Card Apprentice Daily Log

Date- 4 April 2321

Time- 05:42

Location- Southern Region, Blossom District, Unknown Location

“I never lied to you,” Jill defended herself.

“In my books, misleading words are keen to lying,” I said, which prompted Jill to raise an eyebrow and say, “for someone who is restrained by my mental strength you speak some cocky words. You do realize that if I add a little more pressure I can squeeze you to death.”

“I am aware of my grim situation, but thank you for reminding me,” I was not worried that Jill’s microaggression was a sign of my time of death getting closer. Not because I felt that my being tame toward Jill would do me nothing good or change the grim situation I was in. Instead, I was in control of the situation from start.

“You know I would love to know where your confidence comes from? For a card soldier in your situation, you are too wild,” Jill spoke as she was not able to understand why this boy was taking his situation so calmly. Was it his nature or did he have something up his sleeve?

The calm confidence displayed by the boy was infecting her indifferent attitude toward the boy causing her to want to test the boy and watch how he would react.

As a researcher, Jill has been in the presence of many great minds, who would function on her level of thinking but none of them would be able to display the same if imminent death was hanging over their head. So seeing the boy managing to engage with her and even beat her at her own game despite knowing that his death was imminent, Jill was impressed by the boy and most of all her mind was stimulated which was very hard to mind in someone of her age group let alone a younger generation.

Unfortunately, she would have to kill him to make sure that her work here never gets revealed to the outside world as that was paramount compared to her feelings. If only this boy was not connected to the southern emperor, she might have considered taking him in as her assistant expecting to see what the future held for them. But soon she will be erasing that path of her future, this went against her will but she had to because what she was doing here was worth that sacrifice.

“Why? Are you unable to come up with a reason not to kill me? And need my help with that?” I said sarcastically as the more I talked to Jill the more I felt that she was no longer procrastinating to kill but reluctant to kill me.

“Yes, I agree that I like talking to you and find that killing you would rob the world of a capable mind. But aren’t you being a bit narcissistic by assuming that I trying to find a reason not to kill you?” Jill came clean about what she felt and she took my sarcasm as narcissism.

I did not bother to correct Jill and went along with her misunderstanding feeling that would play in my favor, “I am disappointed that I am the only one feeling that way but I do have a reason why you should not kill me.”

“Really? Please do tell me, I would like to hear what other narcissistic theories have you come up with,” Jill’s words were no longer indifferent, this came as a surprise to me but this meant that my approach had managed to make her comfortable with me. This should be enough to tell her the bombshell I had prepared to protect my interest.

“Remember when you intercepted my text to Anna?” I said cautiously, hearing my tone Jill’s eased expression once again regained its indifference and coldly said, “What about it?”

“It wasn’t the only one text I sent calling for help,” I finally spoke the crux of my defense.

“Impossible,” Jill yelled, “nothing can escape my web.”

“Aren’t you being presumptuous by saying nothing?” I said reminding Jill that nothing was perfect in the world.

“I know that card emperor or higher realm card apprentice may be able to bypass my web but you a card soldier? I don’t believe it, I can’t see any scenario where that is possible. If a mere card soldier managed to bypass my web, won’t that mean my years of work is a joke? It doesn’t matter how good you are with array formation, I don’t see it happening,” Jill flatly denied my claim but she knew I was not lying hence her blabber.

“So, you call it a web, huh? Is that how you are controlling all these golems?” When we neared Jill’s base I saw numerous golems of various make and models clearing the surroundings of her base, guarding and maintaining it.

“Don’t talk as if you know what a web is,” Jill snapped. She had finally let go of her indifference and began to emotions of a mortal.

“I guess you created a cluster of refined beast wills and artificial beast wills that are operating these golems and are using a beast will of an ant or bee monster to connect and control them. This is just a simple deduction, if you want me to go into details I will have to take a closer look at the golems,” I basically explained a short and simple method to achieve what Jill called Web and I superbrain.

“You were able to tell that just by looking at the operation of the golems? How? Do you have something similar too?” Jill felt that the only reason why the boy was able to see through her was that he had something similar. Using a cluster of artificial beast wills to connect and control a group of golems or puppets was not a new idea but the efficiency of such a module was. Until now she felt her Web was impregnable but today it had met her match, Jill knew this day would come but she did not expect it to happen at the hands of a card soldier.