Chapter Forty-Seven
To help decide, he pulled up both wood attuned cards.
Conjure Roots (Rare) Level 1
Type: Spell card
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Wood
Effect: Use mana to conjure roots. Potency and yield depend on the amount of mana used. Must be in the user’s active hand.
Wood Spike (Uncommon) Level 3
Type: Ability Card
Affinity Tree: Nature
Attunement: Wood
Effect 1: Use mana to manifest a wood spike out of anything made of wood.
Effect 2: Send a burst of mana to instantly manifest a wood spike. Length dependent on the amount of mana used. The current limit is 1 meter.
Effect 3: Link ambient mana to wood spike to maintain it after cutting one’s mana. Warning! If ambient nature mana is insufficient, the wood spike may dispel faster than intended.
Did he want another epic ranked card? He couldn’t say no. Conjure Roots was strong as it was. Much more efficient than the poison spell cards, but that might be because of his higher grade. Conjure Roots, combined with his Nature Manipulation and Nature Boost, was a terrifying combo, especially when he leveled the cards.
Wood Spike wasn’t a slouch, though. What would a rare ranked Wood Spike card do? Maybe multiple wood spikes at once? That might be possible with the current card if he leveled it.
He had a feeling he barely touched either card’s full potential.
Was it better to have two rare cards or one epic and uncommon?
He turned to the other upgrade card, pulling up the candidates.
Stitch Wound (Uncommon) Level 1
Type: Ability card
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Biological
Effect: Use mana to stitch a wound closed. If the wound is actively bleeding, the user must push the blood back with mana. Must be in the user’s active hand.
Rotting Wound (Uncommon) Level 1
Type: Ability card
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Biological
Effect: Use mana to inflict rot on a wound. User must cause a wound for the rot to come into effect. Must be in the user’s active hand.
Passive Heal (Rare) Level 1
Type: Passive card
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Biological
Effect: Passively draw mana to improve healing time. Must be in the user’s passive hand to activate.
As tempting as it was to upgrade Passive Heal, he wasn’t sure it would be worth it. He needed a more active healing card or offensive card, which the other two fit.
Between his Passive Heal card and mana system, he had passive healing down, but it had its limits. That was where an active heal would come in.
Did he really lack offensive cards? The two wood card candidates were offensive, and several poison cards helped, and that wasn’t even counting his Nature Manipulation.
Plus, there was his staff and bow. Sure, he wasn’t a fire mage slinging around fireballs, but he wasn’t harmless. He had plenty of options to deal damage, some of with were quite devastating.
Active healing was probably his biggest need. He was lucky to avoid a major injury in the forest dungeon, but that luck would run out. It would give him peace of mind when taking risks if he had a way to heal himself.
Stitch Wound wasn’t bad, but he wanted something better. As it was, it could close a wound, then his Passive Heal card would take care of the rest, but he would like a card that did more than close a wound.
What if he tore a muscle? If it happened in battle, he would be vulnerable and he couldn’t have that.
With that thought, he tapped the Biological Rank Up card on his right bracelet, adding it into his deck. When the expected notification popped up asking him to select a card, he chose Stitch Wound. He hoped he made the right choice.
Like with card merges, Stitch Wound ripped from his deck and floated in front of him. Then, before his eyes, it turned holographic as the description changed.
His heart leaped as he read it, a sigh of relief escaping.
Heal Wound (Rare) Level 1
Type: Ability card
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Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Biological
Effect: Use mana to heal a wound closed. If the wound is actively bleeding, the user must push the blood back with mana. Must be in the user’s active hand.
Not a huge change. Only a few words changed in the description, but he hoped it helped. It didn’t just close a wound, it should also heal it. Coupled with his Passive Heal card, it might be an amazing combo. He wasn’t sure if it healed internal injuries such as muscle tears, though. That might require another card.
There was always another card to add to a deck. Even if someone thought they had all bases covered, there was always a way to improve it. There were simply too many card variations out there.
He had to say he had a solid base to build on, though. Well, solid was underselling it. He doubted many his age had so many rare and epic ranked cards outside a highborn heir.
Was he so different from them? He was a land-owning noble, after all. Crazy how things changed in a week’s time. Hopefully, the snobby attitude didn’t sneak in as well.
His focus returned to the Wood Rank Up card and his two options. What would be his biggest weakness between the two cards outside a forest? A lack of wood would probably be it. Conjure Roots helped to alleviate it.
An idea sparked, prompting him to look at the root in front of him.
As much as he didn’t want to conserve the mana within his staff, his own mana hadn’t recovered yet, so he had to siphon off more.
Instead of using his Nature Manipulation to move the root, he activated his Wood Spike card. A spike sprouted from the root, then he moved it with Nature Manipulation, treating the root like a flair.
As he played with the root, a vicious smile bloomed. What if he covered a conjured root with spikes and swung it around? That would be devastating. The best part was he could use it anywhere. As long as he had mana, he could conjure roots and add spikes.
Unfortunately, when he tried to add more spikes, a problem presented itself. While it was possible to add more spikes, it was far too slow and taxing. Without feeding ambient mana into the spikes, which took both time and nature ambient mana, the strain proved too much after three spikes. Still deadly, but too slow and inefficient for his tastes.
He couldn’t pull off the combo on the fly. It would need prep work, which meant he would lose the element of surprise. He couldn’t descend from the sky and summon a spiked root flail.
The other problem was the root wasn’t mobile. Wherever it sprouted was where it would stay. So not only did it require prep work and nature ambient mana to work, but he also couldn’t create it ahead of time, then move it.
Would upgrading Wood Spike or Conjure Roots solve the problem? What were the limits on Conjure Roots? The biggest one was its immobility. That one wasn’t hard to solve by summoning another root, which, while costly, wasn’t difficult.
Cost would lesson as he grew stronger and leveled the card, so he didn’t see that as too big of an issue. Something told him a mobile root wouldn’t happen, anyway.
It didn’t make sense to have a root capable of moving beyond its range. Though it also didn’t make sense to conjure a root in the middle of a desert without trees nearby.
Another random idea came to him, prompting him to add Vine Extension to his active hand and target the root.
He doubted it would work, but it was worth a shot. Vines and roots were different after all, even though they had a lot of physical similarities. He found it odd how vine related cards weren’t wood attuned, but it was probably because they weren’t a tree or part of a tree.
The line between attunements under the same affinity was blurry. Like trees were plants, but it had its own attunement.
Inspiration hit him at that thought just as the root in front of him lengthened. A broad smile formed as he stared at the now two-meter-long root spearing skyward.
His combo just became that much more potent. He almost smacked himself for not realizing the synergy sooner. He used his Accelerated Growth to help grow the central tree, which was a plant attuned card.
Also, Poison Resistance helped combat fungi-based effects. They all had a link.
Well, other than biological. He wasn’t sure how he would synergize that attunement. Maybe with plants that had healing effects? Stories of medical breakthroughs from biological attuned mages usually had links to some plant. Herbology had strong roots with biological attuned mages.
Another wave of dizziness hit him as his bracelets went dim for the first time since hitting grade one. A glance inward told him the mana he siphoned off the staff ran dry as well.
Fortunately, the staff still had mana, but since his bracelets entered cooldown, there was no point in siphoning off more.
Better to let his mana recover on its own. Each time it recovered on its own, it would grow a little stronger, like a muscle. If he wanted to pull off his new combo regularly, he needed more mana, so that meant a stronger mana system.
One thing was for sure, Vine Extension found itself into his active hand. What if he added poison or rotting wound to the spikes?
A shiver of anticipation and terror ran through him. Whoever said nature affinity lacked offensive potential was just wrong. Sure, he couldn’t deal big damage with one card, but combos were devastating.
What would comboing fire cards do? More fireballs, that was all. He could stack blunt, piercing, grappling, and poison damage in one attack.
Now the question was what to do with his Wood Rank Up card? Was there really any other option other than Wood Spike? The biggest limit he saw was the number of wood spikes on his root flail.
Would upgrading the card fix the issue? As he saw it, more mana would also help. With more mana, he could maintain more spikes, but that would bring other issues.
More mana fixed most limitations, but the issue he saw with leaning heavily into his staff mana battery was his other cards in the combo also drew mana. He wanted to make his combo more efficient, not less.
The only card that had a chance to improve efficiency for Wood Spike. Well, and Conjure Roots, but as it was, he found it solid. He could even save mana on the conjuration by creating a smaller root and having Vine Extension make up the difference.
Decision finally made, he tapped the Wood Rank Up card on his right bracelet, only for nothing to happen. Annoyance sparked, but there was nothing he could do until his bracelets came off cooldown.
A good lesson to avoid forcing bracelet cooldown. Improving the efficiency of his combos would help with that.
Fortunately, he wasn’t helpless without his bracelets, especially if the staff had more abilities. He could even transform while his bracelets were on cooldown. At least he thought he could. A good time to test it.
Arden grabbed at the wisps of mana still inside his core and funneled it down his soul tether, intending to transform. Worry spiked, as it wasn’t an instant process. Did he use enough mana?
Far slower than normal, he shrunk down to his bird form. Fortunately, it wasn’t painful, but the feeling of shrinking and growing feathers was an odd sensation.
To help, he siphoned off a bit of mana from the staff, causing him to complete the transformation in an instant.
Another worry alleviated not only could he transform with his bracelets on cooldown but with the help of the staff, he could transform with minimal mana.
Unfortunately, as usual, another problem presented itself. While he completed the transformation, he felt much weaker than normal.
He flapped his wings but couldn’t put enough strength into them to take off. It was like he gained a ton of weight and lost muscle strength. A combination that left him grounded and vulnerable.
He siphoned off some more mana from the staff within him, returning some strength, but it was only temporary.
Feeling vulnerable, he used the mana to shift back to his Fae form, then fell back into the soft grass, exhausted. Bracelet cooldown wasn’t the biggest issue, running out of mana was.
Said bracelets came off cooldown soon after, prompting him to sit up with a groan and grab the Wood Rank Up card laying on a chunk of moss.
After adding it to his deck, he selected Wood Spike to rank up wincing when he realized he was yet again losing levels on a card, but he already made his decision.
Same as the last rank up, the card ripped from his deck and evolved. Instead of a single spike, multiple spikes appeared in a holographic picture, giving him hope he made the right choice.
Upon reading the name, he smiled.
Variable Wood Spike (Rare) Level 1
Type: Ability Card
Affinity Tree: Nature
Attunement: Wood
Effect 1: Use mana to manifest one or multiple wood spikes out of anything made of wood.
Hopefully that solved his issues, but it would be a while before he could test it. He needed to let his mana replenish.
As he laid back, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of his bracelets continued flashing.