Living with Card
The blade-like pen tip glides gently over a grayish-blue card. Delicate blue lines flow smoothly from the pen tip onto the card. As the pale blue lines on the palm-sized card increase in number, the intricate and mysterious design becomes more perfect.
Chris Wood looks at the card with great attention. His breath is slow and gentle as if he's afraid to disturb something. If looks carefully, one could find that his right arm stays completely still, with only his wrist moving. His right wrist is as flexible as a snake, supple and seemingly boneless. With a gentle twist of the pen tip, an elegant curve appears on the card. Suddenly, the pen tip halts abruptly, a stark contrast to its previous gentleness. It then sharply hooks to one side, the pen's arc cutting like a blade! The pattern on the card suddenly brightens, then becomes dim again, returning to its original state.
Chris casually places it among a pile of cards stacked on the table. His movements are skillful and natural, without any hesitation. Even after finishing this card, his face remains as focused as ever. He had only completed fifteen cards so far, still ten short of today's goal. He is currently working on a
"Damn! The room is out of energy!" Chris mumbles a few words, casually pulling an energy card from the pile with his left hand. He then gently presses it against his right wrist, causing a bright beam of light to shoot out from the meter on his wrist. With the help of the light, Chris carefully makes his way to the corner of the room. The room is too cluttered, and he doesn't want to knock anything over. On the wall in the corner, there is a square meter with a slot beneath it. Chris inserts the energy card into the slot on the meter.
As soon as the energy card was inserted into the slot, the room lit up again. The meter displays the number one hundred. He hadn't expected the energy to run out so quickly—it looked like today's task would require one more card. Returning to his desk, Chris quickly resumes his work. His entire livelihood depended on these lowest-grade cards. Since learning how to make these energy cards three years ago, he had never missed a single day of producing twenty-five cards.
Chris Wood's room is small, less than forty square meters, with a slightly worn work desk inside. Apart from the relatively clean desk, the rest of the room is cluttered with piles of miscellaneous items. These items are varied—stacks of old books and scattered raw materials.
Chris had lived in this humble place for three whole years. It was a relief that housing was provided specifically by the federal government. A small room like this one could be rented for just one hundred and fifty
At five o'clock in the afternoon, Chris finally completes today's task—twenty-five energy cards. He carefully counts the number of cards, checking them twice to make sure there are no errors, before placing them into the cardholder inside his clothes.
Stepping onto the street, the night is growing darker. The vibrant lights in the night made one linger. The occasional bursts of fireworks from the tail of passing shuttlecraft left dazzling, fleeting trails in the sky. Chris tightens his coat slightly and looks up at the sky. The cold is intensifying, and it seems winter is approaching. With no time to dwell on the passage of time, he simply notes that heating would mean an additional expense during the winter, and he calculates the cost in his mind.
Passing by the back gate of East Guard Academy, Chris walked this route every day for three years, but each time he saw the students coming and going in groups, he couldn't help but feel a strange emotion. He calms down and quickly heads to a small shop next to the academy. The shop was called "East Guard General Store"—there are at least twenty similar stores with the same name around East Guard Academy. For the past three years, Chris had visited this shop every day, regardless of the weather. However, he wasn't there to buy anything; on the contrary, he came to sell things.
As soon as he enters, the shopkeeper notices him and greets him, "Ah, Chris's here!"
"Hi, Uncle Hua." He responds to the shopkeeper. Uncle Hua is an elderly man in his fifties, with signs of aging. His face is filled with fine wrinkles, his hair is streaked with gray, and he wears a pair of reading glasses.
"Here's today's stock." Chris carefully takes out the cardholder from his pocket, pulls out the stack of energy cards, and hands them to the shopkeeper. "Twenty-five cards."
Uncle Hua takes the cards from Chris's hands, placing them on the shelf without even looking at them, and says with a smile, "Fortunately, you come every day with the cards, or I'd be running low on stock."
Chris smiles faintly but does not respond. He knows Uncle Hua's comment is likely meant as a joke. One-star energy cards are the cheapest but also among the most frequently used. Moreover, with the shop located near East Guard Academy, it was unlikely that only twenty-five energy cards were sold in a day.
Uncle Hua, knowing Chris's temperament, doesn't waste time and directly asks, "Do you need cash or a bank transfer?"
"Bank transfer," Chris replies without any hesitation, handing over a light green Oudi card that he had prepared earlier. After the transaction is completed, Chris says his goodbyes to Uncle Hua and turns to leave.
Uncle Hua suddenly calls out to Chris Wood, "Chris, wait a moment."
Chris stops and turns around, looking at Uncle Hua with a sign of surprise. "Is there something else, Uncle Hua?"
Uncle Hua takes a pale yellow slip of paper from the drawer and smiles at Chris. "I almost forgot something. This is a voucher for a card maker training class, which was given as a bonus by a distributor during yesterday's stock delivery. It's useless to me, so you may take it, Chris."
Looking at Uncle Hua's kind face, Chris can't help but feel a surge of emotion. He knew how much the old man had helped him over the years. Without Uncle Hua's support, Chris believed that even the modest life he was living now would have been out of reach.
Three years ago, when he had just learned how to make energy cards, Chris tried to sell them everywhere but found few takers; no merchants were willing to purchase them. The demand for one-star energy cards was enormous, and merchants preferred to buy in bulk. Chris could only produce at most thirty cards a day, which was an insignificant amount to the merchants.
Fortunately, he met Uncle Hua. Uncle Hua agreed to purchase his energy cards, but the buying price was 103 Oudi per card, which was two Oudi lower than the wholesale market price. Despite this, Chris was still incredibly grateful to Uncle Hua.
Four years ago, Chris was still a homeless drifter. One day, he encountered a card maker—a card maker who was on the verge of death. Chris used five months' worth of his food to extend the card maker's life by seven days. During those seven days, he learned a skill: how to make one-star energy cards. After the card maker passed away, who left nothing behind, Chirs buried him in the wilderness. To this day, Chris still doesn't know the card maker's name, but from that moment on, his fate began to change.
He spent a year doing his utmost to take on odd jobs, working six different kinds of short-term jobs during that time. He was twelve years old that year. By the end of it, he had finally managed to save a small amount of money—one thousand Oudi. He used all of it to buy the materials needed to make energy cards. The card maker had once told him that the wholesale price of a one-star energy card on the market was 105 Oudi, with a standard retail price of 110 Oudi, while the production cost was only 98 Oudi.
Every card maker could create one-star energy cards, but few were aware of the profit margin involved, and even if they knew, almost no one would bother to capitalize on it. The one-star energy card was one of the simplest cards, and its production had long been industrialized. Even a master card maker could only produce twenty or thirty energy cards a day at most, which was a pitifully small output. Moreover, for most card makers, the small profit from the price difference wasn't worth their time—it was like the money they wouldn't bother picking up off the ground. But for Chris, that money was enough to keep him fed.
The first time he successfully made eight cards. He almost lost 200 Oudi, but it gave him hope. However, what he didn't expect was the difficulty he would face when trying to sell the energy cards. The merchants had no interest in the pitifully small number of cards he had. He spent the entire day running around without eating, and by 8 PM, he stumbled into Uncle Hua's shop. His legs were trembling, and after going the whole day without a bite, he was almost passing out.
Although the price of 103 Oudi was lower than the 105 Oudi wholesale price, Chris felt overwhelmed with joy. After selling all his energy cards, he bought the cheapest food available and spent the rest of the money on more materials to make energy cards.
Since then, Chris's life finally began to stabilize. He produced twenty-five energy cards every day without missing a single day. This routine continued for three years. During these three years, he made only one type of card—the one-star energy card. By the second year, he was able to reduce the production cost to 97 Oudi. Although it was just a difference of one Oudi, it was a huge encouragement for him. In addition to making energy cards, he spent all his time researching how to further reduce costs.
By the third year, he had managed to reduce the cost of energy cards to 95 Oudi each, earning an eight-Oudi profit per card. His daily income stabilized at 200 Oudi, a figure he could never have imagined three years ago. With a monthly income of 6,000 Oudi, he could now afford a more comfortable lifestyle, but he continued to live in the relief housing that cost only 150 Oudi per month.
Chris comes back to his senses and smiles at Uncle Hua, saying, "Thank you, Uncle Hua!" He takes the voucher carefully and places it into the cardholder inside his pocket.
Training classes, especially those for card makers, are among the most prevalent types of training courses nowadays. They often advertise with grand claims, such as the voucher saying things like "East Guard Academy recognized certification" and "Advanced card makers from East Guard Academy giving authoritative lectures." However, Chris knew exactly what was behind these claims. The organization hosting this training program had only a minimal connection with East Guard Academy—essentially, the organization had to pay East Guard Academy a fee each time to maintain the nominal "jointly organized" status.
Chris still decided to attend the training class to see what it had to offer. Card making was one of the most complex fields of study, and despite years of self-learning, his progress had been minimal. It wasn't until last year that he realized the root of the problem. His foundation was too weak; after more than a decade of wandering, he had received no formal education.
For a young man with no foundational knowledge, self-learning the complex and obscure field of card making was naturally very difficult. However, he had no doubts about his own intelligence. He was able to learn how to make one-star energy cards within a week using only his memory, and the card maker teacher from that year had praised his talent.
After that, he set aside the goal that was temporarily too high for him and began to focus on the most basic theoretical study. No matter how tired he was from work each day, he made sure to dedicate time to studying these dry and tedious subjects.
After saying goodbye to Uncle Hua, Chris walks south along a small alley. It is Saturday, and he has another task to complete. After crossing two streets and walking for about twenty minutes, he arrives at a second-hand card collection station.
"Hey, buddy, you're here!" greeted a skinny, bald man who was the owner of the collection station. His name is Black. Every Saturday and Sunday evening, Chris would come here to work a three-hour shift.
Chris nodded slightly at Black, though his expression still seemed somewhat customary. Black was long accustomed to Chris's demeanor. When Chris first came to request short-term work, Black had initially refused. This collection station had been managed by Black's father before him, and it had always been run by a single person, just as it was now under Black's management.
Hire someone? Black couldn't afford that kind of expense.
However, when Chris said he didn't need any pay, Black finally agreed. Of course, Chris still received compensation; he would usually take a few old cards as his payment. Sometimes, Chris would also pick out a few unused energy cards from the pile of scrap. Black was a bit curious about the silent and reserved Chris Wood—how did he know that there was still energy left in these cards?
Since then, every time he saw Chris, he greeted him with a beaming smile.
Chris crouches down and begins sorting through the pile of old cards. There are many types of cards—energy cards, item cards, figurative cards, and even some rarer plant and animal cards. However, all the cards here, without exception, are useless. Chris's task was to categorize them. The work progresses quickly, and it is clear that he is very familiar with the task.
Chris flicks his wrist and tosses a card to Black. "Here, this card is still usable for a while." This two-star energy card still contains at least half of its energy. Chris couldn't understand why the previous owner of the card had wasted it so much. A two-star energy card has a capacity of one thousand, meaning it still has about five hundred units of energy left.
"Hahaha, thanks a lot, Chris!" Black looks at the two-star energy card in his hand, his face breaking into a wide smile. He eagerly runs over to the energy tester, inserts the card, and when he sees the number "523" light up on the display, his grin grows so wide that his facial features almost squished together.
Chris ignores him, focusing entirely on sorting through the cards. Although some of the old cards are intermediate-level cards, such as three-star and four-star cards, they appear with a fairly high frequency. However, they hold little value for him. His only interest now is in one-star energy cards.
Three years of making cards had given him his own understanding of these most common and basic cards. There isn't just one method for making one-star energy cards; Chris collected twelve different structural types of one-star energy cards. These varied structures provided him with significant insights. By incorporating some techniques from these cards, he successfully reduced the cost of making one-star energy cards to 95 Oudi. Nevertheless, such luck wasn't an everyday occurrence; so far, he had only collected twelve different cards.
Today seemed to be a lucky day!
Looking at the one-star energy card in his hand, he notices that from its surface pattern, it is a new structural variation of the one-star energy card that Chris had never encountered before.
He sets the new one-star energy card aside and continues to sort through the pile. The sheer number of one-star energy cards is overwhelming, but Chris meticulously examines each one. His speed is astonishing; he can almost determine whether a card is the one he wants just by lightly brushing his hand over it.
All of this stemmed from his familiarity with one-star energy cards. This familiarity came from three years of continuous production. He didn't need to look at the cards; he could judge whether a card was a one-star energy card and if it was a structure he had seen before, just by feeling it with his hands. He was so familiar with them that he knew every detail.
The fingers that have been brushing the edge of the card suddenly stop.
This card...