Blake fell into a regular routine over the next week or so. He preferred to get his work orders out of the way as soon as he could in the mornings, because he knew that would be the most unlikely time he would bump into his parents anyway.
His father had always stayed home in the early hours of the morning, drinking coffee and reading old pulpy paperback novels.
His mother was a fan of sleeping in and didn’t usually like to get up until the very last moment she had to. Part of the reason why Blake’s father stayed home was so they could both have breakfast together when she did wake up.
The apartment Blake lived in had all kinds of helpful functions, and he explored the ones he could. Unfortunately, the majority were locked behind paywalls. Even the alarm clock had cost him credits to unlock.
Blake could have just used his phone, even though there was still no service inside the city, but the System-enhanced alarm and calendar module could do more than his phone could.
The convenient thing about this system was that if Blake set himself a reminder or a note or anything of the sort, he could access it from either his apartment, or just through the local interface while he was out and about.
Other available upgrades included furnishings, extensions and new rooms, as well as functional things like food fabricators, heated toilet seats, ducted air and heating. All these upgrades would make the apartment feel much more like home.
Blake couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Clay Atlas received a cut of all of these upgrade costs. The credits surely wouldn’t just disappear into the ether. They had to end up somewhere.
Blake already had his eye on quite a few upgrades, but a lot of them would not be able to be bought on a whim. Credits earned after his mandatory work orders were calculated in such a way that they only just covered his cost of living.
If he wanted any of the creature comforts or upgrades to make his life better, he would need to work more, or resort to other, more creative ways to make money.
After he worked the four hours needed for his daily work orders, Blake then usually spent another hour or so earning a little extra credits. Then he’d head back to his apartment, have a shower, then spend the next few hours wandering New Meridia in the search for his parents.
The city was deceptively large and continued to grow every day. It didn’t just expand outwards, but it was becoming more built up inside the walls. The system allowed people to construct and upgrade things in many different ways, and lots of people were expanding their businesses and residences.
Building, facility, and other construction cards could be played at any time by whoever held them, and most of the time those building cards split the balance of power between City Lord and the person who owned the card.
One day, Blake wandered into a store which had a very unique function. A Challenger could sell any of the cards they currently owned for a large sum of credits. This opened Blake’s mind to the possibility of going card hunting, even if he didn’t necessarily need the cards he found.
The difference between the Power Card Store and other ways of exchanging power cards with other players was that there was no mystery involved. If you sold a Stone Fists card to the Power Card Store, it would appear exactly as that in the store’s inventory.
The identity of the card would not be shrouded or hidden from the purchaser, which was quite different from a promise of a random card inside a box you might get from working overtime.
The owner of the store, a middle-aged woman by the name of Sami DeVere, was kind enough to explain how it all worked to Blake.
“Oh, of course I don’t mind! Curious minds want to know,” Sami said. “Well, I found this store card out in the wilderness on the way into the city after following that radio broadcast. My husband found a Stone Sword card, which he used to defend us from a pack of mutated bighorns, and one of them dropped the Power Card Store facility card. We were both pretty excited, thinking that we could set up our store wherever we wanted, but it said I could only play it in a city.”
“So the system obviously knew that there was a city somewhere nearby, otherwise it wouldn't have spawned that card for you to find,” Blake said.
“It certainly feels like this card was more made for the city rather than me. Don't get me wrong it keeps me busy and keeps my accounts full of credits, but I feel like this is more a system run store than anything else. They only need me here to physically hand the cards over to those who purchase them.”
“What do you mean by that?” Blake asked.
“The system hands out cards to people all by itself without the need for people to be involved. So why can’t the system just automatically do it for the store as well? Anyway, not that I'm complaining, even though I barely see any of the credits that people pay for these things.”
Blake was interested in how the mechanics of the store itself worked, and pressed Sami further. “Does the City Lord take a cut or something like that? How does all of this work?”
“Well surprisingly the City Lord only takes the same cut that I do. Whenever I sell one of these cards, I get 20% of whatever the person has paid for it. The City Lord also gets 20% of what someone paid for a power card, but the other 60% goes right back into the system. None of us ever see any of it.”
Blake’s eyes went wide. Some of these cards went for high prices, and 20% of the asking price would still be more than he’d make doing a couple of hours of overtime a week.
“It sounds like a money sink. Do you get to set the prices? Or does the system set them for you?” Blake asked.
“The system works the prices out based on the rarity of the card, how high it's been leveled up, and many other factors that I'm not privy to.”
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It definitely sounded like a money sink. Blake inspected the cards in stock here and he saw a lot of the first level cards that featured simple attacks or defenses for fairly affordable prices.
There were a couple of Stone Fists cards, a few Stone Shields, and two Stone Swords cards, but the fire element cards appeared to be much rarer. Even though they had the same rarity rating as some of the earth element cards, there were just fewer of them available in the store.
It could be as simple as people have preferred to keep their fire element cards rather than their earth element cards, but Blake wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of disparity between the elements that wasn’t readily apparent at first glance.
There certainly seemed to be more fire card users in the nightly duels, mostly because their attacks did more damage and were more offensive-focused. Earth element users had to rely on tactics instead of brute attack strength in order to compete.
That week, Blake also spent a significant time figuring out the ranking system that each Challenger was governed by. Each new rank expanded the number of cards someone could hold, but there was still an upper limit on the size of a Challenger’s deck.
There were many different ways to find, upgrade, and change cards that Blake hadn’t even known about when he first arrived in the city.
Dueling was the easiest way to lose cards if you were terrible at it, but a good duelist could end up with more cards than they knew what to do with. Because a Challenger could only hold so many cards at once, you needed a way to get rid of the extras.
There was a mechanic called card synthesis which could only be accessed at special buildings called Card Docs. Synthesis allowed a Challenger to sacrifice a card to power up a similar type of card. For example, if Blake had two Stone Fists Cards, he could sacrifice one to empower the other.
It could also empower cards of a similar element, but the effectiveness of this was much reduced compared to upgrading an extra version of the same card, or one that was in its family.
Once cards reached a certain level, they evolved. Each evolution either changed the function of effect of the card or made it more powerful. Or, a combination of the two.
The only alternative to synthesis or releasing the card back into the wild card pool was selling it to the Power Card Store run by Sami DeVere.
Blake asked Sami if she could value the card without actually seeing what the card was.
“I’m sorry, but that’s out of the scope of my abilities. The system will just give me an estimate of what it’s worth based on the rarity. Most people don’t want to reveal their most powerful cards. They certainly want to know what they’re worth, but the system doesn’t let me access that information,” Sami said.
Blake cursed inwardly. He wanted to know how much his Lair card was worth, but he didn't want to reveal to anyone that he had one. It was a bit of a catch-22 situation.
The moment that someone got wind about him possibly having a Lair card, others within the city would probably find out very soon.
Then, Clay Atlas’s soldiers would probably come after him. They would probably search for the lair until they found it, and then destroy it or take it for themselves.
Blake was starting to feel like he needed to use his Lair card as soon as he could, but he first needed to find the perfect place to activate it.
During Blake’s daily explorations, he’d realized there weren’t many spaces he would be able to conceal himself.
Clay Atlas’s soldiers were everywhere, and they quickly came down on anything they didn’t understand or anything that appeared to be out of the ordinary. Blake had seen them questioning unique card usage, where effects happened that they hadn’t seen before.
It felt like Clay wanted to keep a close eye on what powers people in this city had, and what they could do. It came across as pretty paranoid to Blake considering that Clay had the power of a City Lord and could do basically whatever he wanted to here in New Meridia.
Blake reminded himself that people in power will do anything to remain in power and will take any opportunity they can to keep the power that they already held.
After a week of searching for his parents, Blake was beginning to lose hope.
He’d visited every precinct of New Meridia while keeping a keen eye out for General Stores or Tailors. He’d been into every single one that he found and asked around for his father, Jacob, and his mother, Eileen.
But nobody he spoke to had ever heard the names Jacob or Eileen Thornwood.
There was every possibility that they had been placed on work crews or had been given work orders that didn’t align to their skills. The thought of his mother or father having to break rocks and do backbreaking labor made a flash of anger rise up inside Blake.
If he found out that his parents had suffered the hands of Clay Atlas in this system, then there would be hell to pay.
When Blake wasn’t working or searching for his parents, he was usually down at the training grounds in the apartment block, sparring with one of his neighbors.
Blake got to know quite a few of the challengers who lived in the apartment blocks around his, and there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason about who had cards and who didn’t. It did become apparent that anyone could be assigned to a work crew and given work orders, regardless of whether they had power cards or not.
Some people in the apartment blocks worked long hours just for a place to stay but didn’t have any power cards of their own. A lot of them hung out around the training arena, asking for tips on how they could find their own power cards or win them without having any themselves.
There was a power discrepancy between those who had power cards and those who didn’t.
The ones who had power cards were seen as the more favored people in society. The ones with more potential. Anyone who didn’t have a power card wanted one, and those who had power cards but lost them in dueling wagers and the like would do anything to get them back.
One day, while Blake was down at the training arena, Harry walked in. He challenged Blake to a duel, and Blake accepted.
They didn’t wager any cards or anything like that. This was just a friendly sparring duel for the experience.
“I’ve got some tricks for you this time,” Harry said. “I finally evolved one of my cards!”
Harry was one of those crazy people who just worked extra hours in the hopes of getting more cards. It had only taken him a week to get his first randomized card box.
The majority of Blake’s cards were of the earth element, but both of the cards Harry had obtained so far were of the fire element. Along with his Fire Fists offensive ability, Harry also had a new ability called Flame Shield, just like Wilfred Regis had used back in the duels.
Defensive abilities appeared to work a little differently than offensive abilities from a system perspective. Most of the time an offensive card like Fire Fists or Stone Fists would empower the attacks of someone for half an hour, but defensive abilities usually only worked for about ten minutes.
Naturally this increased with the level of the cards, but there was still a discrepancy. As far as Blake understood, it was probably to make sure that defensive cards couldn't be 100% relied on and had to be mixed up with different offensive abilities as well.
The System apparently didn’t like people using turtling strategies.
It was just a pity that the defensive abilities that Blake had received so far also acted like offensive abilities. His Shale Skin card should have encased him in a suit of armor, but instead it summoned a Shaleskin Wolf.
His wolf was great too, but not having a single defensive ability left a gaping hole in Blake’s tactical repertoire.
After almost a week in New Meridia, Blake’s Stone Fists Card was almost at level 5, which he’d found out to be the evolution point. His Shale Skin card which summoned his wolf was only at Level 3.
Blake and Harry took up their positions at either side of the practice arena and locked eyes with each other.
“Are you ready for a rematch?” Blake asked.
Harry grinned. “You better believe it. But this time, I’m going to win!”