"Just one last batch of materials left."
Dark took a deep breath and began clearing away the shattered experimental tools.
Head Maid Jasmine heard the noise and knocked on the classroom door.
After Dark called her in, he instructed, "Bring a fresh set of experimental equipment."
Then he spread out paper and pen in a corner of the room and conducted a full review of this round's experimental process, trying to work out the main cause behind the failed Forging.
Back when he'd been crafting the "Fusion" card, he'd made just as many mistakes — but with Senior Pandora at his side, every error had been caught and pointed out almost immediately.
This time, with no one watching over him, he had only himself to rely on to find the gaps.
It had to be said, though — this was brutally difficult.
Harder than an Olympiad math problem.
But until he pinpointed the problem, he couldn't afford to act.
Because of the materials he had on hand, only one batch remained!
...
Lady Jasmine quickly brought in an entirely fresh set of experimental equipment, but Dark still hadn't managed to find his mistake.
Seeing this, Diana and Aurora quietly slipped out of the classroom and settled instead into a different sitting room together.
After a while, Aurora turned to Diana and said, "Sister, would you like to come sit in my room for a bit?"
Diana's eyes lit up. "Sure!" she said at once.
Back at the Greatbear estate, she had no sisters her own age to do little crafts with. A while back she'd gone to Viscount Flotly's household to play with Rose, only to find Rose so busy she was splitting every second into pieces, with no time to spare for her at all.
Viscount Flotly seemed determined to make up for years of neglect all at once, hiring Rose a full six tutors — one of them reportedly a senior who'd just graduated from St. Marian's Academy!
In short, those tutors ran something close to round-the-clock shifts — noble etiquette, violin, foundational knowledge, Magic Guide theory, tea ceremony, fashion... every hour of Rose's day was accounted for.
Now that she had a little cousin, though, it neatly filled the void left by losing Rose as a playmate.
So Diana happily followed Aurora into her room.
Aurora's room was remarkably tidy — perhaps because she rarely went out shopping since moving in, it even felt a bit spare.
Still, small details here and there hinted at a girl's heart hidden beneath the plainness.
Diana glanced around with a sly, darting gaze, and her eyes suddenly caught on a small crib. "Why is there a little bed in here?" she asked, curious.
Aurora walked over to the crib and lifted the cloth draped over it slightly. "Mother told me I lived at the Duke's estate for a while as a baby. This is the crib I slept in back then."
"Oh, really?" Diana circled the crib twice, then suddenly frowned in confusion. "Why don't I have any memory of sleeping in one of these?"
Aurora blinked, then said, "Maybe you just don't remember that far back."
"That's true." Diana nodded.
Aurora had her sit on the sofa for a moment, then brought out a box of crystal honey cakes, a full tea set, and brewed a pot of lemon tea. She laid out the tea snacks and sat down herself, chatting with Diana about girl talk.
After several days of studying together, the two had grown quite close.
Diana was fascinated by the Free City where Aurora lived.
Aurora, meanwhile, wanted to get an early sense of life at St. Marian's Academy.
Back and forth they went, growing more familiar by the minute.
...
While the two young ladies chatted happily, Dark was still deep in thought, racking his brain.
So as not to break his train of thought, he even skipped lunch, and it wasn't until past three in the afternoon that he finally found a thread to pull on.
Starting from that thread, after another hour of deconstruction and analysis, he finally uncovered the flaw from the previous experiment.
He grabbed a couple of bites of the pastries Ollie had brought him, then immediately launched into the final Forging attempt without pause!
Under normal circumstances, he should have rested properly before beginning the Forging.
But the excitement of finally solving a problem that had taken him so long left him unable to hold back — he simply struck while the iron was hot and dove straight in.
Even so, he made no mistakes this time. Everything held terrifyingly steady.
About two hours later, the incantation floating above the Magic Guide Card suddenly drew tight, and the card's surface gradually revealed a [Zoo] layout nearly identical to the previous one.
Within the various zones of the [Zoo], shadows of all kinds of Animal species creatures dwelt.
"Finally done again?"
Dark took a deep breath and picked up his tweezers.
Given his previous failure, he didn't simply assume the Magic Guide Card was successfully Forged just because it had reached this point.
"Until it's been successfully summoned, every Magic Guide Card could still be a dud. Just like — before you light the fuse, every firecracker could still be a fizzle!"
Dark carefully lifted the Magic Guide Card with the tweezers and held it suspended for a moment. Finding that it didn't suddenly flare up the way the last one had, he let out a small breath of relief and carried it over to rinse under the tap.
As the grime clinging to the card washed away, its surface came into sharper focus.
Dark had seen Claire's [Zoo] before, but the two card faces were clearly different.
Specifically, the layout of the zoo itself differed.
That wasn't strange, though.
Even cards sharing the same name would differ in fine details.
In this world, no two Magic Guide Cards were ever truly identical.
Dark set the freshly rinsed card back on the table, then picked up a mana pen and touched it to the card's surface, slowly feeding in a thread of mana.
The mana flowed into the card smoothly.
Dark was finally certain this card wouldn't suddenly explode.
A smile spread across his face as he fed in mana with his own hand to retrieve its information.
[Card Name: Zoo]
[Type: Field Card]
[Effect ①: Animal species Magic Guide Spirits belonging to the owner have their summoning time reduced by -1s]
[Effect ②: Animal species Magic Guide Spirits belonging to the owner, while within the Zoo, gain +200 Mana, +200 Attack, +200 Defense]
[Effect ③: For each additional Animal species Magic Guide Spirit belonging to the owner within the Zoo, each Magic Guide Spirit's mana recovery rate increases by 1 point/second, up to a maximum of 10 points/second.]
[Effect ④: Grants the Ultimate Move "All Beasts Unleashed."]
As the flood of information poured into his mind along with the mana feedback, surprise crossed Dark's face.
"So this [Zoo] Field Card actually has four effects?"
"The field effects are basically limited to the owner's own Animal species Magic Guide Spirits. Aside from the basic one-second reduction in summoning time, there's also the usual stat boost you'd expect from this type of Field Card."
"Though compared to [Paradise]'s effect, the [Zoo]'s stat boost doesn't stack — it's fixed at two hundred points."
"And Effect ③ is probably what sustains the Magic Guide Spirits so they can persist long-term within the [Zoo]."
"The mechanism here should work the same way as [Paradise] — an energy loop formed between the field and multiple Magic Guide Spirits, granting them extra mana recovery."
"The difference is that [Paradise] came pre-loaded with ten Magic Guide Spirits from the start, so no matter how many are summoned, the recovery rate stays fixed at 10 points/second."
"And if [Paradise] is upgraded to 2.0, that recovery rate climbs even higher!"
"What's really surprising is Effect ④."
"Claire never mentioned that the [Zoo] Field came with an Ultimate Move?"
Dark thought it over carefully for a moment, then fed in more mana to check the effect of the Ultimate Move "All Beasts Unleashed."
[All Beasts Unleashed: Magic Guide Spirits (Animal species creatures belonging to the owner) stampede out of the [Zoo] together, gaining a group attack boost for 30 seconds. At a count of 10, attack rises by 200; at a count of 100, attack rises by 2000.]
"This effect..."
Dark couldn't help but frown.
For an ordinary Magic Guide Master, even one specialized in Animal species, summoning a full hundred Animal species Magic Guide Spirits in a single battle was next to impossible.
Unless one used some special method for mass recruitment.
Or made use of effects like "Great Liberation" to split individuals into a group.
Setting the numerical requirement aside, a group-wide attack boost lasting thirty seconds was still quite substantial.
Especially the 2000-point attack boost achieved once a "hundred" beasts were unleashed — truly staggering. The real strength of this [Zoo] far exceeded what he'd imagined.
Extrapolating from this, it wasn't hard to picture just how powerful an [Animal Kingdom] Field Card might be — perhaps it could genuinely achieve a "ten-thousand" beasts unleashed!
In a sense, the "Beast Sage" truly was frighteningly strong!
...
"Alright — let's find somewhere more open to run the summoning test."
Dark glanced around, then picked up the [Zoo] card and headed for the door.
But the moment he opened it, he found quite a crowd waiting outside.
"Professor Camilla, you haven't left yet?" Dark said, tilting his head slightly toward Camilla in the crowd.
Camilla smiled. "Can't be helped — Diana insisted on waiting until your experiment was finished."
Diana immediately pouted. "I wanted to know how it turned out!"
Aurora covered her mouth and laughed. "Not knowing the result really would be unbearable."
"Exactly," Diana said, as if it were only natural. "What if I couldn't sleep tonight because of it?"
Dark scratched his head. "So... Professor Cyrus and Professor Plante too?"
Ms. Plante, the former director of the Royal Botanical Garden, smiled warmly. "Wasn't it Camilla who got me curious?"
"Silent Sage" Cyrus asked with interest, "So it's been Forged, then?"
Dark nodded slightly. "It hasn't been summoned yet, but this time, I believe it's a success."
Cyrus looked genuinely astonished. "I truly didn't expect it — successfully Forging Claire's [Zoo] at your age!"
Dark said modestly, "Professor Claire taught me well."
Cyrus leaned on his cane. "Would you mind letting us observe?"
Dark smiled. "Not at all."
With that, he pushed the door open and stepped outside at a slow pace.
Before long, the group arrived at an open space beyond the estate.
Dark pressed his index and middle fingers together like a blade, gripping the [Zoo] card tightly between them, then tipped his head sharply back and swept the card across his chest.
In an instant, a surge of mana rushed forth.
"In the name of Dark, Magic Guide Summon!"
"Field, unfold and manifest — [Zoo]!"
...
Threads of mana surged outward like a rising tide.
Dark tapped one foot against the ground, and the surrounding earth was instantly blanketed in a web of mana.
The building complex belonging to the [Zoo] materialized at once under the effect of "True Projection."
Though it lacked the splendor and dreamlike quality of [Paradise], it still left everyone with a sense of the uncanny.
The wonder and mystery of a Field Card always brought to mind the word "miracle."
Of course, none of those present would ever admit to thinking anything so grandiose.
Dark watched his successfully summoned [Zoo], eyes shining with excitement.
Though [Paradise] outshone it in beauty, this [Zoo] was the first Field Card he'd personally Forged with his own hands.
Its meaning to him was on an entirely different level because of that.
It was a shame that among his current Magic Guide Spirits, only eight were Animal species.
If he could get DemiDevimon to evolve into Black Gatomon, that would just barely add one more.
But that still wasn't nearly enough to build a proper Animal species deck centered around the [Zoo].
And a single [Zoo] card alone was hardly enough to form a real system.
He'd need to buy more materials once he returned to the Academy and Forge more copies of the [Zoo], as well as learn more cards from that same series from Claire.
...
Dark didn't continue testing the [Zoo]'s effects any further here.
After a little while, he dismissed the [Zoo]'s manifestation.
As the sprawling building complex vanished, the assembled tutors came walking back over.
Ms. Plante clicked her tongue in wonder. "A Magic Guide Master's Field Cards never get old to watch. I only wish I could get my hands on a [Botanical Garden] Field Card someday."
Sage Cyrus glanced at her. "That's probably a long shot. Magic Guide Cards at this level don't come in generic types, you know."
Ms. Plante raised her voice at that. "Well then, is it too late for me to start learning Magic Guide arts now?"
Cyrus smiled faintly. "Of course it's not too late — learning has no end. I'm planning to start teaching those adorable students some basic Magic Guide knowledge come August. You're welcome to sit in."
Ms. Plante's eyebrows shot up. "Well, what a coincidence — I'm also planning to start teaching them some grass-type magic in August."
Cyrus narrowed his eyes at once. "I sincerely hope Ms. Plante won't use her own assignments to eat into the time students should spend on Magic Guide studies. Especially since I hear you want them writing observation diaries about flower and grass growth? What better use of their time could there possibly be? Ahem, ahem!"
Cough yourself to death!
Ms. Plante shot him a venomous glare, but didn't bother arguing further.
Beside them, Camilla covered her mouth and laughed, gentle and demure.
Diana and Aurora looked on, a little startled.
Dark rubbed his forehead, then suddenly remembered something. "Where's Professor Cook?"
Camilla's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Probably kept back after class."
Dark blinked in surprise. "It's been over an hour since the last class ended, hasn't it?"
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