Chapter 2

Qingming Market.

Inside a shop in the bustling downtown area.

Lu Ming held a card-making pen and was drawing with great concentration.

In front of him was a design blueprint — "One-Star Energy Card Pattern Template." This was a standard card-making design blueprint.

This was a basic card.

Thirty-six strokes!

Each stroke was a basic pattern!

As long as he followed the design blueprint to draw the patterns, he could make an energy card. This was the first card every card maker had to learn, and it was the only card Lu Ming knew how to make.

Swish!

The card-making pen fell.

Lu Ming could clearly feel the energy in his body flowing through the pen tip and slowly into the card, eventually forming a black pattern.

So this is...

Card making!

"Familiar feeling..."

Lu Ming mused.

He felt that the patterns on the back of the card were very similar to programming language.

Although he didn't understand the principle,

But...

If he compared the card to a program, everything seemed to become very clear.

In his previous life, he used simple programming languages to write complex programs, and now, he had to use patterns to draw cards.

"An energy card is like a simple small program, just like the basic arithmetic programs you learn when starting programming, very simple."

"So the patterns are simple and easy to draw!"

"Patterns."

"Are the core of card making."

"Learning to draw these patterns is mastering the basics of card making."

"For me."

"Card making is programming in another world!"

Lu Ming was somewhat excited.

This feeling was really great.

With the memory of Little Lu Ming, his hands were steady, and the energy card, which he had drawn countless times, gradually took shape under his hands.

Soon.

Lu Ming drew the last stroke on the back of the blank card.

Buzz—

A faint light flashed.

All the patterns solidified at this moment, becoming faintly visible, and a diamond-shaped crystal pattern appeared on the originally blank front of the card.

That was the energy stone.

The blank card had turned into a brand new energy card.

"One-Star Energy Card!"

Lu Ming was delighted.

Although Little Lu Ming had succeeded countless times in his memory, the feeling of making it for the first time was still very magical.

Of course.

This was with a design blueprint. What if there was no design blueprint?

That's where the original card came in.

An original card could encapsulate any ability, turning it into a card. Then, by following the patterns on the back of the original card, you could create a new card!

This was the true strength of a card maker!

"Original card."

Lu Ming raised his hand.

Swish!

A faint light flashed.

In his hand, a card made of condensed energy appeared.

Buzz—

A faint light flickered.

The crystal-clear card rotated in front of him, emitting a faint light, looking so dazzling. This was his original card, the foundation of a card maker!

Theoretically,

Using this original card, you could encapsulate an ability.

Then, the patterns would appear on the back of the card, and as long as you followed these patterns, you could make a card, which was very powerful. Unfortunately...

Little Lu Ming's utilization rate of the original card was zero.

The reason was simple — the energy was too low!

The minimum requirement for an original card to encapsulate an ability was that the energy contained in the original card must be higher than the energy of the ability to be encapsulated, or it might not succeed!

Using a 100-energy original card to encapsulate a 200-energy ability?

It would burst!

And Lu Ming's original card had only 48 points of energy!

To put it simply, an energy card had 100 points of energy, meaning that without the help of a design blueprint, Lu Ming couldn't even make an energy card!

He only had a pitiful 48 points of energy!

Now, every energy card he made required an energy stone as an auxiliary to complete!

In short — his current job was just a converter, responsible for converting energy stones into energy cards, nothing more, the hardest of the hard labor, the king of brick-laying.

In his memory,

In the limited memory of Lu Ming,

He once tried to cast a fireball spell on a classmate who was also at the bottom of the class, attempting to encapsulate it, but ended up lying in the infirmary for a month.

The encapsulation failed, and the fireball hit him directly.

Because even the lowest-level fireball spell required 50 points of energy.

He couldn't afford it.

In short, the capacity was not enough.

Trying to burn an 8GB action movie onto a 4GB disc was impossible! As for buying the design blueprint of the fireball spell and using energy stones to supplement the energy to complete the drawing...

He couldn't afford it!

Of course, the most important thing was that the fireball spell was the most basic skill, and the encapsulated cards were everywhere, available in any card shop.

Buying it would be useless!

At least ten shops on this street sold it!

Making money?

It was simply impossible.

So,

The pitiful Little Lu Ming ultimately decided to make money by making energy cards.

Mass-producing energy cards could earn some hard-earned money and also improve his cultivation. Only by improving his energy could he encapsulate more abilities and make cards to sell.

Actually, his decision was reasonable.

Unfortunately,

He was being crushed by the interest on his loan.

"Loan..."

Lu Ming looked at the countdown in the upper right corner, "Fifteen days."

If he didn't pay off the loan within fifteen days, he would probably be taken to sing "Chrysanthemum Terrace" by those people. As for contacting his parents and sister...

Well,

Forget it.

If he was exposed, it would be a dead end.

He wouldn't try it unless absolutely necessary.

"Ten thousand."

Lu Ming looked at the small ledger on the table.

This shop was originally for deceiving his sister, only rented for two months, and the cards bought to decorate the shop only cost 20,000 in total.

In theory, with some effort, he could pay it off.

Unfortunately, the interest on this loan, especially the campus loan... Last time those guys came, 20,000 had somehow become 50,000.

Oh,

By the time they came next, it was 100,000.

"This is a bit troublesome."

Lu Ming sighed.

These local thugs were quite powerful, especially for Lu Ming, who had almost no combat ability, so violent resistance was not an option.

At least not now.

So,

How to gather 100,000 in fifteen days was a big problem.

"Making money..."

"Cards..."

Lu Ming fell into deep thought.

The only skill he had now was card making, and it was only for basic energy cards. He had no qualifications to touch other cards.

Besides, even if he could, they wouldn't be valuable.

Or...

Lu Ming's gaze swept over his shop.

At the time, he bought some cards to decorate the shop, and many low-level attack cards were still unsold, but he didn't have the qualifications to replicate them.

Not enough energy.

Finally,

Lu Ming's gaze fell on one of the cards.

"Illusion Card..."

Lu Ming's eyes brightened.

The types of cards were varied and countless.

Because cards could encapsulate anything, theoretically, as long as a card could encapsulate an ability, it could be made into a card!

So, cards almost covered all professions and abilities!

An illusion card was a card made by encapsulating an illusion, containing a constructed illusion!

For example,

The card in front of him.

One-Star Illusion Card — creates an illusion cage to trap the enemy. Low realism, poor stability, this was the most basic illusion card.

Energy: 60 points.

To replicate this card, at least 60 points of energy were needed!

He didn't plan to replicate this card, not only because he didn't have enough energy, but even if he did, it wouldn't be valuable! Such a low-level card was everywhere!

He just suddenly thought of something.

According to Little Lu Ming's memory, the stability of an illusion was related to energy. The more powerful the illusion, the more energy, the higher the stability, and the greater the power.

But...

What if there was no energy?

If he just created a simple basic illusion? If he just created some facilities with no energy? The consumption would be much lower!

These were all basic knowledge in the theory!

So,

What kind of illusion could be made without energy?

"I can try."

Lu Ming mused.

He wasn't worried about finding an illusionist. There were plenty of illusion students in the technical college, and he felt he could easily find one.

Thinking of this, Lu Ming took out his phone.

In this world, the development of technology wasn't a priority, but even so, due to the existence of energy, the development speed was extremely fast.

The overall technological level was slightly better than in his previous life.

"Zhang Xiaopang, do you want to do some business?"

Lu Ming asked.

Zhang Xiaopang was one of his classmates.

Lu Ming chose him for a simple reason: among the illusionists he knew, this guy was the worst and the cheapest.

"What business?"

Zhang Xiaopang's voice rose three octaves.

"A simple illusion, you create it, I encapsulate it, 800 yuan."

Lu Ming said.

"Too low."

Zhang Xiaopang disagreed, "At this price, it's not even enough to cover the energy consumption."

"Oh, then forget it."

Lu Ming hung up.

A second later, his phone rang, and Zhang Xiaopang's voice came through: "Bro, where are you? I'll come over right now, and you can reimburse me 2 yuan for the bus fare."

"Get lost!"

Lu Ming was not polite.

If you gave in at this point, he would dare to ask for more.

"I'm at the shop."

Lu Ming said irritably.

800 yuan was pure extra income for them. Even without money, you still had to practice and cultivate, right?

So,

Let's try his hypothesis.

Lu Ming thought for a moment, took out paper and pen, and started to sketch.

Soon,

Zhang Xiaopang panted as he ran over.

"What kind of illusion do you want?"

"An older sister type, or a lolita type? Queen series? Or stewardess series?"

Zhang Xiaopang asked very skillfully.

Lu Ming: "???"

What kind of part-time jobs do you illusion students do in your spare time!!!