Chapter 386 - Soul Energy Manipulation Card

Date- 28 Mar 2321

Time- 08: 47

Location- Southern Capitol region, SS-rank Gate dungeon Storm Horse Grassland

"According to you, the Rune item cards are cards that allow an average card apprentice to use the runes and rule power. 

And the process of creating a rune item has three steps, 

1. Ego Gem Shell: In this step, the card apprentice cuts a tiny piece of their original ego gem and grows it into an ego gem shell by nurturing the small portion of the actual ego gem with refined soul energy. 

2. Ego Gem Spirit: In this step, A broken rune is added to the ego gem shell. Thereby, the ego gem shell will accept the broken rune as its condensed spirit. Turning the broken rune spirit into the Ego Gem Spirit. At this step, the Ego Gem is completed and has the ability to connect with the world. But it has no power to maintain its existence, so it enters a dormant state when turned into a card ingredient. This card is called Rune Gem Card

3. Ego Gem Host: In the case of the primary ego gem, its host is the card apprentice. Through the card apprentice, the primary ego gem gains a constant supply of soul power to maintain its existence. 

But in the case of the secondary ego gem that we have created using the broken rune and ego gem shell, there is no host to provide it with a constant supply of soul power to maintain its existence. Therefore the secondary ego gem is used as a core ingredient to create an item card. Here the item card acts as the body for the secondary ego gem. Forming a Rune Item Card. When the Rune item card is placed in the card slots of a card apprentice grimoire, the soul energy from the grimoire powers the item card, in turn powering the rune gem at the core of the rune item card." I narrated everything I understood from Luna's lecture on the basics of Rune Gem and its history.

"Correct. Do you have any other questions? About the Rune items, of course." Luna enthusiastically cheered, seeing her teaching method of involving the students in her lecture work wonderfully. 

"Yeah, I do. Where to begin, there are too many loopholes in your story about the unknown card creationist and his journey to create the first rune item." Luna's story to explain the rune items and their creation process had too many holes, which confused me. 

"Don't focus on the story and the unknown card creationist. They are just props to gain students' interest and keep them concentrated on the lecture, making it easier for them to remember the concept and definition of rune items for a long time." Luna had come upon a study that proved that a story is more interesting to listen to and remember than a theory full of info dump. This study went on to shape Luna's lectures and resulted in positive responses and promising results from her students.

"What? So there is no story about an unknown card creationist who created the first rune item?" Anna exclaimed. It seems she believed the story to be a true story. And hearing Luna say that the story that she narrated about the unknown card creationist was a prop to make her lectures simpler and intriguing to her student, Anna could not help but be disappointed. 

"..." Luna rolled her eyes at her cousin's reaction and ascertained, " yes, there is no such story. That is why the card creationist is unknown. If it is any consolation, somebody must have created the first rune item, and many researchers believe that the story is how some great card creationist had created the first rune item." 

"Leaving the flaws of the story, I still have many doubts about the rune items and it's creation. So can we get back to it?" The creation rune item gave me an idea of how my Calamity Soul Gem creates Calamity Daughter Gems. But there were still some variables that I was confused about. 

"Shoot, what is it that confuses you?" Luna seemed to be okay with helping me with my doubts. 

"The part about healing the ego gem without using the welding or recycling process. You said that regrowing the broken piece of the ego gem by nurturing it with refined soul energy is time-consuming. Why is that?" I asked this because my calamity soul gem with enough soul energy could create a calamity daughter gem in a matter of seconds, and that too in large quantities. This was relevant because I thought the production secondary ego gem and my calamity daughter gem were the same. 

"You are asking such a question because your Soul energy manipulation card has spoiled you. Unlike you, an average card apprentice requires a lot of time to refine their soul energy, even for the first refining cycle. And as the cycle of soul energy refinement increases, it becomes hard to refine the soul energy, and the time required for purifying the soul energy increases vastly. That is when they are in lower realms and have a small amount of soul energy to refine. But in the higher realm, the amount of soul energy is large, so automatically, it becomes even more challenging to refine the soul energy. Therefore people chose welding and recycling methods to their ego gem over the third option." Before Luna could answer me, Anna blamed me for being spoiled by my Soul energy manipulation card and not understanding the pain of refining the soul energy. 

".." I remembered revealing to Anna that my soul energy is in the 4th cycle of refinement because of the Soul energy manipulation card. This is not a lie but not the complete truth either; my origin card did have a soul energy manipulation skill which did help me use the basic circulation method. But in reality, my mutated soul with four consciousness is the reason why any soul energy I breathe in automatically gets refined four times. 

In the VIP box no1 when Anna was teaching me the basic circulation method for the soul energy refinement and how astonished she was finding out that my soul energy was already refined to the 4th cycle. I had to tell her about my physique to convince her that I had not used the basic circulation method before that day.. I could not help but be proud remembering how jealous Anna was of my Soul energy manipulation card.