Miracle Card Shop: All My Cards Can Be Actualize

While the Curtained World was being violently suppressed by the combined efforts of mages rushing to earn more contribution points, the rebels nearly became an extinct species. After completing his work, Daniel returned to his small workshop at home, where he was developing two new Godslayer cannons.

Envy looked at her beloved through the window glass, seeing that he was still working on his contingency as usual. She let out a faint smile, then went to the kitchen to prepare a set of English tea and some snacks that she personally brewed and baked.

She placed the tea set on the table, poured him a cup, and set the plates before massaging his shoulders. Experience new stories on mvl

"It's already late; you should rest," Envy said in a gentle tone, resting her chin on Daniel's head and hugging him gently.

"A little bit more, and it will be finished," Daniel replied, continuing his work. Envy sat beside him on a nearby chair, reading a book she had randomly taken from the bookcase. She waited patiently for Daniel.

The two spent time in silence, enjoying each other's company. Daniel worked while occasionally sipping tea and nibbling on cookies, while Envy relaxed on her cushioned chair, reading her book.

They spent about half an hour like this before Daniel finished his work and sent the blueprint to Nexus Prime to produce it at the secret foundry and assembly facility in the Atlanteus base.

"Can we talk?" Envy asked, closing her book and placing it back on the bookcase.

"You know, you don't need to wait for me to finish like that. If you have something urgent, you should just tell me," Daniel said.

"It's not urgent for me. Besides, you were in the middle of thinking and nearly finished your work. What if I interrupted you and your idea was halted? Your work might not have finished on time or according to whatever schedule you have in mind," Envy replied with understanding.

"Okay… Now that I've finished it, I just need to wait for Prime to make it from the blueprint and assemble it. So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Daniel asked.

"Tian Xingyun. What really happened between you and her? I was in South America, and Prime didn't have any cameras inside the house because of your privacy policy, so I don't know much. Can you tell me?" Envy asked, sitting down on Daniel's armchair and gently placing her hands on his shoulders.

"It's nothing much… It's like this." Daniel then proceeded to tell Envy about Tian Xingyun: how he met her, what happened, and what had transpired since.

After hearing all of it, Envy nodded thoughtfully. "I see… So that's what happened. It seems you need to increase little Sylvana's personal security. I don't think Will alone would deter those cultists and radical mages enough. You should put someone with a bloody reputation to guard her."

"How about Vlad?" Daniel offered.

"He's too bloody," Envy denied without hesitation. "Besides, I don't think he understands how to avoid bloody scenes that minors should not see."

"Yeah… You're right…" Daniel agreed.

— Somewhere in USA —

Amidst the bloodied battlefield littered with corpses and impaled carcasses, Vlad felt an itch in his nose and sneezed, trying to relieve it.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Maria asked through an earphone in one of Vlad's ears. She was serving as the operator for this mission back at the base.

"I feel like someone's talking behind my back," said Vlad.

"If every time someone talked behind your back you sneezed, you'd be drowning in your own snot by now," Maria retorted.

Vlad: …

"Trust me, Dad, you're too superstitious. The idea that someone talking behind your back makes you sneeze has already been debunked on a game show. Don't be too superstitious," Maria concluded.

"Heh… don't be too superstitious, says the vampire," Vlad snorted at his daughter's remark.

"Can you please focus on your mission, Dad? We have two more rebel families that are too difficult for our normal members to handle."

"Yes, yes… right away," Vlad responded blandly as he proceeded to the next raid target.

In this suppression, Cao Cao and Gua Jia, with Daniel's approval, had already dispatched several top fighters of the Order of Ember, such as Vlad, Heracles, Momotaro, and even Hermes himself, to clear out families too dangerous for normal members to handle.

These families usually had very close ties to the Hightower, with some even holding positions as High Councilors within it. Consequently, they often had aces up their sleeves that were too troublesome.

To mitigate these uncontrollable factors, they decided to send their top fighters to raid the few places that were too difficult for regular members.

One might ask, why bother letting those members participate in the suppression and reward them for their contributions? If they raided these hard targets in the first place, they could amplify these facts to softer target families, prompting them to surrender.

The reason is that The Order of Ember needs the members to understand that siding with them and contributing will yield substantial rewards. They wanted to instill this mindset in the members as soon as possible, and there were no better opportunities than these rebel suppressions.

—

Back to Daniel: after some thought, he decided to choose Heracles to protect little Sylvana. Since Heracles was the most famous Greek hero and didn't have any unstable factors like the madness that Vlad had, he was the ideal person to be responsible for little Sylvana's security alongside Will.

After settling the topic of little Sylvana's security, Envy still didn't seem to want to go to sleep and stayed behind to accompany him, so he decided to ask a question.

"Envy, what's the difference between the Olympian gods and the Heavenly Realm gods? Like between Zeus and Tian Xingyun. One can stay here without being affected and getting weaker by the depleted mana, while the other is fully affected and avoids it by shutting themselves in their own realm.

What makes them different?" He asked this question because he needed to prepare a countermeasure in case the gods broke out of their self-confinement when the mana level increased to the same level as the Era of Gods.

Hearing Daniel's question, Envy didn't hide anything and directly answered.

"The difference is that gods from the Heavenly Realm have their divinity core within their body, acting like a generator that generates mana for them. Meanwhile, the Olympian or Norse gods rely on mortals to generate faith to sustain them. Something happened at the end of the war between gods and humans that severed their faith, causing their religions to suddenly fade out of history.

Without faith, those gods need to rely on mana to sustain themselves. Since gods are the ones who convert faith into mana in the first place, consuming mana to sustain themselves is no different from us drinking our own urine to stave off dehydration," Envy explained.

"Damn… that's too er… inconvenient," Daniel stated, his face mixed with disgust and discomfort.

Envy let out a small chuckle and smiled. "Uhuhu… I'm joking; it's not that severe." Envy laughed, much to Daniel's perplexity. This woman couldn't help but troll him every chance she got.

"I had asked one of the gods who remained in the mortal world about this, and he said it's akin to eating instant noodles. It fills your stomach, but it's bad for you in the long run. You'll have a lot of health issues if you eat it for every meal for years. That's why they get weaker the longer they stay in the mortal world, especially in this mana-deficient environment.

I guess the quality of mana is no different than some garbage brand of instant noodles by now, from a god's perspective," Envy concluded.

"Now that I've heard you say that, I suddenly have more questions, but I'll ask you later… So next, why are they different? The gods from the Heavenly Realm and Olympus. I mean, one can live in the mortal world without problems, while the other can't live in it unless they accept that they will eventually get weaker as time passes," asked Daniel.

"I don't know much about the details of how it works because I haven't put much effort into researching this… as you know, I'm not interested in becoming a god, but I have my theory," Envy started, then brought a pen and some paper out of Daniel's desk drawers and began to draw.

"It's like this…" She began to draw a picture to aid her explanation. "Olympian gods, or the usual gods not from the Heavenly Realm, are beings that used some method to transcend mortality using faith. They might have originally been human before they did something to transcend using faith.

Many researchers from the Hightower suggest that faith may be the most primitive form of mana, and with enough faith, it forms divinity. These are all external factors they need to consume to ascend to godhood," Envy explained, then changed the paper before beginning to explain about Heavenly Realm gods.

"On the other hand, Heavenly Realm gods rely on self-cultivation. Their cultivation derives from the belief in Han alchemy, or maybe it's even older. They cultivate to gain immortality, not to ascend to godhood. Godhood is just a bonus. In order to do that, they use themselves as a cauldron while trying to form an immortality pill within their body.

If that pill, or the core, grows pure enough, they transcend mortality and become immortal," Envy explained.