“To train is to live. Your habits become who you are.”

~Knight Gadfly

“The Loviarian Empire’s Special Ops are the only force allowed to freely use the Inquisitor Cardset and the All Deck boon. If you lack the authorization blah, blah, blah.”

Devin sat in the burned down remains of his house as he skimmed through his most recent {checkout}’d book. Dewey soundly slept on his shoulder as he studied and practiced his skills.

It was all he could do at this point,

His magic circle, fractured from overuse, barely spun or shed any light in his deckspace. Devin instinctually knew the moment he used the cracked construct that it would shatter into a million pieces. It left him near powerless, vulnerable, and at the mercy of the world.

That’s when Dewey’s true value began to shine.

Most of his cards were of the first circle, so he was unable to use most of the abilities in his arsenal, yet Dewey was of the cantrip class—meaning that all he needed to summon her and maintain her form was a bit of arcanium. Cheap compared to the benefits she brought. Devin gained another circle for almost free, not to mention the knowledge Devin had at his fingertips due to her position as librarian of the Lost Libraries.

Put a little in—get a lot out. Math at its finest.

With her by his side, he was able to get answers to all the questions he had as well as gain knowledge of several fields related to cards dynamics, all while investing a lot of time into practicing his skills by doing tasks and cleaning up around the property.

Card packs, magic surgeries, techniques, shard usage, aether types and their counterparts; Devin used the chance to shore up his knowledge of both theories and anything that pertained to him, something he was used to doing for most of his life.

Reading books is the easy part. The hard part is putting all that into practice. He sighed as he used his skills to nail a wooden board to the wall.

Although it was very disheartening to come back to his house covered in ashes, Devin figured he was lucky to still have a place to call his. It had been too long since he had a place to come back to, and he would be damned if he let something like a measly fire take that away from him.

So after he was healed enough to walk around, Devin took stock of the damage and inspected every corner, hole, and crack in the house and foundation. It didn’t take long; navigating over the stacks of burnt trash and furniture without disturbing them took more time than the actual investigation, but as he looked more and more through the blackened house, the less he was able to keep the frown off his face.

I would be better off building a new house than trying to salvage this. The thought made Devin beyond sad since he was trying to preserve the house instead of destroying it, but he wouldn’t waste all his time on a hopeless project. He had better things to do.

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Dewey stopped him when he tried to [destroy] the house altogether, making him pause with an outstretched paw protecting the rubble. Then she showed him a new trick thanks to her evolution and their improved connection.

She accessed his skills, something he didn’t even know was possible, and showed him a way to use his skills without the purely damaging effects.

Subskills gained!

Dismantle (Destroy-Dewey)

Scavenge (Seize-Dewey)

Recycle (Refine-Dewey)

She paired the skills with her essence, creating a concept that was slightly different from his base skills, but more suited to the task he was using them for. He mobilized his three skills, using the base skills to rip literal tons of trash out of the house and tear out anything unusable from the construction while he used the subskills to gather any materials he thought he could reuse.

Speaking of essence, there’s all those extra shards and by-product from [refine]’ing shards. It gave him a feeling of indigestion as it floated in his core, but he ignored it. Devin wasn’t skilled enough to touch it.

Not yet.

It was slow going at first as he personally went over each piece of wood, flooring, tile, wiring, and every other part of the house, but as he grew more proficient in using his skills as extensions of himself and trusting the picture his meta-awareness drew for him, Devin became faster.

Soon, Devin swapped from personally checking every piece of wood or tile with his own eyes, to viewing the materials in his aura perception, blasting through impurities with his skills. He stopped going overboard when Dewey complained about compromising the material and fell back to using his skills as proxies, channeling his awareness through them as he used them for their intended purposes.

To dismantle, scavenge, and recycle.

The garbage Devin couldn’t clear out despite a week’s worth of work was gone within half a day, and the ash [refine]’d into a stack of solid, multi-hued, gray bricks that barely stood as tall as his waist.

Definitely not enough to patch these walls. He noted, continuing to break down the burnt and rotten materials of the house into wood boards, tiles, bricks, nails, screws, and wires. Devin worked well through the night and the following day, making sure that the only thing that remained standing was the resilient materials that could handle more than just one measly fire.

When he was done with that, he decided to take a break, going through all his questions with Dewey and reading all her recommendations to answer his questions.

He learned about so much; from formations, to skill branches and definitions, to alignment imbuement and aura manipulation exercises. Any knowledge he found in the Lost Libraries was quickly devoured, the small increase in acumen from his red cap in his Side Deck boosting his speed of comprehension.

When Devin discovered the connection between acumen and intelligence, he immediately set to making a card that would give him a boost in that specific score. Without a concept fragment or a skill shard, the process was a lot less direct, inadvertently raising the difficulty. It took more than a few tries, and a couple hundred shards, but he finally created a card worth using.

Incense of the Cramming Scholar (Common)

Enhancer/Instrumental

The student sparks this incense to increase his memory

He’ll need it to pass his master’s test.

Duration: 13 hours 21 minutes

Cantrip—Greatly raises Mental ACU while lit

The card was a godsend for his studies, helping him memorize tons of new information, especially now as he studied the Inquisitor's Guide over the last bits of elite boar meat. It was a recommendation from Dewey when he asked about ways he could strengthen the bond between them. The closer they were, the stronger both of them became.

The All Deck boon connects your Main Deck and Side Deck together, allowing for more combinations, boosts from affinity, and more dynamic connections. Devin was already sold on the idea, but he read more, seeking the obtainment method. One must have good pain tolerance to erase the boundary between decks. Such is the price for boons usually reserved for high-circle arcanists.

“Okay, so it’s going to be painful.” Devin looked up from his book at Dewey, who nodded from her perch on the half-couch. Half was burnt in the fire and therefore broken down for materials.

“I guess I’ll do this later.”