Luke lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling as he pondered his path forward.
Frowning, he turned on the 'vista' feature. As a result, the ceiling turned to one-way glass and he saw the sky above.The blue and gray moons spun above. Next to them, the red moon stood a bit farther, though still close in depth.
This was one of the oddities of Xilec; the moons were all the same size.
As he looked out, he opened more of Little Luke's memories.
During High School, he had been looking at the various professions.
In the Insectisidal Galaxy, as in much of the known universe, the Insect Plague had attacked, hence the name. To resist it, Humanity led a search down every which profession to find the strongest path forward.
These professions became known as 'classes.' As in high fantasy, mages existed; but then again, so did spaceships.
It was a nightmare to walk through the hows of everything, but basically everything technologically advanced worked on a fusion of spirit energy and electricity, as electricity could be used with higher-energy power sources and spiritual energy could become inexhaustible using the right materials.
Little Luke had gone on his own path: he had begun down the path of the Card Creator class.
Card Creators as a group had one specific goal: to impart runic arrays onto cards that captured the essence of everything in the world.
As individuals, it was to amass enough cards to spam them against anyone who stood in your way, sell them for profit, and stand at the top of the world.
As it was a vast world, and Card Creators were a recreationist-type class, there were enough specialties that it was easy enough to find one's niche.
To reach this stage, however, it required lots of learning and a steady hand.
The Luke of this world had wanted to outstudy his sister. While prescient of the ways of hard work, this was not his strongest forte.
The new Luke smiled. He now had all the time in the world, so why not?
While not very strong in terms of talent, Little Luke had already opened his Sea of Consciousness automatically close to his seventeenth birthday.
He used this to forge an origin card, the foundation of his craft.
Origin Cards had a single purpose. That is, to allow Card Creators to link their talents to their craft, and hold their cultivation progress, similar to a dantian or a sword embryo.
Using this method, he could become a Card Creator as well as use another class.
This method was thought up by the card creators of old as it was truly primarily an auxiliary class. While some could use it as their only class, most used another class to find the martial peak before settling and learning the trade.
The reason?
Card Creation took a really, really long time to master.
With a thought, Luke opened up his Sea of Consciousness. He was right!! His new talents had fused with his Original Card.
His Original Card now showed three unviolable, uncopiable runic lines symbolifying his three talents: Unyielding Immortality (SSS), Devour (SS), and Innate Spirit (A).
While it had an A-rating, Innate Spirit was fairly useless at the higher levels, as at that point everyone had opened their Sea of Consciousness™️.
Then again, it allowed him to cultivate early. During the 'Profession Compatibility' test at the end of high school, one could figure out the best path forward using their innate talents and mentality.
As for him, he had the only class he needed. The catch was that his stack of blank spirit cards cost money, and to get more he'd have to sell his stock.
As any time was as good as any other to start, he began to create a card. Relying on the web of runic lines creating the array and his knowledge of the "Storage" Rune, he created several level 1 energy cards.
There were multiple levels of runic Card Creator, and they all depended upon the level of spirit qi in one's body.
Level 1 was 20-1000 points.
Level 2 was 1000-2000.
Level 3 was 2000-4000, and they continued doubling at each consecutive level.
Luke was currently at level 1, with his spirit qi at the 122-mark. He still had a ways to go, but it would be worth it as a selected path forward.
Fortunately, the level one energy storage card he was replicating only used a simple 100 energy points and was able to store 80. As such, he was able to create one at a time, or two if he doubled them back to back. Wanting to conserve his profits, however, he decided to wait.
Grabbing a book entitled, "The Beginnings Of Mastering Card Creation," he walked back outside to study alongside his sister.