As one of the six great academies of the Heavenly Federation, the Star Academy had a long history, and its founder was even more famous. He was Heiner Van Sant.
Because of that, although the Star Academy had declined over the years, it had never fallen out of the ranks of the six great academies, though it was already at the bottom.
The decline of the Star Academy had a direct relationship with their system.
The Star Academy was divided into the inner academy and the outer academy, and at a specific time each year, the academy would select some students from the outer academy who had excellent grades and talent to enter the inner academy to study.
The inner academy was the core of the Star Academy, and every person who could come out of the inner academy, whether a card master or a card artisan, was a character who had left a heavy mark in history.
But not only were the conditions for entering the inner academy of the Star Academy extremely strict, but it was equally difficult to get out.
There had already been no one who could come out of the inner academy of the Star Academy for a full ten years, which was the main reason the Star Academy had declined over the years.
In the other five academies of the six great academies, not to mention the Federation Comprehensive Great Hall, which was like the sun in the sky, or the Bitter Solitude Temple, which had few students, every two or three years would certainly produce one or two stunning characters.
Only the Star Academy hadn't had a single person come out of the inner academy for a full ten years.
The Star Academy had relied on the students of the outer academy to prop it up those last few years, and they were barely able to sustain the awkward situation in front of them.
But it could be seen that even the students of the outer academy of the Star Academy were a little more powerful than the students of ordinary schools.
That was why Zuo Tingyi had said that, which made his good friend, who had always had his eyes on the top of his head, feel embarrassed.
The fantasy card billboard that he had made for Uncle Hua had finally been completed that day, which had already been seven days since Chen Mu had gone to Golden Street.
Chen Mu was still quite satisfied with the final product.
The body of the card, which had been specially tanned from the bark of the thousand cloud tree, was a translucent white, and was about half the size of a palm, with a dark blue composition forming a beautiful and complex design.
Chen Mu's penmanship was already quite accomplished, and the lines flowed freely.
There was a dark orchid as tall as a person, with emerald green leaves, a slim and slender stem, and a milky white flower that was slightly swaying.
Every ten seconds, the flower of the orchid would spray out some colorful fragments of light, which would transform like a mist, flowing with brilliant colors, and gradually transform into the glowing characters of "Uncle Hua's General Store."
Only at night would this Nether Vermilion Orchid bloom with all its brilliance.
During those five days, apart from the advertisement for the ghost orchid, Chen Mu had also made another fantasy card.
That fantasy card had been made in imitation of the brilliant fantasy card advertisement he had seen that day at the Double-Hoop card shop.
But because Chen Mu's level was so far below that of the creator of the fantasy card, he still couldn't replicate such a complicated fantasy card advertisement.
Chen Mu's fantasy card had only copied a portion of it.
In the projection of the fantasy card's release, Chen Mu's interest was piqued by the fiery dragon surrounding the grave and stern black-clothed man.
It was dazzling and blazing, representing power and strength.
It was a three-star fantasy card, the fiery dragon card, classified as a mid-grade battle card.
That fire dragon was completely imitated by energy. Under the control of the card artisan, it not only emitted shocking heat, but it also had explosive properties. It was flexible and powerful, and it was the favorite of many battle card artisans.
The fantasy card Chen Mu was imitating had something to do with the fiery dragon card, but it was only a one-star fantasy card.
In other words, it wasn't a real fiery dragon card, but rather a fiery dragon fantasy card.
That fantasy card could emit an extremely lifelike illusion of a fiery dragon, but that illusion was composed of nothing more than rays of light, and didn't have any destructive power.
But it had to be said that the illusion of the fiery dragon emitted by the fantasy card Chen Mu had made was too lifelike!
The lifelike fiery dragon, with layers upon layers of flames rolling over and over to form a body that seemed both real and illusory, would circle and dance in the sky once it was released, occasionally bringing up puffs of deep red sparks, as though it were choosing people to devour, with an extremely frightening sound.
That advertisement for the Double-Hoop card shop had left a deep impression on Chen Mu, since he had never thought before that illusions could be so complicated.
That fiery dragon fantasy card was the product of Chen Mu's impulse.
But it had also made him understand how far off his level was from the card master who had made that advertisement for the Double-Hoop card shop.
Chen Mu's mood improved a little as he brought along the advertising fantasy card for Uncle Hua.
There were very few things he wanted to accomplish in his ordinary life, and that was one of them.
He had finally finished it that day, and his mind was filled with anticipation as he recalled Uncle Hua's pleasantly surprised expression when he had seen the illusory advertisement emitted by that advertising fantasy card.
He practically jogged all the way to Uncle Hua's grocery store.
Chen Mu's heart thumped when he saw the tightly shut main door, and he suddenly had a bad feeling.
He quickly ran to the surrounding stores and found one of the shopkeepers, asking eagerly, "Hello, how come Uncle Hua next door isn't open today?"
"Who knows, he hasn't been here for quite a few days!" The shopkeeper raised his head to glance at Chen Mu, and answered lightly.
Chen Mu returned home in a daze.
From then on, he would go to Uncle Hua's grocery store almost every day, and he would return disappointed every time. Uncle Hua's store had never been opened since it had closed.
He had also tried to find out where Uncle Hua lived from the surrounding shopkeepers, but none of them knew.
Chen Mu knew that Uncle Hua might have finally reached the final step.
Actually, when Uncle Hua had been coughing nonstop, he had had a faint premonition.
That had put him in a kind of sentimental mood for quite a while.
After a few years of stable life, he had already become a little unfamiliar with death.
Uncle Hua's passing had been a big blow to Chen Mu, and he himself couldn't say what kind of blow it was.
But he desperately practiced, practicing the set of "exercise gymnastics" and making fantasy cards that he had learned from that mysterious fantasy card.
The practice that time was a completely different state from the practice he had done before.
Training day and night, he had completely lost track of time.
Every day he was exhausted to the point of wanting to die, but he still didn't stop, with a kind of masochistic, bitter training. He didn't want to let himself have any spare time.
He was afraid, afraid to think of Uncle Hua, afraid to think of some things from before.
He wanted to keep himself busy!
Apart from buying daily necessities, he didn't leave the house.
Every day he practiced the exercise gymnastics, and constantly practiced making fantasy cards, and he began to get in touch with the knowledge of token cards.
But just getting in touch, even though it was only the basics, the complexity of the token card still made him feel very strained.
As far as he was concerned, it was a completely new domain that he had never imagined.
Just as Chen Mu was training hard, something big happened in Eastern Shang-Wei City.