Chapter 111: Baptism

Date 23 Mar 2321

Time 2:11

Location Sky Blossom City, Guild Association Mall, Warehouse no. 234, Card lab

Baptism, in this world, is a phenomenon that occurs when a person steps into a higher realm. Baptism increases a person's aptitude in soul energy control. Control of soul energy is directly related to one's gathering more soul energy to culture active soul control. Baptism's effect on a person's aptitude in soul energy control is limited to the said person's inborn aptitude in soul energy control. 

For example, a common person is born with an aptitude of 2 in soul energy control when he ascends from the Card Mortal realm to the Card Student realm he undergoes a baptism due to which his aptitude in soul energy control is doubled so that the common person's aptitude in soul energy control becomes 4. Similarly, a card apprentice talent can have his/her aptitude in soul energy control anywhere from 4 to 10 which after undergoing the first baptism doubles to anywhere near 8 to 20. 

Talent division based on the card apprentice's aptitude in soul energy control, 

0-aptitude: Mortal grade talent

2-aptitude: Common grade talent

4-aptitude: Uncommon grade talent

6-aptitude: Rare grade talent

8-aptitude: Legend grade talent

10-aptitude: Mythic grade talent

Mortal grade talent for obvious reasons is never able to contract a bronze grade or higher grimoire. And destined to never become a card apprentice as they are never able to achieve 10% active control to be deemed as card apprentice. But over the years research on grimoires have yielded my fruition results, one of these results is the Iron grimoire which works on the principles of using a core as a battery to power the iron grimoires so that any mortal can use the Iron grimoire without worrying of lack of soul energy. 

With every Baptism the Card apprentice's soul control aptitude doubles. Higher the soul control aptitude is the easier for the Card apprentice to break through to the higher realm. 

Most people consider Baptism unfair because this makes the hard work of a card apprentice redundant as with every baptism talented people get more talented will the average talents become more average. This way no matter how hard a common talent works or struggles he would not be able to break through the shackle of his subpar talent because it will always be dragging him down.

With every Baptism the gap between each talent will only get bigger and bigger because of which talented people will breakthrough higher realm faster while the average talent is bound to be stuck at a lower realm for the rest of their life as no amount of hard work would make up for the gap in the talent.

This is unfair but thankfully talents can be born anywhere…be it a rich household or a poor household anyone of these households can give birth to a child with a high aptitude for soul control, this way the Baptism is not biased to rich or poor.

There is another perk to Baptism that can enhance the origin cards of the card apprentice. This perk differentiates between humble household talents and rich household talents. Even though the talents of both the households are high level... But the humble talent cannot afford a good origin card while the rich talent can easily have an overpowered origin card which would only get more overpowered with every baptism. This way the rich talent will grow stronger and stronger compared to the humble talent whose origin card even though is enhanced with every Baptism it would only be as strong as the base origin card used.

Baptism not only affects a card apprentice's aptitude for soul control and origin card enhancement but also the physique and traits of a card apprentice. The information on the physique and the traits are near to none but this information I knew only after I broke through to the Card Scholar realm from the Card student realm. Baptism's effect on the card apprentice's physique and traits is similar to its effect on the origin card. This way stronger the physique and traits of a card apprentice are the greater the benefits the card apprentice can gain through baptism. 

The greater a Card apprentice's talent, origin card, physique and traits the greater the benefits he/she will receive with every baptism they undergo. This makes it impossible for an average card apprentice to ever be able to stand on the same standings as a talented card apprentice. This is also the reason why the government cannot do anything to existences like secret clans, secret families or sects. 

The government may assemble a huge number of average card apprentices to fight for it but every card apprentice of the secret clans, families or sects is so strong that they can easily wipe out a huge number of average card apprentices. Even the huge numbers of card apprentices are not enough to bridge the gap in strength caused by the baptism. 

Thankfully because of Mama Wyatt's forbidden technique young Wyatt's body's aptitude was somewhere between uncommon and rare grade talent, near to rare grade talent. This talent for the current me was satisfying considering I would not be able to contract a silver grade grimoire if not for the forbidden technique used by mama Wyatt and also as Legend and Mythic grade talents are just legend and myth never seen but there are always rumours that the secret families, clans and sects have descendants with Legend and Mythic grade talents… Especially the descendants of the demigods. For now all that is just baseless rumours as these people never appeared in the average population and are holed up in whatever secret place their predecessors built for them. 

This talent grade also plays a huge role in the Card apprentice being able to contract higher grade grimoire, 

A common talent can only contract grimoire according to their current realm. That is a common talent card student can only contract a bronze grimoire for him/her to contract a higher grimoire they have to reach the corresponding realm. 

An Uncommon talent card student can try to contract a silver grimoire instead of a bronze one but it will still be difficult for him to jump realms and contract a higher grade grimoire unless they achieve a higher or the corresponding realm. 

A Rare talent card student can try to contract up to gold grimoire. He/she can easily contract a silver grade grimoire jumping realms but contracting a gold will still be difficult for him to jump realms and contract a higher grade grimoire unless they achieve a higher or the corresponding realm.

A Legend talent card student can directly try to contract up to platinum grimoire. He/she can easily contract a silver and gold grade grimoire jumping realms but contracting platinum grade grimoire will still be difficult for him to jump realms and contract a higher grade grimoire unless they achieve a higher or the corresponding realm.

A Mythic talent card student can directly try to contract a Diamond grimoire. He/she can easily contract silver, gold and platinum grade grimoire jumping realms but contracting diamond grade grimoire will still be difficult for him to jump realms and contract a higher grade grimoire unless they achieve a higher or the corresponding realm.

Since there has been no news of someone contracting gold or higher grade grimoire at the card student realm I guess rare talent is the current apex. But considering that not everyone is rich or fortunate enough to get to contract a higher grade grimoire we never know, maybe there are high-grade talents in the common populous but they never got a chance to find out. 

There are also conspiracy theories floating around that once the high-grade talents are born they are directly kidnapped from the hospital crib by the government or any other secret organisation to train them only to their organisation. Considering that the conspiracy about physique and traits were true I am pretty sure that this theory also holds some truth with governments and other secret organisation's background along with their years of research and knowledge, it wouldn't be a surprise if they had a way to determine the talents of babies after birth. 

When I first mutated my soul it was still very rough and hard for me to get used to... especially considering how I had to erase the wisdom of my second consciousness and program it to be AI, so that I do not have to share my body with another Will. Even though soul mutation split my mental strength into two and gave it a huge boost, still I had a hard time getting used to it because my body was meant for only one consciousness and one mental strength. 

Thanks to baptism not only did my mutated soul get enhanced but my body also became completely compatible with my new mutated soul and also made sure that the AI I had programmed in my second consciousness gained wisdom and became the will of my second consciousness. This way the World Class Al I programmed in my second consciousness had enhanced and its capabilities had outgrown that of a mere program. 

But no matter how much wisdom and sophistication had the AI gained, its base program was to be a slave to my first consciousness and thanks to baptism this program had become absolute. This way I found a way how I would be able to cultivate higher grades of mutated souls.