Haruto Saito's expression momentarily flickered with confusion. He had long grown accustomed to the system prompts, but this time was different—it mentioned the Elemental Forge!
A flood of memories from his past life surged through his mind. Back then, he had been a flamboyant, charismatic master magician. His transition to this world had been triggered by an explosion—his phone had detonated while he was playing the "Card Monarch" game!
And the Elemental Forge? That was from "Card Monarch!"
A game mechanic designed to refine cards!
Haruto stood frozen as the memories played like a movie reel in his mind. He took a deep breath, snapping out of his daze, and quickly accessed the system interface.
There it was—the familiar icon!
It was indeed the Elemental Forge!
However, something seemed different from how it had functioned in the game. He tapped the icon and activated the forge. A golden vortex materialized before him, visible only to his eyes. Even this wasn't exactly as it had been in the game.
On the system screen, he noticed two options:
—Refinement!
—Fusion!
Each option came with a detailed explanation:
Refinement: Insert cards into the forge to convert them into Prestige Points.
Fusion: Insert two or more cards into the forge to synthesize a new card.
The descriptions were concise but clear. Haruto's eyes widened as he suddenly sprang to his feet. "No way!!!"
He had thought about this long ago—what was the point of useless cards? They had no practical value. Previously, he had simply consumed them, but they served no real purpose. This time, however, he had saved over eight thousand redundant cards.
And now, because his Prestige Points had surpassed one million, he had unlocked a new function!
He could finally put those useless cards to good use!
And he could directly refine them into Prestige Points!
Excited, Haruto turned to the table, where several discarded cards remained. He grabbed one at random and tossed it into the forge.
It was a D-rank Ninjutsu Card!
"Ding! Refinement successful. Host gains 15 Prestige Points!"
Haruto immediately tossed in a C-rank Ninjutsu Card!
"Ding! Refinement successful. Host gains 50 Prestige Points!"
He quickly accessed his inventory and fished out a B-rank Water Release Ninjutsu Card—
Water Release: Water Mirror Technique!
Although a B-rank card, Haruto had already consumed six identical ones, rendering this one useless.
Into the vortex it went!
"Ding! Refinement successful. Host gains 200 Prestige Points!"
Haruto was merely testing to see how different ranks of cards converted to Prestige Points. However, the results were disappointing. For example, purchasing a B-rank Ninjutsu Card from the shop required over a thousand Prestige Points. Powerful or signature techniques could even cost fifteen hundred to two thousand!
Yet refining a B-rank card only yielded 200 Prestige Points!
C-rank cards had a minimum value of 100 and could go up to several hundred. Haruto had even seen ultra-rare C-rank Ninjutsu Cards priced at over a thousand, yet refining them only yielded 50 Prestige Points. As for D-rank cards… they had a high conversion ratio, but D-rank cards were practically worthless to begin with!
Haruto tossed another C-rank Ninjutsu Card into the vortex.
"Ding! Refinement successful. Host gains 45 Prestige Points!"
Different results! This was because the value of C-rank cards varied in the Prestige Store, leading to different refinement outcomes.
He had no A-rank duplicates, so he couldn't test how much Prestige Points an A-rank card would yield. The most he had consumed of any A-rank card was five copies—like his frequently used Great Waterfall Technique.
With his experiment complete, Haruto turned his attention to the Fusion feature.
Fusion was far more complex than Refinement! The results of a fusion could vary greatly. According to the system's explanation, a successful fusion (barring failure) had four possible outcomes:
1. The resulting card remained the same rank and retained one of the original skills. For example, fusing Wind Release: Great Breakthrough with Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet might result in another Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, wasting the Water Release card.
2. The fusion could create an entirely new Ninjutsu Card of an uncertain rank. The technique might not even exist in the shinobi world!
3. The fusion could result in a Mutant Card!
Mutant Cards had a star rating, from One-Star Mutants to Seven-Star Mutants!
4. The fusion could yield a Divine Card.
The system provided no explanation for Divine Cards, only that an S-rank card was required in the fusion.
"Spirit, what exactly is a Divine Card?" Haruto inquired mentally.
"The host has not yet obtained a Divine Card. Unable to answer."
"Oh…"
No point dwelling on it now. The probability of fusing a Divine Card was astronomically low, and lower-tier cards had no chance at all.
For now, his best hope was to create a Mutant Card!
With a sweeping motion, Haruto dumped the thousands of discarded cards he had stored away onto the table, forming a massive pile. He rubbed his hands together, muttered an incantation, and jokingly invoked divine intervention:
"Heavenly Spirits, Earthly Spirits, Supreme Lord Laozi… Buddha himself…"
With a dramatic flourish, he grabbed a random handful of cards and tossed them into the vortex!
No selection process!
He had no idea how many he grabbed or what ranks they were. It didn't matter! He was all in!
"Ding! Host has inserted 57 cards. Current fusion success rate: 38%. Proceed with fusion?"
"Uh…" Haruto hesitated. A 38% success rate was too low!
"What happens if the fusion fails?"
"The system will refund half of the Prestige Points the inserted cards would have yielded through refinement."
"Oh… nice! That works!" Haruto grinned. "Fusion!"
Even in failure, he would at least get some Prestige Points back. Though only half of the refinement value, it was far better than losing everything!
The golden vortex spun rapidly for three seconds before suddenly halting.
"Ding! Fusion failed. Host gains 760 Prestige Points!"
Haruto immediately grabbed another handful and tossed them in!
"Ding! Fusion failed. Host gains 820 Prestige Points!"
Again!
"Ding! Fusion failed. Host gains 580 Prestige Points!"
"Damn it!" Haruto cursed. He knew fusing so many cards at once decreased the success rate, but three consecutive failures were infuriating!
"Is there a way to increase the success rate?" Haruto asked.
"The host may spend Prestige Points to improve the success rate."
"How much does it cost?"
"It depends on the number and rank of the inserted cards."
"Hmm…" Haruto examined the system interface.
This time, he grabbed an even larger handful of cards and threw them in.
"Ding! Host has inserted 102 cards. Current fusion success rate: 16%. Proceed with fusion?"
Next to the success rate, a small '+' icon appeared.
Tapping it revealed options—Increase success rate by 10%, 15%, or max out the success rate!
Each option had a different cost.
The cheapest option, increasing success by 5%, required 2,500 Prestige Points!
Maxing out the success rate required a staggering 85,800 Prestige Points!
The more cards he inserted, the more expensive it became.
Haruto stared at the interface, silent.
His heart ached just thinking about it.