Chapter Forty-Eight
Upon opening his Ortus menu, a couple more notifications greeted him. Notifications he didn’t know were possible.
Requirements reached for card rank up.
Would you like to rank up Accelerated Growth to Rejuvenating Growth (Uncommon)?
Requirements reached for card rank up.
Would you like to rank up Accelerated Growth to Resurrecting Growth (Rare)?
How? Was it that easy to rank up cards? Was the epic ranked rank up cards not as valuable as he thought? There had to be a reason the card ranked up. It wasn’t some random level up.
Arden’s eyes gravitated toward the tree he grew, causing a lightbulb to go off. Resurrecting Growth made sense. He resurrected a tree, after all. The other rank up was probably for the growth afterward. Obviously, he would choose the rare card.
Hopefully, it wasn’t some branching path where he could only resurrect plants, but somehow, he doubted it. Even if it was, he should be able to find another card similar to Accelerated Growth. It was a common ranked card.
Still, it would hurt to make his starter card useless. As it was, it was handy. Did he need to rank it up? What would it gain him? Having a leveled common card as useful as Accelerated Growth may be better for deck space.
Was it worth passing up on a rare-ranked card, though? Probably not.
After a few more seconds of hesitation, he selected the Resurrecting Growth rank up option. As with every other rank up or merge, the card ripped from his deck and floated in front of him. The picture itself didn’t change other than gaining a holographic background but the description did and unlike his last rank ups, it wasn’t just a few words.
Resurrecting Growth (Rare) Level 1
Type: Ability
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Plant
Effect: Use mana to push a plant to grow. Extra mana required for plants on the verge of death. As long as they cling to life, the user may nurture them to grow. Must be in the user’s active hand to function.
His shoulders slumped in relief as it seemed to keep the functions of the first card. Well, level one functions. It was a shame most of his leveled cards ranked up or merged. His deck was practically a clean slate level wise at this point. His highest-level cards were level two and all of those were from accidental kill level ups.
The resurrection aspect of the card may come in handy in the desert. There were plenty of dead or near dead plants. Overall, not a bad upgrade, though he still had questions if it was a good idea to stack his deck with nothing but rare and epic ranked cards.
More potency but fewer cards. At least for now he still had plenty of room, but it might become a problem soon. Especially when he started adding non-affinity cards.
At the thought of non-affinity cards, his hand reached into his pocket for the dash card from the dungeon. With all the rank ups and merges, the card felt so underwhelming, but despite what his parents said about non affinity cards being a crutch, there was no denying their usefulness.
In one of the few books his parents gave him about deck building, it said a good practice was using at least a quarter of the deck limit on non-affinity cards. He wasn’t sure if it would be possible for him, but he would try to fit any useful non-affinity card into his deck, like Dash.
Arden did just that. He added both the Resurrecting Growth and Dash into his deck and put them both into his active hand.
Deck space wasn’t going to be the only problem. It would be hard to fit every card he wanted to use in a fight in his active and passive hand. That was a common problem, though. He would just have to tailor his hands for the expected situation and wing it from there.
As much as he hated risks, there were some unavoidable ones, unless he wanted to hide away somewhere safe for the rest of his life.
For that reason, he wasn’t sure how long Dash would remain in his hand or even deck, as he could imitate the effect with mana reinforcement. The card was likely more efficient and less risky, but if he needed an active hand slot, it was the easiest to switch out.
As much as he wanted to test his cards, the exhaustion from lack of mana and just overall stress caught up to him, causing him to flop onto his back. He glanced toward Solanine, who remained cross-legged in meditation before he closed his eyes.
Moments later, he entered dreamland, lulled by the mana radiating off the tree above him.
He woke an unknown time later. A glance toward the sky, hoping to check the positioning of the suns, proved pointless as the even thicker canopy blocked a clear view of the sky.
Some light snuck through, providing enough light to see but not enough to scorch the ground. It was easy to forget they were inside a massive desert like stone forest with how green and cool the clearing was.
Even with his desert elf heritage, if he was even a desert elf anymore, protected him from most of the hazards of a desert environment, he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy the cool humid air and pleasant smells. It still felt unnatural without the sound of animals and the rustle of wind, but it was a start.
Arden climbed to his feet and stretched, a content smile forming as his body felt amazing. Did he sleep longer than he thought?
His attention shifted toward Solanine, but she was in the same place. What was she doing? Probably organizing her deck like he was. Unlike him, she couldn’t update her deck along the way. She had months’ worth of cards to work through.
He surveyed the rest of the shaded clearing but not much changed since before his nap. At least until he scanned with his mana sense. He jerked in surprise upon feeling the density of mana. It wasn’t to the point of the fairy clearing, but it wasn’t far off and growing steadily.
The clearing was a perfect cultivation environment for a nature mage. A frown formed. Even more reason to grow stronger. If someone found out, they would take it. They were far too weak to defend such a valuable location. The only thing protecting them was they were hidden, but that wouldn’t last long.
Should he scout out their territory? It might be a good idea, but he should test out some of his new cards first. It would be stupid to enter new potentially hostile areas without a good handle of his cards. Unlike the dungeon, he wasn’t on a timer. He could spare some time to prepare.
At the thought of the dungeon, he sent his senses downward, not expecting much, only to feel two sources of mana below them. Both of which grew at the same rate as the mana filling the clearing. Two? One must be the dungeon.
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Good to know it didn’t die. It might even be close to reopening. After he scouted, he could use it to train. They had a private dungeon they may as well make use of it.
That was if it reopened. Maybe the sources he felt wasn’t a dungeon.
Also, what was the other source? It was too far down to get a good feel for it, but it was massive. Easily as big as the dungeon, if not bigger.
Something to investigate later. It wasn’t hostile as it seemed to be connected to the Territory Core, but he couldn’t say for sure, as it was too far away to get a feel for its melody.
Done with his investigation for now, he turned his attention inward to check his mana store. Another surprise hit him when he found his mana core full.
More than full, it was growing in capacity and density, not unlike the ambient mana. Definitely a perfect environment to cultivate. He didn’t even have to force the mana into his body. It just flowed in naturally.
Soon, his mana system would be ready to make the push for grade two. He wouldn’t rush it, as that would risk his foundation, but he needed all the strength he could get.
Grade two within a month of induction was rare, but not unheard of. Those with strong and stable foundations tended to shoot up into grade two quick which he supposed he had.
At least he hoped he did. His core looked stable, and his soul tether remained the same as he last saw it.
When he returned his attention to the outside world, he looked down at his bracelets, finding them flashing again. Or maybe they were always flashing, and he missed it. He couldn’t think of anything else he did that could have triggered a notification, but something must have.
Requirements reached for card rank up.
Would you like to rank up Vine Extension (Uncommon) to Plant Extension (Uncommon)?
Arden stared at the notification for a moment, confused. It would make more sense to level it, but he supposed he forced the card to do something different but close enough to function.
That brought the question what else could he force to evolve to fit his deck better? There had to be rules limiting easy rank ups, though in this case it wasn’t really a rank up, more an expansion. Otherwise, what was the point in hunting down certain cards when one could force another similar card to fit the purpose? More and more questions.
The more he learned, the more he found he knew nothing. That might be for the better, though. His theory of his ignorance being a strength may be true, but he couldn’t prove it and if it was true, he wasn’t sure he wanted to prove it.
Unlike the other rank up, there wasn’t a reason to decline. If anything, it was much better because he got an unwanted level earlier on the card.
When the card finished ranking up, the picture looked almost unrecognizable. Instead of a vine stretching, it had several types of plants stretching showing its versatility. It almost seemed like a rare-ranked card, but he was happy it wasn’t. It saved on deck space as an uncommon.
Plant Extension (Uncommon) Level 1
Type: Ability
Affinity: Nature
Attunement: Plant
Effect: Use mana to extend a plant. The amount of mana determines the amount of temporary growth. Must be in the user’s active hand to function.
About what he expected. Similar to Vine Extension but more versatile. With what he planned to use it for, it was a perfect card for his deck.
Without hesitation, he added it back into his deck and into his active hand. He glanced down at his bracelets again, almost expecting them to flash, but they were glowing a steady emerald green.
He almost sighed in relief that he didn’t have to make any more decisions. Now it was time to test his gains. Well, almost time.
Before he played with his cards, he opened his Ortus menu and checked his full status.
Name: Arden
Age: 25
Affinity: Nature
Current Attunements: Wood, Poison, Plant, Fungi, Biological
Attunement Balance: 64/100
Wood: 24
Poison: 30
Plant: 23
Fungi: 24
Biological: 38
Deck:
Resurrecting Growth (Rare) Level 1.
Convert Seed (Uncommon) Level 2.
Plant Extension (Uncommon) Level 2.
Variable Wood Spike (Rare) Level 1.
Creeping Itch (Uncommon) Level 1.
Crawling Boils (Uncommon) Level 1.
Lurking Heart Attack (Uncommon) Level 1.
Heal Wound (Rare) Level 1.
Rotting Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Passive Heal (Rare) Level 1.
Nature Manipulation (Epic) Level 1.
Nature Resistance (Epic) Level 1.
Conjure roots (Rare) Level 1.
Nature Boost (Epic) Level 1.
Dash (Common) Level 1.
Active Hand: 8/10
Nature Manipulation (Epic) Level 1.
Variable Wood Spike (Rare) Level 1.
Heal Wound (Rare) Level 1.
Rotting Wound (Uncommon) Level 1.
Conjure Roots (Rare) Level 1.
Resurrecting Growth (Rare) Level 1.
Plant Extension (Uncommon) Level 1.
Dash (Common) Level 1.
Passive Hand: 3/5
Nature Resistance (Epic) Level 1.
Passive Heal (Rare) Level 1.
Nature Boost (Rare) Level 1.
Attribute Boosts
Body: 0%
Soul: 20%
Mind: 0%
Mana: 50%
Attunement Boosts
Wood: 10%
Poison: 10%
Plant: 10%
Fungi: 10%
Biological: 10%
He wasn’t sure if he liked how unbalanced his attunements were, but there wasn’t much he could do about it without removing cards from his deck. It didn’t seem to affect his core stability so it must be ok but, in the future, he would need to balance it better.
As much as he liked biological attuned cards, it might be a good idea to avoid adding too many more. It was pulling away from the rest of his attunements.
One downside he found with the nature attuned cards was he couldn’t specialize. They gave attunement to all five regular nature attunements, so in order to have a balanced deck, he needed to add fungi and poison attuned cards as well. That would make balancing his deck much harder, but there wasn’t much he could do about it without removing three epic ranked cards.
A jack of all trade’s nature affinity build, it was. Less room for non-affinity cards, but fortunately, most of those were of common rank. He still had a third of his deck capacity left to use, at least.
The nature attuned cards may create problems with balancing, but they also saved space in his overall deck capacity. One epic ranked card costed much less than three to five rare cards.
As much as he would love to stare at his collection of rare and epic cards worth a fortune, he closed his Ortus menu. He needed to test some of his cards. Some he had a pretty good idea how they worked, so it would be a waste of mana, but cards like Dash he needed to test.
He did just that. A stream of mana traveled toward his bracelets, intending to activate Dash. The card activated with no problems, barely costing any mana, but even after activation, nothing happened. At least until he took a step forward.
As if tripling in strength, his calf clenched and propelled him forward. His other foot shot out before he crashed, only to propel him faster.
However, by the third step, the effect ended. The forward momentum didn’t though. Already off balanced, he flailed his arms as he stumble sprinted toward the stone treeline.
Just before he hit a stone tree, he shifted to his bird form killing momentum.
Upon shifting back, he turned back toward the central tree and tried a different approach. Like his parents taught him, he sent mana through his legs, causing them to bulge slightly.
Now prepared, the surge of strength didn’t throw him off as he took off into a sprint.
In much better control, he cut the mana and slowed to a stop before crashing into something and peeked inside to compare. It cost at least five times the mana to boost his speed manually, and it wasn’t as potent, but he had control.
The Dash card simply activated and didn’t shut off until the time or distance expired. He wasn’t sure he liked losing control like that, but it was really mana efficient.
It made sense his parents called non-affinity cards like Dash a crutch. Most didn’t bother to learn how to boost their own bodies when they could just use cards to do the same with little effort. It was the easy way out, but he saw its uses.
Arden turned his back to the central tree and activated Dash once more. This time he knew what to expect, but even then, the burst of speed took him by surprise.
By the third step, he regained his balance though and rode through the rest of the speed boost. Before he hit a stone tree, he slowed himself with a pulse of mana into his legs.
Maybe a combination of non-affinity cards and mana control was a better route. Use the non-affinity cards to give the initial effect, then use mana control to do the rest. It might give the best of both worlds. He kept control but saved on mana.
The sound of movement reached his ears, causing him to turn toward Solanine, who finally stopped her meditation.
Something to test later.