One year later.

  Yang sat at his desk, staring at the blank card before him, and thought back to the past year.

  It had been one and a half years since he'd come to this world. While he'd grown used to life in Markech, he was still not at home here. He missed White Cloud Sect. Missed Li San and the cultivation world. Missed the clean mountain air and the sense of belonging he'd found there.

  The only thing that helped him forget was when he was working on his cards. His joy at learning a new skill and at mastering increasingly complex inscriptions, helped him forget his circumstances for the moments while he was busy inscribing patterns onto the blank crystal surfaces.

  He'd spent much of the time practicing his card creation skills. He was much more skilled at them now than he'd ever managed to attain in his talisman skills back in the cultivation world. The irony wasn't lost on him. Ripped from his home and forced to start over, only to excel at this world's magic in ways he'd never gotten a chance to with cultivation techniques.

  Apart from going out to sell his cards and buy supplies from the same shopkeeper he'd sold to the first time, and getting food and other necessities, Yang barely left the flat. Even his rent was collected by the landlady who came every six months to collect payment. She never asked questions, never cared what he did, as long as the money was paid on time.

  Yang had managed to learn and inscribe all the inscriptions in the Grade One books. Even those that were intellectual property of other Cardwrights. He just didn't sell those cards, keeping them for himself.

  Mastering each new card design brought him extra energy for the status bar so he made sure to take complete advantage. Now, after going through all the designs available to him, he was at a respectable.

  [27.65% Energy]

  A little more than one fourth to the full bar.

  It had been an interesting journey. After mastering all the single inscription designs, Yang had moved on to double and then multiple layered inscriptions. These were far more complex and challenging.

  Multiple inscriptions were more art than science, according to what he'd read in the books and then experienced himself.

  Each Cardwright had preferences and styles for applying inscriptions. Some preferred adding them next to each other while some layered inscriptions one over the other and some used a mixture of both.

  This made Yang more interested in experimenting with mixing and matching inscriptions to create unique cards with effects not found in the standard manual.

  Unlike talismans, which he'd learned to follow precisely regarding stroke order and qi requirements, cards weren't prone to backlash. The only consequence of failure was the loss of progress when the inscription disappeared. But the difference was significant.

  When you made a mistake with single inscription cards, the whole pattern disappeared if you hadn't yet locked it in by connecting the end and starting points. But multiple inscription cards weren't so strict in their requirements.

  This made them both more convenient and more difficult in different ways.

  Sometimes you needed to use one complete inscription after another to make multiple inscription cards. Each inscription locking individually before the next could be created. But in this method, once he had locked in an inscription, he couldn't remove it. He had to work with that particular pattern locked in place unless he started fresh with a new card.

  Other cards required the inscriptions to be inscribed like a single inscription card. That meant he needed to inscribe two or more complete patterns without lifting the crystal pen, connecting the starting point of the first inscription to the ending point of the last inscription, thus locking in all patterns simultaneously as one unified whole.

  Yang had wasted quite a lot of cards experimenting with different styles and approaches.

  He'd tried inscribing talisman scripts directly onto cards early on. Most attempts had failed completely, the card rejecting the foreign pattern. But after much alteration and adaptation, there had been some results.

  The key was understanding that talismans used qi flowing through the medium, while cards used energy stored in the crystal itself. The patterns had to account for this fundamental difference in how power moved through the inscriptions.

  Yang had taken basic talisman designs and slowly modified them. Adjusting angles. Changing connection points. Altering the flow paths to work with stored energy rather than channeled qi.

  While he hadn't managed to create a completely new inscription from pure talisman theory, he had managed to mix and match inscriptions from both systems to make unique enough cards that sold for decent profit. Enough that Yang didn't despair at the loss of materials during experimentation.

  One of his more successful hybrid creations was a light card that could adjust its brightness. Standard light cards produced fixed illumination. But by incorporating elements from a talisman yang had seen diagrammed in a book at White Cloud Sect, Yang had created a card where the user could will the light brighter or dimmer.

  It was a small innovation, but it sold for twice what a standard light card did.

  Another success was a heat regulation card that maintained a more precise temperature. Standard cards just produced warmth. Yang's version could be mentally adjusted to specific comfort levels.

  These weren't revolutionary inventions. But they were improvements on what was available in this world. And they taught Yang valuable lessons about how the two magical systems could complement each other.

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  Apart from the money and increased energy percentage, the most important thing Yang was gaining was knowledge. Understanding of how magical patterns worked at a fundamental level. Insight into why certain designs produced certain effects. The underlying principles that governed both talismans and cards.

  For now, Yang had managed to make mainly utility cards using his combined knowledge. Improvements on existing designs rather than entirely new inventions.

  But he had one project he was particularly proud of and frustrated by in equal measure.

  Yang had managed to create a shield card.

  The concept was simple. A card that, when activated, produced a barrier of force around the user. Protection against physical attacks or environmental hazards.

  The execution had been anything but simple.

  Shield talismans existed in the cultivation world, Yang knew. Defensive barriers were common among cultivators. But cards worked differently.

  Yang had gone through dozens of blank cards before achieving a functional design. The inscription was complex, using elements from three different standard defensive card patterns woven together with adapted talisman theory.

  The shield it produced wasn't strong. It could stop a thrown rock or a weak blade strike. Nothing that would save him from a serious attack but it worked against every thing under a certain strength threshold.

  It was a genuine innovation, something that didn't exist among the standard cards available. The defensive cards here were more powerful then what he created but they were specialised. A shield against fire, one against water, solid projectiles or poisnous gases. A shield card for everything you can think of but no card worked against everything unlike his Shield card.

  Yang had been unable to test it thoroughly due to not wanting to reveal it to the Cardwright Association yet. He'd activated it in his room, felt the barrier form around him like a second skin, and deactivated it quickly. But he hadn't subjected it to real stress tests.

  The problem was the security inscription.

  Yang didn't want anyone to steal his creation. He didn't want to show it to the world until he could protect the design with a proper privacy inscription that would hide the pattern from examination.

  But privacy inscriptions were proving to be his greatest challenge.

  The theory was straightforward. A privacy inscription was a secondary pattern layered over the primary functional inscription. When activated, it scrambled the visual appearance of the underlying design, making it impossible to copy by examination.

  In practice, Yang had failed repeatedly.

  Almost all his attempts at adding privacy inscriptions resulted in the card becoming a dud. The privacy pattern interfered with the functional pattern disrupting the energy flow. The card either failed to activate at all or produced unstable results.

  Yang had tried different approaches. Placing the privacy inscription as the first layer, as the last layer, weaving it between functional patterns. Adjusting the energy flow. Changing connection points.

  Nothing worked consistently.

  He'd managed one partial success. A simple light card with a basic privacy inscription that successfully hid the pattern. But the card's light output was reduced by half.

  Not acceptable for his shield card. Yang needed the shield to function at full capacity, and he needed the privacy inscription to be robust enough that skilled Cardwrights couldn't break it.

  Yang stared at his latest failed attempt. Another blank card wasted. The privacy inscription had locked in fine, but when he'd tried to activate the shield function, nothing had happened. The energy couldn't flow through the combined patterns properly.

  He set the failed card aside with the growing pile of other failures and rubbed his eyes. Hours of focused work left them strained and tired.

  The status bar had increased slightly during all this experimentation. Each failed card still taught him something, and the energy seemed to recognize the learning process even without successful completion.

  [27.67% Energy]

  Tiny progress but progress nonetheless.

  Yang stood and stretched, working out the stiffness from sitting too long. He walked to the window and looked out at the gray city below.

  One and a half years. Eighteen months of being trapped in this world. Eighteen months of missing home.

  But also eighteen months of growth. Of learning and developing skills that might serve him well when he finally returned to the cultivation world.

  If he could master privacy inscriptions, if he could reliably combine talisman theory with card creation, Yang would return to White Cloud Sect with knowledge no other cultivator possessed. He'd be able to create innovations in talisman crafting that would astonish his peers.

  That was worth something. Not enough to make being torn from his home acceptable, but enough to give the experience meaning.

  Yang turned back to his desk. One more attempt today. He'd try a different approach to the privacy inscription. Maybe if he reduced the complexity of the shield pattern slightly, there would be more room for the privacy layer without interference.

  He picked up a fresh blank card and attached a new energy stone to his inscription pen. The crystal lit up with familiar green veins of power.

  Yang took a breath and began inscribing.

  The shield pattern first. Three interwoven designs creating the barrier effect. His hand moved with practiced confidence, each stroke precise as the pattern took shape.

  He completed the shield inscription and locked it in. The card glowed briefly as the pattern set. Now came the difficult part.

  The privacy inscription had to overlay the shield pattern without disrupting energy flow. Yang had been studying the problem for months. He thought he understood where previous attempts had failed.

  The key was creating bridges. Points where the privacy inscription connected to the functional inscription in ways that enhanced rather than disrupted energy flow.

  Yang began inscribing the privacy layer carefully. Each stroke had to be perfect. The inscription slowly emerged, wrapping around the shield design like a protective cocoon.

  Almost there. Just a few more connections. Yang's hand was steady and his concentration fully on the task at hand.

  The final stroke. Connecting back to the beginning of the security inscription. Locking both patterns together as a unified whole.

  The card glowed. Brighter than usual. The patterns pulsed with energy, settling into stable resonance.

  Yang held his breath. Had it worked?

  He activated the card.

  The shield formed around him, a faint shimmer in the air. Yang could feel it. He maintained the activation and looked at the card itself.

  The inscription was obscured. Not completely hidden, but scrambled enough that the underlying pattern wasn't obvious. Someone looking at it would see a confusing mess of overlapping lines rather than the actual shield design.

  Yang deactivated the shield and reactivated it again. The shield formed just as strong as before.

  Success. Finally, after months of failures, Yang had created a functional security inscription that didn't interfere with the underlying card.

  Yang wanted to shout with joy but restrained himself. His neighbors didn't need to hear him celebrating inexplicably.

  Instead, he just smiled and set the shield card carefully aside.

  Yang returned to his desk with renewed energy. Now that he'd cracked security inscriptions, he could refine the technique. Make it more efficient and apply it to other cards.

  The year had been hard. Lonely. Filled with frustration and longing for home.

  But it had also been productive. Yang had grown as a craftsman and a magical theorist in ways that would serve him well.

  When he finally returned to White Cloud Sect, he wouldn't return empty-handed.

  Yang picked up another blank card and began inscribing again.

  There was work to do