"Hehhehehehhehehe..." In a small shack these malicious chuckles resounded, Herhail was going to have vengence! It had been an hour and his attributeless mana regenerated. He gained 4 exp through the rat before it was killed bringing him to 21 exp, the rat was brought back to his deck after a period of 10 seconds after death.
Herhail walked out and remembered the honeypot trickster hideout, and took out his deck in an alley. He brought about the [Rat] he favored and tried to instil the image of the betrayer into his order "Harass that girl."
It worked due to his new 12 intelligence, otherwise it would've failed miserably, the part where he didn't fully voice-out his order.
The rat ran away into the alley ways, and took a turn into a bit bigger shack, and also a bit better quality. In this shack were multiple pretty good looking women, weirdly non-starved women to be exact.
The rat ran at a smaller one currently being taught by an older lady, and even not being starved as a child. She had good looks for the slums, and she had a target on her back in the eyes of the rat.
The rat leapt up and bit the girl in the semi-rag-clothes she wore, after a bit of finangling the betrayer noticed the rat.
"Kyyaaaaa!" Herhail heard her signature scream of fear, and felt a sense of gratification.
Herhail walked away and tried to order it to skadadle and survive to kill some more animals.
Herhail forgot about it as he started to find a long stick to make a spear, an arrow, or a bow.
Herhail got a good stick in his opinion, but failed in the process of making twine.
[Rat has leveled up! please designate the extra stat point!]
Herhail quickly looked at the status of the [rat] card, it was the same, but there was a '+' next to all the stats. Herhail just choose strength, and voila! a rat with 2 strength. Nothing else changed though, it was weird.
But Herhail didn't bother with it and continued in trying to make twine, after sometime the rat died and Herhail's exp amount became 33.
On the front of the rat card, the picture of the rat had become more muscle-ey, slightly, but still seen with Herhail's eyes.
Herhail looked at the exp needed for his own level-up.
[
Herhail was happy since that cost showed the strength of the path, but chose to use exp with more important things, like cards. So that he may get an even better path through 'evolution'! maybe.
Herhail was pretty happy with his lot in life right now, good path, not good origins, but good path overides that, good stats. The good life.
But there was one problemo, why hadn't the path gained some exp on it's own? Herhail pondered on these thoughts for a few moments, and got the answer; 'Card master should be pretty high class in it's evolutionary ladder, meaning that just placing a card into the play-field won't satisfy it enough to have it gain some exp on it's own.'
Herhail was also getting frustrated at not being able to make twine, so he started to browse the
There was something that Herhail recognized, it was used in divnation and cardgames from time to time by the hunnypot bandits '
[Major arcana; 96000 exp.
an esoteric skill of a card-user, not often used, easy to learn, able to walk along the user for many years, and with a high uper-limit. Has synchronous effects with divination and some card games.]
[Minor arcana; 243000 exp.
An esoteric skill of the card user, not used often, a bit annoying to learn, able to walk along with the user for many years. An add-on to the skill
After seeing this, Herhail started to look for something related to these two skills.
[Tarot cards; 623000 exp.
A skill not often used, allows the card-user to use another card game instead of the card game
Herhail had to pause for a moment, first; the 'card game' he was 'playing' was '
Herhail browsed even more, and found something he knew he needed.
[Traditional Planeswalker beginner's guide; 1000 exp.
Info accessible through the
Herhail knew that he needed this soon, and real soon. It would let him quickly understand the basics of this 'Card game'.
Suddenly the [Rat] card entered his hand once more, he had gained up to 38 exp already. Since the next level needed 20 exp, now it needed 9 exp. Or was it not exp? Herhail didn't really care.
In the corner of his eye he saw a small animal slithering through his house in the darkness, though it was a common occourrence, Herhail wanted to see the [Rat] in action.
'[Rat], I summon you for 1 attributeless mana!' The white wind made an appearance once more, and a slightly muscle-ey rat graced the shack with it's presence with the appearance-fee of 1 attributeless mana.
"Kill that thing." Herhail ordered, not giving a clear thing to attack, but still having the rat understand it's goal.
The rat ran at the slithering creature with dauntless courage, it rushed up and was going to bite it. but before it got too close, the creature, called a snake, opened up it's maw and ate the rat whole.
Herhail realized that a snake was a rat-hunter, so he needed a plan to kill one. Herhail started to ponder, but first looked at where the rat was when it died.
Above it the [Rat] card was floating with a timer of 5 seconds overall above it, when it turned to zero, the card re-entered the deck. Unlike expected, the card didn't instantly enter his hand once more, the deck-holder promted that he could draw again, but then he couldn't do anything with his cards for 10 seconds, on a timer.
When that timer turned to 0, his [Rat] card returned to him. in the corner of his eye, now above the mana counter, stood; [Turn 2]. 'So those 10 seconds were the oppenents turn, I guess?'
Herhail turned off his deck and made it dissapear again, although the deck would take some time to get back, right now, keeping it would put a mark on his back. It just looked too valuable for a serf to not be robbed for it.
As such, his pondering began in full force 'How do I make the rat kill the snake? It should be possible with it's stronger that average physique, but the problem is with it's rush attack. The real question is how I make it attack better. I don't have battle experience as a rat, so how could I understand rat vs snake tactics?...'
Even after the rat was brought back to the material plane, Herhail was thinking.
Untill suddenly a knock on the side of the make-shift, not really a door, door. A middle-aged, past his prime man stood there with better than usual rags, with the seperation of shirt and pants.
Herhail's alarmbells were ringing, and he quickly picked up the sharp rock he created a few hours ago.
Herhail walked to his door, ready to go wild as much as he could.
Seeing the old but slightly healthy old man, Herhail instantly became even more wary, old men are always extremely dangerous, they may have magic instead of swordmanship, and magic isn't as dependant on your body/you being in your prime.
The past-his-prime man saw the wary child and looked as if he expected this "You've recently gained a path, and recently I've been having problems getting food, so... I'll teach you how to read and maybe even how to fight, and you give me food." He quickly cut to the chase, following slum etiquette, not wasting time he could be getting food by talking too much.
Herhail said with a very suspicious look "I can already read, there's no need for that."
The old man looked at Herhail with disdain "I mean actually reading, not understanding what the system tells you."
"Oh," Herhail wasn't expecting that, he was expecting to get scammed right away, reading was a very lucrative thing to obtain "Fine." Herhail believed that his rat could bring back those mouses and other criters that it kills.
But to the old man it was unexpected for the child to so easily split away from hard earned food, he was ready to preach about the uses of reading and writing "It's good that you understand."
Herhail's acting spirit suddenly flared for no reason "What? Do you think of me as some fool that doesn't understand what reading even is? Reading and writing is something important to leave the slums without the subservience to the churches or nobles." He looked honestly offended, if you didn't look to close and pondered.
"No," the old man said, not looking beyond the pretty bad act with a tone not close enough with a 'real' offended tone "But how did you know about how important reading is?"
The acting spirit was urged by the concious mind of Herhail since he had already shown a different him, and not doing that was going to have him stabbed in the gut "You think I wasn't preparing for when I didn't get a 'good' path, I don't want to stay in this hell hole for the rest of my life! I bribed some people that tried to get out and got some wisdom out of them."
The old man was fooled once more, he didn't really care enough about the boy infront of him to pay attention to if he was acting. Herhail took notice of this and made sure not to let his acting spirit calmdown by a notch.
"Though," Herhail was using advanced acting techniques to have the old man "I'm not too trusting of you, hmm..." Herhail started to take this time to truly think of what to ask for 'to let the old man show his trustworthyness'.
"How about you help me with a problem I want to solve," Herhail said "I'm a summoner, the type isn't specific, but the creature that I can summon just rushes forward to it's death when I want it to move with a bit more... experience."
The old man chose his words carefully, thinking if he should answer at all "Is it the same creature even after you summon a new one after it dies?"
"I believe so." Herhail said, shrouwding his path in a bit more mystery.
"Then you should just tell it to think about the previous battle and to learn from it's mistakes, or to try something new and to learn from that. Pretty much have it do trail and error for a while. Though this would take 2 intelligence to work, and a not hard-coded instinct too," The old man had chosen to give some advice without info missing, since this wasn't valueable info anyways.
Herhail thought of these words and found them reasonable, but he didn't trust the old man "Come back at noon tomorrow and you'll get your answer, but first..."
Herhail walked back inside and took the long stick and went back to the door "Can you use this stick to hold down a snake?" The old man took a step back "Don't worry, it's a normal snake." The old man took another step back "It's not poisonous, it's not you doing it alone, you can use the thing I summon as bait."
The old man paused "Then I should be able to do it, but don't be too certain about it!" He took the long stick, which was a spear for Herhail but a sword for him. He steeled himself and thought some kind of dangerous snake-monster would appear, but when he saw the totally normal snake he felt confused and looked at the little manlet.
The acting spirit flamed again and fixed his normal tone of no confidence into one with authority "I don't want a snake in my shack, and I don't want it there for a second more."
The little manlet looked at the rat and told it "When I snap my fingers you will rush in and distract the snake."
"1, 2, 3, go!" He snapped his fingers, the old man not expecting him to so quickly start the hunt paused "Go! Go old man! Do you not want to eat snake today?"
The old man's old instincts as a soldier took control as he walked forward to the snake that was snapping forward to the rat. He stood in an upwards sword stance good for stabs, and put all his weight on the stick, and forced it against the base of the snake's head fearing it would easily break the stick.
Surprisingly, it was a completely normal snake, without any super instincts or powers.
Herhail walked to the snake with caution, and slammed it's head in with the sharp rock.
[You have killed a snake (lvl 2), gained 12 exp.]
Herhail enjoyed the exp far superior to anything killed before, the floating card wasn't seen by the old man too, so that showed that he wouldn't need to worry about it.
The old man seemed to have some swordmanship skill levels, so he could use him for that, he wasn't too old, only partially gray hair, still close to death considering the average life expectancy 'Maybe I could use him outside? No one not broken by reality wants to leave the slums.'
But he came to the conclusion 'First get reading and writing out of him, then think about convincing him to leave the slums with me.'
Herhail quickly made a fire and cooked the snake roughly, he gave some to the old man and ate the rest himself.