Twenty-One

Heart pounding in his chest, Arden stared down at the cards as the light cleared. His eyes locked onto the leftmost card, a gasp escaping him as he realized what it was. The picture was holographic, revealing its rarity as rare, but what drew his attention was the picture. Set against a holographic dark green border was a lime green swirl.

With trembling hands, he picked up the card, though not without glancing at the other cards freezing solid upon realizing what they were. The three cards may very well be more valuable than the card in his hand, despite their lower rarity. His offensive potential may have just skyrocketed if he was right about what they were.

Arden forced his attention away from the three cards set back to the rare card. His excitement reignited as he read the description.

Poison Manipulation (Rare) Level 1

Type: Manipulation

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Poison

Effect 1: Use mana to manipulate poison. User must separate the poison from its source. Strength and durability depend on the poison used. Must be in the user’s active hand.

A second manipulation card already? Though this one might have fewer uses. At least, it would’ve if he didn’t receive the other three cards. If he could combine his wood manipulation with poison, his offensive potential would shoot to the roof.

Without hesitation, he tapped the card on his right bracelet, adding the card to his deck. The moment he did, he felt a shift deep within himself, causing a frown.

Upon glancing inward, a spike of panic hit him as he found the dark green strands within his tether overtaking the strands of his other attunements. Was he really so unbalanced? He supposed two rare cards shifted things.

Fortunately, as long as he rebalanced his deck or focused on a single attunement before anchoring the tether, no lasting effects should happen. His progress would have slowed, but since he already reached the peak of the communion phase, it didn’t matter. It just meant he had to find cards to rebalance his deck before he took the last step.

His attention drifted toward the shack. If he found more of these inheritance challenges, he might just have a solution. Though going by how he did with the poison attuned challenge, it would be a struggle.

A shiver ran through him as Phantom pain shot through his body. Even if given the opportunity, he wasn’t sure he would reenter Halima’s Playground. How could something so colorful be so terrifying?

Though with Poison Manipulation and resistance, he would stand a much better chance. Or maybe not. It seemed like the place granted him an advanced form of poison manipulation and it disabled his Poison Resistance card.

It didn’t matter either way. He doubted he would get another chance. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what other rewards he could have earned if he did better.

Based on how the test went, he needed to experiment with as many types of poisons in the first stage, then use what he learned to combat the waves of the second stage.

Who knew what the third stage entailed, though? Maybe some poison monster he needed to neutralize or die.

Based on the other three cards, he could have earned dozens of new cards but he couldn’t be greedy and besides, he didn’t want to commit to a full poison attuned build though having so many poisons at his call would be a terrifying prospect.

His excitement reignited as he bent down and scooped up the three other cards. Just these three gave him a ton of options in combat instead of just shooting or stabbing things with wood. Now he could add poison.

Unable to resist any longer, he focused on the first of the three cards. His left hand gravitated toward his right forearm as memories of a red rash came to him as he looked at the picture. That was what the picture showed, a patch of skin with a red rash and a hand scratching at it.

Before he actually scratched his forearm, he tore his eyes away from the picture and down at the description.

Creeping Itch (Uncommon) Level 1

Type: Spell card

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Poison

Effect: Use mana to conjure The Creeping Itch poison. Potency and yield depend on the amount of mana used. Must be in the user’s active hand.

The itchy sensation ratcheted up as he shifted his attention to the next card, not unlike the previous card. This one also had a patch of skin, but instead of a red rash, oozing boils took its place.

He knew firsthand how painful those boils could be. So much so he almost didn’t want to use the card, but he needed all the offensive potential he could get. The forest wouldn’t spare him just because he showed mercy. His expression hardened as he read the description.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Crawling Boils (Uncommon) Level 1

Type: Spell card

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Poison

Effect: Use mana to conjure The Crawling Boils poison. Potency and yield depend on the amount of mana used. Must be in the user’s active hand.

Without even looking, he knew what the third card would be. Most likely the most potent card of them all. A bit of heartburn hit him just looking at it, but he ignored it, causing it to vanish instantly as it was only in his mind from the trauma of that accursed rainbow garden.

The picture was simple. It showed a wisp of what he assumed was mana entering a heart. On the outside of the heart, the wisp was a faded green, but inside it took a dark green coloring, showing its activation and stealthy application.

The trial showed how difficult it was to detect the poison. Unlike the other ones, he didn’t feel as bad using the card since it was almost humane, at least compared to a body covered with painful boils.

Lurking Heart Attack (Uncommon) Level 1

Type: Spell card

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Poison

Effect: Use mana to conjure The Lurking Heart Attack poison. Potency and yield depend on the amount of mana used. Must be in the user’s active hand.

He tapped each card on his right bracelet, adding them to his deck, causing his poison attunement to gain more ground on his other attunements.

With these, he was no longer dependent on other materials. The true allure of spell type cards was that they were completely magical. All one needed was mana to use the card.

Before he began experimenting, he opened his Ortus menu.

Name: Arden

Age: 25

Affinity: Nature

Current Attunements: Wood, Poison, Plant, Fungi

Attunement Balance: 26/100

Wood: 6

Poison: 14

Plant: 4

Fungi: 2

Deck:

Accelerated Growth (Common) Level 3.

Wood Manipulation (Rare) Level 3.

Convert Seed (Uncommon) Level 2.

Vine Extension (Uncommon) Level 2.

Dispense Spore (Uncommon) Level 2.

Poison Resistance (Rare) Level 3.

Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 3.

Poison Manipulation (Rare) Level 1.

Creeping Itch (Uncommon) Level 1.

Crawling Boils (Uncommon) Level 1.

Lurking Heart Attack (Uncommon) Level 1.

Active Hand: 2/10

Wood Manipulation (Rare) Level 1

Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 1

Passive Hand: 1/5

Poison Resistance (Rare) Level 1

He immediately put all four of his new cards into his active hand, as they all had offensive capabilities. Though he was slightly worried he might accidentally level them if he killed something. Still, it was stupid to leave himself vulnerable out of fear he would level a card when he didn’t want to.

Unable to resist any longer, he closed his Ortus menu and lifted his right hand while activating Creeping Itch, or at least he tried. The activation fizzled out before it even left his hand.

With a frown he tried again, this time allowing the mana to gather within his hand for several seconds before forcing it outward. The moment the mana left his body, a change occurred. It consolidated on his palm over a couple of seconds into a pea-sized drop of liquid.

Before he could examine the drop, a wave of weakness hit him and his bracelets dimmed, entering cooldown mode.

Fortunately, the weakness passed within moments, allowing him to focus on the drop which remained spherical despite appearing to be a liquid. The problem was there wasn’t much he could do with his bracelets on cooldown. He wanted to test his Poison Manipulation on the drop, but that was out for now.

Still, he didn’t want to waste the poison he conjured, so he reached into his robe and retrieved an arrow. If only he had a container to store the poison. Unfortunately, he didn’t, so he had to settle with coating the tip of one of his arrows.

Actually, he had a better idea. He needed to know how long the poison lasted.

Since it would be stupid to leave the relative safety of the platform with his bracelets on cooldown, he dropped into a cross-legged sit and watched the drop of poison.

Several minutes passed before his bracelets began glowing again and in that time, the poison drop remained exactly the same. Did the ambient mana maintain the poison? Or did his mana create a self-sustainable substance?

One of his questions had an easy answer. With his mana sense, he focused on the drop, looking for any mana feeding it from the environment. The drop didn’t appear to draw mana in, though, like everything within the forest, the ambient mana surrounded it.

He wouldn’t find a conclusive answer until he left the forest. The ambient nature mana was simply too potent to tell if it sustained the drop or the drop simply existed within the ambient mana.

At least he knew it wouldn’t dissipate on him, at least not right away.

Since his bracelets left cooldown mode, he moved on to his next experiment. Like how he used his Wood Manipulation, he fed mana into the drop, creating a connection.

Curiosity sparked as he stared at the drop. Could he manipulate it like the poison within that accursed garden? It was pointless to physically move a liquid. He could do that without his Poison Manipulation card, after all.

With his connection, he willed the drop to move, eyes widening when it followed his instructions. It was sluggish, but it moved a few centimeters.

Did that mean he could shape wood with his mind, too? Excitement brimming, he cut his connection with the drop and activated his Wood Manipulation card, then connected to the arrow laying to his right. He created the connection, but a frown formed as the arrow remained unchanged despite his attempts to will it to bend.

His eyes shifted between the drop and the arrow several times before realization dawned. A theory formed, prompting him to grab the arrow then try to bend it again with his mind.

A resistance fought against him as if muscling a solid object into a different shape. The resistance only motivated him to continue to push. His eyes narrowed, refusing to back down.

The arrow would bend whether it wanted to or not. The war lasted several long moments, with neither side getting in.

Suddenly he felt an almost audible pop, then the arrow warped. A bright smile formed when he saw his bracelets flash, but instead of checking the likely level up notification, he continued to focus down on the arrow.

With his mind, he willed it to straighten, only for it to bend in the opposite direction. He tried again with even more focus on the arrow.

His head jerked back as his connection snapped, bracelets dimming as his vision swam, a headache drumming in his mind.

Unlike when he created the poison drop, the headache persisted. While trying to keep himself from throwing up from the spinning vision, he delved inward to see what was wrong.

It only took him a moment to find the culprit. A strand of mana within his mind wriggled about probably the remains of the connection he had with the arrow. The problem was the strand refused to fall under his control as it was mana from his core which he didn’t have conscious control of yet.

Fortunately, after focusing on the strand, he found it was unraveling, so it wouldn’t be long until it dissipated.

All he could do was endure it. It was his punishment for reaching too far too fast.