[Boohoo! No Cards drawn!]
…
[Boohoo! No Cards drawn!]
…
Immediately after returning to his dormitory room, Hal tapped on his left wrist, frowning when he saw that he had no cards.
It seemed that whatever he obtained in the tutorial stayed in the tutorial.
Fortunately, he had somehow earned 10 Chaos Points just now, though Hal had no idea how.
He planned to study and learn, of course.
But the exciting card draws came first.
Hal had the urge to try for one uncommon draw, betting all 10 Chaos Points for a chance at an uncommon-tier card.
Good thing he checked his deck first.
Since his [Fireball] card had disappeared with the tutorial, it made more sense to use his points on common-tier card draws.
After all, there was no guarantee he would succeed in drawing an [Uncommon]-tier card, and if he failed, he would have wasted all ten points for nothing.
He wouldn't even be able to protect himself should an emergency situation occur.
It turned out to be a correct decision, as even the chances of pulling a common-tier card turned out to be abysmally low.
Hal already used 3 Chaos Points, and yet, he still hadn't pulled a single card.
Luckily—though not by much—he pulled a card on his fourth draw, one with surprising durability but limited, or perhaps no, use in combat.
==
Card Name: Squirt
Rarity: Common
Type: Elemental Spell
Durability: Permanent
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Chaos Karma cost: 0
Description: Shoot a harmless spray of water in a ten-meter cone in front of the user.
==
'Oh? Permanent durability?' Hal mused with raised brows, pleasantly surprised to discover that a card could permanently exist on his deck.
If he could obtain a powerful, permanent spell card with no cooldowns and low Chaos Karma cost…
Hal could only daydream.
Snapping himself back to reality, he continued to press the draw card button.
On the seventh draw, Hal obtained another rather questionable-use card: one that summoned a veil of mist that did nothing except obstruct vision, and it was limited to three uses.
It wasn't until his tenth and final draw that he finally obtained a proper combat spell.
Who would've thought it would take a considerable amount of luck and points just to draw something similar to the darn, simple fireball he used in the tutorial?
==
Card Name: Sparkblast
Rarity: Common
Type: Elemental Spell
Durability: 4 uses
Cooldown: 2 seconds
Chaos Karma cost: 1
Description: Shoot a modest ball of thunder in a straight trajectory.
==
"Nice, finally!" Hal celebrated, slotting the drawn card into the first gesture slot and the obstructive mist into the third.
He now had three spells in his arsenal, though only one could be used for combat.
Nonetheless, Hal was pretty happy with his draws.
Even now, perhaps only a few, if not none at all, from his batch could cast spells.
They had to learn how to cast them first, after all.
Hal then recalled something and snapped his fingers to open the Joker System, tapping on the status button.
==
Chosen: Hal Fennec
Chaos Karma/ Mana: 11/11
==
It was a simple two-liner that made Hal raise his brows.
"Hoh, so my Mana and Chaos Karma are essentially the same, huh? Which means…"
He could increase it through training!
But then a question struck him:
If Mana and Chaos Karma were one and the same in his case, then wouldn't that still make him the low-mana-affinity trash that he was?
Hal frowned, quickly snapping his fingers to check his deck, and finally realized the difference.
It was the Chaos Karma/Mana cost.
Even the combat spell, [Sparkblast], only needed one Chaos Karma to cast.
In a regular spellcasting scenario, it would probably cost him a lot more mana to fire a simple Sparkblast at his opponents.
The Chaos Karma mechanic's purpose was most likely to drastically reduce the mana cost of spells, perhaps by more than ninety percent, allowing even someone with low mana like him to cast multiple spells as if he were a regular wizard.
This also meant he had to train 90% less than others but could still achieve the same results as them… maybe even more.
"Hahaha! Who's the untalented trash now?!"
Hal couldn't help but think of his former friends, imagining how they would react if he somehow rose to prominence.
"Hmph, why should I even care about those fakes?" he mutteringly reprimanded himself a moment later, reminding that there was no need to take petty revenge on such bastards.
His success would speak for him.
Besides, indifference probably stung the most, no?
Of course, if the bastards dared hinder him from achieving his goals, he would unhesitatingly put them in their place.
But to do that…
'I first have to understand this system better…'
And there was an infinitely better place for such pondering than his own room: the Mana Meditation Hall.
Unfortunately, it was already nighttime, so Hal decided to go to sleep and start training tomorrow.
His status as a one-star student turned out to be a massive boon in the end, since, unlike others, Hal had no fixed schedule.
He wasn't required to attend classes.
Well…more like he was only allowed to attend a limited number of classes, and if he wanted to access more, he'd have to pay with academy credits.
Hal simply couldn't see the benefit of attending regular classes right now.
Maybe he would in the future, if there was a specific topic he needed or wanted to learn about.
But aside from that, he was better off increasing his Mana/Chaos Karma and focusing on earning Chaos Points, which was what he would ponder about today.
He needed to know exactly how to earn them.
Came morning, Hal headed out of his dormitory room, walking towards the Mana Meditation Hall located just a kilometer from their dilapidated dormitory building.
He arrived around fifteen minutes later.
Hal couldn't help but marvel at the huge, majestic white building with a single mystical spire reaching for the heavens.
The architecture was simply unreal for a country bumpkin like him.
It was only a dozen seconds later that he snapped out of his reverie, striding toward the entrance and stepping inside.
There were thousands of small and narrow rooms, each meant for one and only one person.
All of them had access to the colossal Mana Crystal Formation at the center.
However, the windows that allowed mana to flow into each room were circular and no larger than a fist, at least in the rooms accessible to one-star students.
Perhaps the rooms for two-stars had better windows, but if Hal wanted to find out, he'd have to fork over some academy credits.
The one-star rooms were enough for now.