Card Apprentice Daily Log

Date- 27 Mar 2321

Time- 10:54

Location- Sky Blossom City, Sky Blossom Card Stadium, TSR Guild VIP balcony

The moment I and the girls were surrounded by the crossdressing card grand master's I sent a distress signal to Van and Fred via the Hive AI of the Calamity Soul Core. As some kind of disturbance was stopping me from using the grimoire call, chat and email functions by cutting off my grimoire's access to the grimoire network. 

[Van, Fred hurry to the stadium medic ward some fishy is going on here. Hide in the shadows until I call for your help. ] 

[Yes, master we will be there.] It took 30 seconds for both Van and Fred to reach the stadium medic ward in stealth at their full speed without alerting the empire's card apprentice and those hiding in the shadow. Their presence gave me the confidence that I could easily escape these empire's card grandmasters and card lords unharmed as long as I wanted to. 

…

After contacting Van and Fred I contacted Ed Bright and Sarah who were in the VIP Box no.1 with Elliott. After informing them of the situation I asked them to get Elliott up to speed and ask him to call Anna and seek her assistance. 

According to the rumours Anna the southern emperor was out to get me, so why was I trying to get help? Would she help me, who fooled her? Was I that naive to believe that Anna liked me and would help me? The answer here was not whether I was naive or Anna was a saint but a Soul Contract between me and Anna, which forced her to protect me. 

Right now I was up against people from the Empire who did not fear or respect the southern emperor of her demigod family. So the Empire would not hesitate to kill unlike the Clans, Families and Bureaucrats of the sky blossom city who had to abide by the soul contract between me and the southern emperor if they wanted to survive in the southern region that is. 

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I trusted in calamity daughter core Van and Named calamity daughter core Fred's ability but the protection of a Card Emperor was way more assuring than the protection of two Calamity Card Lords.

Having heard the entire situation from Sarah and Bright brothers, Elliot hurriedly tried to contact Anna but, 

[Contact out of coverage area, please try again later.]

.

.

[Contact out of coverage area, please try again later.]

For some unknown reason, Elliott was unable to reach Anna. Panicked, Elliott decided to get some outside help but the Bright brothers and Sarah stopped him from doing so following my instruction. I stopped Elliott from getting outside help because I thought somebody from inside was helping the Empire's card apprentice for them to be able to so easily blend in and disguise as the stadium medic. 

This was an elaborated and preplanned incident which the empire would not be able to pull off without help from somebody inside. This somebody should have considerable power and influence within Sky Blossom city to dare to collude with the Empire and do something like this, so my obvious suspects were the City Hall and the Circle. As both the Bright family and Whiteburn Family could not be the suspects because of obvious reasons. 

Narrowing down the suspects to City Hall and the Circle I contacted my spy within the City Hall, one of the private guards of the City Lord, Ted Martinez. Yep, the same Ted Martinez who tried to assassinate Ben Francis with help of Viper yesterday night at the cemetery. Instead of killing Ted, I added him to my collection. There was nothing impressive about him except his position in City hall as the trusted aid of City Lord. 

[Ted, Did the City Hall help the mad dogs of the empire to infiltrate the Card Stadium as Medic personals?] I informed Ted about the Empire and their Card apprentice trying to kidnap Pax, to confirm whether the City Hall was the one that helped the Empire card apprentices. 

[No, Master. To the best of my knowledge, the city hall would not dare to plan against the Whiteburn family but I will ask around.] Ted hurriedly answered but it turns out the City Hall was not behind this incident. Leaving the Circle as the only suspects. It had to be them because in the entire Sky Blossom City only they would dare to go against the Whiteburn family and collude with the religious fanatics like the Empire. 

[No need. I think the Circle should be behind the incident. You stay put, I can handle this.] I stopped Ted from investigating further into this matter as that was unnecessary right now and it may draw suspicion to his cover. 

[Yes, Master] Ted responded mentally as he stood behind the City Lord in the Vip Box No.3.

… 

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Concluding that the Circle was involved I knew that Van and Fred will not be enough, I had to involve outside help as Anna was out of reach. And the best candidate for help would be the Bright family since the Whiteburn family is right now under Martial order and fighting the enemies invading their Manor. I believe the enemies invading the Whiteburn Manor should also be Empire card apprentices, and that did that as a distraction to draw Jack and other Whiteburn family elders away from the Card Stadium when they kidnapped Pax. 

Deciding to call for outside help I asked the Bright brothers to contact their patriarch, William. As of right now, I could only trust the Whiteburn family and the Bright family that they were not involved with the empire and the circle. Since the White burn family was unavailable for known reasons the Bright family was the next best option to call for help as this matter involved their princess Corey and also the chances of them being the one helping the Empire's forces were low. 

The Bright brothers contacted William as I asked them to, thankfully William was a sly old fox who knew how to work in the shadows. Hearing that his precious granddaughter was in trouble he did not go berserk or mobilise the entire Whiteburn family forces, instead, he gathered a few trusted Bright family elders and stood in the shadows along with Van and Fred awaiting my signal. 

All the preparations were done, though it was unfortunate that I could not get hold of Anna still with the current preparation I was confident that I could rescue the girls and the fatty Chou. As for Pax, his whereabouts were still unknown despite how many times I scanned the entire medic ward and nearby rooms with my soul pupils. But it became clear that even the empire's card apprentice did not have him so I saw no point in delaying the inevitable. 

"I choose you, Stone Viltronian."