“You’re really impressive.”

Seeing Chronicle’s reaction, Wang Jindong nodded in satisfaction.

This child not only has exceptional talent, but also a better temperament than his peers.

During their conversation, he had the illusion that he was dealing with a person from a gray society, rather than a high school student.

But when he thought about the background check he had done before, this inconsistency instantly became normal:

A teenager who, in the situation of both parents deceased and not much savings, managed to come this far through his own efforts, how could his words and actions be like that of a child?

Thinking of this, his gaze softened a bit, and he turned his palm over.

In the next moment, a large book with a tattered cover and curled pages appeared out of thin air in his hand.

“Take this, study it well, I have high hopes for you.” With that, he turned and left.

Watching the other person disappear into the night, Chronicle lowered his head and looked at the old book in his hand.

“Friend of the Dual-Use Talent Card…”

Facing the light, he vaguely saw the eight-character title written on the tattered cover.

Chronicle flipped through it briefly and found that it was a treasure trove of a book, like a mishmash:

One chapter was explaining the principles of field card making, while the next chapter was teaching postpartum care for sows.

Just when you finally learned how to take care of a sow during its confinement, it would return to the main topic and analyze the advanced card types of the Legion Card with great detail.

“It’s quite interesting…”

Chronicle sat on the sofa, his eyes shining brighter as he flipped through the pages.

Although this book only explained some of the most basic things, it was more than enough to broaden the horizons of a novice card master like him.

Most importantly, between the lines, someone had made numerous annotations with a fine-tipped pen, which were comprehensive and profound based on his current limited knowledge.

“I wonder if there are any special card-making methods with unique materials in this book…”

Chronicle muttered as he flipped to the table of contents, and then followed the page numbers to the chapter titled “Card-Making Methods with Different Materials,” and sure enough, he found what he was looking for.

…

At the same time, in a small hill near the villa area.

Wang Jindong closed his eyes, sitting cross-legged on the top of the hill, surrounded by auras, like a majestic mountain.

The cold night wind couldn’t even rustle his clothes.

After a long time like this, he adjusted his state and couldn’t help but take a deep breath, then raised one arm lightly.

A red light flashed, and a red-framed card with a silhouette of a hawk slowly appeared out of thin air and descended.

After taking a deep breath, he slowly infused the remaining bit of his spiritual power into it, coughing lightly in the process.

Under the torment of injuries, “Jingdu” poison, and aging, his state had noticeably declined in recent years.

If it were during his prime, with his level of spiritual power, controlling a red-grade skill card would be a breeze.

But today, even after adjusting for a long time, he might not be able to hold on for half a moment, and he would suffer multiplied pain in the following days.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of task should be done by the young card masters in the city.

However, after experiencing several incidents of the secret realm going out of control, Land of Peach had long been in a state of shortage.

“In the end, it’s up to this old bone of mine…”

Wang Jindong coughed a few more times and casually threw the card.

In the next moment, this red card turned into two streams of light and entered his eyes.

[Ghost Falcon’s Illusion-Breaking Eyes]

In his military career, this card had helped him countless times to see through the ambushes and conspiracies of powerful demons and evil organizations.

But now, it seemed to have lost its effectiveness. Even after staring at the monitoring tent for a few minutes, he didn’t find anything unusual.

Seeing this, he couldn’t help but take a deep breath, grit his teeth, and increase the supply of spiritual power.

Then, in the next moment, his eyes saw threads of “bugs” floating around the surrounding area of the monitoring tent, some orange and some red.

“Indeed, there’s a problem.”

He thought to himself, his determined eyes slightly narrowed as he looked through the tent fabric, catching a glimpse of the inside.

Inside, every staff member had a vortex at the center of their eyebrows, with different colors and speeds.

This was the manifestation of spiritual power under the Ghost Falcon’s vision, simple and intuitive.

With this, Wang Jindong quickly found his former subordinates among the crowd: Fan Lei and Su Wen. He saw strands of bugs constantly wriggling in their “vortexes.”

“These useless things…”

He cursed inwardly, then shifted his gaze to the largest and fastest vortex in the tent.

“Xie Wenyuan…”

He silently recited the person’s name, carefully observing. He saw that this person was wiping his glasses legs with a cloth, while his head vortex was filled with “bugs,” which could be described as a “nest” of bugs.

“If the brain of a city has been invaded, it would be strange if there were no problems…”

Wang Jindong stroked his stubbled chin, pondering which organization could be behind this.

“The Fusion Faction, Lost Paradise, Jingxing Church, or… Great Jiuzhou, or maybe the Great Demon of the Scenery?”

He thought it over and shook his head.

From what he knew, the first three were currently in the stage of accumulating strength, lacking manpower and resources. They shouldn’t be spending so much effort and manpower on a small city like Land of Peach.

As for the last two…

“The people of Great Jiuzhou are all particular, so it’s highly unlikely that they would target their own compatriots. They are also known for being ‘crazy,’ so the possibility of using mental influence tricks like this is relatively low… They can basically be ruled out…”

“Could it be… the Great Demon of the Scenery?”Thinking of this possibility, he couldn’t help but frown.

As is well known, the secret realms scattered across the globe are the entrances to the Grand Scenic World.

As a Transcendent world on the verge of shattering, it is not only home to various monsters and demons, but also a small number of powerful “natives”.

These intelligent “kin” harbor great malice towards the humans of Blue Star, launching relentless attacks and employing cunning schemes.

If it weren’t for their temporary inability to cross the threshold of the secret realms into Blue Star, and their relatively small numbers, their threat would be no less than those terrifying monsters and demons.

The Card Master League had dubbed this group of Transcendent “natives” as “Grand Scenic Demons” as a warning to the world.

“Those bastards do love their plots and schemes, but aren’t they unable to cross over? Could it be…”

Wang Jingdong thought, his face gradually turning ugly: “It must be those bastards from the Scenic Sect.”

Scenic Sect, acting on behalf of the scenery.

“I almost forgot that those trash are nothing more than lapdogs.”

“Did they just finish picking up the leftovers from their master and now they’re here to cause trouble?”

Wang Jingdong’s eyes were cold as he deeply etched the words “Scenic Sect” into his mind.

However, his intuition honed from years of battlefield experience told him that things were not so simple, so he added two words before “Scenic Sect”: Suspected.

Meanwhile, Xie Wenyuan, who was cleaning his glasses with his back to him, subtly curled his lips.

“For the greater good, why bother with the trivialities.”

He thought to himself, and the “swarm” around him became slightly more active.