Yugioh Card Summoner

Now that the S-rank tests were over, it was time for the Card Venturers to take their A-rank exams.

The S-rankers who had come to test us seemed happy about that, as they’ve kind of been getting their asses kicked for the entire day, and now they might actually show that they aren’t just worse versions of us.

It isn’t their fault, really. We just have OP weapons, unfair ways of getting skills and Level Up!s on our side. And let’s not forget the Yugioh monsters, who have mastered a weapon, or weapons, to the point where someone might say they are the best at it. And they can teach us how to get to their level.

First of the Card Venturers was Kurt. I don’t know if they had some sort of a competition for who went first, but he was first. 

He was against an S-rank spear wielder who was local to the Seaside Paradise area. I knew he was quite skilled from our time in the dungeon, and I honestly don’t know if Kurt can win against him. I think it comes down to how seriously the S-rank will take this match.

The fight began with the spear user rushing Kurt, but he clearly wasn’t using Flickering Step. He would be much faster. Kurt used Quick Cast to cast a Lightning Wall to hopefully stop the S-ranker, but that was when he used Flickering Step to run around the lightning wall and threw a stab at Kurt’s side. 

The stab sent Kurt reeling back a bit, his armor having taken most of the damage, and he used that speed to get a bit more distance. He then Quick Casted Lightning Reflex, a Lightning Magic buff spell.

The spear guy just waited, letting Kurt attack next. This was a test afterall, not a fight to the death or even a competition.

Kurt then formed a ball of lightning in his offhand, before charging at his opponent with his sword held high. He used the lightning ball as a source for a few small thundershocks, but the S-ranker just brushed them off with basically no damage. He then made a large, exaggerated swipe with his spear. An attack which made no sense to make with a spear, but this must be another test.

Kurt didn’t parry or block the spear with his sword, instead quickly turning his run into a slide to avoid the swipe. That caught the S-ranker off guard and Kurt was able to use the remaining bits of his Lightning Ball to stun him, before following with a sword slash. 

The spear guy quickly recovered from the attack, and returned it with one of his own. But he was clearly slower than he was with his first attack. He must have at least somewhat adjusted to Kurt’s speed, and was now able to give him a good match.

Kurt parried the spear with his sword, but the spear guy took advantage of that and launched a small fireball at Kurt. It landed on his torso and Kurt had to step back to recover.

This kept up for a few more exchanges, but eventually Kurt took too much damage and the match was called.

The examiners complimented Kurt on his skills, and did allow him to continue to what would be the second part of the A-rank exam.

From there, the other Card Venturers all went against S-rankers one by one. Out of all of them, only one won their match. That one being Miris.

Miris used his multi-legged Flickering Step technique to surprise his opponent at the start and got a good hit in. And from then on, he focused on defense and evading. 

That was because with his first hit, he had inserted a decent amount of paralytic poison into his opponent, and eventually the poison spread to the point where his opponent collapsed and couldn’t continue.

Thanks to his win, Miris got the most compliments and one of the S-rank parties even tried to recruit him, but Miris refused.

Next for the Card Venturers was going to be the ‘adventuring’ part of the exam. But before we could get to that, Wendy herself jumped onto the battlefield and looked at me.

“Why don’t you come down here Brian?” She asked. “All these fights have me excited. So how about a rematch and you show us just how much you’ve improved?”

I considered it for all of a second before using an Instant Cast Short Teleport to get to the field. Since Nir knew the spell, I felt like I needed to know it, so I worked extra hard on it to get it down to the point where I could teleport to anywhere I can see with an Instant Casted Short Teleport.

… okay, it isn’t anywhere I can see. It actually has a max range of 50 meters because of the spell I’m using.

I faced the descendent of the Hero as I used Storage to bring out Errelitea. This wasn’t a showmatch, but a fight. … okay, maybe it was still for fun, but whatever. I was going to be serious if Wendy wanted me to show what I can do. 

Though admittedly I didn’t get out any special armor or anything as Errelitea ignores any and all armor anyway. Would be kind of unfair to use a sword with Absolute Penetration while wearing armor. And my Janina scale armor is still not finished. The divine dragon scales are almost impossible to work with.

“So, how do you want to do this?” I asked Wendy as I used Instant Cast to activate a few buff spells with Spirit Magic. “All out from the start?”

“That would be good. We do need to get back to the guild so I can give them their quest.” Wendy answered.

“Okay.” I agreed. “In that case, come to me! Uṛanta! Varuna! And Gleipnir!” I called out to two of my summonable monsters, as well as Varuna, whom I can ‘summon’ with Soul Magic.

Because of his uniqueness, Varuna can be summoned in that way. Then I just give him water from Storage so he can form a new body, and just like that, I’ve summoned a tamed monster.

… and thanks to that I also got the Soul Magic skill. Kind of bothers me that it took that long for me to get the skill but at least I have it now.

Wendy’s eyes went wide as my three monsters appeared by my side. Can’t blame her really. Just the evolved Nir would have been something, but Uṛanta and Varuna on top of that.

“So, what will it be? Do you surrender or should I just reverse union with Nir again?” I asked Wendy.

“... Yes! Do it!” She called out, as she readied her sword and Quick Casted some buff spells.

I looked at Nir, noticing he was just about to do the reverse union with me, but I sent him a quick mana pulse with the intention of ‘hold on’. I wanted to do one more thing before the reverse union. 

So I got out a card, raised it up to the air and with a yell of “Assault Mode Activate!”, a shining set of armor began forming around Nir.

Spoiler

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I then nodded at Nir, and he began to join bodies with me. And his Assault Armor followed him, leaving us together as an armored Fenrir-kin. Okay, that isn’t a new race, but we did still wear the armor. 

… though admittedly, I do feel something. A new skill, maybe? Nir, and the reverse union, is giving me something new again.

“So. Second thoughts?!” We asked, our voice just a bit echoey as Nir’s voice mixed with my own.

“Bring it.” She said, more quietly now. But with my ears even more enhanced than normally, I heard it clearly.

I quickly ordered Varuna to make a transparent water wall to protect our audience, while Uṛanta was on damage control in case any of our attacks tried to leave the stadium.

Then, without waiting any longer, we rushed Wendy. On the way to her, I generated a Magical Hand and gave Errelitea to it, as I didn’t want to start off with a slash from that sword. I might legitimately kill Wendy with one strike if I use that sword.

Instead, my hand which was coated in Rending Claws slashed at her. Wendy responded by blocking with her shield, but my attack still sent her sliding back, as the ground couldn’t support all the force her feet imparted on it. One of the reasons I try to use Mana Flight to support my body when I fight high level people and super strong monsters.

Wendy recovered quickly and tried to come at us, but between our Space Magic skills, we used Short Teleport to avoid each strike and hit back with a claw strike. And while mana would normally start to be an issue, especially with Uṛanta stealing some of it, I cheated by using my Dungeon Founder terminal to pull mana from HomeBase so I could spam teleport as much as we wanted. And the few times we were too slow to avoid Wendy, her sword did minimal damage because of the assault mode armor.

To end the fight, Nir and I decided to use the same attack he used on Varuna. Using a Short Teleport, we appeared behind Wendy and I took her into a bearhug, while also using Dark Chain to chain us so that she couldn’t move.

We then overcharged our assault armor before letting it explode, leaving behind little specks of stardust. Pieces of stardust that gave me a strange feeling. Like I could almost grasp them.

I let that thought go as I focused on Wendy. Her armor was still pristine, like it hadn’t been used in a fight, but her sword had snapped in two. I suppose she can use the Hero’s armor and shield, but not his sword. The armor must either have stupid amount of durability, or be unbreakable. Probably unbreakable.

But she wasn’t getting up, so she was either dead or just unable to get up. 

No one called the match as it was just clearly over. I undid my union with Nir and unsummoned him and Uṛanta. As I did, Lua flew down from the audience seating and got to work on Wendy. Based on the fact that she didn’t need to use a card, Wendy was still clearly alive.

After Wendy was fully healed and got her armor off of her body, we headed for the guild building itself. 

All of our guild cards got upgraded to S-rank, and the Card Venturers got their mission for the second part of the A-rank test. It would likely take them a day or two, but first it was celebration time on HomeBase.

I took all the S-ranks and guild masters there.  It was the first time visiting for some, actually most, of them, so they got to enjoy all that HomeBase has to offer.

That got all of the guild masters interested in acquiring one of two Factory VR stations for their guilds, and I agreed I’d look into how quickly that would be possible. It really won’t be difficult, as the guilds already have Mana Flower flower beds to act as power sources for the stations, so in the upcoming weeks, I’ll head to the guilds and install some Factory VRs in them.

Up there, I talked with Wendy about her sword. I destroyed it, so I offered her a replacement. Either one from the HomeBase display room, or a custom sword we’d make for her.

Wendy asked for a custom sword, one hopefully living up to the sword the Hero wielded. Sadly I didn’t know the qualities of that blade, so I couldn’t promise to do that. But Wendy told us she’d get the permissions needed to take the Hero’s sword out of the eternal crystal so that Wilma and I could appraise and analyze it. It would just take her a bit of time.

In the meantime, Wendy would use an orichalcum sword made by Karl. It wasn’t quite legendary level, but it did still have very nice penetration capabilities, and was just a really, really nice sword.

The next day, as we returned the guild masters and S-ranks, I also dropped off the Card Venturers so that they could go on their A-rank test quest.

Thank god we didn’t have to go on a quest. I mean we would easily take care of it, but it would have probably been boring anyway. I don’t want to waste time doing that when I could be doing something else.

As for the Card Venturers test, they were tasked with diving into the Castle Dungeon and retrieving a few items from there. I wasn’t going to help them in that, as I wanted to know myself how well they could do so.

I mean, they still have their emergency teleporters so they can get out of a tough spot, but if that happens, I’ll tell the guild they cancelled the job and failed their exam. They should still get B-rank, but if they bite off more than they can chew to the point where they have to teleport out of the dungeon, maybe they aren’t worth A-rank.

Luckily, three days later, the Card Venturers returned from the Castle Dungeon with good results. They recovered all the items and had otherwise returned in perfect health. Sure they didn’t make a new record or anything, but returning in perfect health is always good.

And with that, my Card Venturers got their A-rank cards.