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Harrison set down his teacup and forgot about it entirely.
Compared to Mana, who'd seen Luke craft before, Harrison's composure was dissolving in real time. The dragon roar meant success was imminent, and the Sovereign Realm branch president was leaning forward in his chair like a spectator at a championship match.
But more than the dragon roar, it was Luke's process that held Harrison captive.
He'd watched Card Masters craft for centuries. He'd observed amateurs fumble through basic constructions and witnessed masters execute complex builds with practiced elegance. Luke fell into neither category. His movements held a beauty and composure that Harrison associated with elite crafting masters who'd spent decades refining their technique. The precision. The unhurried confidence. The economy of motion where every gesture served a purpose and nothing was wasted.
From a student who'd been crafting cards for less than a month, it was unsettling.
This generation's young people really aren't leaving us old folks any room, Harrison thought.
While Harrison marveled, Luke's hands never paused. The Azure Dragon's Eyes and the remaining prepared materials were fed into the Card Editor one after another. Each component dissolved on contact, breaking apart into streams of energy that flooded into the card art.
The dragon eye on the card drank it in. Emerald deepened. Gold ignited. The slit pupil contracted, then expanded, and for a brief, vertigo-inducing moment, it looked like the eye was looking back.
Then the Creation Pillar erupted.
Golden light blasted upward, and Mana's barrier snapped into place automatically, containing the pillar within the room. By now she had the timing down to muscle memory.
"There it is." Mana's eyes shone. Success.
But then she blinked.
Something was different this time. Something she'd never seen before.
Eight phantom stars hung in the golden light.
They orbited the Creation Pillar like tiny moons, dim and ghostly, more suggestion than substance. They hadn't appeared during Mana's own creation. They hadn't appeared during Black Star's. They hadn't appeared when the Spell Tome or Magical Hats were forged. This was entirely new.
"What…" Harrison was on his feet without realizing he'd stood. His eyes were locked on the eight orbiting lights. "What are those?"
He had no reference for this. Original Card creation records mentioned the Creation Pillar and the World Transformation phenomenon. Neither source, in any document Harrison had ever accessed, mentioned stars appearing on the Pillar.
His mind raced through possibilities and landed on the most obvious one.
Eight stars. Eight. Does that mean… the card's star level?
If the phantom stars represented the card's tier, then Luke had just crafted an Eight-Star card. Skipped Seven entirely. Jumped straight from Six-Star to Eight-Star in a single construction.
The thought made Harrison's blood pressure spike. Eight-Star cards were high-tier. Emperor Realm Card Masters built them after decades of experience and resources. If a Commander Realm student had just casually produced one…
His intuition whispered something he almost didn't want to think. If Luke's crafting talent was this extreme, then even compared to Undying Realm masters, he might not fall short. Given enough time to grow, could the Ancient Kingdom see a fifth Undying? A fifth domain ruler?
Harrison killed the thought before it could take root. Luke was talented. Monstrously so. But Undying Realm was a concept so far beyond the current situation that even fantasizing about it felt irresponsible. The entire Ancient Kingdom had exactly four Undying masters. Four. In a civilization spanning billions of people.
Forget Undying. Even reaching Immortal Realm was a wall that most Sovereigns never climbed. Harrison himself, after decades at Sovereign, had no real confidence he could break through to Immortal. Countless Card Masters spent their entire lives stuck at Sovereign, never taking that final half-step, dying with the gap still uncrossed.
Luke had just started his career. No matter how brilliant his talent, no matter how staggering his potential, the distance between Commander Realm and Undying was so vast that thinking about it now was absurd.
But the math didn't add up.
The Creation Pillar collapsed back into Luke's body, taking the phantom stars with it. Mana Surge flooded through him, and Harrison, standing close enough to sense every fluctuation, tracked the level jumps in real time.
*「 Construction successful. Mana Surge received. Level increased to Six-Star Commander. 」*
*「 Construction successful. Mana Surge received. Level increased to Seven-Star Commander. 」*
*「 Construction successful. Mana Surge received. Level increased to Eight-Star Commander. 」*
Three levels. Five-Star to Eight-Star Commander. A solid jump, absolutely. But not nearly what an Eight-Star card should produce.
When Luke had crafted Mana, a Six-Star card, the Surge had pushed him from One-Star Soldier to Nine-Star Soldier. Eight levels. Black Star, another Six-Star, had given him four levels at Commander Realm. The progression followed a clear pattern: higher realm = more expensive to advance.
But if the Eye of Timaeus were truly Eight-Star, the Mana Surge should have been dramatically larger. Eight-Star was two full tiers above Six-Star. The energy difference was exponential, not linear. Three Commander levels from an Eight-Star card didn't make sense.
Which meant his theory was wrong. The eight phantom stars didn't represent the card's star level.
Then what did they represent?
Harrison stared at the space where the Pillar had been. He rubbed his temples. He sat back down. He picked up his tea, found it cold, and set it down again.
"This…" He shook his head slowly. "What does this even mean?"
In all his years as a Sovereign Realm Card Master, he'd never encountered something he couldn't even begin to categorize. Every other surprise Luke had produced, the Original Cards, the dragon type, the True Red Soul mechanic, had been shocking but ultimately comprehensible. This was just… unknown.
The eight stars had no precedent. No explanation. No framework.
It was, Harrison decided, the most annoying thing Luke Mercer had ever done.
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Luke, meanwhile, was focused on more practical matters.
Eight-Star Commander. One step from Nine-Star, and the gap between his mana reserves and his cards' consumption was finally starting to narrow. Not close, not yet, but the improvement was tangible. Sustaining the Red-Eyes Black Dragon transformation would last a few seconds longer now. Dual summoning was still a countdown timer, but the timer had gotten slightly more generous.
He pulled the completed card from the Editor and examined it.
Let's see what the Legendary Dragon left behind.