The Master of Cards Chapter 58: Heading Out

Alex calmed down and looked at his inner world. There seemed to be no trace of the horrifying blood drop. He saw the base cards calmly floating around the statue, just like usual.

Alex looked at the Vortex Card and didn't find anything particular. Alex then used his inner sight to explore his body and found the cellular activity to be very active, showing he was at peak health. He felt his body being much stronger and he wasn't why.

Alex then thought about the last moments before he fell unconscious. He used the curiosity card in desperation and then... and then he had heard the announcement. Or fragments of it at least.

Entity, the blood drop was categorized as an Entity and the reward seemed to be a mention of Blood Rebirth. Alex thought for a bit, amd wondered if the Blood Rebirth was responsible for his body returning to normal, or rather better than normal. At least circumstantial evidence would point to that.

Alex then walked to the door and opened it. For a second he looked into his empty bag and felt terrible. All his spoils on the way to this ruin had been consumed by him in desperation.

This incident finally made him understand some of the limitations of the Vortex card. The suction force consumed the energy generated by his own body. And the vortex isn't all powerful, strong enough entities would seem to be able to resist the vortex's force.

As Alex opened the door, he found that the waterfall which flowed upwards had disappeared and instead the water had begun to flood the area. Luckily Alex's bag was waterproof and had been sealed shut a moment earlier. The flooded water also gradually rose upwards and Alex swam along with the flow reaching open skies. He breathed in the fresh air and swam out of the lake.

Alex found himself in a valley. At this moment, Alex realized that he was actually momentarily lost as he couldn't fix a relative position. With the change in the water flow in the cave tunnel, it would be impossible to swim against the flow of flooding currents.

Alex wondered what the Ninja found, but there was no way for him to contact or find the Ninja. Instead Alex, began exploring the area and tried to identify the area based on the beasts crowding nearby. This was a water source in a valley which seemed to be surrounded by mountains on all sides.

Alex found two similar locations on the map but they were on the opposite side of the shelter, which made him discount them and assume he was in an unmapped area.

As Alex walked around, he found that the only creatures here seemed to be the fish in the water. The fish looked like white koi fish, seemingly harmless with their mouths constantly swallowing water with a funny expression.

Alex had not seen this fish being marked in the Highland Shelter's information guide and wondered if it was an undiscovered mysterious beast. His Energy Affinity could see that these fish had the light attribute and the Light attribute energy circulated in a manner he hadn't seen before.

Alex took a stick and tried to poke the fish. However the fish got infuriated at the stick and turned around. At that moment, the tail of the fish turned into a tail made of light and slapped the stick away.

Alex felt a powerful impulse and let go off the stick which flew away, but in front of his eyes, Alex saw the stick disintegrating. Alex felt a stinging feeling in his palm which held the stick and he found a slit in his palm.

Alex sighed. "Didn't that look like Light Aura?" He murmured. Alex wasn't sure, so he decided to kill a few fish and see what fragments they provided. He took out his own black metal stick, coated it with Light Aura and began smashing some of the fish, killing them. The fish were quite weak, but Alex could see that he move they used with their tail was strong.

[You killed 5 Primitive White Koi. You obtained x2 Fragments - Light Tail]

"Light Tail... It seems to be an impulse based physical attack using light attribute energy." Alex murmured as the fragments were swallowed by the vortex card.

Alex coated his stick with Light Aura again and then tried to simulated the Light attribute Energy from the Light Aura card in the shape that the fish seemed to have circulated it in. However, Alex lost control of the aura and coughed some blood.

Alex shook his head, he felt like he had the right idea, but performed the wrong execution. He decided to try it out at a later time ,now he had to return to the shelter. Alex began exploring the valley beyond the lake and found himself a trail of footsteps.

Alex followed the footsteps as they led him to the towards a mountainous path circuiting out of the valley. Alex sighed and followed the path. After a day of walking, Alex suddenly found himself at the base on the other side of the mountain, from where he could see a far away distance. At that moment, Alex saw a group of people who he didn't expect to see again.

It was the group of the Family Alliance young masters, who he had essentially begun his journey southwards with. He saw them encroaching a cave and a sigh of relief overtook him.

He could ask them for directions and then quickly return to the shelter. As Alex carefully climbed down the mountain slope, he could sense that the group of Family Alliance young masters seemed uneasy. He quietly made his way towards the cave and saw that the guards were missing. Did something happen?

Chapter end