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16 - Card Lessons
🕑 Added 2025-02-12 12:58:57 +0000 UTCMuch later that evening, after said nap, the card lessons officially began.
Even though Lexie had pestered Aiden right after he woke up from his nap in the early evening, he'd insisted they have dinner first, and told Lexie that she had to eat all her asparagus before he taught her anything.
It wasn’t a chore. The asparagus he made was buttered to perfection, but according to Aiden, Lexie had a habit of hiding her vegetables underneath the table napkins when she was younger. So he kept an eagle-eyed gaze on her as she ate.
Lexie dutifully cleared her plate of steak and potatoes, ate all her veggies, and then helped her father clean up, earning herself a loving head pat. After that, they'd retired to a low table, and Aiden had finally asked Lexie to present the deck.
“Alright,” Aiden said to start. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor at opposite ends of the table.
“The first thing you need to know about cards is the kind of deck you’re using.” He gestured to the cards neatly stacked on the table. “This one is called the Party Planner’s deck. I got it a while ago at an antique shop because I was going to my first ever party and wanted to impress a certain someone who was throwing that party.”
“My mother?” Lexie inquired.
He shook his head. “No, this was before I knew Lara. It was another girl, but that didn’t work out. Anyway, I got this at the antique shop, but you don't have to do that. Most people just buy their decks from the systems store directly and keep them in their inventory so they can easily summon them. But these were pretty cheap and I preferred antiques at that time." His gaze grew soft and he allowed himself a little smile. "So did your mother. She and I used to visit antique shops a lot when we first started dating. And after we had you, we would take you along. There's even one in Alberton that you used to love. We can go there when you're feeling better."
"Um...sure." Lexie felt a little uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze. Once again, imposter syndrome was poking her guilty conscience, reminding her that she was an unwilling accomplice in robbing Aiden's real daughter of these touching moments and loving words.
"Yeah, we can discuss that later." Aiden coughed to cover the slightly awkward silence. "Where was I? Right. There are different card decks you can choose from, usually bearing about twelve cards each, and each deck is dedicated to a specific purpose. For example, the Party Planner’s Deck is all about planning and entertaining at parties. You also have the Juggler’s Deck, which helps you learn to be a better juggler, the Dancer’s Deck for dancers, the Librarian's Deck and so and so forth. They’re probably hundreds of them, including different variations of the more popular decks. All can be bought from the system store. Are you following so far?”
“Lots of decks with terrible names. Got it.”
He smirked. “Alright. Now you have your deck. Again, typically comes with twelve cards, although not always. The next thing you need to know is that each card has an activation time, an active time, and a cool-off time. The activation time is how long it takes you to activate a skill. The active time is how long that skill stays in play. And the cool-off time is how soon you can use the card again after it’s no longer active.
You can activate two cards concurrently, and typically most decks are arranged to optimize for this so that it’s relatively easier to activate the next card after you've activated one already. But you still need to take into account your cool-off time and how much mana you spent during your last activation so you don't burn out. It's recommended that you wait at least a minute between each card activation."
Lexie nodded. No wonder she'd burned out. She definitely hadn't done that.
"You also cannot activate two cards at the same time."
"Why?" Lexie wondered aloud.
"Safety reasons. Also logistical reasons. It's a lot easier to focus mana on one pathway than two and it's mostly advisable to activate a skill at a time. This is a general rule that most other mages, bound or unbound swear by. And with cards, it's even more important that you have that waiting period in between activations because typically card users don't have a ton of mana capacity to begin with. You need time for your stores to refill."
"It refills in a minute?"
He shook his head. "No. That's why I said at least a minute. Your mana stores won't completely refill by then but it makes it less likely you'll burn out. Some better trained mages wait less than that. But most card mages, particularly beginners, have to wait longer and waiting longer will usually nets better results."
Jeez, she might have to wait longer? A minute already sounded like a long time. And that wasn’t even counting the time it would take her to actually activate the card, all for a few seconds of use.
Yeah, it's definitely not something I can use in an emergency. Which begged the question what was the point of card magic. Just as a teaching tool? Even for entertainment, it sounded so lame.
"Is there any way to shorten the activation time?" Lexie asked.
Aiden hesitated to answer. "There are some ways, but it's not straightforward. Usually, that just comes with time and getting used to your pathways. I'll explain it more once I actually show you how to activate the cards."
"Okay." She nodded. "I'm assuming that if you try to activate two cards at the same time, nothing bad would happen right?"
"No. If a card senses that you're trying to activate another at the same time, it will just deactivate."
"Wait, the cards can sense each other?"
"Of course. When they're in a deck, they're all linked. So they can play off each other in a sense."
Hmm. That was interesting. Lexie was already thinking about the logistics of it and perhaps how to use that to her advantage.
She was also thinking of a way around the no-double-activation thing. That could be one way to save time, and she wondered how the shut off system worked. For example, say she didn't take the recommended minute-long cool-off time, and simply wanted to activate one card right after another. What was the minimum in-between time she could get away with before the card tagged it as simultaneous activation? A second? A millisecond? A microsecond? At what point would it shut off?
And what was the role of the deck in coordinating this?
“Question,” Lexie put her hand up like she was in class and Aiden grinned. “What’s the point of a deck? Just for the aesthetic and organization?”
“No, it also serves a practical purpose. Card developers created decks to increase cohesiveness and efficiency. Card activation, as you’ll come to find out, is all about time management. And having cards arranged in a deck makes everything easier, and reduces the activation time for each card.”
Lexie could see how that would be useful. “How does that work?”
“Well, card pathways in a deck are designed close to each other on the mana field, in such a way that the pathways actually flow into each other.” He grabbed a salt shaker, shook some tiny white crystals out, and once more drew connecting tunnels on the table. “Think of these as pathways. See how they’re all interconnecting? This pathway even flows directly into that pathway. This would be how a deck would look on the mana field. Two cards that are not part of the same deck, will likely be much farther apart from each other and less likely to intersect."
"And the mana field is?"
Aiden cocked his head, thought for almost a minute, and then shook it. "That's something that's going to be difficult to explain at this stage. And it will only confuse you more. For now, simply think of it as a collection of all the pathways in a single item or body."
"That doesn't sound that difficult to explain."
"That's because it's not the complete explanation. But it's what we tell young mages who are just starting out. You have an internal mana field, an external mana field, and an object mana field, in this case, the object is your card. Card magic influences all those mana fields, forming links between pathways that were previously not connected."
Lexie was still somewhat confused and it showed in her face.
Aiden nodded, then he cleared his previous salt drawings to start a new one, the excitement of teaching in his eyes.
"You see, your internal pathways are typically correlated with where a skill is generated. For example, the <Shut Up and Dance> card's pathway is in the feet, and core, and the <Can I Have Your Attention> card pathway is in the mouth. So say, you wanted to dance, and right after that make an announcement. Your feet and your mouth are on opposite sides of your body and so are their pathways. But as long as the two cards you use are part of the same deck, it creates an artificial link between all those pathways thereby making the mana travel easier and smoother."
He keeps drawing different pathways on the salt and linking them with a dotted line."When mana congregates at one side of your body, it's termed a mana cloud. And once a card in a deck is activated, your internal mana creates a cloud that moves in that direction of that card, and binds to the deck, making it easier for each subsequent card to be activated. So you see, this makes everything even more streamlined, and reduces waste. Some cards in a deck even share sections of the same pathway, which cuts down the activation time even more–especially if you do one after another–because of mana cloud binding." His eyes glinted up at Lexie and he adjusted his glasses. "Do you understand what I've said so far?"
She nodded. "I think so." She tried to mentally reiterate it to herself, and explain it in her own words. Basically, a deck connected the activation pathway for all the cards, and also bound her mana cloud to make everything easier and faster. So the first card activated gets the least advantage, but then each subsequent card becomes easier.
That means when activating more than one card, I should always start with the lowest powered cards and save the more complicated highest powered cards for last.
"So this linking effect a deck has," she continued. "Does it last only as long as the card is active?"
He shook his head. "Lasts about twenty four hours after the deck is active. That's also why you're not allowed to use more than one deck within a twenty-four-hour period."
"Seriously?" So many rules.
"Yes. If you used a card from the Party Planner's deck and then tried to activate a card from the Dancer's deck right after, the latter wouldn't activate. Partially because the mana cloud is somewhat attached to pathways in the first deck."
"How?"
"That's another thing that's too complicated to explain at this stage, honey bee."
Lexie swallowed her frustration along with her impatience to find out more.
“It's typically not seen as a problem," Aiden said. "Because Card Mages often affix and specialize a few decks in their entire lifetime. You see, it helps them level up faster if they only focus on a handful of decks. But we’ll get more into deck management in the future, including how to create your own deck.”
Lexie's eyes widened. "You can do that?"
"Of course." He wiped off the salt diagrams, creating a clean board. “Not from scratch though, not unless you're an official card crafter working with system developers. You can mix and match cards from different decks to create your unique deck but note, this is also liable to system approval.”
“Why would the system not approve a deck?” Lexie asked.
“If it’s not cohesive enough or the mix-and-match may potentially endanger its users, the system will not approve and will not give a deck signature which is what links all the cards in the deck together."
"Endanger how?"
"Well, the most frequent way is by having too many high-powered cards in the same deck. If most of the cards in the deck have a power of seven or higher, then the system will not approve. And in a less specific sense, if the system thinks that the deck can cause harm to oneself or others, it will not allow it either."
"Oh." She guessed that was another reason why the cards themselves were limited by time and potency. So they wouldn't cause harm.
"Again, this is all advanced knowledge that we’ll get into when we’re discussing card crafting," Aiden said. "Right now, I just need you to understand the rules. 1. Work with cards in a single deck for now until you master it. This will make it easier for you to learn mana control and also not burn out. 2. Don't use more than one deck within a twenty-four-hour period. 3. Don’t activate more than one card at a time. 4. Leave at least a minute of rest between each activation. More depending on total activation time and how much waste you produced."
Lexie nodded and noted down the rules of the game on a writing pad her father had given her. It was called a study pad, and it was a clear glass screen that transmitted the words directly to her system notes section.
When she was done writing, she looked at Aiden expectantly.
He picked up the cards, shuffling them as he spoke. “Now let’s move on to the basic mechanism of card action. First, let me explain mana and the three different types of it. There’s internal mana, object mana, and ambient or external mana. Internal mana is the mana that is contained in your body. This is dependent on your mana capacity. Then external mana is the mana in the environment. Object mana is the mana stored in an artifact a mage uses, which in this case is the card. Each card has its own personal mana which was imbued during its creation.”
“And it’s released upon activation?”
“Exactly. So what causes the skill to be generated you see, is usually some combination of object and ambient mana. But it all starts with the internal mana, and aiding the interaction between these three types of mana is basically what you need to learn to have smooth and low waste activation."
"Okay." She nodded again and noted that down.
"So first off," he said. "To activate the card you need to guide your internal mana along the card’s activation pathway, as I showed you before. Once that’s completed successfully, the card’s mana is then suffused to open up an internal pathway for the mechanism of action. It stabilizes or disrupts the target pathway enough for you to guide the external mana into it. And this is then used to generate a skill.” He waited and smiled. “Did that make sense to you, bumble bee?”
“Yeah, I think so.” She tried to visualize since that always helped her understand complex topics. “So basically, the internal mana activates the card and the card tells the external mana what to do in the target pathway?"
His lips ticked up. “Precisely. Of course, in truth, it’s a little more complex than that. But that’s good for the basics.”
"Right," she said. Though he said that, nothing she was hearing felt basic at all.
“Now you have to be careful when directing mana through both the card activation pathway and the target pathway. Like I said before, if you use too much mana or too little, the card will deactivate. Also, any attempt to use the mana to change or deviate from the pathway will also cause the entire mechanism to shut down and mana to be wasted."
“I see.” And then she asked. “Could deviation also cause damage to my mana pathways? Or the card pathways?”
He shook his head. “Highly unlikely. First of all, cards don’t deal with any high-capacity skills likely to cause damage. Secondly, there are several contingencies placed along the pathway that ensure that the card deactivates if it detects any anomaly along the pathway. One of those contingencies is at the very start of the pathways. If you push too much mana into the card at the very start, far more than is required to activate, the card will not activate. Too little mana and it won’t activate either. If you try to force the pathway into a different shape, it won’t be long before it deactivates too. These are all safeguards. And then the final safeguard is if, for whatever reason, a card detects that the skill you're trying to generate will damage your pathways, it will direct all the mana back to the card and the card will simply self-destruct.”
“Like a fail-safe?”
“Yes. Exactly. That’s what makes cards such a great teaching tool for beginners. Even the worst mage is unlikely to get hurt from it.” He smirked. “Of course, after most people get the basics with cards they move onto spells, and from then on, if their capacity is high enough, they can start with Unbound magic. But usually, pre-awakened mana isn’t enough to learn Unbound magic. Unless of course, you’re from one of the elite Elemental Families.”
“Like the Firebringers?”
He nodded. “We’ll get into that later. Right now, let's focus on cards. And activating to minimize waste. Try to go slow. Don't push in too much at once and don't try to force your mana. Simply gently guide and shepherd it where it needs to go."
Lexie nodded and then noted down all of that too.
“Any more questions?” he asked when she was done.
She shook her head.
“Great.’’ He clapped once then picked up the deck, shuffled the cards one more time, before laying them flat and spreading them out
“Pick a card, ma’am, any card,”’ he said in a blackjack dealer voice and Lexie smiled. All the cards had a similar pattern on the back that she soon recognized as tetrahedral abstract designs. One of them looked like confetti popping out of a finger. The other was a musical note.
She already knew what that one was.
She picked that.
*
<Music To My Ears>
Card Type: Effect
Power: 8
Description: We all have that one guest who hates every single song on the DJ’s playlist. But Torad Card Corp. loves to accommodate the special needs! Have them pick from a list of songs and the card will play that song only for them. For one whole minute! It’s a music party of one.
Active Time: 60 Seconds
Activation Prerequisites
A minimum mana output of 80
Complete activation pathway.
Target must hum a song that they want.
Other prerequisites may apply.
*
“Hmm, that one might be a bit tricky,” he said. “Here, pick another one.”
“Let me try first,” Lexie insisted.
“Are you sure? It’s an effect card and those are harder because they involve disrupting someone else’s pathways. Plus, using it against me adds an extra complication.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Because I have better pathway detection and control than you. That would make me particularly resistant to pathway disruptions.” He thought about it. “But, maybe not because I’m effectively a mundane now.”
“I see.” So [Heroes] and people with powers had better control of their pathways. That was probably why her skill hadn’t worked on Hawaiian-shirt guy. She thought as much then but she didn’t have the words to explain it. “I still want to try. “
“Okay, buttercup. Give it a go.”
Lexie nodded, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, breathing the air into her lungs. Once more she had the awareness of that buzzing inside her, her own mana. She tried to go slow like Aiden advised, simply letting the mana flow in the direction she needed, only giving a gentle push here and there. Slowly the pathway lit up for her, a stream of water that was twisted and coiled around itself.
While she worked Aiden hummed a song, which was part of the requirement.
Lexie then guided the mana out of her hand and through the card pathway, activating it easily. And then once more, she felt the external mana and also the card mana flowing into her, giving her that euphoric feeling.
*
ACTIVATION COMPLETE. POINT AT TARGET NOW.
*
She felt in her hands and when she pointed at Aiden, she felt it leave the atmosphere and she assumed it entered him.
She eyed Aiden.
“Did it work?”
He grinned to answer and she couldn’t help but grin back.
“I can’t believe it worked.” Some of her excitement leaked into her voice. "And it was a high-power card too! It wasn't as hard as you said it would be.”
“That’s because I put up absolutely zero resistance,” he said with a smile. “And like I said, I’m effectively a mundane. It’s easier to do magic on mundanes because their pathways have neither the knowledge nor mana to put up much of a fight.”
“Oh.” Some of her excitement dimmed.
He reached across and took her hand, squeezing it. “But you still did good. Especially for the first time. Most people don't get the activation pathway right on their first try, even with simpler cards. That was a high-powered effect card you worked with and you managed it with little difficulty. That's very impressive. I'm pretty sure you have an affinity for card magic."
“I guess,” she said noncommittally but she was still disappointed. “Can I try again?”
“Yes. After you rest for, I think five minutes? How much was the cool-off period?”
Lexie checked quickly and then said, “65 seconds.” Complete activation time had been two minutes. Strange, it hadn't really felt that long.
“Hmm. Then make it ten minutes of rest.”
“Ten whole minutes?” she gaped and he laughed.
“It’s actually not bad for the first time,” he said, still chuckling. "I’ve heard of people having to rest an hour for their first few activations.”
"How long was your first time?”
He shook his head. “Oh no, don’t do that, my love. Don’t compare yourself to me or anyone else. You’re doing well. Move at your own pace." He smiled. "In this, it's just you against you. All you have to do is be better than you were yesterday.”
Lexie wasn't mollified by that, as dissatisfaction still plagued her. Aiden’s words were nice and they were often the very words she wished her real parents would say to her. But right now, they fell on deaf ears. Lexie had been an overachiever for as long as she could remember and that overachieving nature didn’t just disappear. Even without her parents here, she had an irrational fear of being stupid, or mediocre at anything.
She wanted to be the best. She had to be the best.
Especially if she had any hope of getting out of here.
Aiden had already told her he wouldn't teach her crafting until she mastered card activation. That meant that she had to master it as soon as possible.
***
Lexie tried two more times that night with two different cards. One was the <Hustle and Shuffle Card>. That only took her only about 45 seconds to activate and it had the effect of making her only slightly faster than she usually was. Aiden said it was a scalable skill but still. She probably wouldn't turn into Usain Bolt overnight with that card.
Also, she noticed the card itself didn't so much give speed but a certain weightlessness that made her feel more buoyant.
She also tried the creature card, <Party Hopper> and it took her nearly two whole minutes to summon a hologram of a small frog that did weak backflips. It was kinda lame but Aiden must have sensed her disappointment because he started making jokes about how his backflips were just like that.
"Really?” she asked.
"No,” he admitted. “I have zero athletic abilities. If I attempted a backflip, I think I would break a hip.”
Lexie cracked a smile.
After that, Aiden called for an end to the session, and to Lexie’s dismay, he took the cards away so that she wouldn't keep practicing through the night. He must have sensed how obsessed she was with getting better.
Aiden promised to teach her more tomorrow. He didn’t seem to mind at all if it took her while to successfully grasp a concept, he simply looked happy to be teaching. And Lexie supposed she was lucky to have a professor like him. He had vast wells of knowledge, but he also managed to break it down to such an elementary level that she could pretty much understand everything easily, despite not being from this world. Unlike some of her former teachers who prided themselves in making things as difficult as possible, Aiden was only satisfied when she truly understood.
Later that night, Lexie googled the Party Planner's deck to learn more about each card and the average activation times. She was below standard in most of them and she saw that the record for the fastest activation for the least powerful card (<Hustle and Shuffle>) was sixteen seconds.
That became her new time to beat.
And then before she fell asleep, she checked the Video Alley and pulled up the video of the Dust Bunny fight. This one was against a guy called Kane the Mundane, who seemed to have tons of metal and weapons on his body called mechs. One of the mechs on his wrist could fire rubber bullets which, while they wouldn't kill a target, seemed to really hurt. He got Dust Bunny in the boob with one and leered at her when she glared at him, even blowing her a kiss.
He also had forcefield shields on just about every part of his body and he had goggles that offered him some immunity to Dust Bunny's illusions. How he afforded all that, Lexie didn't know because according to the NET, mechs like his were stupidly expensive.
It was a hard fight despite Kane being mundane. Ultimately, Dust Bunny summarily whooped his ass in the end, much to Lexie's satisfaction.
Despite her earlier disappointment with the cards, Lexie fell asleep with a smile on her face.
