason for choosing an A-rank ingredient as the last random ingredient was no different from his friend Dick.

“A-rank Dream Sandalwood, A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood, and A-rank Sleepy Caterpillar monster core, these three are the random ingredients selected by the audience for the trial,” the announcer addressed the audience as the staff of the southern card creationist association hurried to arrange two sets of all three ingredients. 

All three of the random ingredients stated by Tom, Dick, and Harry were very expensive and in-demand ingredients as they were mostly used to create mental strength cards or cultivate one’s mental strength and resistance to illusion. Especially, the A-rank Nightmare sandalwood and Dream sandalwood. 

While the staff scrambled to arrange the ingredients for the trial, a heated discussion broke out among the audience regarding the three random ingredients selected for the trial. How all the random ingredients were of A-rank, and that it would be very time-consuming for a card soldier to use one A-rank ingredient in the card creation process let alone three. 

“Hey, check Chris Ainsworth’s profile on the Western card creationist association network. He seems to have used similar ingredients to create cards once before.”

“What’s your point?” 

“Isn’t that unfair?”

“How is that unfair?”

“Isn’t this exactly what Chris accused the Southern card creationist association of doing?” 

“So what? Both of them agreed to let Randos from the audience announce three ingredients for their trial. From the way I see it, lady luck just favored Master Chris over Master Wyatt.”

“So it’s fine if you guys do it but if someone else wins you accuse them of cheating.” 

“Kid, welcome to the world of adults. No rules were broken so nothing is unfair here.” 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” once two sets of the random ingredients were prepared the announcer immediately began to control the audience to commence the trial. 

The audience continued to argue with each other, especially the Southerners and Westerners among the audience. The Southerners felt that the trial was unfair while the Westerners felt smart for making use of the loophole in the rules of the trial. 

Though the Southerners were not proud that a fraudster was representing their Southern region in a challenge against the Western Region but their patriotism kicked in seeing that they might lose the challenge again because the Westerners were shamelessly using the loophole in the rules of the trial to rig the trial in favor of Chris Ainsworth. As for why the sudden sense of patriotism among the Southerners, it was most likely because of the talent and potential shown by the fraudster in the field of card mastery. 

As for the audience from the other region, the straightforward and hot-blooded ones sided with the Southerners while the realistic ones had the same opinion as the Westerners. Seeing the crowd only grow rowdy with the passing second the referee stepped forward and uttered, “Silence.” Spreading his intimidating pressure across the auction hall. 

Feeling the pressure on them, the low and mid level card creationists grew breathless while the high level card creationists snorted. Especially, the card creationists in the semi-demigod realm. They felt that the referee was showing off the fact that he would soon be able to step into the demigod realm. Regardless of their opinion, everyone chose to stay silent. Having witnessed a card apprentice being thrown out of the auction hall they did not want to challenge the authority of the referee within the auction house. Not to mention that the challenge had just gotten more interesting. 

Seeing the graveyard silence that descended in the auction hall the referee nodded in satisfaction before fading in the background. Then the announcer requested, “Contenders, please return to your card creation stations. So that we can call upon a volunteer from the audience to check the random ingredients.” 

After the contenders took their respective card creation stations, the announcer selected a card emperor from the audience to check the ingredients. After going through the ingredient the card emperor asked in doubt, “Will the common core not be provided?” 

“No, the contenders can use the core of the Nightmare Sandalwood Card or Dream Sandalwood Card instead of the common core,” the referee explained. 

Listening that the Nightmare Sandalwood and Dream Sandalwood were being provided in the form of card ingredients instead of their raw form a Westerner commented, “Why are you giving ingredients in the form of ingredient cards? Is it to help your representative same time when dealing with the soul pathway transfer of A-rank ingredients?” 

Listening to him the card creationists in the audience slapped their foreheads finding the question of the Western card apprentice stupid. Shaking his head the announcer explained, “Gentleman, both Nightmare Sandalwood and Dream Sandalwood are highly hallucinogenic making it near-impossible to store them in their raw form. So they are immediately refined into ingredient cards after being harvested.” 

The Southerners in the audience laugh out loud at the Western card apprentice after listening to the announcer’s explanation.

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