GreenerThanGreen

Waking up this time was smoother than previous days. Maybe because I went to bed earlier or I am getting used to the dungeon. Heh, early as in 5 o’clock in the morning. After waking up I wash my face and hands then rinse my mouth. 

Shien’s Double is watching over the entrance and exit to the room, so after making sure I have everything where it should be, call him over and we enter the boss room. 

What was waiting for us inside can only be described as a knight. Helmet with face protection, full plate armor, shield in one hand and spear in the other and a sword strapped to the hip. I think my creature will have problems dealing with it alone, so I also summon the Soldier of Stone from yesterday. It had 1 300 DEF at the moment and I don’t want to summon the other one before I am sure why their DEF decreases. 

“Double, you approach and harass the boss and deal what damage you can. Soldier, smash the boss when you see your chance. I am on long range support.” Once my orders are heard, they spring into action and attack the knight. Double parries the spear strikes and tries to find weak spots in the armor, while Soldier tries to swing its sword at the knight but is either evaded or parried in turn. I throw rocks with my sling, which are totally ineffective. The battle continues until the boss is cornered and Soldier manages to land a blow that cracks the armor and Double stabs through that crack, finishing the boss. Light shines in the room and the reward chest appears. 

“Strip the armor from the corpse and extract the core, while I check what is in the chest.” The 2 creatures begin their task as I open the chest. Inside are the usual things, a Potion, Coin Pouch, arm-guards and the first iron weapon from the dungeon, a knife. That last one is a good finding, because after all the killing and dismantling, the bronze one is on its last legs. I dump all the loot to their respective places in my backpack and take a look at the boss’ corpse. The armor is almost entirely removed and they are extracting the core. That gives me time to study the armor and goblin for weak points for future fights. The goblin that was under all that metal is a little buffer than the other ones and my guess is he was specializing in strength. As for rank, it could be either G or F, but my money is on G. I wonder if I used Change of Heart, would that have counted as the boss being defeated and the chest given? Or would I have had to kill it and would have just wasted a Spell? Double gives me the core and I feed it to the shop. Tokens Total 1442. 

We proceed to the next floor, the 5th one and are greeted by a beautiful grassland, yeah, no, I am getting tired of grass. For extra security, as in I wanted to be sure there aren’t any traps I Summon Trap Master. He also has increased ATK and not just from the grassland field. Maybe the effect is really connected to the Warrior cards? I climb atop Giant Soldier and look for the groups of goblins in the distance. I have a feeling my vision has improved since I came to this world, not that it was bad before, I just feel I can see further and with better clarity. Trap Master scouts ahead until we find the goblins. I order him to hang in the back with me during the battle itself. 

The first group of goblins we find consists of 1 knight, 1 shaman, 2 archers, 2 warriors and 2 cannon fodder. Immediately I put Change of Heart on the play mat and take control of the knight, then command it to attack them from behind, while my other creatures attack from the front and occupy their attention, while Trap Master hangs with me. The battle is fast and bloody, and we take almost no damage. One arrow did scratch Giant Soldier. 

The other 4 battles were a little more complicated. We approached and were dodging projectiles, or at least Double and knight were, while Soldier was a little slow to dodge them, but his tanking was excellent. Meanwhile I was throwing projectiles from the back and doing a lot better job at hitting them and taking some of them down and Trap Master was just behind me, watching my back. Then, knight kept the opponent knight busy, while Double killed everyone else and then helped with the opponent knight. They led it to Soldier, who cracked its armor open for them to finish it off. The cores were extracted and I climbed Giant Soldier to find the next group. That was how pretty much all other fights proceeded. I fed the cores to the store and had a Total of 1682. 

The fighting in this entire floor took roughly the same time as usual, but the time spend searching for the groups was a lot less. In the 3rd room I had to summon the second Giant Soldier of Stone, because the other was on cool down, but otherwise things went smoothly. When I was finished with the 4th room and fed the cores to the store I had 2433 Tokens. These last few floor gave a lot of points and I think my Magic Regeneration may have increased by a point or two. 

I don’t immediately spend the point to buy a Binder, but take out a Forest and place it atop Darkness. I hear the faint sound of something breaking and when I look at the play mat I see the graveyard zone indicate 1 card is in there. Forest sticks to the Field Zone and stays in place, while the whole room starts changing rapidly. Trees materialize and dig the ground to root themselves, bushes appear everywhere and I hear faint chirping in the distance. I think I am in luck and this is not just a Spell like Darkness, but a real forest with all its inhabitants is summoned. 

“Go through the entire forest and find anything edible, Plants, roots, berries, fruit or Beast, doesn’t matter. I can even eat Insects if they are not poisonous.” We all start searching the forest both high and low. The only problem is, I have no idea which plants are edible, which are mildly poisonous and from which I could die. That the entire forest could be from someplace with vegetation different from Earth or this place, doesn’t help. I have more luck with the animals. I manage to find a few nests with eggs inside and even managed to kill a bird with my sling. I think for now this will have to do. 

Next I find some fallen branches, a good sized rocks and a clearing and prepare to have a meal. I have problems starting a fire, but eventually manage, then I borrow the knights helmet. I make a stable rack above the fire made from sticks and use one of the pouch strings to hang the helmet above the fire.. I then fill it with as much water as it would take and wait for the water to boil. Meanwhile I dismantle the bird and take out all the innards and organs, then sort them out. I know that chicken liver, hearth and gizzard are edible, but have no idea about the rest, so I discard them. The edible ones I slice in two and clean them with water. When the water boils I dunk the bird inside for a few seconds to loosen the feathers and start plucking them. The head is also discarded and then the water in the helmet is changed to fresh one. 

I slice the bird in parts, wings, thigh, torso cut in 4 parts and a neck and start adding pieces to the boiling water, followed by the innards. When I think it is done I dunk the Remedy herb and pour the drops from the pill bottle. I remove it from the fire and let it rest between a few rocks I stacked so the helmet doesn’t topple over. Better add the eggs also. I crack the few that I have gathered and one by one drop them in the hot soup to be cooked by the heat. I think in ancient times the Japanese soldiers cooked meals in their helmets on long marches, or am I mixing historical facts and something I read in some Manga or other fiction? 

When my meal cools enough for me to hold the helmet without burning myself up, I start eating slowly. I have something resembling chopsticks and a fork I carved from some branches, but no spoon, so I resort to slurping directly from the helmet. Good thing I washed and scrubbed it beforehand, because I don’t want to know what a goblin’s head tastes like. The food is bland, lacking any sort of seasoning, but at least it is filling. I give the knight back his helmet after washing it, gather the rest of the food we gathered, which are mostly nuts, fruits of unidentifiable nature and grasshopper looking bugs I removed the legs of, so they would stay alive but can’t escape my backpack, and leave the room. I am glad I didn’t show any allergic reaction to the food, but just in case I was holding Dian Keto in hand while eating. 

Once we are in the safe room, I check the Tokens Total. It is 2594. I spend 2 000 to buy the Binder and a leather bound book materializes in front of me, then floats in the air until I put my hand below it and it falls down. There are gold looking lines all over the leather covers and some form images from the anime and cards, but most look like some foreign writing, most probably enchanting of some kind. There are 3 belts that move around the spine and another that goes over the back cover, all meeting at the front cover, where clasps for closing them are at the ends of the belts. When I open the Binder, there are sections for 9 cards on each page.

I put the 2 Giant Soldier of Stone cards, Man-Eater Bug, Silver Fang and Demon World’s Thorns inside, then every card that is not part of my deck go in different sections. The binder looks like a book with 9 spaces for cards on each page, but no matter how many times I change the page, there is no end. I think this is some kind of spatial effect and can hold all the cards I will ever get. After closing the Binder, a bunch of belts move around it and lock it. I think I can wear it on a belt together with the Deck Holster. After that I spend the rest of the tokens on a new Booster Pack. 

Wight, Killer Panda, Sting, Book of Secret Arts, Fire Devil, Power of Poseidon, Mirage, Man-Eater Bug and Grave Digger Ghoul. I immediately sold the copy of Wight for 119 Tokens, for a Total of 213. I was planning to keep at least one copy of every card in every Booster Pack in case it is important in the future, but ones that I won’t be using or are easily obtainable, I will sell the extra copies of. Fire Devil was send to the Binder in the not likely to use section, as even if it was a Pyro, the name of the card didn’t fill me with confidence it wasn’t an actual Devil. Power of Poseidon is just a trident that when equipped increased Aqua’s stats. What is more interesting is Gravedigger Ghoul. It isn’t even remotely useful for now, but it is interesting. It removes from play dead creatures. I guess if I ever kill someone I absolutely don’t want to be resurrected or turn into a Zombie in the future it is a useful card, but otherwise it is meh. 

After looking the cards over I put Sting, Book of Secret Arts and Man-Eater Bug in my Deck and the rest go in the Binder. I play Remedy and Last Will to collect today’s items, then I pick 4 more cards and we all enter the boss room. 

The boss of the 5th floor turned out to not be another goblin, but a hoblin, I mean hobgoblin. Unlike the short goblins, the hobgoblin looked to be about human size, which allowed them to have more space for muscles, which made them at least twice as strong as goblins. I quickly summon Enchanting Mermaid and activate Pincer Attack, the Mermaid is sacrificed before her body can flop on the floor and the knight simply falls down. Because I can use magic one rank lower than the boss, instead of instant death, the attack takes about half of his HP. As for why I sacrificed monsters for the attack, the knight will be freed from my control at midnight, when Change of Heart expires and so I had to sack him and the Mermaid looked like the most useless monster I had right now, being a fish on land and all. Sure wish I hadn’t use Fissure as an experiment. 

As the 2 creatures die, one disappearing to the graveyard and the other simply falling on the ground, the boss staggers from all the damage dealt to it. Taking the chance I set Man-Eater Bug and flip it over, activating it’s effect, finishing the boss. The battle was won swiftly and without a problem, but what will happen when I have to fight hoblins in a group? I was just getting used to the fights until now and there is already a major change. 

Extracting the 2 cores, I feed them to the store and receive another 30 Tokens for a Total 243. Then I open the reward chest and find a surprise inside. The Potion is not the surprise, neither is the Coin Pouch. Certainly not the leather helmet either. No, the surprise was a book. Taking it out with excitement and wander, I turn the cover towards myself and read the title “Shield Arts Skill Book” and all the positive emotions just disappear like they never existed. Why shield? Why not sword, or knife, or magic, or even foraging, all skills I could use right now. I sigh with so much disappointment, as if the book had just insulted me on a personal level and I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. I toss the loot in the backpack and go down to the next floor. 

In the teleportation room I check the time and see it is before midnight, as in 10 PM so I use Resurrection to bring back the knight and then Reinforcements, Castle Wall, Emissaries and Pitfall. I look at the two Warrior cards and compare them To the Insect that is losing it's DEF slowly and can't help but wander what is causing this.

"Why are you and Trap Master okay, when the others keep losing DEF?" I ask what I am thinking, without expecting an answer in return, but to my surprise, Double does answer me back.

"The world isn't fighting our existence, so we don't have to defend against it to stay summoned."

That is something I didn't know about summons until now, but it did make perfect sense. If my cards had to use their DEF to fight the energies of this world to stay summoned, then the constant loss of durability and time limit they could stay summoned was expected. And the stronger the card is, the more stars it had, the longer it could stay summoned. What doesn't make sense is the 3 star Soldier that is stronger than the 4 star Holy Elf. I remove Shien’s Body Double and Trap Master from the play mat and look at the gray cards. It is good they can stay indefinitely, but once they leave the field for whatever reason, the cool down will be monstrous. Better not have them out for more than 8 hours. And thinking of not having cards out, I remove Bug and place it in the Binder together with Double and Trap Master. Everything finished, I spend 5 hours recharging the magic in the cards and recovering when I feel empty. This time I don't check my Skills and just spend the idle time just theorizing what other card types could be safe from the harmful world energies and if the same energies had any effect on me. At around 3 o’clock in the morning I finally go to sleep. The only entry in my Journal at the end of the day was: Journal Entry: Day 4 I ate a filling meal today.

GreenerThanGreen

Which version of the card Grave Digger Ghoul should I use in the future? The one with 2 removed or indefinite removed?