Date- 7 April 2321

Time- 14:45

Location- Southern Region, Southern Capital, Southern Card Creationist Association, Auction House

Placing the A-rank Dream Sandalwood Card, A-rank Nightmare Sandalwood Card, and A-rank Sleepy Caterpillar monster core on the card creation page of my grimoire, I skillfully turned the two cards into their core form. Now I had two common cores in my hand and I planned to use both of the cores in my card creation. Was that possible? Yes, because I planned to create two cards. 

But if I create two cards will I be able to create the cards faster than Chris who was only creating one card which he had created numerous times? It took him so long to create an E-rank card, now he was planning to create an A-rank. I don’t think he will be able to create the A-rank card any faster than the E-rank card. This was me being generous about Chris’s card creation capabilities, if I were to be brutally honest then not only will I be able to create the two cards before him but also cook lunch for myself before he finishes his creation. 

I wasn’t underestimating Chris, I reached this conclusion having witnessed his card creation capabilities in the previous challenge. He was better than average Card Grandmaster realm, Golden-Grade, card creationists out there but that was far from enough to defeat me. 

Shaking my head as I transferred the soul pathways of the other two ingredients into one common core I ordered one of my mutated consciousness to make use of Hive AI to create the sandbox virtual city. 

Making a virtual city sandbox was not difficult as I did not need to design the entire city myself when I could just copy it from one of the sandbox games back on Earth. Considering that my mutated consciousness and Hive AI lack imagination, it was for the best that I kept it simple. 

Then I had my other two mutated consciousness separate the ability-related soul pathway from the Sleepy Caterpillar monster’s soul pathway arrangements with the help of the Hive AI while I attended to the soul pathways of the Nightmare and Dream sandalwood. 

I had two of my mutated consciousness focus on one task while I took on two tasks because the soul pathway arrangements of the Nightmare Sandalwood and the Dream Sandalwood were almost the same. Also because I was planning to not just separate their ability-related soul pathways but also modify them. This was not a task I could hand over to my mutate consciousness. Besides the Hive AI would be doing the heavy lifting while I would be mostly supervising. 

Why did I plan to modify the ability of the Nightmare Sandalwood and the Dream Sandalwood? It was because I only wanted a part of their ability that allowed the Nightmare or Dream fragrance to separate the consciousness of the victim from their body. Once the consciousness of the victim was under hallucination and separated from their body, under the effect of the fragrance their body would follow their instinct which was yearning for more Dream fragrance. Hence the prey ends up going to the Sandalwood tree monster. 

The interesting part about this was that once the consciousness of the victim was separated from their body, neither the body nor the consciousness of the victim would be harmed in any way even when the effect of both fragrances was interrupted mid-way. This was why these two sandalwoods were widely used despite there being many other alternatives. 

I planned to use the soul pathways of both the sandalwood to obtain two sets of soul pathways with the ability to safely allow anyone to detach their consciousness from their body with ease and without worrying about any potential harm to either their body or consciousness. 

With this, the card apprentice could transfer their consciousness to a virtual city with ease and not worry about being harmed when they were interrupted midway for any number of reasons.

While the soul pathways of the Nightmare Sandalwood and the Dream Sandalwood took care of the consciousness transfer, the soul pathways of the Sleepy Caterpillar monster would take care of the physical body of the card apprentice while their consciousness explored the virtual city. 

For this, I planned to extract the cocoon-spinning ability of the Sleepy Caterpillar. I planned to use this ability of the Sleepy Caterpillar to create a cocoon for the physical body of the card apprentice which would not only protect it but nourish it. Similar to the concept of a life pod. 

The best part about Sleepy Caterpillar’s Cocoon was that when inside it only the physical body falls asleep but the mind remains functional. This was a protective mechanism of the Sleepy Caterpillar to save itself from predators when it enters the cocoon stage of its life. 

How would remaining awake in the mind and asleep in the body help Sleepy Caterpillar defend itself against predators as it evolved in its cocoon? It was because when it feels threatened it can trigger its cocoon to spray sleeping gas in its surroundings. 

This sleeping gas was so potent that it could put an A-rank monster or a card lord for a month, enough time for the Sleepy Caterpillar to complete its evolution. Something so potent was limited therefore the Sleepy Caterpillar had to remain awake in mind to use it sparingly so that the sleeping gas would last until it completes its evolution. 

However, this perk of the Sleepy Caterpillar’s cocoon spinning ability made it a perfect Cocoon for me to use for my VR pod card or VR Cocoon Card. 

With the mind of the card apprentice awake inside the cocoon, it would be easier for the card to transfer the consciousness of the card apprentice to the virtual city. Where, with enough preparations, they can spend a month without having to worry about their boy being malnourished. 

With Virtual City, Consciousness transfer, and Physical body health taken care of all that remained was the user interface. I planned to keep it simple and use the user interface of the grimoire as the card apprentices of this world were all familiar with it. I saw no point in complicating it by creating something new as this should be more than enough for this trial. 

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