There is only one thing left for me to do.

I recall the heat of the past summer and multiply it by the temperature of burning oil that jumps on you when you accidentally splash it with a few drops of water.

The young swords master hears the cracking of ice above his head, stops, and looks up. What meets him is not just the ice. It’s a waterfall.

“You!” he screams at me, pointing his sword toward me again, getting all soaked wet.

That is when I turn the knob to another extreme, and the ice starts forming around him, almost instantly.

He tries to wiggle out of it, but I send the wind and more water his way and soon, there is a thick five inches of water all around him, frozen solid seconds later.

SAMS informs me that such a sudden change has cost me a whole unit of energy, but I don’t care. I’m fighting for my life here.

Maybe I could not freeze the blood inside his veins, but I could freeze the water around him.

The last expression on his face is not that of anger anymore. It’s of utmost disbelief. He stands there as an ice-carved statute with the sword pointing onward, mere feet away from me.

Too damn close.

Still, I cannot help but feel remorseful.

“Sorry, I could not help you. Really wish it did not have to come to this.”

Strangely, I do not feel happy I won. I feel the loss. But there is nothing I can do about it now.

“You young people should really learn to listen. At least sometimes.”

Just so it does not melt, I send more water his way, and in less than half an hour, he is inside a whole block of solid ice.

Then something strange happens. I see strange energy, more like murky air, or a cloud of strange transparent matter emerge out of him. Like a ghost. Like a spirit should look like, I guess. The way I must have looked like when I was leaving my body.

The cloud hangs around, circles around the body twice, not ready to go anywhere. But is then suddenly pulled out of the cave. I follow it and I think I know where it is going.

It is pulled by forces I cannot see to the Core, and when it enters it through the wall, I get an update.

[Congratulations!

You have harvested your first soul.

Bonus from the LIP Corp:

20 Character Cards

5 Special Ability Cards

2 Environment Cards

The total value of the gift at the present market price is: 50,000 coins.

Would you like to keep the cards or place them on a marketplace for sale?]

Damn. That is a lot! I am not sure yet what I want to do.

“I’ll give you an answer in a little bit, SAMS. Let me think.”

I feel bad about the young dude. But look at the bonus! Now finally I can give Oollie a card of his own, and see him grow and progress just as if we are in a proper RPG environment.

Special Ability Cards - I can completely understand. It might be something to do with the magic that I yet have to see around here. But, I have no idea what those Environment Cards might be about. Can only guess. And guessing when playing the game of life and death is very dangerous. And stupid. So, I’m thinking it must be something very important and worth spending a lot of time examining before I start playing with it.

And, why… why give me all those cards? Still, they seem to be important and I do not want to sell them. I do not need anything urgently to buy.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yeah… other than a good monster to protect me from people trying to raid me,” I remind myself.

The partial answer about the importance of the cards comes later in the day when I receive a message from Dungeons' Union of Planet Revix, Sector Sector 23XL32nn.

It says I am invited to attend the Game of Cards if I can grow to Level 3 and have at least 54 cards in my deck. The next gaming day is in 28 days, which I think gives me a target to work for.

I have no idea what kind of game it is being played there. A recollection of the card-playing nightmare I had way back gives me ideas. Also makes me very anxious. But, I cannot know for sure. I will just have to see.

Before the day is over, I finally hit the Bonding with the Core at 49.8 percent and wait impatiently till it hits the magical 50 percent.

When I reach it, I am awarded a bunch of options I did not have before.

Many of them seem life savers. Such as the self-healing option. I select it right away, put it on automatic, and watch the health of the Dungeon slowly start to rise. I check my BioMaterials and see that it’s pulling stuff from there to heal itself as the level of inventory is dropping rapidly. I go to the Core to see if the hole has been repaired there yet. It seems smaller, but not quite sure if my eyes are lying to me or it has really shrunk.

The front gate still seems as destroyed as ever before.

But if this works, I guess, little Oollie won’t have to lift so many heavy stones anymore or learn masonry. What he will have to do is scout the area and bring anything of bio value to the dungeon. I can already see him climbing the goat trail twenty times a day.

I also check what it would take to make Level 2

[Level 2 Requirements:

Experience: 250

Denizens: 5

LIC energy sold on Galactic Marketplace: 1,000 units

Souls Captured Minimum: 1]

Cool. That’s what they want me to do to. And I guess I have already met the last requirement about the number of souls captured. It’s also very obvious that I have to create energy and feed it into their system. Fine. I can do that.

Purely for curiosity purposes, I check out how much the soul I captured would be worth. Due to its age and being a novel soul, it can fetch an estimated price of 650,000 coins. Well. I’ll think about it. I bet if I need one soul like that in the future, it would cost me multiple times. So, let it just be in a cooler, and we’ll see later what we can do with it.

I am thinking also about stuffing Oollie's soul-free body with the soul I have, but I doubt Oollie's basic instinctive nature for simplicity or the young swordsman's hot blood would be a good match. I'm pretty sure neither of them would appreciate it. And I do not know what it would serve me. Just to play around with it? Doesn't seem very smart, so I drop that idea for now.

I also need to take care of the Wolves. I started to give them water, but they are just consuming now. And, I have to get them to be productive.

I make a decision to finally give Oollie his card. Do not know how it works, so without a manual, I try to do the same thing the Baron did to me. I come out of Oollie, hold an empty white card in one hand, and try to connect with Oollie’s body with the other one. Nothing happens.

Then I realize something. Back then, Baron was not creating a card for me. He was just transferring the card he had in his deck to me. That means… I have no clue how to do it.

But I understand that I have to do it with my mind. What else? I go and strip search Oollie’s inner mind, soul, heart, everything. It takes me a long time, and he is such a good guy, feeling uncomfortable, but still trying to be patient.

At, first, all I can see is the door in his mind I can come in and take possession of his body. But I do not want that. I keep searching and find one little window, about where his heart is. I open it and look inside, seeing just an empty space. But then I concentrate harder, go inside further, and see there is something there, hiding in the corner. It’s an energy beacon, pulsing.

I try to press the card against that beacon and right away, I feel a surge of power filling the card. The power keeps filling the card, and I can even see the 3D image of Oollie going inside the card, so I’m guessing it’s working. I let it, and hold the card in that beacon, seeing how it’s changing color. I do it until I feel no more energy being transferred inside the card.

Hoping that’s it, I come out of the room, step out of Oollie, and look at the card. It’s different than mine. If mine is as thin as two papers on top of each other, this one is so thin I can see through it. And, it does not shine golden, but light reddish.

Still, when I swipe my finger over it, the 3D image of Oollie pops up in the air to my surprise and excitement.

“I guess, we got you your card, little buddy,” I say and tap him on the head.

Then I press my finger on his holographic 3D image and it displays me its stats,

[Name: Oollie

Soul Absent (SB) Unit

Bonding 52 percent

Karma Not Applicable

Physical Attributes

Mental Attributes

Behavior Determined by: 99 percent pre-set instincts

1 percent learned behavior

Please note: Physical and mental attributes are lowered by 50 percent due to the Soul Absent condition]

Damn. I guess it pays off to have a soul. I guess I’m going to have to fix Oollie with a good one, the sooner the better. But not with the one that would try to swing a sword at me the first chance it gets. I want to look for it elsewhere.

Just to make sure I did everything right, I ask SAMS if the reason the card is gleaming red color is because it is Soul Absent.

[Correct. If you ever decide to transfer a soul to him, it will glow green]

“And why is my card glowing golden then?”

[You are an agent of LIP Corp. All agents have their cards upgraded.]

I guess it makes sense. Not that I care about being an agent of anyone right now. There are all these things I need to learn and figure out, and I still feel as if I’m just running blind, just waiting to run into the first tree that decides not to get out of my way.

I know. With the luck I have, my luck will run out at the worst possible moment.