Chapter 364 The So-called Equivalence
The success rate of directly attacking Zhao Yang's heirloom soul card was a little low, so Yu Cang asked for Wen Ren Ge's Sacred Fierce Breath.
Yu Cang is now very fast at learning this kind of rare card, so he easily mastered the method of making this soul card and successfully implanted the [ritual].
Before, because Zhao Yang had already come up with the prototype of the ceremony, Yu Cang didn't put too much thought into it.
On the one hand, he lacked time, and on the other hand, he didn't want all the groundbreaking achievements to be his own.
With his current achievements, he no longer needs another ritual summon to prove anything.
However, after actually figuring out the consciousness summoning yesterday, Yu Cang discovered that this summoning method was not that simple, and it was quite different from the ritual he had in mind.
The essence of ritual is exchange.
At this time, Zhao Yang sighed.
He looked at the Soul Cards in his hand, pondered for a moment, and then said, "So... the true working principle of this summoning method is to rely on the Star Rank to unfold... consuming the same Star Rank to summon a stronger summoned beast, correct?"
Yu Cang shook his head: "Yes, but not right."
"Huh?" Zhao Yang was stunned. "Why?"
"This is just one manifestation of the ritual, and it's also the most universal usage. In fact... there are many more 'rituals'." Yu Cang hesitated for a moment before saying, "Zhao Yang, there's something I'm not sure whether I should tell you."
"……you say."
"Your 'Awakening Summoning' may have been secretly modified by someone else... but the direction of the modification may not be good."
Zhao Yang frowned: "What do you mean?"
Yu Cang sighed: "Others...maybe they used your idea on 'banning cards'."
Zhao Yang's eyes suddenly narrowed.
On the side, Hu Yanzhan also frowned, with a thoughtful look in his eyes.
"What exactly?"
"There's no need to give examples that are too far-fetched," Yu Cang said. "For example... in this Mirage Realm, the soul card used by the card banner named Bain to summon the demon is actually a manifestation of 'ritual'."
Hearing this, Zhao Yang bit his lower lip lightly and suddenly fell silent.
But Hu Yanzhan suddenly said, "That's not very realistic, Yu Cang. As far as I know, the Public Security Bureau has been investigating Bain's case for decades. If that soul card is really based on Xiaoyang's work, then the timeline doesn't match at all."
There was also a hint of urgency in his tone.
You can't say this casually.
Zhao Yang had just solved the problem of identifying insects. Luckily, he was still young and it was the time for him to continue developing his talents and growing. If he got involved with banned cards at this time, his future would be ruined!
"Yes... Bain has been coming to Yan Country to look for the 'familiar' for decades." Yu Cang nodded.
Hearing this, Zhao Yang raised his eyes and his expression seemed to relax.
But Yu Cang immediately said, "But... I've seen the 'Devil's Altar'. Although I haven't studied it in depth, it couldn't have taken more than three years to create."
He came into contact with this soul card before going to the Holy City. At that time, he thought about studying it carefully with a recorder after returning from the Holy City, but so many things happened afterwards that he forgot about it.
Now that I think about it, if he had used a recorder at that time, perhaps there wouldn't be so much trouble now.
Hu Yanzhan: “…”
As soon as Yu Cang said this, he was immediately silenced.
Zhao Yang was also silent.
They all knew that the forbidden card that summoned the demon belonged to Wang Chu of the Ancient Capital Battle Club. As a member of the same club, it was normal for Yu Cang to have seen this soul card. With Yu Cang's knowledge, it was impossible for him to misjudge the production time of a soul card.
So... in that case, the truth behind the Bain case is... Bain wanted to summon a familiar, but he had no way to do so. However, due to Zhao Yang's achievements, the official method of summoning familiars was accidentally born in Yan Country, the country with the strictest card bans...
There are probably still many details that are still unclear, but now it seems that at least we have a clear idea of how this banned card came into being.
"But..." Zhao Yang stared at Yu Cang without blinking, "There's clearly no connection between that demon altar and my soul card. How did you come to this conclusion?"
"Actually, the essence is the same—the essence of ritual is exchange." Yu Cang said slowly, "The principle of ritual summoning is to use unequal transactions disguised as equal value."
Yu Cang picked up the "Critical Fierce Angel" and explained, "Just like this card, placing the material and the terminal on the two ends of the scale called ritual, the 'equivalent' is the star rank, and the unequal is everything else. But as long as the equivalent part exists, then this unequal summon can be completed.
"The same goes for your Dragon's True Yang awakening. Although it's still incomplete, the mental pressure equivalent is the key to the ritual's completion."
Zhao Yang's eyes were filled with contemplation, and he seemed to realize something: "Then... that altar is..."
"That's right." Yu Cang said, "The equivalent is the lives of both ends of the ritual."
Use damage to destroy the soul energy well to gain energy, curse to taint the body to gain consciousness, and crush the spirit to gain ability.
The soul energy well is equivalent to ability, the body is equivalent to energy, and the spirit is equivalent to consciousness. The three abilities correspond to each other in a staggered manner, so only when all three abilities are activated at the same time will the three equivalences take effect and finally complete the ritual.
This is also why this card is not banned even though its specific abilities are unclear. Taking any of these three abilities alone is actually just a normal ability with a high cost.
Zhao Yang's tone was already somewhat bitter at this time: "So, these five years..."
He looked at Yu Cang, as if he wanted to get some answer from Yu Cang, but this time Yu Cang did not speak, just looked at Zhao Yang silently.
This is actually not the first "ritual" that Yu Cang has discovered.
The term "ritual" was what he had gotten on the Zulong Snow Mountain. Perhaps, the method used by the card banners to summon the evil dragon that day was something similar.
In the past five years, in places that Yu Cang cannot see, there must be more card banners who have been influenced by this new summoning system and created many related banned cards.
However, the ritual summoning that Zhao Yang took out was only a prototype, so don’t expect the rituals created by those card banners based on it to be perfect.
Of course, when it comes to card bans, the solution to a flawed system is pretty simple—just make the price even more brutal.
The bitter tone in Zhao Yang's voice at this moment meant that he had realized this.
At the same time, he has also realized that perhaps in the past five years, countless lives have been lost... all because of him, or in other words, it is inseparable from him!
His body began to tremble constantly, and he became unstable for a moment. He held on to the table next to him and his breathing became rapid.
"Xiao Yang." Hu Yanzhan quickly supported Zhao Yang, "How are you?"
"...Teacher." Zhao Yang's lips turned pale. "Should...should the admissions office investigate me soon?"
Hu Yanzhan didn't know what to say and could only sigh.
"It's hard to say." Yu Cang said, "Logically speaking, if the card banner can sense the potential of ritual summoning, the Intake Bureau should have noticed it long ago. If they wanted to arrest you, you would have been taken away long ago."
Now that Zhao Yang can still stand here, it means that nothing should be wrong.
Speaking of which... Zhao Yang's paper on the awakening of the Dragon's True Yang does have a very high priority for reference.
Yu Cang couldn't even see this paper at first, and those ordinary scholars probably just heard that Zhao Yang created the prototype of the system, but they were probably confused about what it was specifically.
Zhao Yang clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. After a long pause, he managed to utter, "...I am guilty."
"Don't think so. Knowledge is always innocent." Yu Cang said, "Even if you weren't here, someone would have discovered this summoning method sooner or later. At least now it was created under the watchful eyes of the Association, rather than by some card banner in some shady corner.
"Even if you were at fault, it was because you didn't improve it in time, which led to this half-finished product with many loopholes being exploited. But it's not your fault. After all, you have a good eye for bugs."
Zhao Yang was silent.
What Yu Cang said makes a lot of sense.
But... even if I hadn't been possessed by the insect-knowing ability five years ago, with my personality at that time... I'm afraid it would be difficult to perfect it now... Insect-knowing is, after all, just an excuse.
Seeing that Zhao Yang was still silent, Yu Cang reached out and patted his shoulder.
"Zhao Yang, there's no need to blame yourself so much," Yu Cang said. "All powers are barbaric at the beginning, which is why we card makers are needed. High-level summons were often used for human sacrifices in their early days, and the creation of the original totems was also filled with blood.
"Even now, the fusions and synchronizations I create all carry the risk of losing control."
The materials for fusion are not limited to soul cards; once Dark Synchro is abused, the consequences can be very terrifying.
Even the seemingly safe connection and excess... the reason they were safe was because Jieying, Ye Lai and the others were trustworthy... and they had all given their real names to him.
"...Thank you, Yu Cang." Zhao Yang wiped his face. "Let's not talk about that for now... Yu Cang, there are still many things I don't understand about the ritual summoning. Can you continue to explain it?"
According to what Yu Cang said, the essence of consciousness is to use equivalence to cover up unequal exchanges... Then there is actually no need to use "star ranks" as a carrier of equivalence.
There are so many things that can be equivalent, race, attributes... even if we borrow from the "Devil's Altar", body structure and even appearance are possible!
These are easier to achieve than the star level and more powerful.
"...Yeah." Yu Cang nodded.
Indeed, judging from the current situation, this ritual summoning relies on spell cards like Fusion, and requires the addition of star levels like Synchro, and looks like a combination of the two.
But in fact, there is an essential difference.
"First and foremost, the most important point is that during the ritual summoning process, no additional soul energy is required to send materials from the deck to death cooldown."
"What?" Zhao Yang's eyes widened slightly. "Isn't this... too strong?"
Although this one is simple, it hides a very scary message.
The first thing you need to know is that in fusion summons, if the fusion spell card selects the soul card in the deck as the material, then the user needs to pay soul energy for these materials.
This is equivalent to omitting the summoning process, but you still have to provide the soul energy required for the summoning.
However, summoned beasts on the field and in death cooldown are not needed as materials - they have all consumed soul energy to appear on the field in a regular manner, and can be used in any way before the death cooldown ends.
If you have the ability, it's okay to let him jump back and forth between the graveyard and the field to earn resources.
And if the ritual summoning could be sent directly to death cooldown without consuming soul energy...
"Doesn't that mean that the death effects activated by those Soul Cards that are sent to death cooldown do not consume Soul Energy?" Zhao Yang felt something was wrong. "Is this possible..."
You should know that many summoned beasts can activate some abilities even when they are on death cooldown.
There is no problem with this. After all, from the start of summoning to the end of death cooldown or reconnection, the entire process is counted as one summoning. No matter whether it is a summoning card or a spell card, as long as the ability is used during this period, generally no additional soul energy is required.
Like Yan He's deck for suppressing the corpse of the ancient demon, those "suppression talismans" can activate their abilities once after the connection is disconnected due to the effect of the corpse of the ancient demon. At this time, because they have not experienced a regular appearance, they need to pay a little soul energy.
However, the Soul Talisman Cards are specially made, so when the connection is directly disconnected to activate the ability, the soul energy required is much less than normal use, so a large number of Soul Talismans can be used in a short period of time, and it looks like no consumption.
"Don't be surprised. This is the characteristic of ritual summoning." Yu Cang said, "This property can indeed be used with some summoned beasts with death powers, but there are also restrictions, so it's not particularly powerful."
"Is that so..." Zhao Yang pondered for a moment. "Then, in the future battles, wouldn't it be possible to directly use the Holy Ascension Ritual to summon Critical Fierce Angel without any operation? Isn't the strength of this deck too high?"
He had seen the ability of Critical Fierce Angel. Although it was only at the eighth level, its combat power was definitely far more than that.
That Ritual Soul card grants [Fierce Breath] once upon summoning, triggering [Chanyeol] with virtually no negative effects. Casting a Holy Fierce Breath on it at this point, adding a second layer of [Fierce Breath], can effectively disable the opponent's spell cards, and all this happens just as the Silence Round ends.
Isn’t this awesome?
"Of course it's not that simple." Yu Cang shook his head. "In ritual summoning, the Soul Card itself is the material, not the Soul Energy you pay for it. That's why it can be sent directly from the deck to the graveyard. And during the entire summoning process, the only thing that requires Soul Energy is the Ritual Spell Card, but the Soul Energy consumption of this Soul Card itself is not fixed."
Zhao Yang frowned slightly: "What do you mean?"
"You can think of it as a true ritual—one that requires advance preparation and the fulfillment of numerous conditions." Yu Cang explained, "The more 'equivalent' conditions are met, the less soul energy the ritual itself requires.
"Back to your question. If you want to use a ritual spell card to summon Critical Seraph right at the start, then the soul energy required for this ritual may far exceed your soul energy limit.
"But if you summon all eight star-level summoned beasts required for the ritual, making the 'on the field' condition before and after the ritual 'equal,' then the soul energy consumption of the ritual will be reduced accordingly. If the materials are all light-attributed, then the soul energy consumption will be further reduced.
"And if you use the eighth-level 'Fiery Angel' on the field as the material, there will be more equivalent factors, then even the soul energy consumed by this ritual magic can be ignored!"
Fierce Angel is the deck that the soul card Holy Fierce Breath originally belonged to.
This deck has only a few soul cards, or it can't even be called a deck, it can only be said to be a small axis.
The way it works is: use "Holy Fierce Breath" on the "Pious Cultivator". The characteristic of the "Pious Cultivator" is that every time it is attacked by the Fierce Breath, it can accumulate "Divinity". When the Divinity accumulates to a certain amount, it can directly use this summoned beast as a sacrifice to summon an eighth-level Fierce Angel.
And that's it. The strongest terminal of this set of small axes is only an eighth-level one, so it is not too strong. It will occasionally be used as a plug-in by some light-attribute decks. After all, the Holy Breath card is powerful.
Now that there's a ritual, you can start it right after summoning a Fierce Angel, creating a Critical Fierce Angel that's also level eight, but even more powerful! There's even a second ritual to reach even higher limits.
Zhao Yang seemed to understand: "So... that's why operations are still necessary. I understand. The reason why star rank is used as the universal 'equivalence' condition is also because of this."
"That's right." Yu Cang nodded, "Theoretically, I can create a ritual spell card that uses the equivalent condition of 'Dragon' as its race, and directly transform an ordinary-quality True Dragon cub into a powerful twelfth-level Dragon through a ritual.
"But then, there are too many disparities. The soul energy consumption and final quality of this ritual spell card might be extremely high. In that case, it might be better to just go out and play it normally."
There are also differences in effectiveness between different "equivalence conditions." Even if the materials and the terminal are completely unrelated, they can still be claimed to be "both physical entities"... The effectiveness of this equivalence condition is almost zero, and the soul energy required for the corresponding ritual will undoubtedly be quite exaggerated.
Among all the achievable equivalent conditions, the star level is the easiest to achieve, the most flexible and the most effective one!
It is precisely because of the existence of the Star Rank that this system can come alive! It can be said that the Star Rank directly raises the lower limit of the ritual to a very high level.
Of course, beyond the star level, the upper limit of ritual summoning is also ridiculously high. After all, as long as you meet the equivalence, you can ignore other tedious summoning conditions. There are so many things you can do with it.
"So that's it, this is... a ceremony." Zhao Yang's brows slowly relaxed.
The air became quiet.
a long time.
Zhao Yang suddenly sighed, raised his head, and looked at Hu Yanzhan: "Teacher... I want to ask you a favor."
Hu Yanzhan couldn't help but frown.
This was the first time he had heard Zhao Yang speak in this tone. For a moment, an ominous premonition filled his heart.
"you say."
"I want to go to the Institution to study."
"What? You... you know that once you're in the detention center, you have to hide your identity and unless something unexpected happens, you'll never see the light of day again?"
"I know, but I've made up my mind." Zhao Yang wiped his face. "It's my fault that I didn't complete the ceremony in time. I will spend the rest of my life making up for it."
He raised his head and gave Yu Cang a pure smile.
"Thank you, Yu Cang."
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
