She opened her Binder, quickly flipped past the cards she’d gotten from Aidas as she didn’t want to look at those right now, and pulled out the [Slumbering Stalagmites Blueprint] Tristan had given her.

The difficulty with Adept blueprints compared to Apprentice ones was in the amount of items required, not to mention the items themselves became harder to work with.

For [Slumbering Stalagmites], she needed 5x. [Devourer’s Carapace], 3x. [Devourer’s Blood], and 2x. [Earth Sources]. Not to mention the [Adept Advancement Core], but that would be Tristan’s responsibility.

The sources were going to be tricky in particular, as the stronger a focus was, the more resistant it was to attuning. Not to mention she didn’t have specialized stabilizers for Earth sources like this one, only for Water and Dark. Regular ol’ dirt and grass would have to do for now.

She slotted the [Blueprint] into the anvil, and the message appeared.

You are participating in Apprentice cardbearer Tristan Ford’s Adept Advancement. Would you like to begin?

“Whoa,” Tristan said. “I just got a message asking me if I consent to you forging this card for me.”

“Got the same one.” Eila accepted, and Tristan followed a moment after.

She then pulled out the item requirements, setting the cards on each station. She converted the carapaces, feeling the texture and testing their solidity with her hands. She knew other forgers had tools for this kind of thing. She didn’t understand them. There was no greater tool for measuring material sensitivity than the human hand.

“What are you doing?” Tristan asked, curious.

“I’m deciding how long the carapace needs to be in the furnace for,” she said, knocking on the carapace and hearing the sound. “I can tell by the inking that the base needs to be more raw, which means less heating time. Trap cards generally speaking are more solid than something like Summons.”

“I had no idea. What kind of Perks do you have, by the way?”

Eila summoned her [Status Page Card] and handed it off to him to look. He blinked, as if surprised, then accepted it.

Taking a deep breath, she began.

—🃁—

Tristan studied Eila’s [Status Page Card] more deeply. He could cycle through different pages on the card itself. In the game, if you wanted to check someone’s [Status Page], it was a matter of focusing on them and then clicking the appropriate option.

Bio:

Name: Eila Yarron

Age: 19

Build: N/A

Rank: Novice

Forge: Adept

Main Deck (5/5):

* [Novice/Light/Support] — Infusing Light

* [Novice/Light/Support] — Strengthening Zone

* [Novice/Light/Support] — Healing Hands

* [Novice/Support/Air] — Dash

* [Novice/Water/Attack] — Water Bolt

Burst Deck:

* LOCKED UNTIL MASTER

Main Deck Perks:

* LOCKED UNTIL APPRENTICE

Forge Perks:

* Apprentice:

* * [Apprentice/Dark/Base Perk] — {Heat Perception}

* * [Apprentice/Dark/Ink Perk] — {Black Shades}

* * [Apprentice/Dark/Foci Perk] — {Shadowed Attunement}

* * [Apprentice/Water/Ink Perk] — {Blue Hues}

* * [Apprentice/Water/ Foci Perk] — {Aquatic Attunement}

* Adept:

* * [Adept/Water/Foci Perk] — {Aquatic Attunement Heightening}

* * [Adept/Dark/Foci Perk] — {Shadow Attunement Heightening}

Forge Matrix:

* Furnace: (3/3)

* * [Refined Furnace]

* * [Tri-Bellows]

* * [Standard Channel]

* Inker: (3/3)

* * [Refined Inker]

* * [Separated Inkpot]

* * [Standard Brushes]

* Foci: (3/3)

* * [Improved Attuner]

* * [Standard Stabilizer]

* * [Standard Aura Crystal]

She’s only a Novice cardbearer, he thought with a frown. If she was going to be his forger, she needed to be stronger. He didn’t really need support, but it would be nice, not to mention he didn’t plan on clearing any of the Three Terrors with other Guilds. What he did with The Straight Path was more so a one off occurrence.

He tried to hand the [Status Page Card] back to Eila, but she just gestured for him to drop it. He did, and the card disappeared. That’s probably something everyone in this world knows to do. It was a good thing Eila either was too busy forging or simply wasn’t fazed anymore by his ignorance.

He then summoned his own [Status Page Card] and scrolled through idly; he didn’t get a chance earlier.

When he looked at his unlocked Perks, he found a new tab there.

System Perks:

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* Transcendent (1/8):

* {Transcendent/Earth/System Perk} — The Great Tree’s Blessing

There was a new section now for these System Perks. Similar to his regular Perks, these ones had a limited amount, but there were eight instead of five. He suspected that meant he could only get one System Perk for each element, but he would have to see later to confirm that.

He dropped his card and returned his attention to Eila forging. Watching her as she stared intensely into her furnace, pumping the bellows, made him realize how unsuited he was to this side of deckbuilding. His own attempts at forging seemed like a child stumbling through their first steps, just barreling into every surface and knocking things over.

Eila left the base cooking inside the furnace and went over to the inker. She placed the [Devourer’s Blood] inside the first compartment of her [Refined Inker], and Tristan walked over, curious. She eyed him as he peered closely at the different dials on the machine, which seem to control a variety of settings.

The technology of this world is both more primitive and more advanced than back on Earth, he thought, ignoring her grumblings about him being in her space. The fireplate, airships, and now whatever this is.

He figured having access to magical monster materials made the development of technology progress in an entirely different manner.

Again, he was struck by just how real this world was. It felt like every hour he spent here, the more Earth seemed like the game, a dream that he’d finally awoken from.

CORRUPTION COMES. The words from the Great Oak suddenly reverberated in his head.

A chill ran over his body, and he looked around the expanse, eyes narrowed. He felt like something was watching him. But all he saw was the wind rustling across the grass.

“You all right?” Eila asked, and he turned to her.

“Yeah, just thought I heard something,” he said, casting one last glance around at the empty plains before relaxing. He nodded to the inker. “So what are you doing right now?”

She explained to him all about the different compartments and their settings, but he admittedly wasn’t listening very hard. What is this Corruption? How is it tied with my being here, if at all?

He watched as Eila moved on to the foci station, which appeared to be a hollow glass dish atop a blocky gray stand. A small gray crystal floated nearby.

A thought struck him. Is it even a coincidence that I met Eila? What are the odds I meet a Water and Dark forger in the very area I wake up in?

Or maybe, I woke up in Great Woods because she was there.

“Hey,” he said. Eila looked up at him as she scooped up some dirt and grass from the ground and placed it in the hollow layer underneath the top of the glass plate.

“Yeah?” she said, a stray lock of hair dangling over her face. She frowned and blew it away, only for it to come swinging back with a vengeance.

He opened his mouth to ask why they wanted to clear Great Woods out of all the other Dungeons, then paused, thinking of Aidas.

“Why are you shoving dirt in there?” he asked instead.

“Well, you see,” Eila said, grabbing the [Earth Source] cards] with her dirt-caked hands, “with higher level foci like these ones, you have to first calm it and coax it into infusing the [Blueprint]. It helps to have familiar elements nearby for it to attach to. I have to use dirt because I only have Water and Dark attuners.”

“Interesting. What’s that crystal guy?”

“My [Standard Aura Crystal]. I don’t have the money to afford a better one because crystals are ridiculously expensive. They just help the coaxing process in various ways. This one just reduces the foci’s agitation a bit. Now shush. I need to focus.”

Tristan shushed.

—🃁—

It took about 30 minutes for Eila to finish forging the card. A glorious half hour where nothing in the world mattered but her, the materials, and Tristan’s genuine questions. She respected his desire to know, to understand, even though he clearly had no interest in forging whatsoever.

[Slumbering Stalagmites] was a difficult card. The carapaces were what Forgemaster Alrund called “tricky bitches.” They were highly resistant to melting—until all of a sudden they weren’t, and then it became all too easy to burn them. It was touch-and-go for the first few carapaces, especially since she couldn’t make use of her {Heat Perception} Perk for these Earth bases.

Not to mention her [Refined Forger] only had three base slots, which meant she had to double stack two of the slots. Not good for finesse and control, but a five-slot set-up was an exorbitant amount of money.

The inking wasn’t too bad, however. She was the strongest in this and because she could take her time she went slowly and made sure she got it right on the first go.

The foci was the worst by far. It was not only her weakest link in the forging process, but the Perks she unlocked to help with attuning were strictly for Water and Dark foci. The dirt and grass in the attuner helped, but even then, wrangling the [Earth Sources] was incredibly difficult.

Unlike their Minor variants, the regular [Earth Sources] were stubborn and head-strong; Forgemaster Gessi had described the difference between attuning them as “giving a crying child a candy and ordering an angry teenager to go to their room.”

In the end, though, she’d gotten it done. The foci assented to her will and infused the [Blueprint], making it glow. The message appeared after.

This Adept [Blueprint] belongs to an Apprentice-rank cardbearer. In order for the card to be successfully forged, the Adept Advancement Trial must be completed.

“Did you get that?” she asked Tristan, who was sitting on the ground, trying to twine some grass together into a crown.

“Yup.” He grumbled and threw the grass away. Standing up, he cracked his knuckles. “I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, sitting down and wiping the sweat from her brow. In a flash, Tristan disappeared, entering the liminal space where Advancement Trials were held.

She drummed her fingers nervously. If he failed, the card would not complete. If he did succeed, all future Adept [Blueprints] he gave to her would no longer require the Trial, and she could just hand it off to him and collect the [Forgeshards].

She looked up at the reddening sky. Depending on when he comes back, I should have time to forge one or two more cards. She needed to go back home soon; her parents understood that she couldn’t stay in the house too long, not with signs of Aidas everywhere, but still she was pushing it. She needed to be there for them, not to mention tell them about her plan to leave Sol.

She sighed, thinking about how that conversation would go and laid back, closing her eyes.

A flash of light had her jerk up. Tristan re-appeared, his deck swirling around him, an [Item Card] in his hands. She stared at him as he walked over and handed it to her.

“That was… quick,” she said, stunned. She took the [Adept Advancement Core].

He gave a cocky grin. “Took longer than I expected, actually.”

She rolled her eyes and stood up. “That’s gross, Tristan.”

He laughed. She went over and infused the card with the core, finishing the forge. She blinked away the message telling her she acquired 1x. [Adept Forgeshard] for the card and handed it to him.

“Wow,” he said, admiring the card. “This looks like a painting.”

She shrugged, a little glow of pleasure running through her.

He slotted the card into his deck and then raised a brow at her. “You good to do some more?”

“Yup. Since you came back so quickly, I have time to do at least three more.”

“Perfect.” He summoned his [Binder], rummaged through, and pulled out the rest of the [Blueprints] and [Item Cards] and handed them to Eila. After, he pulled out some [Equipment Cards].

A flash of light glowed over his body. When it faded, he’d equipped his Armor; however, it had changed. He equipped his new [Gemrock Leggings], a gray set of pants with various gems studded down the side. She knew about those, of course, but his chest was now covered with a thin, black-carapaced armor with two thin slits running down the back.

“What is that?” she asked, frowning.

“Hmm? Oh this? It’s nothing.” Suddenly, two wings formed out of the slits, and he took to the air, grinning down at her.

She stared up at him, slackjawed.

“Say, where’s the best biome to farm loot?” he asked casually, as if he wasn’t flying.

“Fire Fields,” she said after a moment, still stunned.

“Cool. See you in a bit. The top of your head looks funny, by the way.”

He flew off in a burst of speed, creating a little boom of sound and wind that made her stumble.

She watched him go, then rubbed the top of her head and growled. She summoned her next [Blueprint].

What did I get myself into?