121:

“Say, Aleph,” Tom muttered as he watched Zirel dodge the snapping jaws of a Darkhound by throwing himself to the side, the refinement and elegance in his moves lost after he had leveled up his Rare card. The Divine System had waited no longer, acknowledging Zirel’s rare as his soul card the moment it gained the slightest of experience.

His Uncommon Mezzanine, The Spectre card was no longer his soul card, merely a deck card that could be added and subtracted from his deck at his choice.

Killing the first Darkhound that lay dead next to the pile of corpses and Zirel had no doubt gained experience from it. Unfortunately, Tom doubted that even a max level Darkhound could grant him enough levels in one go to unlock his Rare card’s second ability.

His own Mirror World card had gained significant experience from killing the Gatekeeper, but even then Tom had only reached level 4. If his theory was correct, the second ability would pop up at level 5 like it had done for the Lifeblood card, but he had no idea if uncommons and rares worked similarly.

Thankfully for Zirel, shifting his The Spectre card to his deck had not weakened it. That meant that his trickiest ability was still working, and indeed, there was a reason why the Darkhound’s speed had fallen drastically.

It had lost control over a hindleg, after all.

A wide sweep of Zirel’s blade caused it to tilt forward and collapse, even as Zirel himself warily retreated. The creature’s pitch black eyes and razor sharp teeth did little to make him drop his guard, the wisps of darkness coiling around it having seemed to have empower its speed while giving it some degree of concealment in shadows and darkness.

The vicious snarl that the Darkhound had initiated the encounter with had given way to abject confusion, as the creature blinked and tried to move. It was unwounded and the weak human before it had shown time and time again, that it’s blade was incapable of biting through it’s flesh.

Then why was it that it could not move.

Zirel lunged forth with his Blade of Necrosis. A single strike of his would normally have been enough to drive clean through the Level 10 Darkhound, but now Zirel could only manage a surface level wound.

Not dropping his guard yet, he circled the beast and swiped with his phantom blade, taking out the last hind leg.

Zirel then stepped away and blended into his environment. Tom’s eyes narrowed as it became even harder to keep track of the distortions that he left in his wake.

“Yeah?” Aleph asked, a crystal spear clenched in her hand. The moment Zirel came across something his reaction time failed to deal with, Aleph would intervene.

“I was wondering,” Tom ran a hand across the stubble building on his face. “A common card needs one SP to bind to the deck. An uncommon needs two. A rare needs five. Is that correct?” He asked.

“Yeah,” Aleph replied, her tone getting curious. The knowledge wasn’t exactly secret.

“Why is it so low?” Tom asked.

“Pardon?”

“Two SP for an Uncommon and Five for a rare… doesn’t that seem a bit low compared to what they can do? I mean, Zirel is taking out max level beasts with his uncommon and he hasn’t even begun to scratch what he can do with his rare.”

Aleph’s features crinkled in confusion before she shook her head, “A common soul card gets one SP per level. An Uncommon card gets two. A Rare gets three. The free points work a bit differently, but it’s still pretty brutal at lower rarities. One for a common, two for an uncommon, five for a rare. But you’ve also got to factor in level caps,” Aleph explained. “A common gets only 10 SP to work with at their cap of ten, making them virtually useless. An uncommon can go till level 20, giving them 40 SP and 40 Free Points to work with. A rare at thirty does have a ridiculous 90 SP to work with at max level, but can you imagine how hard it is to get there?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Tom coughed into his fist, his eyes widening in realization as he realized just how hard lower rarities had it.

“The Gatekeeper dude did have two uncommons, but now that I think about it, none of his moves were on the flashy side. In fact, he seemed a bit too efficient with how he used them.”

“Two uncommons,” Aleph repeated dryly. “A random thief had two uncommons just… lying around?” She asked, her tone sounding a bit dazed.

“You can have one if you’d like. I plan on offering Zirel one too, but you both need to level your rares first,” Tom replied, sounding distracted as he tried to figure out where Zirel was hiding.

“I can have one? You’re just going to give away uncommons like candy now?” Aleph asked, almost sounding weary at the proposition.

“Look, it’s like you said. If a random thief is running around with two uncommons, then I’m pretty sure our world just changed. And, no offense, but I think the Syrelore Kingdom was just…weak.”

“None taken,” Aleph replied, before sighing. “You’re not wrong, we are supposed to be the weakest kingdom. But even then, this isn’t the tower.”

“It’s not,” Tom agreed. “Though, however it came to pass, we are a team. If any card I’ve looted suits one of your purposes better than mine, then it’s yours. We’re too far away from home, Aleph. There was a time for secrecy and deception, but that passed when we arrived here.”

Aleph bit her lip as she considered Tom’s words. Then, she nodded.

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“You do?” Tom asked, just barely managing to stop himself from sounding surprised.

“Yeah. If the Gatekeeper had two uncommons, there was likely a much stronger attack he could’ve opened with. He didn’t though and it’s probably because he didn’t always have Soul Power in the double digits. How many levels you get from killing him?”

“Four on my rare,” Tom replied.

“Which rare?”

Tom paused and then shrugged. Aleph thought that his clairvoyant abilities came from a Rare, possibly a mezzanine rare.

He was relieved, even as he feigned nonchalance.

Of course, it would be both bizarre and baffling to come to the conclusion that he had in his possession a one of a kind legendary card that was related to some nebulous thing called the Book of Maya which an entire army of Nether Beasts was after.

Even then, he was relieved.

“Fine, be that way,” Aleph flatly retorted, before continuing, “He wasn’t maxed out then. But was probably close, maybe level fifteen or sixteen. The habit of fighting while conserving SP isn’t something you form in a day. He learned to fight that way because he had to. I think we’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle.”

“Oh?”

“It doesn’t matter how many cards you steal and stockpile. Let’s say he was level fifteen, that gives him what, 30 SP to work with. Add an uncommon, that subtracts two. He was forging metal out of his own SP, that’s not cheap. Like my crystals. And there were multiple opponents to deal with. How many uncommons can you add? How many can you use effectively in battle? After a point, it will hamper far more than aid.”

“Huh, I guess it would. After you can acquire cards, maybe it becomes more important to find the right ones and synergize them?” Tom offered.

Aleph’s eyes widened and she stared at Tom as if he’d grown a second head.

“That… would make a lot of sense. It’s weird, you know? In Renovia, cards were a thing to be revered, respected and awed. Now, less than an hour into this place, you’re telling me we’ve got two uncommon cards to work with.”

“Three,” Tom replied without batting an eye, as his gaze sharpened at an approaching creature. He did not see the glistening black fur of the Darkhounds, but instead patches of red on a canvas of white.

Something new was approaching.

“Ha-ha, nice jest,” Aleph replied, though she seemed a little amused.

“It’s not a jest, I got it from killing the head of the Nottrakon Family Elite Guard. Or Elite assassins. Or well, considering what I did to the dude, not-so-elite assassins.”