Dear player,

Your deck box has been upgraded with an uncommon passive field effect slot.

Any uncommon field effect placed within this slot will be automatically played at no additional cost in the round matching the crystal cost of the card..

I quickly unclipped my deck box and flipped it open. Above my other vertical compartments, It now had a horizontal slot that read Field effect. I pulled a common skeleton and the spider egg card from my deck box. For science, I tried to slot in the skeleton card but a mild resistance wouldn't let me slot the card, I repeated the same process with the spider egg card and it effortlessly went inside. With the card inside a small button was raised up and when I pressed it the field effect card was released from the slot ready for me to take it out.

With no other cards to put in there for now I slotted the spider egg card back inside. I was just about to pull my stored cards out to fill the empty slot in my deck when I noticed a floating card in the air. In my excitement, I had completely overlooked the card reward. I plucked the card from the air and was confused after reading the card.

Altar 1

Field effect

It was a field effect card without any effects. It was of an uncommon rarity so I popped open the upgrade menu for the card. There was only one line of upgrades but the card had four possible upgrades that could be applied to it. From left to right they were:

Cursed Altar: At the start of the round, a random non-undead enemy creature receives a -1 to attack.

Holy Altar: At the start of the round, a random undead enemy creature receives a -1 to attack.

Altar of Light: At the start of the round, a random non-undead friendly creature receives a +1 to attack.

Unholy Altar: At the start of the round, a random undead friendly creature receives a +1 to attack.

This proved to be an interesting dilemma for me to solve. Since I still had a mixed deck either buff option was a fifty-fifty. The same applied to the debuff effects since it would work as long as I didn't face an opponent with only non-undead or undead creatures. I wrecked my brain on the issue for a few minutes but ultimately decided to hold off on the upgrade. Picking any option was a coinflip at this point and it was a risk I didn't want to take yet. The fact I had another field effect card on hand eased the pain a bit. I slotted in the spider egg as my passive field effect and flipped through my card reserves for a replacement. There were only two viable options for me to pick. Either pick the (1/1) skeleton or the (3/2) enforcer. While half my deck currently consisted of one-cost cards, not having multiple of them proved to be an issue again. Deciding to go with the more secure option I put another skeleton into my deck. Having used this moment to also take a break I once again shouldered my backpack and continued my journey through the swamp.

The rest of the journey through the swamp was luckily uneventful. I did have to fight a rather large snake but since it was out in the open when I stumbled across it the fight was trivial. I was glad when I finally found solid earth instead of mud under my feet. I'd used the compass during my travel to steer me toward the mountain I was planning to explore for the last part of the tournament. Based on the peak visible through the canopy I estimated it would take me another two hours to reach it. Roughly thirty minutes later my journey was interrupted by a small notification window.

Dear customer,

You've found a store access point in your area.

For all your survival needs please visit Mr. Richard's Survival Emporium!

I read the message smiling and confused. I was happy about finding the store as well as the notification that it was apparently area-based and I didn't have to stumble upon the actual access point to know where it was. It was also a bit confusing since I still had no clue which direction the store would be in. I grabbed a stick from the ground and sat down for a moment. The store was somewhere in the area. The notification popping up also meant that I had hit the outer circle of the area. Well, I'd assume it to be a circle since that was the most logical option.

I drew a circle in the dirt to represent the area. I had only walked straight ahead so I had hit the border on the south side of the circle. This still left a large area to explore and It could be in any number of directions. To test my first theory, I walked back to see if the still-open notification window would vanish If I left the area. Suddenly the notification winked out and confirmed my theory. It took a few minutes to find the actual border point which I marked with a stick in the ground. Having one point of reference, I tested around for the second reference point. I stepped back into the area, walked forward for twenty paces, and started walking to my left till the notification vanished again. It vanished after elven paces. Since the notification vanished, I had to be on the left side of the area and very close to the middle section since the notification vanished very quickly.

I went back to my stick and kept on walking till I left the area again. Using the medium of the number of paces that I had walked across the entire length of the circle I had a very good estimate of where the center would be. Another fifteen minutes I find the most peculiar sight. Wedget in between two large tree trunks was an actual storefront. The most eye-catching feature was the prominent sign above the store.

Mr. Richard's Δ

Survival Emporium!

The Δ were two little neon tents that alternated an on and off state like tilting your head left and right. A brown awning with a golden trim hung above two wooden doors. The right and left of the door each had a glass-paned display of various camping items. The rest of the storefront was done in the same colour and wood type as the two trees it was wedged in between. I felt a little anxious and excited about the store. I scanned the area but with nothing looking out of the ordinary, I made my way over to the doors and pulled them open.

A little bell rang as I opened the door and entered the store. A wave of nostalgia hit me at the sight of the inside. We'd gone camping with the family in my youth and the store had the same feeling as all the camping supply stores we had visited back then. Revelling in that nostalgic feeling I hadn't noticed that a store employee had walked up to me and was startled when she spoke out to me.

"Apologies dear customer. It wasn't my intention to startle you," she said as she slightly bowed down her head to me.

To my surprise, she wasn't human. I mentally face-palmed myself at the thought. Of course, the employee of a shop in a magical fantasy world wouldn't be human. Overcoming my surprise I had a good look at the employee. Her outfit consisted of a pair of sturdy outdoor boots, black pants, and a brown shirt similar to the awning with the store's logo on her left chest. The girl was some sort of a lizard person with light blue scales. She had a pixy cut of white hair and jade green eyes.

"It's fine," I assured her. "I was just a little overwhelmed by the inside of the store."

She gave me a bright smile which was a little mensing with a muzzle full of teeth. "Ah yes, we have the widest selection of Survival essentials out there. You won't find better quality or priced items in any other store," she proclaimed with a look of pride visible on her face. It was always a good sign of the store's quality if the employee were happy, proud of their work, and motivated.

A few of her facial scales took on a very subtle pink shade as her eyes got a little bigger. "Apologies customer, my name is Cuicatl and how may I be of service today."

I chuckled slightly at her antics and extended my hand. "Nice to meet you Cuicatl, my name's Michael, and as you can see I'm in need of quite a few items actually."

She looked a bit confused at my extended hand like she wasn't accustomed to shaking hands. She got the same shade of pink again as she carefully closed her hand around mine. Upon closer inspection, it was more of a talon than a hand with a thumb and two large fingers which ended in claws. Curiosity got the better of me at that point. "You're not used to shaking hands?"

"It's not a custom among our people so I sometimes forget the other races do it when they meet new people for the first time," she explained as she let go of my hand. I was about to ask her more about her race but before I could get the words out a ringing sound came from somewhere within the store.

"If you'll excuse me for a moment," she said before she was off to whatever that ringing sound was. Since I heard her starting a conversation it must have been a telephone. The idea of this world also having telephones made me wonder how similar this world was to my own. A nearby shelf caught my eye and I walked over to it. On top of the shelf were various types of light sources. It had a wide variety of time like, torches, flashlights, and those old-school hand-held lamps. All the items were surprisingly light and as I placed the lamp back on the shelf Cuicatl returned.

"Dear customer, I've been informed that Mr. Richard will personally be available to see you to your needs. We should be here within the next ten minutes and would like me to accommodate you in our waiting area."

I was a bit taken aback by the sudden VIP treatment but being a guest of the store I complied with the request and followed after her. True to the fashion of a camping store I was seated at a very luxurious-looking picnic table. Cuicatl excused herself for a moment. A few minutes later she returned with a tray holding three cups and a box of cookies. She placed one cup in front of me and the other two cups she placed on the other side of the table. The box of cookies went in the middle and she took a seat at the table which wasn't opposite my own. The cup was filled with an aromatic tea that reminded me of forest fruits and a sip confirmed it. I could feel the hot water warm up my body from the inside and a sight of warmth left my mouth as I closed my eyes and savoured the tea.

A crunch made me open my eyes and a slightly startled face looked at me from across the table as Cuicatl was eating one of the cookies. Laughing, I reached over and grabbed one of the crunchy cookies for myself and chomped down. It was a sweet-tasting biscuit and went really well with the tea.

Not even a minute later I noticed someone walking towards our table and I got up from my seat. A red-skinned person dressed in a business casual outfit was walking over and upon seeing me gave me a big smile. I extended my hand for a greeting but was grabbed in a bear hug instead. The person, who I assumed was Mr. Richard, patted me on the back like we'd been friends for ages who hadn't seen each other for way too long.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He was almost a head bigger than me at around six foot three. His white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up had a hard time containing his bulked physique. The demon was putting the gym bro's at my gym to shame with that amount of bulk. He had two black-coloured back curving horns on his forehead. His black hair was combed back and tied into a ponytail and he had a moustace and goatee. He ended the hug and held me by the shoulders while he gave me a look over.

"Come, sit," he said as he slapped me once more on the shoulders before taking his own seat. A bit overwhelmed by his over-friendliness, I took my set again and grabbed another cookie.

"It's great that I get to meet you so early on in the tournament. I've been very interested in our first-ever human participant. And I must say that you've made quite an impact already. Your duel was exceptionally impressive if I do say so myself," he said the last part with a wink.

"Now, I'm sure you must have quite a few questions so let's use this opportunity to relax with some lovely tea and get you some answers. I have a few questions of my own as well. After that, I'll give you a tour of the store and get you geared up for the rest of your adventure. And by the looks of it, we'll start with the clothing section." I gave myself a critical once over and had to agree that some new clothes should indeed be the first priority.

"For my first question, how did you experience the tutorial? It was a bit of a rush job since basically everyone knows how the tournament works but with both you and the elves participating we needed to give you a quick introduction." The was quite the revelation about why the tutorial was such a bare-bones affair.

"Truthfully, It wasn't very good. While the combat introduction was good it totally skipped over every other aspect related to deck building like upgrades, rarity, and round restrictions. A nice list of possible card abilities would have been a nice addition as well. The animal processing part, while gruesome, was helpful as well." These were just the thoughts I had about the tutorial from the top of my head. There probably was plenty more to talk about but that was enough for now. I still had plenty of my own questions to ask.

"Why am I here" was my counter question.

Mr. Richard let out a heavy sigh. "Unfortunately I'm not able to answer that question for you. All I know is that they used an intricate combination of magic and you ending up here was the result. And your forced participation was a direct result of it."

I suppressed my anger at the non-committal answer. He did make it sound like it was a random occurrence but I still had my doubts. Unfortunately, I was in no position to question his answer. I was stuck in here till I either won or died.

"Since you can't answer my question I'll ask another. What are all the card rarities and how are they restricted to rounds?"

"Now that's a very solid question. The rarities are common, uncommon, rare, elite, and named. Each round will unlock the next rarity. So in the fourth round, you'll have access to all the rarities. Each rarity will also have a restriction on the amount of cards you can have in your deck. Named cards are restricted to two, elite cards are restricted to four, the rare cards are restricted to six, and that leaves you with twelve uncommon cards to fill out your deck."

"Additionally, a card can only equip items equal to or lower than its own rarity. So you can't equip an uncommon card with rare equipment. The only exception is that common cards can equip uncommon gear. But you already knew that last part since you've equipped your common goblin archer with the uncommon twin strike weapon."

Mr. Richard took a sip of his tea while I processed the information. "Having faced an event of all three difficulties, how did they compare to each other"?

The question confused me since I'd only faced two difficulties as far as I could recall. "Which events would that have been? The dungeon was a beginner difficulty and the settlement and altar were Intermediate difficulty," I asked with a look of confusion on my face. Mr. Richard looked equally confused. He suddenly pulled some sort of tablet from somewhere and started scrolling. His face went from concentrated on the content to a look of understanding as he seemingly found an answer to his confusion.

"Ah yes, it seems the difficulty from the altar event got reduced from expert to intermediate due to your deck-type composition," he explained. A bit of annoyance entered my mind since that difficulty reduction did explain why the event was a lot harder than the other intermediate difficulty of the settlement. I'd also have to keep that in mind going forward when accepting challenges.

"With that information, I believe they lived up to their original intended difficulty."

"How many deck boxes can be combined and how do I obtain new boxes outside of fighting other participants?" It was in my opinion a crucial question for any long-term planning.

"You can combine two deck boxes at a time. When you want to combine another deck box simply press them together and make your selection from the possible upgrades. Do note that this will not return either of the previously merged boxes. So when you for example merge out your goblin deck box it will be lost forever." He made a gesture to Cuicatl who promptly left the table.

"New boxes can be obtained by defeating other participants, from events and challenges, and our store will keep an expanding collection of boxes that you can purchase." Seeing the sparkle in my eye he held up a hand so he could finish his explanation. "For the first three rounds, those will only be the starter boxes."

"Going back to your deck selection, how did you experience it," was his next question for me.

I mulled it over in my mind for a minute. In that time Cuicatl returned with a pot of fresh tea which she poured out for us before retaking her seat. "While the fact that each deck had the same cards in it apart from the tribal, it was still hard to make a choice without knowing the deck box abilities at that time. A description of the tribal's strengths and weaknesses might have been a nice addition as well. Oh, the empty store setting was kinda creepy."

He gave a knowing nod and then his face turned serious. "Why help the elf?"

The question caught me off-guard. It was also a question I had asked myself over a dozen times while I waited for her outside of the dungeon. And it came down to one simple answer. "Because it was the right thing to do."

Since he didn't seem to expect any further elaboration on my answer I asked my next question. "What's the use of the side deck," the unknown function had bothered me for a while now and I could finally get an answer.

"The side deck allows you to swap cards between it and your deck when you start a duel. There are also events that let you make use of the cards inside your side deck but I'll leave that a mystery for you to uncover. If you still want the tour I'll give you one final question. I was able to clear my schedule a bit to meet you but I do have other things to see too."

I still had plenty of questions left but those would have to wait for another time. "I've gotten a few cards with the Jah'kali type or subtype. What's the benefit and downside of going for a specific set of those types?"

I was greeted with a big smile. "Now that's a great question lad. Let me use the following analogy. Say you want a new pair of shoes. You can buy them at a clothing store, a shoe store, or a shoemaker. Which of those options will give you the best shoe?"

"It's all about specialization. The greenskins are the clothing store, goblins are the shoe store, and then you have a specific subset of goblins specializing in for example ambush like the gobs of deep dark." The analogy was simple but effective.

And with my questions answered we finished our tea and we went on a tour of the shop. Our first stop was the card section. "Now, you might be tempted to spend all your hard-earned coins right here and now on new cards but our current selection only holds cards of common and uncommon rarity. My personal advice is to get geared out first and then pick up maybe a card or two if you have any leftover funds while saving the rest for later round stores."

His advice was solid and already aligned with my own plans. I had lucked out in this round by finding the keep but I was sure that the next round wouldn't be so kind to me. And with that, we moved on to a large open section where numerous tents were set up.

"Any good survivalist knows that a roof over your head is vital for a good night's rest. Our selection includes simple one-person sleeping tents to full-on living spaces for when you want a central point to explore your surroundings. Each type of tent comes in a basic coating, a stealth coating, or a camouflage coating. The stealth coating will make it harder to detect while the camouflage coating will make it blend in with the environment around it." He tapped a nearby tablet and showed me a price list.

Type / Coating Basic Stealth Camouflage Sleeping 10 20 30 Twin sleeping 25 37 50 Living and sleeping 45 65 85 Exploration 60 90 120

I had two hundred and seventy-one coins in my possession and considered the option. I knew I wanted the camouflage coating. The last thing I wanted was to be ambushed while I was sleeping and that would hopefully negate that risk completely. I still had a ton of items to get and I didn't need a full-on living or exploration tent. "Can I try them out," I asked looking between the single and twin sleepers. Mr. Richard gestured for me to go ahead. I crawled into the single sleeper first and instantly knew it wasn't the right option. The lack of any additional room made it a very uncomfortable option. The twin sleeper was just as long but the additional space would let me set some items on the side like my backpack.

With my choice made me moved over to a section with sleeping bags. After going over the options I settled on a waterproof thermal regulated sleeping bag for twenty coins. It would always be a comfortable temperature in freezing cold and blazing heat. Next up was the clothing section.

I picked out a pair of sturdy waterproof hiking boots, two pairs of pants that looked like cargo pants, three new plain and easily washable t-shirts, and a jacket with a minor thermal enchantment that Mr. Richard was very oddly pushy about I'd buy. This was the biggest of expenses coming in it seventy coins. I used that moment to swap out of my old wardrobe and into my clothes in a fitting cubicle. I opted to leave my old clothes behind for them to dispose of.

Following that I picked out a cooking set that consisted of some thongs, a spatula, a grill plate, and a flat pan. I grabbed a new set of tools for animal processing since my knife wasn't really up for the task. I got a new water bottle with a cleansing enchantment that would cleanse the water inside of it. It ran on mana stone which I had to buy separately. My final purchases were a lamp and the equivalent of a flashlight which both also ran on mana stones. All in all my total came out to two hundred and thirty-five coins.

"For any purchase over two hundred and twenty coins, you'll get a free backpack," Cuicatl told me with a smile as she rang up all of my items. The new backpack had a minor stealth enchant and the inside had a lot of handy spots to store my new gear in. With all my new items stored in the new backpack, it was time for Mr. Richard to leave.

"Well Michael, it's been a pleasure meeting you. And I wish you all the best in the rest of the tournament. Hopefully, we'll have some more time for tea when you next visit the store." We shook hands and he walked to the back of the store.

While I didn't have a lot of coins left, it wouldn't hurt to have a look at the card display. Unfortunately, the display turned out to be mostly all the basic cards that comprised the started deck cards. There were however three uncommon cards on sale. The first card was a Goblin bodyguard, the second card was a Lizardman card that was an almost identical copy of my Tomb guardian but it had two health and two attack power, and the final card caught my interest.

Army of two 1

Spell - Summon

When you play this card select a subtype.

Spawn 1 vanguard unit (1/1) of the chosen type in the selected vanguard slot.

Spawn (1) vanguard unit (1/1) of the chosen type in a random vanguard slot.

This card was pure value. Sure, I couldn't upgrade the creature or give them equipment but a two-for-one had a lot of potential especially this early on when uncommon was the best rarity you could get. It did cost fifteen coins but seeing how I had already spent over two hundred of them I might as well add this one to the pile of expenses. I purchased the card and thanked Cuicatl for her service and the tea. She gave me a smile and wished me luck in the rest of the tournament.

With my new backpack secured to my back I continued my journey to the mountain. It was getting close to dusk but I expected to have at least another hour of sunlight left before I'd have to make camp.