The cards, a dull shade of light gold, looked like metal but had the texture of polished wood. While the back side of each held a uniformly blank surface, their fronts were imprinted with different patterns, scorched onto the cards as if they’d been branded.
Dylan stacked the cards in his left hand before taking one into his right to examine more closely. The pattern on this one was a simple circle, and when he focused on it, a screen appeared directly on top of the card in the same way that happened with the catalog.
[Name: Basic Energy]
[Type: Energy]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: Free]
[Effect: Generate 1 Energy]
Easily understanding, Dylan put the card back and looked at another. This one had two circles in a row.
[Name: Intermediate Energy]
[Type: Energy]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: Free]
[Effect: Generate 2 Energy]
Same summoning and activation costs but with a better effect, Dylan mused. That meant there would be some cards that were more powerful and objectively better than others. There was no true balance here. As much as being a Deckmaster felt like playing a game, Dylan reminded himself that it wasn’t one.
The next card had a thick line that, although static, seemed to carry a compelling sense of momentum as it shot horizontally across the otherwise blank surface. It almost gave the illusion it was vibrating.
[Name: Mana Bolt]
[Type: Spell]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: 1 Energy]
[Effect: Fire a bolt of pure mana. Deals 10 damage.]
Promising. Dylan smiled before looking at the next card. This time, the brand looked like a thin, triangular nail being driven down the card’s face. It carried with it that same sense of momentum found on Mana Bolt.
Dylan guessed it might be another damaging spell and was soon proven right.
[Name: Mana Spike]
[Type: Spell]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: 2 Energy]
[Effect: Call down a spike of pure mana. Deals 20 damage.]
Dylan noted the difference in language seen in the effects of Mana Bolt and Mana Spike. The first said fire, the second call down. He speculated that meant the cards, despite being similar in function, would manifest in different ways when activated.
He also noted the two damage numbers, wondering how much they were actually worth in practice. According to what he’d learned while uninitiated, any damage numbers listed by the System were only useful as a relative means of comparison. A way to know that this thing hits twice as hard as that thing. The real damage was difficult to calculate.
People with stats and classes had resilience and other defensive features that would offset damage numbers in different ways. Skills and other class abilities would also manifest their attacks and damage in ways that would often form complicated interactions with defenses and weaknesses.
This wasn’t even mentioning the likes of monsters. They weren’t a part of the System. They had no stats that could be easily compared and analyzed, but because they were so thoroughly adapted to and transformed by the mana around them, they could often produce similar, and sometimes even stronger, effects.
The only way to know the true power of any particular source of damage was to use it, carefully observing how well it worked on different targets. His cards were no exception.
Putting Mana Spike back in his left hand to exchange with the one card he hadn’t read yet, Dylan felt his mind split. His primary focus was still on the cards in his hand, but another part of him was pulled away to answer a question. Did he want to draw a card, generate energy, or do nothing?
He was stunned for a moment before quickly realizing what was going on. The start of a new turn.
Dylan chose to generate energy. His hand was already full and doing nothing would be a waste.
The air around him became thicker. His body felt heavier, more burdened. It wasn’t enough to inconvenience him. In fact, it was hardly noticeable after a moment. Dylan likened the feeling to a tight shirt hugging his skin under the rest of his clothes. Not necessarily restrictive, easy to put out of mind. But his attention could be called back to it at any moment.
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Dylan wondered if the feeling would intensify the more energy he generated. What wasn’t a hindrance now could easily become a problem if amplified too much.
But that reminds me, can the display include energy?
No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than the display in the corner of his vision changed.
[Expenditure: 1.85 mana/min.]
[Mana: 43/100]
[Energy: 1]
Good.
He focused again on the last card. It had a sword imprinted diagonally across its surface.
[Name: Phantom Sword]
[Type: Summon]
[Subtypes: Equipment, Weapon, Phantom]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: 1 Energy]
[Effect: Equip a Phantom Sword. Lasts for 10 turns and bypasses 10 percent of defense.]
Dylan stared at the oversized cards in his hands. He thought about what it would be like to juggle a sword along with them and frowned. He supposed the weapon could give him options in combat. He could wield it while the cards in his hand were illusory, but if he needed to play one of them…
Could he make just one card real while the rest were illusory?
He decided to try it out.
First, he focused on his hand. Much like he’d instinctively know how to tug on the cards to make them change state before, he knew how to make them change back. He used his consciousness to project a sense of emptiness.
The cards flickered and then slowly floated from his fingers. They looked largely the same in either state, the only difference being at the edges. The cards seeped ever so slightly into the air around them. It was like they were dissolving without ever losing any substance.
Dylan willed the cards to hover in front of him and mentally pulled at one. It dropped into his hand and became solid.
It works, he thought. It still might be awkward to fight with the sword and play other cards, but at least it was possible.
Speaking of fighting…
Dylan glanced at the card he was holding, Mana Bolt, and then drew his attention back to the target dummy the System had prepared across the room. He willed the rest of his hand to float off to his left and took a deep breath.
He moved in a way that something in the back of his mind told him would activate the card. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he swiped his arm across the space in front of him, almost as if he were slashing at the air. The moment his elbow was fully extended, Dylan pressed his will on the card. The sense of weight around him disappeared as the energy he’d gathered was channeled. There was a small flash, and the card vanished from between his fingers, disintegrating into motes of light by the time Dylan’s arm stopped moving.
Instantly, a pale blue streak of mana rushed across the room toward the target.
And missed.
The bolt struck the wall behind and to the left of the dummy.
Dylan’s lips twitched. Not to let himself get discouraged, he summoned and activated another two cards.
The first was Intermediate Energy. When used, Dylan felt a familiar weight settle in the air around him. The pressure it exerted was twice what he felt before. As expected. An early warning not to carry too much energy at once if he ever needed to move quickly.
The second card was Mana Spike. This time, instead of forming in front of him and shooting across the room, the projectile appeared near the ceiling above the target. The mana, taking the form of the triangular nail imprinted on the card’s face, smashed down at the dummy, accurately striking its immobile head.
It didn’t leave a mark. But then again, it wasn’t really supposed to. The dummy was created by the System for just this purpose. It would be odd if it were easily damaged.
Dylan’s mind split again, the sign of a new turn. He chose to draw a card.
[Name: Mana Shield]
[Type: Spell]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: 1 Energy]
[Effect: Create a personal shield with a power of 4. Lasts 10 turns or until destroyed.]
The brand on the card was, suitably, a shield.
Seeing the card was listed as being spell rather than a summon like the Phantom Sword, this didn’t seem to be a physical piece of equipment. Dylan assumed that it was similar to the shield Alyssa had used.
The power of a shield like that was generally equivalent to the same amount of resilience. The difference between the two being in how they operated.
Resilience worked by lessening impacts, weakening any damage received, and draining itself to bolster regeneration. It rarely stopped anything entirely, but this also meant that it took longer to be reduced. When combined with class skills and equipment that provided other defensive effects, resilience could make someone very durable.
Shields worked by stopping damage entirely. However, because they took on all the damage received themselves and usually had no additional form of mitigation to aid them, they could be exhausted and shatter fairly quickly.
Both forms of protection had their own strengths and weaknesses.
The size of the shield given by the card was almost equal to half of Dylan’s resilience. Played at the right moment, this was a card that could definitely save his life.
But right now, there was no threat. The illusory card joined the other two.
Thinking for a moment, Dylan decided to try the sword. He used the Basic Energy card and summoned the weapon.
It appeared, floating in the space in front of him. Its thin blade was just over two feet long and was attached to an ivory-colored hilt. Thin tendrils of mist crawled along every surface. After a moment of hanging in the air, the sword dropped. Dylan tried to reach out and grab it, but he fumbled the thing and it fell to the ground.
I’m glad no one was around to see that.
Picking up the weapon and testing its weight, he was surprised to find it lighter than he expected. It was cool to the touch and settled in his hand as if it were made for him. He tried doing a few simple practice swings before being prompted by the beginning of his next turn.
He drew a card, another Basic Energy, and began to walk over to the dummy.
Dylan spent his next few turns drawing cards and striking the target with the sword. It helped him get familiar with the weapon, but with the dummy being a big indestructible mannequin, he had no way to judge the effectiveness of the defense ignoring properties mentioned in the sword’s description.
Once he had five cards in his hand, Dylan stopped to look at them.
In addition to the Basic Energy and Mana Shield that had already been there, Dylan found another Mana Bolt, another Intermediate Energy, and one new card. The pattern imprinted on it was that of two cards being held in a person’s hand.
[Name: Draw]
[Type: Spell]
[Summoning Cost: 1 Mana]
[Activation Cost: 1 Energy]
[Effect: Draw 2 cards.]
Dylan had already expected cards like this back when he’d read the rules about going over the hand limit.
Letting the cards float beside him, Dylan walked about twenty feet away from the dummy, and prepared to try his luck with Mana Bolt again. He waited for the next turn to come, generated energy, and activated the card.
This time, he watched carefully as the projectile began to form. The mana bolt appeared just where the card flashed with light when he had his arm fully extended. As it came into existence, he thought he felt a small tug at his mind, but he couldn’t quite catch it. When the card finished disintegrating, the bolt shot straight out.
It hit, but Dylan didn’t have much of a sense of accomplishment. He’d taken a few seconds to carefully line up his body with the target before activating the card. If he were in a real fight, he probably wouldn’t have that chance.
Dylan sighed. This is going to take a lot of practice.