Aryan picked the card from the wet puddle and was surprised to find it dry. It was warm to touch, like a lit safety torch under your palm. The card had columns of small alien symbols as it shined and gleamed under the sunlight. A picture depicting a transparent slime laid on a bunch of skeletons.
“What are you doing? Why are you staring at your empty hand?”
“You can’t see this, Sid? I’m holding a card in my hand.”
Sid’s eyes were filled with pity as he laid a hand on Aryan’s shoulder. He looked into Aryan’s grey eyes and said, “Bruv, that’s not a card. That, right there, is a one-way ticket to an insane-asylum.”
Aryan half rolled his eyes and went back to inspecting the strange card.
“There’s 4 more!”
Everyone screamed as they made their way to the end of the class. Someone had opened the class door letting in 4 more of the slime monsters. Ginny took a step forward and addressed the panicked crowd.
“Not to create more panic, But I can’t take 4 of these alone. I need anyone who can control fire. Listen guys, we need to work together, or we lose.”
When no one moved, Aryan, understanding the severity of the situation, tried to use the card in his hand. But no matter what he tried—shaking it, tried to rip it apart (couldn’t because it was too tough.) and finally calling out its name while holding it in the direction of the 4 slimes, nothing worked. All it did was piss off some of his classmates. The 4 Slimes drew threateningly towards Ginny, acknowledging her ability to destroy them.
‘That was comical but nothing I haven't seen before. How about a hint? If you want to use those cards, say ‘chaos’ and imagine this.’
The voice from before instructed Aryan. Without thinking, Aryan imagined a snake twisted around a hand, the hand made of black space lined with stars, and a waxing crescent moon at the center of each pink nail.
“Chaos.”
The card disintegrated into dust, and the dust gathered to form the transparent slime monster once again. The slime raised its little arms, like a little baby and looked at Aryan with devotion in its eyes. When the enemy slime monsters neared, it jumped towards the nearest 2 enemy slime monster and began tackling it to the ground.
“What is that? Is it fighting for us?”
“Aryan! He did something. Did he bring it back from dead?”
“Who cares! what about the other two?”
Ginny once again persuaded the crowd, “If you guys can buy me some time maybe I can—”
Sid Jumped ahead carrying the big fire extinguisher and began to push the 2 slime monsters back. Seeing this Some students gathered their courage and began throwing desks and benches at the two monsters careful not to distract the friendly slime from its fight.
Soon enough the Slime got rid its opponents and began engaging the other two. Right when everyone stopped to watch the friendly slime actually push back the other two slimes, a flame trailed across the air blasted on the group of slimes with no mercy.
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Aryan clenched his fists and shouted, “Ginny!”
The class grew silent as Ginny sweated profusely from exhaustion, taking support from a nearby bench, she levelled a look at him, “What? Do you know how tough it is to complete this spell? and Who knows what that slime monster would do if it wins? Probably turn back and attack us.”
When Aryan took a threatening step towards Ginny, Sid stopped him, “She did save us. Twice. Forget it, we all know how she is.”
For the first time a notification blinked in front of Aryan,
‘Promotion from level 0 to level 1 available. Proceed now?’
In his anger, without thinking about the consequences, Aryan pressed yes. Aryan became paralyzed, as his face met the floor. A sharp pain started from his head, and then began wiggling down his body till his toes. This carried on for few minutes as Aryan lay struggling on the floor.
Sid tried to help him, but when nothing worked, he produced a bottled water from somewhere and sprinkled water on Aryan’s face. This did nothing more than irritate Aryan and wreak havoc on his styled hair.
Minutes later when the pain subsided, Aryan pressed his forehead to the floor and gritted his teeth against the throbbing nose. He felt himself physically stronger, as if his body went through 6-month worth of physical training. When Sid worriedly shook Aryan off the floor, A wet face with an irritated look greeted him. A strand of wet air decided at that moment to fall and stick to the side of his face.
“Was that necessary?”
“Oy! Are you seriously blaming me for being worried about my best friend? You should be grateful, another 2 minutes, and I would have performed CPR (Mouth to mouth) on your unconscious ass.”
Aryan cringed and look around, most of the students were huddled around Ginny, some were staring at him, while others had their heads stuck outside the windows.
“What happened while I was unconscious?”
“While you were busy performing Lisa Swalla dance cover on the floor, Ginny proposed to form a group of card players to safely travel outside the university and ask for help.”
Sid took a sip of water as he cursed, “Trust the Bit**, to strike the iron while its hot. If you had your Slime monster, and didn’t go crazy on the floor, I’m sure most of them would consider following us.”
Aryan made his way to the puddle dead slime monsters and smiled when he noticed 4 cards spread on the floor. He smiled as he waved the card in front of Sid, “Doesn’t matter, after finding Peter, we can fall back and survey the situation.”
Sid followed after him as he whined, “You do realise your hands are empty, right?”
x-------------------x
Three slime monsters fought against a group of slimes as Aryan and Sid helped from a safe distance away. For some reason, Aryan couldn’t summon the last slime monster. By now Aryan realised few points, every dead being with a card can be summoned, for now he could only use 3 monsters to fight for him. every defeated monster is lost to him forever. Right now Aryan had many cards in his pocket and just a few XP short of level 2.
“Did you get it again?”
After delivering the final blow, Sid nodded as he checked his notification, “Yes, I received 5 gold for each kills, that adds up to a total 30 gold coins.”
Aryan frowned, just a while ago he found that Sid received gold coins whenever he delivered the finishing blow. Unfortunately for Aryan, he received nothing by cards. Aryan sighed as he observed the puddle more closely.
‘No gold for me? How am I supposed to trade then? There must be something here for me to take.’
A cursory sweep with his hands in the puddle produced an almost invisible sphere. It was soft and cold to touch.
“What’s that? Unbelievable, if you didn’t poke that thing in your hand, I would have missed it.”
“You can see this? That means you guys can collect this too. How about I hold on to this for a while?”
“Fine by me, I have the gold anyway.”