Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2488: Checkmate?

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning

I glanced over at the almost seven dozen demigods surrounding me, and rested my eyes on Dean Faust, realizing one component was missing for me to start stirring up trouble — an audience.

We were inside the ’garden of beginning,’ even if I win here, I wouldn’t have achieved my goal without an audience to watch me step on Morningstar University and hear me announce the new City Lord of the Southern Academic City.

’Fuck!’ Although I managed to get Morningstar University’s full attention by taking the temporal anchor hostage, it came at the cost of me losing my audience. This was why I planned to make a grand entrance, gather as much attention as possible and conquer all the traffic in the grimoire network.

However, Dean Faust destroyed all my plans with his fucked up welcome and giving me full access to the University campus. Successfully using the little attention I managed to garner to his advantage, to show ‌the world that Morningstar University was open to like-minded people.

It was a common assumption among the citizens of the five regions that the top ten universities were only open to the elite who passed their tests and agreed to their exorbitant tuition fees. All in all, they were the untouchable holy land of knowledge and development in the Card World.

Average card apprentices revered them, wanting to be them, but the smart ones, the truly smart ones, saw them as‌ tyrants. As a result, most of them stayed away and joined other four academic cities based on their convenience and needs, ‌despite the central academic city’s tempting student loans and vault of knowledge. That was how the other four academic cities were still in the running and not out of the game.

I planned to use this perspective to my advantage. Be it Earth or Card World, these top universities were very exclusive and a group of tight-knit people. If you are not one of them, they do not have room for you. These guys only made a tiny percent of the field but were holding the largest percentage of the resources and funding.

Yes, they were the best and hard working, but sometimes the world changing inventions come from the least expected places by least expected people. For example, back on earth the telephone and the first electronic computer were invented by people who didn’t even have any prior knowledge or education in that field.

The top ten universities had a monopoly over the elites in the five regions. No matter what promises and changes I bring to the Southern Academic City, these people will end up choosing the top ten universities. There was no denying it. I don’t blame them. After all, they studied and practiced for them for ‌most of their life. Nor was I interested in them. I was interested in the card apprentices who could be the next Alexander Graham Bell or John Vincent Atanasoff of the card world.

Actually, with the popularization of the VR-universe many capable people from the least expected places were popping up across the five regions even though most of them were just copying what they saw in the VR-universe, there were enough who learned for the VR-universe and were applying in the Card World to make it a better place. These were self-motivated people doing what they liked out of their own interests and reasons and not just because someone told them that was the only way to be successful in life.

They were the five regions’ population’s untapped potential. However, they were random and there was no systematic way to unearth them and polish them to their best shine. This was why the top ten universities had failed to capitalize on them.

Yes, I wasn’t the only one who saw this untapped potential in the five regions card apprentice population; the top ten universities did too. They were trying their best to address that. However, their elite and exclusive reputation was making it hard for them to do so. Most importantly, they couldn’t afford to touch this reputation of theirs because if they lose the elite and exclusive status, they would lose the charm to most of their potential students. If just anyone could enter them then why would anyone waste their teenage life preparing for them?

Back on Earth, the top universities, especially the Ivy League academics, addressed this by providing executive classes, workshops, and online classes with limited seats and above average tuition fee. However, the top ten universities of the card world couldn’t do the same. After all, one couldn’t teach card creation, array formation, etc online on the grimoire network. You need a practical class with a capable teacher monitoring and guiding you every step of the process. Nonetheless, it was now possible with the arrival of the VR-universe. Therefore, the top ten universities not only heavily invested in it but were making plans to add it to their syllabus until the Morningstar University ban.

Back to the matter at hand, Dean Faust used me to show the citizens of the five regions that even if they were not related to Morningstar University in any way, they were welcome to Morningstar University if they felt like they could make a contribution to the knowledge and development, no matter how small it was.

This worked because of two reasons: I was the guy who invented the VR-universe, one of the most brilliant minds of the current generation, and also I was the Southern Hope, possibly considered as a rival of Morningstar University. The elite were happy to work with someone considered as the smartest person of their generation. As for the citizens of five regions, they felt if Morningstar University can accommodate someone known as Southern Hope, it could accommodate them too. This way, both the elite and the regular population of the five regions were happy while Morningstar University got what it wanted.

I gave them an ultimatum through the grimoire network to gather a huge audience for my plans, but I also gave the Morningstar University a chance to prepare for what’s to come. And they were prepared. If not for my taking the temporal anchor, they would have me in checkmate. From manipulating public opinion to using me to advertise their generosity and open-minded image, they were just brilliant.