"Modern cardsmiths can't even be compared to crap on the ancient cardsmiths boots. Those people were warriors in every sense of the word."

~Grena, The Benevolent Dragon

He chuckled at the jumble of shards. For some reason, they reminded Devin of his time in the garbage pits.

The easy part is over. Devin shook his head free from the distraction. I need everything I got for the next part.

Every book he read on the subject recounted how difficult it was to meld together to foreign constructs together, so it wouldn't be easy, especially for Devin since he couldn’t accomplish the arcanium manipulation techniques described in the book.

Instead of wasting his time on a dead end, Devin tried to use his skills to replicate the techniques.

[Seize] created the strings of arcanium that deftly responded to Devin’s will, while he had [subjugate] cover both the amassed shards and the entirety of the cracked ring, or at least he tried. Devin struggled to stretch the skill over the construct that wrapped his entire deckspace. He pushed and pushed, but the boundaries of the skill didn’t even go halfway around—

—A stream of will Devin was intimately familiar with breached his deckspace, and wrapped around his will, joining it to accomplish the monumental task Devin had set out to do.

Thanks, Dewey. He thought, redoubling his efforts to stretch his skill. After a final, shaky push, they were able to cover the whole deckspace, and the ring surrounding it as a result.

With that finished, Devin asked Dewey to keep her grip on the shards and circle as he ramped up [refine]. Just like he did with his other skills, Devin attempted to change the frame surrounding the skill to alter it slightly, yet he didn’t find a hint of resistance. The skill transformed into a multi-colored fire, as if it was meant for such a form.

The supposedly hardest and most worrisome part of the surgery was recreated, just like that.

You cannot get cocky, Dev. He told himself. This is too important to mess up because you think you’re hot shit.

His sense of caution renewed, Devin slowly joined the shards together where the cracks tore into the magic circle. One at a time, he plastered the shards onto his nearly broken construct, trying to make the broken monstrosity resemble the glorious circle it once was.

Except, Devin’s current rendition was nothing more than a poor imitation smeared with the very same paint of the original. The chaotic lines of new colors emitted a sense of wrongness, appearing more incongruent the more Devin looked at it, and the more he looked at it, the more dissatisfied he became.

He smeared more half molten shards onto the construct, desperation leaking into every stroke, yet it didn’t do anything but intensified the wrongness in Devin’s eyes. The desperation morphed into frustration, which made the drawn lines appear even worse.

Rage exploded in Devin’s heart; his will smashed over Dewey’s and in a fit of anger, his skills responded to his emotions—

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—and broke his ring to pieces.

His heart dropped seeing his magic circle rain down to the center of his deckspace in pieces. “No, no, no!” He tried to grab the shards, cling to pieces, anything, but all his efforts were for naught as without a ring, his will found no purchase in his metaspace.

Dewey’s presence vanished. The layers of his deckspace darkened one level at a time.

“GOD! I’M SUCH A FUCKING IDIOT!” He raged into the invading darkness. Even the connection with his physical body was dimming. Devin could feel his heartbeat growing further and further.

All he had left was the shards falling from above and the multi-colored flame of [refine], with even that draining the last bits of his flagging willpower.

Is this how I go? Alone, in the same house that my parents died in? The thought was nowhere near comforting. It spiked through his mind, making him wake up in the dying remains of his deckspace. FUCK THAT! Devin refused to go out the same way as them. If I die, it’s going to be with a bang.

Devin stoked the wrath in his chest, roaring as he poured the last bits of energy he had into his skills. [refine] answered his call, exploding into a flame that spread from shard to shard, consuming the essence in their wake. [Subjugate] followed in its brethren's wake, coming up from the depths of the abyss to dominate what was left of his deckspace.

Currents of essence threatened to blow the sparks that were his skills away. They not only originated from the metaspace outside his domain, but also from the innermost depths of his own deckspace. He had no choice, but to spread his mind, using his avatar to weather the storm while his skills continued their work.

Intelligible whispers pleading for him to look their way—to give in to their mad ramblings assault his mind. They swarm over him like ants, biting at every inch of his avatar that was exposed to their anthill. The more time he spent unprotected in their storm of insanity, the more he wanted to look, to see what the whispers had to show him. One small, almost silent voice told him to hold on—to keep going.

He chose to listen to that instead of the mass lunacy that assaulted him from all sides,

His skills worked like wildfire, gathering all the shards that fell back into his deckspace, but he quickly ran into a problem. What he had left was nowhere near enough to form a magic circle. No wonder the repair had failed. He was doomed from the start.

Instead of panicking, Devin opened the floodgates to his vault, giving what he had left to the mass of shards within [refine]. Common white shards inundated the multi-hued fire, joining the mass of molten red shards at the center of the flame. [Subjugate] commanded them to join together as one, instead of a mass of foreign objects. The bulk of shards heated up even further, boiling the essence until there was only a singular, liquid body.

I need a new focus. Devin strained against the force of his impromptu forge. Something—anything.

While Devin could’ve used one of his achievements as a focus, he didn’t trust that he could find his achievement list without his soul card to illuminate the connection between it and him. Instead, he opted to forge the magic circle like he did the first time; by using a monster core.

Reaching through the hardening boundary of his vault, Devin grabbed the monster core he took from the bone horror, and pulled with all his might. The core banged against the wall of his vault, unable to bypass the border.

Grip of the Inevitable

(Refined Aether)(Overcharge)(Wrath)

“Don’t. Mess. With. Me!” Devin put his all into his grip, the combo bridging the gap between Devin and his vault. The gray gem popped out of the core; Devin wasted no time, throwing it in the fire of [refine].

The multi-colored flame exploded once more, gasses of dark energy burning in the periphery of the flame. The core sank into the mass of molten shards, reorganizing the structure of the liquid into a familiar lattice. [Subjugate] sped the process along, laying a claim of control as it straightened out the pattern laid by the core.

Then finally, the construct let out a chime, stabilizing in an influx of shards, essence, and resources. When all was said and done, Devin was left with a storm gray magic circle, imbued with green and red stars. His magic circle swayed in his attention, fluttering back to the edge of his deckspace. Colors brightened as the light returned to the darkened layers as well as the sensations of his physical body.

Achievement—Reforger

Rebuild your magic circle

Reward: Forge Skill Fragment

Devin opened his eyes, exhaling a deep sigh of relief.

“Well, that was exciting.” A voice popped out from behind him.