The squirrel came out of nowhere; one moment Tristan was walking, thinking of the most efficient route back to Transcendent, when suddenly the screeching monster dropped on him from a tree branch, bringing him down to the dirt.

It reared its jagged buck teeth and stabbed down. Tristan barely avoided getting his eye taken out by grabbing it by the neck and throwing it off him.

He scrambled to his feet, heart racing, as the squirrel landed roughly on the ground.

[Novice | Low] — Great Woods Squirrel

The name appeared over the monster’s head, who jerkily got to its feet. It was much bigger than a normal squirrel, about the size of a badger. Its fur was bristly and brown with a heavy curled tail. Its beady black eyes stared at him.

It burst forward, scrambling across the ground.

His reaction was immediate, trained from years of practice. He summoned his deck, the cards—well, the one card he had—appearing in front of him in front of his chest. He grabbed his [Earth Bolt] and cast it at the zig-zagging squirrel, throwing the card.

The card disappeared as it flew, turning into a bolt of green energy. It landed square on the squirrel’s chest and sent it tumbling backwards with a screech of pain.

How did I react that quickly? Tristan thought, looking down at his hands. He felt faster, stronger, his body following his mind’s directions easier.

The squirrel got to its feet, shaking its head. It screeched and ran up a tree. Tristan followed it with one eye while keeping an eye on his deck. Cards had a limited amount of casts that could be used for each fight—a fight in the game was considered finished when you either had your deck dismissed for eight minutes without being engaged in combat or you defeated the enemy. A small number on the top right of each card told him how many casts he had left.

Tristan blinked. He’d lost sight of the squirrel; its coloring helped it blend in amongst the tall brown trees. He spun around, trying to find it, when he heard leaves rustling behind him.

The squirrel landed on his shoulder and bit down hard, piercing his skin. Tristan yelled in pain, grabbing the monster with his arm and ripping it away. Blood sprayed from his new wound as the squirrel landed on all fours, blood covering its mouth.

He grabbed [Earth Bolt] and threw it at the squirrel again, but his aim was off due to the pain radiating out from his shoulder. Instead of hitting it, he hit the tree above it. Branches came scattering down. Tristan backed up as the squirrel cocked its head, making a strange chittering sound.

A detached, logical part of him thought, Why are you so afraid? It’s just a game. If you die you’ll respawn back at the grove.

But he couldn’t ignore every other part of him that screamed, This is real! The pain, at least, was a sign that things were different now. He never felt pain playing the game.

The card reformed, and he grabbed it, breathing heavily. Sweat dribbled down his head as the squirrel circled him. Tristan never took his eyes off it, refusing to even blink.

The squirrel suddenly dashed forward, but he was ready. Not wanting to miss again, he let it advance close enough for his knees to feel weak, and then he flung the card, right as it leaped for him.

[Earth Bolt] struck the monster clean at its neck. There was a sickening snapping sound, and then the squirrel crashed into him, limp. Tristan fell to the ground with a grunt.

Strangely, it was the weight and smell of the dead monster on his chest that convinced him this was real—or at least so life-like it was indistinguishable from reality.

The squirrel’s body faded.

You have defeated 1x. [Great Woods Squirrel].

You have acquired 2x. [Squirrel Fang], 1x. [Squirrel Fur], 1x. [Squirrel Meat], 1x. [Hamstring Blueprint].

The items floated in front of him as [Item Cards]; their coloring was neutral, the image a simple depiction of the material it held. The [Blueprint] was a pale template of the card itself with the item requirements needed written where the effect would be.

Tristan was stunned. That much loot off one kill? Normally, he’d expect to get just 1x. [Squirrel Fang] and maybe a fur if he was lucky.

That [New Game Plus] buff is quite something, he thought, accepting the loot.

The [Item Cards] and [Blueprint] automatically went inside his [Binder] for later recall.

Speaking of which… he thought of the command, and the [Binder] appeared. Currently, his [Binder] was just a simple plain green, though that would change as his rank advanced and got new cards. At least, that’s how it was in the game. Who knows what the hell is going on here.

He opened it, wincing as his shoulder wound twinged. He eyed it worriedly; the monster’s fangs had dug in alarmingly deep.

Shit. Hopefully there’s something in here that can help. There was a small selection of the most basic [Novice Blueprints] for each element, which every new player received upon starting; however, his other cards and [Blueprints] were gone.

He was going to have to re-acquire everything he needed for his old deck. Thankfully, due to this powerful new buff he got, it shouldn’t be too bad.

What’s going to suck is trying to remember which mobs dropped which [Blueprints], he thought, frowning. He’d just used the in-game item finder to guide him. Hopefully there’s some sort of equivalent in this world, whatever this is…

He quickly riffled through the rest of the [Binder], seeing nothing else except for the items he’d just acquired. He returned back to the Novice cards and looked through, trying to find…

There! A smile spreading on his face, he dismissed the [Binder]. It’s time to forge my first card.

***

Acquiring raw items from nature, instead of as a monster drop, appeared to work similarly to the game. He found the first item he was looking for all around him. Plucking some leaves off a tree resulted in a message popping up.

Convert 3x. [Oak Leaves] into an [Item Card]?

He assented, and the leaves in his hand turned into a single [Item Card] with a small number at the top right indicating their quantity.

Then he trudged off, the pain in shoulder steadily becoming harder to ignore. It took a little longer to find the next item, but he eventually did. A bush fat with ripe red berries sat by a tiny brook. He plucked a handful and converted them as well.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelBin. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“That’s handy,” he murmured. If he wanted to eat them, he could bring them back out as he wished. Just in case, he plucked some more and converted them, though he would hold off on eating until he had his new card. He didn’t want to eat anything poisonous by mistake.

That done, he scooped up some water in his palm from the stream. That converted into an [Item Card] as well, and he got a stack of that.

Now it’s time for the final piece. The most difficult. He made his way through the forest, wary to keep an eye out for more sudden squirrel attacks; when one more eventually did come, he was ready this time and managed to dispatch the beast without too much trouble.

You have defeated 1x. [Great Woods Squirrel].

You have acquired 2x. [Squirrel’s Claws], 1x. [Squirrel’s Blood], 1x. [Squirrel Meat].

The rate at which he was gaining loot was stunning, but unfortunately his movement during the fight had made the pain in his shoulder worse.

It was starting to get dark, his worry increasing, when finally he found what he was looking for. A tiny cluster of glowing, green orbs floating around a particularly massive oak tree.

He tried his best to sneak up on them but accidentally stepped on a branch, alerting them; yelping, he leapt forward forward, managing to at least grab two before they dissipated.

You have acquired 2x. [Minor Earth Source].

Sitting down against the tree, Tristan took a moment to catch his breath. His stomach was growling, not to mention his thirst from fighting and walking around. His shoulder was on fire, his nerves jittery from almost losing the [Minor Earth Sources].

A slow, wide grin spread over his face. He couldn’t deny it; he was having fun.

Time to forge.

First, he tried to summon Kelvin, his NPC forger. Unsurprisingly, nothing came.

Didn’t really think that would work. He breathed out. Gotta do it myself.

He summoned the [Forge], expecting a menu to appear.

Instead, a small furnace materialized in front of him. Made of simple, gray stone, it was blocky and crude with a bellow attached to the side. A channel led from the mouth of the furnace into a block set with a simple mold in the shape of a card. Beside the mold was a pedestal with a contraption not dissimilar to a juice squeezer and a quill.

His heart sank down to his guts. Standing up, he muttered, “What the hell is this…?”

He didn’t understand. In the game, forging was a simple function of the System, a matter of inserting items and then out comes the result. People could raise their forging rank to create higher grade cards themselves, but that took time. Besides, the game had NPC forgers you could recruit to craft the cards for you once you hit Expert and higher. Truth be told, the actual cardforging aspect of the game seemed like a tacked-on addition from a developer side of things.

It seems like in this world, whatever it is, the gamified aspect of it is gone. I need to do it myself. The pain in his shoulder yowled, and he grit his teeth, suddenly grateful for having gotten extra materials than he needed.

He opened his [Binder] and pulled out the requisite items he needed: 3x. [Oak Leaves], 5x [Redberries], and 1x. [Minor Earth Source]. Keeping them hovering around him, he decided to recall what he knew about forging.

Creating a card required four components: the base, a solid object to be the card itself; the ink, a liquid object to be the imagery on the card; a focus, a gas object to power the card and bind it all together; and the [Blueprint] to give its effect.

Guess I’ll start with the [Blueprint]. He opened his [Binder] and pulled out the card he was trying to forge: [Novice/Support/Earth]: Healing Berries. A [Support Card] that granted a mild healing effect, usable once every hour.

The block with the mold suddenly glowed. Tristan put two and two together and placed the [Blueprint] there, where it latched into place.

Next, the mouth of the furnace began to glow. So this is a tutorial of sorts, he thought. He figured the [Redberries] would go into that juicing contraption, seeing as how it was the liquid component of the card. He grabbed his [Oak Leaves], the base, and placed them inside the furnace.

Nothing happened.

Oh, right, he thought, mind starting to get a little fuzzy. The bellows. He pumped it up and down with his good arm, and blue light flared in the furnace, though it gave no real illumination. That would’ve been nice; it was rapidly getting dark in the forest.

Soon after, a greenish, molten liquid poured from the mouth down the channel and into the mold, filling it. Tristan swayed on his feet, feeding the furnace air, every up-and-down motion of his arm making his shoulder scream.

Suddenly, an acrid smell tinged his nose, and he took his hand off the bellows. He peered closer at the mold, now filled to the brim with rapidly-setting melted [Oak Leaves], and noted the burnt discoloring of it.

That’s probably not good…

The little pedestal with the juicer beckoned. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Tristan placed the [Redberries] inside the juicer and pulled down hard on the lever at the top, pressing the juice out of the berries. The red liquid fed into a tiny glass container at the bottom, which he extracted.

“Now what the hell do I do?” he muttered out loud. He eyed the quill, then the [Blueprint], and sighed when it clicked.

He had to ink in the image color. Thankfully, the card was simple. The image was only of a cluster of red berries against a white background, which he didn’t have to color.

Filling in the blank spaces of the [Blueprint] was a little like the coloring books he used to do as a child, except now he was 18, in a rapidly darkening forest surrounded by monsters, and had a monster squirrel-inflicted injury.

Inking the image was torturous. He didn’t even want to think about how intricate the Master-rank and higher card images got.

When he finished, he had enough pride in him to feel shame at how badly he botched it; the berries looked more like smudgy clouds, the edges of the berries bleeding into the white background. But he moved on.

The final step. He pulled out the [Minor Earth Source] and gripped it tight in his hand so it couldn’t flee. The [Blueprint] beckoned.

With no better idea, he shoved it at the card.

The foci shockingly resisted. Impressions flowed through him from the [Minor Earth Source].

It didn’t want to be trapped inside a card; it wanted to roam free amidst the forest, blessing the trees so they would be evergreen and grow higher and higher into the very clouds themselves.

“Too bad, you little shit,” Tristan growled, and he pressed down with all his might, forcing the source inside.

The card suddenly glowed, the colors deepening, the pale [Blueprint] fading away, leaving behind a proper, tangible card—

It dissolved.

You have failed in forging 1x. [Novice/Earth/Support]: Healing Berries.

Despair was too light a word for what Tristan felt. He had to hold back the urge to let loose an angry yell; he was lucky enough to not have attracted monsters yet.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. He shut his eyes tight and made himself calm down. He knew what had happened; he rushed the job and now paid the price.

He had one more source. He would do it right this time.

***

Trembling, Tristan held up the finished card. His every nerve was on edge from hearing things crack and howl around him; it was fully night now, the moonlight above having provided enough illumination for him to forge.

The pain in his shoulder seemed like an old friend at this point. He’d only been living with it for a handful of hours, but it felt like he’d been born with it.

He’d taken his time with the bellows, making sure to not let the base get too hot; that killed his arms and shoulder.

He’s taken his time with the inking, making sure to keep everything within their lines; that killed his hands and eyes.

The foci… that he had no idea how to do other than just shoving it in. By that point, his brain was goo.

But thankfully, 2/3 was enough to pass.

You have successfully forged 1x. [Novice/Earth/Support] — Healing Berries: Create a cluster of berries that provide a mild healing effect. (CASTS: 2).