GreenerThanGreen

New chapter, new problems. There is a hidden mechanic that I may or may not have thought out as well as I should have. There may be massive editing in the future if and when I figure it out.

When I wake up, I find myself in the safe room before the boss. Looking around I see the goblin warrior resting in a corner and my backpack resting against my bed. Everyone and everything is resting when there is work to be done. I take the backpack in my arms and start feeding the cores from the last room into the shop and when I am done, I have  Tokens Total of 445. I plan to let them accumulate a little longer and see if I can buy a Binder to store the cards in.

I get ready by washing my face and arming myself with my trusty sling, I command the goblin warrior to follow me. Before I open the door I try to take out Seal Swords from my deck, but remember they are on the mat, so I leave it there and instead summon Shien’s Body Double. I learned my lesson from the archer and won’t rely on Summoning inside the boss room. My Magic leaves me and from the card the Warrior materializes. Did I forget to  charge the new cards with Magic? When I buy a Holster they will charge automatically, but until then I must be careful. 

“What are my orders?” I take a glance at Double and then at the door and point at it. 

“We are going in there and taking down the creature inside. If it has ranged attacks. evade while approaching it and kill it when you find a chance.” He nods and follows beside me as I open the door and enter the boss room. 

I take a look at the boss and see a goblin wearing a robe and holding a staff. At first I think it is a goblin mage, sorcerer, wizard or something, but at closer look I spot bone trinkets hanging from its staff and a necklace and think he might be a shaman or a druid. It doesn’t change anything significantly when it is alone, but when I encounter it in a goblin group if it is a shaman or a druid it could probably heal the other goblins. Luckily the “Kill the healer first and then the mage” covers it entirely, so there won’t be a change in strategy when it is in a group. 

The goblin says something in a language I don’t understand and a fireball appears above the staff. I change direction to evade while Shien’s Double accelerates onward. I command the goblin warrior to approach the goblin boss while evading and I do the same. Even if I have more Magic Defense than Physical one I don’t want to get hit by a G rank creature, so I pay close attention to the fireballs and evade as soon as I can. The goblin warrior also evades, but it receives glancing blows from time to time. As we reach the boss I see the blade Shien’s Body Double wields disappear for a moment and then the head of the goblin boss rolls on the floor. That doesn’t seem right. Even if the goblin had more Magic Defense, his Physical should have been at least 900 as a G rank, then there is the HP on top of it. I take a look at the card on the play mat and see Shien’s Double with ATK 1 000. We are not on the Grassland for Warriors to have an extra 200 ATK, so something else is at work here. I search my deck and take out Man-Eater Bug and summon it next to Shien’s Double and compare values. The Inset creature has its original ATK, but looking at the card it’s DEF is slowly ticking down. I look at the Warrior and see no such phenomena. I will have to investigate this further when I have the luxury to spend time on it. Taking the Insect card I return it to the deck. 

“You currently have 1 000 ATK, but even with it, the most you could have done is eliminate it’s DEF. How did you kill it with one strike?” He flicks his sword to get rid of the blood, then looks at me and answers. 

“It wasn’t one strike, but two. That is the level of swordsmanship I posses.” He didn’t say it with pride of arrogance, but as if informing me of concrete facts. He wasn’t the strongest, but his mastery of the sword and his speed more than made up for it. 

I look around to spot the reward chest, but what attracts my gaze is something else. The goblin warrior’s dead body. Did it receive one too many fireballs? I go to it and show Shien’s Double where the core is and how to extract it, then ask him to do the same with the boss. A quick check to my HP shows no changes, so when killed, controlled creatures don’t transfer damage to me. While Double works I approach the chest and open it. Potion, it goes in the backpack, Coin Pouch, side pocket, Staff, next to the sword in the backpack, Belt, it goes in the backpack. It didn’t give me anything special, but what did I expect, a legendary treasure? Shien’s Double hands me the core and I also take the boss’s staff and place it with the other weapons. 

Before I leave the room I search my deck and the backpack, then leave on the floor one Remedy herb with half the drops from the pill bottle on it, one Card Sleeve and finally the card Cyclops. I am very interested to see if it can absorb them and what it could do in the future. Also will it be able to create just the material from the card or the Monster on it as well? Come to think of it, what did I do with the box from the free Deck and the box from the Sleeves? I rummage through my backpack and see them at the bottom, a little bent but otherwise alright. I take one out and leave it with the other objects, then go down the stairs to the next floor. 

When we arrive at the teleportation room, without expecting anything I try the new core on the slot. As expected or is it not expected? Nothing happens. I feed the two cores to the shop and now I have 460 Tokens. I remove Shien’s Double’s card from the mat and rest for a moment and eat one of the energy bars. Not many of those left. After I finish eating I look at the play mat and try to remove Seal Swords, but the card is stuck, much like the field spell. The text says it will stay on the field for 3 turns, so 3 days, eh? And the Warrior that lost some of his color is slowly regaining it. I don’t know for how long he can stay summoned, so I better only summon him for battles and not during a search. 

The first room of the 4th floor was once again a grassland field with impeccable visibility. No doubt because of the archers and shamans. I expect one of the goblin archers to be replaced by a shaman. Or maybe there will be alternating groups with either 2 archers or a 1 archer and 1 shaman? I start searching for the goblins and can’t help but think how much easier it would have been if I had the Seal Swords or Old Magician, cards that can reveal the position of opponents. 

When the first group of goblins enter my vision, I am surprised to find there are 7 of them, 2 archers 1 shaman, 2 warriors and the 2 lackeys. I should be able to dispatch the warriors and normal goblins if Shien’s Double can kill the 3 ranged attackers. I summon him and wait 5 seconds for him to appear. I again lose some magic and wander if all creature cards will be the same way? Not having time between Summoning to charge them up? I also decide to try and "Observe" the goblins and immediately after uttering the word, with the intent to check for weaknesses, my eyes focus on specific points of their bodies. The face, unarmored neck and armor joints for the warrior and various places that would be fatal if stabbed for the others. I didn't feel Magic leaving my body, so the Skill doesn't look like a magical one, at least for now.

“What is my task?” As soon as he is summoned, Double immediately asks for his assignment with a no nonsense attitude. 

“You will take care of the ranged attackers, while I kill the rest.” He nods in acknowledgement and starts running towards the group. I follow behind him. We evade a few arrows and some fireballs, but arrive at our respective opponents and get to work. 

I start with the more agile normal goblins and dispatch them with a single slice to the first’s throat and a kick to the sternum of the second, then I move on to the bulky, defense oriented warriors. They are more tricky with their longer reach with their swords, compared to me with my knife, but after all of them I had killed, I have found and perfected a sure way to kill them without getting hurt. I evade their first strikes and aim for the space between the helmet and the armor. If I don’t attack through thee armor, my ATK goes directly to their HP and skips their DEF. While doing that I tried to keep my target between me and the ranged attackers, so I wouldn’t need to dodge additional attacks. By the time I finish with my opponents, Shien’s Double has already killed his and is extracting the cores. I leave the ones from my kills to him and go to check the gear of the shaman. 

Concentrating on my magic senses I start observing the staff. There is a faint magical glow and I can see faint lines running through the length of the wood. Are those Magic conductive? And they converge at the tip of the staff, so this is where the magic concentrates and shoots of. 

After the staff, I look at Shien’s Double’s card and see 1 200 ATK, looks like the dungeons grasslands also has an effect on the cards. I remove the card and place it at the top of the deck to cool down for the next fight and approach the goblin shamans corpse. I am interested to see if as a Spellcaster it has different anatomy to the rest of the goblins, so I start dissecting, or more likely dismantling. 

In the end, there wasn’t any difference at surface level, no extra organs, veins at strange places or some additional crystallization of magic like a second core either in the body or the brain. With that finished, I continue searching the room for other goblins. 

There isn’t much of a difference in how the other encounters went compared to the first one, just that instead of just 4 groups of 6 goblins, there were 5 groups of 7 goblins. I was even able to observe the Double’s work with one of the groups and he wasn’t just evading the projectiles, but sometimes even slicing the incoming arrows. Right now I have 5 G rank cores, 20 H rank cores, and 10 I rank ones. 160 Tokens. When I add them to the shop I have 666 Tokens. But it doesn’t look like I am receiving much from my Magic Regeneration. But what did I expect, with constantly Summoning a card to battle with, my Magic isn’t full for the regeneration to take effect. 

The second room on the 4th floor was identical to the previous one, and the battle went almost the same. Adding another 160 Tokens, the Total is 832. Before entering the next one I wandered what my Status and Skills looked like, so I took a look.

The occupation  has gained 1 more level. Lets see if there are changes.

That means 3 star Summoning. And I can take control of the shaman when Change of Heart recovers from the cool down. This also means I have to put the 3 star creatures at the top of the deck with the Spell and Trap cards. Enchanting Mermaid already has one, so Demon World’s Thorns and the second Giant Soldier of Stone each receive a Sleeve, and together with Trap Master, Silver Fang, Mammoth Graveyard and another copy of Giant Soldier, they go to the top of the deck. 

Actually, taking a closer look at Mammoth Graveyard, isn’t the drawing of a skeleton mammoth? Even if the card says Dinosaur, I better not play it if it turns out to be a Zombie. So, I remove the sleeve from Mammoth and remove the card from the deck together with Great White, since it is 4 stars, is a fish and I need to have 40 cards. I then open the door to the next room. 

The third room of the 4th floor was the same grassland. Finding the goblins took just as much time, but now I could summon 5 creatures to battle the opponent. First I placed Silver Fang, then Giant Soldier followed by Demon World’s Thorns. I then command my summons to attack and kill the goblins. 

Silver Fang moves quickly and dodges swiftly and without a problem it bites the shaman in the neck. The Thorns’ vines on the other hand moves slowly towards the enemy and receives a few arrows, so I remove the card before the Plant creature is destroyed. I am not ready to test if destroying my summoned creatures does damage to me just yet. As the text on the card says, it probably is a camouflage ambush predator that performs badly in direct confrontation. 

I see Silver Fang go for an archer while the Soldier starts moving slowly, but faster than the Thorns, towards the goblins. Every step creates tremors and the remaining archer can’t aim properly to shoot even the giant target in front of it. When one arrow does hit it, it deflects off his stone body without much damage. What follows is a massacre as one creature tears and the other tramples and squashes their opponents. The extraction of the cores is a bloody and messy endeavor, but I manage. 

I remove the cards from the mat and continue the search for more goblins. This time, even if it is safer to summon more creatures, I think I will limit myself to only 2 – the Soldier and the Double. After all, they will be sucking my Magic directly. 

The next group is made a quick job of and I decide not to remove the creatures’ cards from the play mat. I think it is more economical and I want to see the limits of the time they can stay summoned, now that I have more cards that I can summon safely. 

Now that the cards will stay longer, I climb Giant Soldier and take a look around the grassland. From the higher vantage point I am able to see the whole room and quickly spot the next group of goblins. We proceed to kill every goblin in the room with haste. 160 more Tokens join the shop and now I have 1018. It looks like my Regeneration has filled my Magic pool a few times during the time in the room. 

The fourth room on the 4th floor doesn’t go much differently, Shien’s Double is performing admirably and the Soldier is still here and in almost full health. By that I include a little more damage than the scratches made by the arrows and fireballs of the goblins. His DEF has decreased by something like 400 additional points. Just like with the Bug it too is losing DEF while summoned. I finish the room and add another 160 Tokens to the shop, making my Total 1218.  

Entering the safe room before the boss, I take a quick look at the clock on my phone and it is 1:30 AM. I wanted to see if I could resurrect a shaman and make it obey me indefinitely, but now that it is after midnight, I don’t want to risk needing to be resurrected myself. 

The Giant Soldier of Stone disappears at around the 3 hour mark after his Summoning, but Shien’s Body Double stays without a problem. Is the Warrior somehow special or are there rules I don’t know about yet? I spend the next 4 hours charging cards with Magic, reorganizing my Deck, writhing in my Journal and eating the last of my energy bars. Tomorrow I will have to summon Forest and see if I can find something edible inside or else I will have to spend days with empty stomach and using Dian Keto to heal my malnutrition. I command Double to keep watch and lie in one of the beds, going to sleep almost as my head hits the pillow. 

GreenerThanGreen