Date- 7 April 2321

Time- 14:41

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

Listening to the heated debate among the audience on whether the trial was fair or not, Chris stood straight without showing any emotions on his face. However, in his heart, he was worried about the upcoming trial. Not because he had managed to abuse the loophole in the trial rules but because soon he would be going up against an opponent whose physique allowed him to split his mental strength into four. 

Facing such an opponent he needs a little edge to ensure his win. And the three random ingredients were exactly that. Therefore, he did not let the audience’s debate bother him instead he focused on winning the trial. Since he had used the same set of ingredients to create his signature custom card on numerous occasions he had the what card to create covered, all he had to do was create the card as fast as possible. 

“I don’t see any problem with these two sets of random ingredients,” the volunteer from the audience vouched after verifying the ingredients and got off the stage and the spotlight once again shifted to the announcer, “Ready!” 

Witnessing both the contenders nod showing their preparedness, the announcer declared, “Start!”

With that, the spotlight split into two and shone on the two card creation stations. Then both the contenders immediately summoned their golden grimoires and hurriedly transferred their set of random ingredients onto their grimoire’s card creation page. 

I wasn’t deaf nor did I lack access to the network, when the audience was buzzing about how Chris had already created the cards using the exact random ingredients selected for the trial. I had Hive AI use super brain to search for information on the card Chris had created while the staff of the association scrambled to put together two sets of random ingredients for the trial. 

Within a minute, Hive AI provided me with the information I seek. I wanted this information to see what kind of card Chris planned to create using A-rank Dream Sandalwood, A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood, and A-rank Sleepy Caterpillar monster core. You know to check what I would be competing against. 

I was once again let down by Chris. I wonder if all of Chris’s ancestors were just no-name average card creationists or if Chris was that bad at making use of his origin card. Either way, the card Chris planned to create was a huge letdown, what shocked me was that this card was his most in-demand and best-seller custom card. Making it his signature custom card. 

Considering that Chris’s signature custom card had some adult applications to it I can see why people would seek it. As I had thought, the adult card market was an untapped section of the card market, when people were spending astronomical money for Chris’s subpar card my pleasure cards collection would take the adult card market by storm once released. 

Moving on, the A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood and A-rank Dream Sandalwood were extracted from the same monster, the A-rank Sandalwood tree monster. 

Like all tree monsters, the Sandalwood tree monster had very low agility stats but they made it up for it with their hallucination-inducing fragrance which could travel in the wind and attract the prey towards them. The Dream fragrance would attract the prey while the Nightmare fragrance will keep away the predators. 

How did that work? When someone becomes the victim of Dream fragrance, they tend to move toward the Sandalwood tree monster because they get addicted to it and want more of it. So when under Dream hallucination they would unconsciously move toward where the dream fragrance was concentrated more and that was right next to the Sandalwood tree. This was how the Sandalwood tree would attract its prey. 

As for Nightmare fragrance, the Sandalwood tree would only release it when it feels threatened. Due to this reason if one were to directly confront a Sandalwood tree monster and kill it they can only manage to extract Nightmare Sandalwood from its remains. 

However, if they kill the Sandalwood tree monster without it realizing then the tree monster will not have switched its fragrance from Dream fragrance to Nightmare fragrance making it possible to extract only Dream Sandalwood from its remains. 

Both types of Sandalwood had many known applications in various fields, from medicine to therapy to stimulants to drugs to poison. However, I planned to use them for something totally different application and that was possible because of the last ingredient, the core of A-rank Sleepy Caterpillar, and my knowledge of the principle behind the Grimoire Network. 

The card I was planning to create was something similar to VR pods. A concept device pitched back on earth, which would allow the user to totally immerse their consciousness into the virtual reality. 

No, not like the one I created for Asong Young. But a very simpler and smaller version of it. Having visited the Devil Merchant Code’s Inter-realm city, I had my own plans to introduce a simpler version of it back in the card world. 

Unlike the spiritual city created by the devil merchant code in the spiritual plane, I planned to create a virtual city, in layman’s terms an illusionary city, on the grimoire network. The card apprentices could transfer their consciousness in and out of this virtual city through their grimoire by equipping a card that only I and my company could design.

If the government or the royal families had a problem with it, they could create their own illusionary city on the grimoire network. But if they planned to eye what’s mine they had another thing coming.

If it were before, I would have had some reservations about creating something like this but now I had enough confidence that if worst comes to worst I could escape, endure, and you know what comes next. 

After becoming a Demon Merchant and seeing how big the universe is I had a lot more confidence about surviving in this little card world. 

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