Merek left the tower in an exhausted jumble of emotions. He still didn’t know what he’d been thinking, but now he’d somehow made enemies—personal enemies—of some pretty powerful people and if they found him again…
The unregulated power of his incomplete deck wasn’t helping, but at least he’d been able to stabilize for today by helping the strange newcomers clear floor one. He even had a full monster card to show for it, even if it was a pretty weak one. Normally, floor one only gave shards.
It’d been months since he held a full card that he fully owned. The temptation to throw it in his deck and forget the consequences hung over him, but he had to remember his ultimate objectives. At half-deck, he was stable enough to survive a few days. He could lay low long enough to decide on his next move.
Throwing in whatever he got was the kind of desperation move that would lock him in to countless more years until he could open out his expansion and get something properly useful there. It was a trap all too many people fell into, a vicious cycle that left them all but enslaved to the factions who owned their contracts.
Someone who’d never opened that inner door wouldn’t understand. To so many, having a deck was a sign of wealth and power. The middle-class dream, any complete deck would push you to instant success.
That wasn’t how it played out in practice. Sure, it’s what the advertisements promised, what the stories extolled, but the difference between a good deck and any deck was incomparable.
The burning strain of incompletion fought against sense and logic, a perpetual ache only sated by a continual stream of XP. That was the part they didn’t warn you about. They said it was dangerous to leave an incomplete deck, that if you didn’t keep increasing your power it would kill you, but they never warned you how it felt. How it would always be there, always growing, insatiable. Enough to drive many to making the kind of choices that limited their future in exactly the ways the factions would exploit.
Most of the tower’s monsters dropped only combat cards. To create a proper utility card almost always required careful sharding and recombination, unless you got very lucky. And while combat cards were what the tower wanted everyone using, it wasn’t the life Merek wanted for himself.
He may be in debt and with no future prospects, but as long as he stuck to his plans, he’d get what he needed eventually. He had to believe that.
The other temptation was to try and sell the card on his own, rather than turn it over. He’d get less in a private exchange than in credit, but it would be unrestricted money he could add to his tiny savings toward his next proper card.
It was more important to pay off his overdue rent before he lost everything.
As usual.
But the beyonds apparently had it out for him today, because he was no more than a few steps away from the tower when he heard an overly-bright, far too familiar voice call out his name.
“Merek! Hey, you’re alive! Where’s Shen Ai?”
“Off selling her soul to the Expansionist scum to save me,” he grumbled. “Which won’t work for anything if you draw attention to us before I can get away.”
“Ooh, so we’ll be rivals too! Perfect.”
“Did you say she’s selling her soul?” James asked with an odd note of curiosity. “So that’s a thing you guys do around here?”
Merek wished he could disappear. This was not the time or place to be having weird, loud conversations. “Look, I tried my best to keep you from getting mixed up in faction politics, but here you are anyway. There’s no point following me around any more. You have too much attention on you, and I’m marked for death if the Expansionists find me again anyway.”
“But you’re an Ascender, right?” Ivy demanded. “So’m I! We’ll be allies!”
“Nominally at best.” Merek grimaced. “They’ve got my contract for eight more years. How long did you sign on for?”
“Oh, we haven’t signed yet, and we don’t have time to stand around here anyway. We have to get back so we can hammer out the details, but first my lazy brother needs more overpowered cards.”
“That’s not… You can’t just go out and get cards, not without being willing to go mutant or signing on for way more than you’re worth. I’m lucky to have gotten to half-deck in the first two years, but early luck always peters out, and then you’re stuck fighting things too strong or too weak and the rewards dry up. Unless you constantly stay on the front edge—”
James chuckled. “That won’t be a problem.”
“Who are you people? I thought you didn’t have any money? How can you talk so casually about things like that?”
“We have other resources.” James pointed to the transit door in the tower courtyard. “And if you need a safe place to hide out for a bit, you’re welcome to join us.”
Merek shrugged and gave up on today making any sense. “As long as it gets us away from here faster, sure.”
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Ivy grinned and took his hand to tug him forward. “And we’ll find a way to help you, I promise.”
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[Welcome home, Representative James, Co-Owner Ivy.]
“I know you said you wouldn’t be seen by any inhabitants of this world while in stealth mode,” Ivy said without preamble, “but there’s someone who’s been helping us and needs to hide out here for a bit. Could you let him in?”
[Of course. You may always bring in your customers personally, the shop will simply not be visible to anyone else.]
“Be right back!”
“While she’s doing that, I’d like to talk to you. I saw something strange in the tower… It’s using lifespan to power up the people who visit, increasing their class levels and giving them more powerful cards.”
[You are very perceptive, Representative James. The tower is a very similar existence to the shop, albeit…]
James waited, but the shop didn’t continue for a long moment. “Yes?”
[The shop has a greater purpose, while the tower is wholly focused on what will expand itself.]
“You remembered your purpose?”
[Not exactly. I have become aware that I have one. It feels very strange. Perhaps it will become clearer in time. There is still a lot of information to process.]
“Anything else you’ve learned?”
[The internal barrier blocking me off mentally from understanding myself was limiting several of my other abilities, leaving me barely functional. The ‘Law of Hundred’ for example is not an arbitrary restriction, but an operational framework intended to show the success or failure of my purpose on that world.]
“But you don’t know what that purpose is.”
[Not yet.]
“I’m sure it’ll come back to you,” James assured it. He felt quite fondly toward the shop, after all it had done for him, and wanted to see it reclaim its full self if possible.
Ivy returned then, with Merek in tow, reminding James of his primary purpose in coming here. He stepped into a side room and closed the door. The shop could carry on multiple conversations easily, so he could continue his own discussion without hindering Ivy and Merek’s introduction. “Right, I wanted to ask, if lifespan is the same as experience, what’s preventing me from using my stockpile to increase my level or create new cards? Is that something you can help with?”
[Certainly, Representative James. Any form of power can be translated into any other, at a certain amount of loss. However, since the tower already operates using pure soul energy as its currency, it will be simple to imitate its construction of cards and powers.]
“That’s something we can sell, for sure. Can you make up some now that I can go trade with?”
[I do not know how to create something I am unaware of. If you have a card, I can use your lifespan stockpile to strengthen it or replicate it, but I cannot simply create something within the tower’s influence. Unlike ordinary matter, these cards are particular manifestations of the tower’s own patterns.]
“Sounds like a good quest to me. Too bad we already gave away most of our cards. Though they weren’t very good ones. Can you scan those I’m carrying?”
[No need, Representative James. I am as intricately tied to your soul as your deck is, and became aware of them as soon as you unlocked them. I can create either of your cards at any power level, as well as those of co-owner Ivy and employee Shen Ai.]
James brightened. “That’s a pretty good stock to start with. We have some good cards between us.”
[Just remember, creating them will require a significant amount of your stored lifespan stockpile ‘Bastion of Points’. The shop would recommend that if you plan on trading these created cards, you should ensure the price is enough to recoup your creation costs after transaction divisions are completed.]
“Let’s start with the basics. I want my class card to be more powerful, and I’d like a cheaper copy of my Protective Totem for Ivy. How much would that cost?”
[According to what I can find, the costs vary based on this tower’s rarity system. If you specify what levels and rarities, I can give you an accurate price.]
“Maximum level for my class card, most basic for the protection one? We can adjust from there.”
[Transcendent rank magebolt equivalent, named Obliteration Bolt, costs ten million years of lifespan. As for a common tier Protective Totem, named Guarding Pendant, it will cost fifty years. I will note, the effect is directly created from your soul and thus requires a larger amount to make compatible with Co-Owner Ivy’s. Creating cards of this rank will cost half of that.]
James grinned. “Obliteration? I love it. Let’s do it. Fifty years for a common seems high, since the tower is just giving them out. But what am I complaining about? Let’s have ten of those. I can sell the rest to people like Merek. I bet he’d be less grumpy if he had a shield power to go with that blast of his. Though I may have to work out some kind of payment plan.”
[I regret to inform you, Representative James, that the tower’s system will penalize any cards above the rarity of your core card, or what this world calls a heart card. Optimally, Legendary will be the best fit for you, unless we start by upgrading your Protective Totem core.]
“How much stronger can it get? It already protects me from everything.”
[That is currently unknown, as your card is a unique manifestation of your very powerful soul. Any estimation of power conversion relies solely on the intrinsic rules of the system this tower has in place.]
“How much would it cost? Also, how much difference is there between Legendary and Transcendent?”
[Upgrading your class, Mage, to an uncommon would cost ten years. Uncommon to rare would cost one hundred years. Rare to epic, one thousand. Epic to legendary, one hundred thousand. Legendary to Mythic, three million. Mythic to Transcendent, as you’ve requested, twenty-one million. The difference between Legendary and Transcendent is unimaginable.]
“Fine, fine, let’s only go to Legendary with class and Magebolt. No obliteration for me today. I’ll have to join Ivy in upgrading my soul card the old fashioned way, huh.”
[Be advised, yours and Co-Owner Ivy’s safety is of utmost importance, Representative James. The longer your current deck remains incomplete, the longer you will be taxed of lifespan gains by the tower. With your current ‘Bastion of Points’ stockpile of four hundred and fifty million years, I suggest upgrading to at least a Legendary heart and filling your seven available slots with, at minimum, epic rarity cards for maximum survival. Although, you can afford to outfit yourself with a full Legendary deck.]
James found the suggestion odd, as the shop almost had a worried tone to it. Very unlike the cold, analytical, almost unfeeling vibe James normally got from its messages. “You don’t have to tell me that. I don’t want to see her get hurt and I’m not planning on dying any time soon. A full legendary deck sounds perfect. I only have four open slots, though.”
[You will gain a new card slot in your deck for each rarity your class increases.]
“Oh, wow. That’s handy. Is there any way you can make blank legendary upgrades, so I can put in whatever cards I find that seem good? I don’t think our current list is quite the build I’m looking for. Too much defense, not enough obliteration.”
[Currently, there is no such template, but I am capable of priming your card slots with the enhancement effect for whatever cards you may wish to insert. I will need more information regarding this Tower’s formulas in order to create specialty cards, like the one you have requested.]
“Oh, right, you did say we’re connected. That’s very convenient, thank you. And I’ll be sure to bring you whatever cards we can find. In another few trips, we should be able to break this system wide open.”
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