All The Skills: Book 5: A Deck-Building LitRPG, page 2
“I won’t, and I’ll make sure no one bothers you either.”
Arthur nodded, and with another deep breath, concentrated on altering Cressida’s cards.
Chapter Two
Outside of himself, Arthur was aware of people talking, quick shushes, and the occasional playful squeal of a newly hatched dragon. He had forgotten how loud and shrill the first few weeks after coming out of the shell were.
He put all of that aside and did not allow his concentration to waver from the cards.
New body enhancement gained: Focus Under Pressure (Mental Discipline)
Due to your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 5.
Skill level gained: Meditation (Insight Class)
Level 19
He let the alerts for the new skill and level wash over him, though he was somewhat aware there had to be a connection between the two. He was in a state of focus so pure it almost felt meditative.
It helped to know that any time his attention truly wavered, he was at risk of destroying Cressida’s cards forever.
Mechanically, Arthur popped more mana chips in his mouth.
His draining mana vault was restored, and he continued on.
Slowly—ever so slowly, like the ember of a coal burning its way across a wet page—new letters etched themselves into the card at the end of each description. And just as slowly, those new letters became words.
It was much more than a change at the surface. Every swoop of a mark that would eventually make up a letter adjusted the card’s matrix underneath. One bad move could start a chain reaction that would corrupt it and eventually cause the entire card to collapse.
He was already further along than he had been with the practice cards, and he never could have gotten this far with one card—much less all four at once—if not for the fact there was an aspect of malleability to the cards he had never felt before.
In a distant corner of his mind that was not utterly committed to the process, he realized that made sense. These cards had rested in Cressida’s heart, and she wanted this to happen strongly enough that she would put herself at great risk. He had always thought of the heart growing and changing around the cards within it.
Until now, it had never occurred to him that the reverse could be true.
Finally—finally—the new line at the end of all four cards was complete.
This card is part of the Animal Summoning set. Seek out new animal summons in order to complete this set.
It was a version of the same phrasing that was at the end of his Master set, and an indication that all the cards in the same set existed in the world.
With a mental breath, he let go of his hold of the cards and felt the new phrasing settle into place within the matrix. It felt as satisfying as slipping in the last piece of a complicated puzzle. And, oddly, it felt just as well. As if the cards themselves had been waiting for this moment.
Skill level gained: Card Intuition (Card Smith Class)
Level 15
Skill level gained: Card Manipulation (Card Smith Class)
Level 9
Skill level gained: Card Repair (Card Smith Class)
Level 7
Skill level gained: Card Insight (Card Smith Class)
Level 6
New skill gained: Set Creation
Due to your card’s bonus traits, you automatically start this skill at level 5.
Suddenly, his focus shattered, and the rest of the world outside of himself took on meaning again.
He could smell the scent of burned food and charred spices in the air. Marion must have been trying to cook again, with Soledad adding her part with her emphasis on what she called “southern spices.”
Closer, Cressida sat next to Arthur, her body a warm line against his own.
Brixaby, who had long ago returned from a hunt with Joy, sat on the other side. He growled something darkly under his breath, but Arthur felt too fuzzy to pick up on it.
Speaking of that, he was soaking with sweat, yet his throat felt as dry as the deadened lands. His head pounded so hard that his vision swam in front of him.
But none of that mattered because in front of him sat four cards of the same deck.
New Hidden Class!: You may combine these six skills into the hidden Cardomancy Class:
Card Shuffling
Card Counting
Card Intuition
Card Repair
Card Insight
Set Creation
As this is a hidden class, there are no average skill-level requirements, and it may draw upon skills already in existing classes.
When equipped, card wielder will learn all Cardomancy Class levels at a 1.25 times rate in addition to existing skill bonuses.
+5 to Luck
+3 Charisma
+20% efficiency to all mana-based cards in the heart deck.
Enhanced synergy between all skills in this class.
Succeeding with the cards had already been worth it, but this was the icing on top.
Cressida must have realized that he had come out of his extreme state of concentration. “Arthur?” she asked gently, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“I did it,” Arthur said, and then promptly passed out.
Arthur woke up lying flat on his back and staring right into the face of a silver dragon. Asha was young and unusually fine boned, with a thin, delicate muzzle that emphasized luminous eyes.
Like most hatchlings, except for Brixaby, Asha had started growing from the moment she broke her shell several weeks back. She was now the size of a large dog, and fairly intimidating, as she practically stood on top of him grinning a dragon’s smile full of teeth.
“I breathed on you,” Asha said.
Considering that she had a powerful Breath of Healing card, this was no bad thing. “Thank you?” Arthur croaked. He wasn’t in a bed, he realized. He was lying on the floor—he probably hadn’t been out for more than a few minutes.
“I did my part, too,” Marion drawled. He stood nearby and tapped his dragon’s shoulder to get her to move away from Arthur. “You were suffering from dehydration, the beginnings of heatstroke, and for some reason, a buildup of lactic acid in all your limbs.”
Arthur stared at him. “What?”
“It was as if you were running all day,” Marion clarified. “I would have applied healing spells before you fainted, but I was told that may interrupt your concentration. No matter. How do you feel?”
Arthur thought about it for a moment. “Fine,” he said, a little surprised. It felt like he had just woken from a satisfying sleep. That must be Marion’s Moderate Body Polish card kicking in.
Now that the weight of a young dragon was off him, he was able to sit up—where he was surprised to see himself the center of attention from the rest of his retinue and his own dragon. Brixaby looked severely annoyed while Cressida was slightly teary.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” Cressida blurted out, as if she had been holding the words in by force alone.
Arthur shook his head. He did not ask if the cards had truly become a set, because he felt that they had, both in the last moments before he passed out, and most importantly, in her heart deck. Through his Master of Cards, he could feel the power of her cards more clearly than ever before. They acted as one, as a set.
“No, it was worth it. I got so many skill increases, and a new class,” he said, adding that last part to mollify Brixaby. “It’s a good one, too.”
His dragon’s blood red eyes narrowed. “You will tell me the details of his class later. Though . . . if it is good, it might have been worth it to see you collapse.” He threw a truly evil look at Cressida. “My rider has given you a gift. Be sure you use it well.”
Or else, was heavily implied.
She straightened, and though she still looked regretful, her noble pride wouldn’t allow her to take the chastisement sitting down.
“I will.” Chin lifted, she made a slight motion with one finger. All her animal summons puffed into view. They were the same shapes Arthur was used to seeing, but now they looked more . . . real. The flames on Wicker looked exactly like short fur with darker orange shadings along the joints of the legs, as if the light were reaching those parts differently. The water cranes moved exactly like real birds and started to peck at hopeful crumbs on the floor. The spiked hedgehog appeared obediently by her ankles and stood on its hind legs to look up at her, its nose twitching back and forth. And the kittens . . .
Arthur had to look away from the adorable kittens as they tumbled together. If you gave them more than a brief glance, you would be watching them whether you wanted to or not.
“They can now draw power from one another,” Cressida said, “and they use much less mana to summon and maintain.”
“Good.” Arthur got to his feet slowly, wary of any light-headedness or pain. There was neither. Between the Breath of Healing and the Body Polish, he was back to normal—if completely drained of his own mana. “If that’s the case, I think it’s just about time we returned to our own kingdom.”
He looked around at the others one by one, pausing for a moment on Soledad and her own dragon, who stood off to the side. Equinox was the same age as Asha. As a red dragon, he had no problem playing with figurative fire and was watching the mind-capturing kittens with a dumbstruck look on his face, even though he knew better.
Horatio stood off to the side, watching Arthur with his arms crossed. Arthur returned the look.
“Horatio, I know you’ve been wanting to save the surprise, but it’s past time we knew your card’s power.”
Horatio grinned, and with his long face and slightly crooked teeth, it wasn’t the best look. But Soledad smiled back at him with a slightly sappy expression in her eyes.
“As a matter of fact,” Horatio said, “I was going to show you today, though when I got back here, I saw you were trying to upstage me by doing the impossible and then swooning away.”
“I didn’t swoon—”
“Right into Cressida’s arms,” he confirmed. Then before Arthur could tell him off, he added, “But if you insist, why don’t you come outside. I’ll show you what Sams and I have whipped up.”
Chapter Three
Arthur and the rest of his retinue headed out of the barn to the back area, which was not visible from the street. He was torn between amusement and exasperation.
Honestly, Horatio could simply project an image of his card out to everyone so they could read it and understand what this supposed great power was within a few seconds.
But the amused part noted how Horatio kept glancing at Soledad over and over. His friend wanted to impress the girl.
Too bad for him, Soledad seemed to be more interested in corralling the exuberant Equinox to make sure he didn’t run off after something interesting in the flighty way hatchling dragons commonly did.
Equinox and Asha still hadn’t gotten the hang of flight, and they probably wouldn’t for some weeks yet. It would be longer still until they were large and strong enough to hold their riders.
However, they were growing up nicely, and Arthur was looking forward to them reaching their maturity and joining his retinue in full.
So was Brixaby. He kept talking about how strong his retinue would be compared to Whitaker’s Crag’s bunch of toe-claw lickers.
Arthur wasn’t as confident, as Crag’s group would have dragons with decades of experience, but he wasn’t about to burst Brixaby’s bubble. And he couldn’t argue that they weren’t going to be impressive themselves.
Horatio’s dragon, a big yellow named Sams, was waiting. He snorted a greeting to them all.
Around the corner of the barn and beyond, the streets were empty. It was a combination of a lot of people who were still working through the challenges of the Dark Heart—though by now, most of them were likely never to return. Or those who had not gone in had chosen instead to hide away and had settled back into waiting for the next societal reshuffling to happen.
Judging by the reports of the card-powered fights in the city center, they were right to find defensive positions.
Arthur turned his mind away from that dark thought and focused on Horatio. “All right, let’s see what you got.”
“One thing real quick, if you don’t mind,” Horatio said and then activated his Rainbow Knight card. Colors played over his skin in varying geometric patterns that always made Arthur a little seasick to focus on for too long.
This was a side effect of Horatio gathering what he called all the spectrums of light. By his side, Sams, too, seemed to glow a brighter and brighter yellow. It should have contrasted with his purple belly, but if Horatio was to be believed, “purple” was a sort of semi-invisible light spectrum, too. Arthur had no idea how it worked.
Abruptly, the colors playing over Horatio’s skin faded away, and even Sams dimmed.
Arthur waited for something—a blinding flash of light, fireworks in the bright blue sky, or even a bunch of illusions. One could never tell with a light card wielder.
Nothing happened at first.
Except . . . were the shadows growing deeper?
Arthur glanced up, fully expecting to see a cloud pass between them and the sun. But the sky was entirely cloudless without even a bird to be seen. Yet it was definitely growing darker.
The whole world felt like it was dimming by shades.
He looked around and met eyes with Horatio, who grinned back at him. The whites of his teeth were exceptionally vivid.
In a world growing dimmer by the second, he and Sams were the only two who were still lit clearly.
“What’s going on?” he heard Asha ask Marion.
The little silver had pressed up against his leg and was looking around, scared.
Marion put a hand on her head. “It’s only a light effect. It will be okay.”
Joy glanced over to the hatchling and said shortly, “His rider is just showing off his new card.”
Brixaby added, “They are part of my retinue and showing us what our enemies will see . . . or not see.”
That was one interesting thing about dragons. Brixaby and Sams seemed to have taken over the basic teaching for the little hatchlings. Joy generally seemed—well, not annoyed because she usually had a bubbly personality—apathetic. Like they were teammates who hadn’t quite proven themselves worthy of the name yet.
Arthur had heard that naturally, female dragons generally took care of the eggs while the males over the hatchlings. That was on display now.
He glanced again at Brixaby and noticed that his dragon’s bloodred gaze had not left Sams and Horatio.
“What is it?” Arthur asked.
“I’m sensing . . . void energy. This resonates with my first card.” Brixaby sounded rather impressed. He turned to Horatio. “What exactly are you doing?”
It was now as dusky as early evening and rapidly falling dark around them. Horatio and Sams were the clearest thing as far as Arthur could see.
“The first thing you should know is, when we use this card for real, you’ll be able to see just as well as I can see you,” Horatio said. “And that though it probably looks like the whole city is going dark, I’ve just contained this effect to this yard.”
“Is that because you didn’t want to panic the locals, or does it eat up that much mana?” Soledad asked in her blunt way.
“It is extremely mana intensive,” Sams said.
Horatio grimaced. “Yeah, okay, that might be part of the reason why it took me so long to reveal this all out to you. The problem is that it takes a steep mana kickstart.”
“They do sell mana chips here—” Arthur started, but Horatio interrupted him.
“Won’t work. It needs a light-type mana.”
“Mana can have types?” Cressida asked, and Arthur was glad he wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what.
Horatio shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Which is why I needed to use Rainbow Knight to gather all that energy. Then I focus it on Sams, who can use one of his cards to transfer that light to mana, which he then throws back to me. So, it takes a lot of setup. But when it’s ready . . .” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly it was as if all light had been sucked out of the world.
It was complete and utter darkness, even more so than if Horatio had put out Arthur’s eyes. Not even a hint of a shape to be seen.
Feeling a sense of vertigo, Arthur threw out his arms and ended up smacking the back of his hand against the side of Brixaby’s hide, who drew back in surprise.
Judging by the shouts around him and the higher-pitched shriek from Asha, he wasn’t the only one disoriented.
Horatio wasn’t cruel and let it go on for just a few seconds to make his point before light flooded back into the world. In some ways, that was even worse. Arthur was squinting, eyes watering like he was looking into the sun.
Out of all of them, Marion looked the least taken aback by the card, and the most intrigued. “And you say that it will be dark for enemies, but still light for allies?”
“That’s right,” Horatio said. “As far as I can tell, my limit will be about twice as big as this yard.” Which was plenty big in itself, as it was able to fit all the dragons in it.
Soledad broke into a smile. “I like it. If anyone or anything messes with us, just plunge them into darkness.”
“Is that the plan?” Cressida asked pointedly, looking at Arthur. “Will we be put into a position for people to, uh, ‘mess with us’?”
The two women exchanged smiles that didn’t seem friendly at all. Then all attention turned to Arthur.
He had been avoiding answering this question, but now it was time.
“It will take us a few days to gather together all our supplies, but then we’re going to head out.” He stopped right there because if Horatio could drag out his card reveal for a few weeks, he could do the same for a few measly seconds.
Marion was the first to take the bait. “And where, exactly, will we be going?”
