SNAPCRAFT | Ch. 14 - Futuristic Skepticism

Author's note:

Exceptionally, this week, I'm an HC:P chapter on Wednesday instead of Thursday.

The reason for this is that the first volume of Hidden Class: Pacifist and Planet Ignis are available for free on Amazon!

This is the perfect opportunity to get a free copy or to share these stories with your friends.

I wish you a great week. Thank you for all your support.

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Spring of 346, A.D.

“I like that it encourages all of us to be teachers and students.”

“W-what?”

Kai felt like choking Alex. His friend’s head was not in the game today! “What’s wrong with you, Alex? It’s like you’re not even here. You haven’t yet said one thing that we can present to the others.”

“Just get off my case, Kai!”

The words had been shouted at Kai, and he shrunk at the unfamiliar visage of an angry Alex. Just as quickly as it had come, Alex’s rage dissipated. “I’m sorry, Kai. I didn’t mean to scream at you. I just… I just have a lot on my mind. That’s all.”

“What’s going on, man?”

Alex turned away. “I don’t think you’ll understand.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen… The reason why I’m not chipping in with reasons why our culture is awesome is because…” He trailed off.

“Are you now Albert? Just spit it out, dude!”

“I don’t believe in any of it. OK?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Kai, our culture is stupid.”

“Alex? What do you mean? Everyone is so nice. Every day is interesting and fun, and…”

“Our culture is dying off, Kai! Most of us are old, stubborn people who can’t see the truth right in front of us! We are all dying off. The numbers don’t lie. We can’t keep going like this. We can’t!”

Kai gulped. He respected Alex’s opinion and looked up to him. As far as he knew, there was no one more qualified to one day win the exams than Alex. He was brilliant. “What are you talking about?”

“Listen, Kai, we follow the dreams of a man who has been dead for 300 years. Worse, that man followed the dreams of ancestors who only knew how to use rocks! We are all too stuck in the past. The answer is in the future. The future, Kai! No wonder we can’t get a half-decent score in the exams. We’re failing the point miserably.”

“You really are different from your sister, man. She can’t stop studying the past, and you are so stuck on the future,” he said half-jokingly. Alex’s outburst was scaring him, and a stupid joke like this had been the first thing that had come out of his mouth.

“Yeah, we do disagree about this.”

After a few awkward moments, Kai tried to break the silence. “Should I be worried, Alex? You seem so mad at Balin! Come on. I’m sure you can think of at least one good thing to say about him.”

“Forget it. You don’t get it.”

Alex stood up to leave.

“Alex, what is going on? Where are you going?”

He turned angrily toward Kai. “Kai, there are only three young people in our sector. You, my sister and I. We all know how it will end up for my sister and you, but what about me? I also deserve to be happy.”

“So this is what it’s all about. Listen, there’s still hope. If we get a good enough score, we can…”

“Forget it, Kai,” interrupted Alex. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

Kai looked on as Alex turned his back and left the museum. Was their way of life really stupid, as he said?

*

353rd Daisy Exams, Round of 256.

Kai looked at the table and studied the new card that had appeared between the two engraved patterns. It was the copy of the [Light] card. He now had two of them. He held the [Mirror] card in his trembling hands. This was an utterly overpowered card! It made copies of other cards!

He passed his hands over his head. This was the breakthrough he needed. This was his saving grace. The only question now was, what should he copy? [Light] had infinite hp. If he just made copies of [Light] non-stop, he would have, in every single round, always an 18-point advantage over his opponent! It might not sound like a lot, but if the round's result was as tightly disputed as they felt, this could make a huge difference.

He could also take another route. He grabbed the [Mining Wagon] card.

Mining Wagon (Legendary)

Hp: 1

Vp: 12

He could also make indefinite copies of [Mining Wagon] and instantly get a bucket load of extra victory points! He got the [Mining Wagon] and laid it on the pattern, activating the table’s circuitry. He reached for [Mirror], but right before putting it on the table, he stopped himself. “Wait a minute. If I copy [Mining Wagon], both [Mirror] and [Mining Wagon] will lose one hp,” he mumbled. Did that mean he would get another [Mining Wagon] card with only 0 hp?

He took [Mining Wagon] out of the table as he bit his fingernails. He wasn’t expecting to run into this unexpectedly powerful card effect. He had an idea. It was crazy, but it could work. He weighed the pros and cons. After five minutes of hesitation, he made up his mind. He grabbed both [Mirror] cards, put them on the table, and waited to see what happened.

[Mirror] + [Mirror]

Mirror | Hp: 4→3

Mirror | Hp: 3→2

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Infinity].

New recipe added to your recipe book.

Infinity (Legendary)

Hp: 0

Vp: 11

Kai was smiling from ear to ear! Yes! Yes! He had discovered his first legendary crafting recipe! Well, the truth was that he had crafted [Light] earlier, but that didn’t feel like it counted. But the feeling of following Daisy’s train of thought to arrive at this wonderful card that awarded him so many points had been worth it!

He went for it again.

[Mirror] + [Mirror]

Mirror | Hp: 3→2

Mirror | Hp: 2→1

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Infinity].

[Mirror] + [Mirror]

Mirror | Hp: 2→1

Mirror | Hp: 1→0

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Infinity].

He then took a deep breath and went for one last use of [Mirror].

[Light] + [Mirror]

Light | Hp: +00

Mirror | Hp: 1→0

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Light].

New recipe added to your recipe book.

With this, in a few minutes, he secured 33 points with the three [Infinity] cards he had crafted. Additionally, he could count on 6 points in the form of his three [Light] cards, which would carry through every single stage, hopefully giving him an edge over the competition.

With the two [Mirror] cards spent, he threw them onto the graveyard pile he’d created. How glad he was that he’d captured the [Mirror] card. Otherwise, he would have never succeeded in gaining so many points in one go. He was feeling more confident about the challenge now. He had scooped up the only two [Mirror] cards from the arena. There was no way that his opponent had anything similar to this that awarded them several legendary cards.

Looking at the remaining cards, he couldn’t see many possible combinations. The only ones left that he could think of involved using [Water]. He was sure something would happen if he mixed [Fire] and [Water], but he didn’t want to risk losing the [Fire] card. The other possibility was to mix [Water] with one of the plants.

Stonerock Succulent (Common)

Hp: 1

Hp: 2

Water (Uncommon)

Hp: 3

Vp: 1

He wasn’t sure what effect it would have, but he decided to try it anyway.

[Water] + [Stonerock Succulent]

Stonerock Succulent | Hp: 1→0

Water | Hp: 3→2

Crafting failed!

Kai bit his lip. It hadn’t worked. He had thought that it was a foolproof recipe. In his mind, it was as if he would be watering a plant. It seemed like he was mistaken. That meant that merging [Water] with [Moss] or one of the mushrooms would probably fail too! He sighed. What else. What was he missing?

The minutes ticked away. As Kai moved the cards around, trying to let inspiration hit him, his eyes focused on [Ash]. Hadn’t Albert talked about how it was used before? He quickly grabbed the [Water] card again.

[Water] + [Ash]

Ash | Hp: 1→0

Water | Hp: 2→1

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Lye].

Lye (Uncommon)

Hp: 4

Vp: 0

New recipe added to your recipe book.

That’s it! That was the name of the solution he was struggling to remember. It could be used to make soap and clean rust off metal. But by far, the biggest use for it was to utilize it as a fertilizer. Maybe this time, it would work. As he was about to reach out for the [Stonerock Succulent] again, he drew his hand back. In a moment of inspiration, he picked one of the cards in the graveyard instead.

Kai’s mind kept coming back to how [Fire] worked. If he could incinerate cards, why would he not be able to heal them, too? Why couldn’t he heal plants with fertilizer if he could heal fire with fuel?

He grabbed [Yellow Honey Agaric] card. It had zero points right now. Nothing happened as he put it on the table. Whenever he put cards with some hp on the engraved patterns, lights always turned on all over the device. But since it had no hp, it didn’t do anything.

Good. If Kai was wrong, he wouldn’t lose anything when he put [Lye] over the other engraving. If he was right, he could right away be able to tell if it was able to bring back to life a card with zero hp.

Kai got the [Lye] card and put it into the other pattern. The pattern sucked the card out of his hand, and the table came alive with light. Several light pulses left the [Lye] card and entered the [Yellow Honey Agaric], and he got a notification.

[Lye] + [Yellow Honey Agaric]

Yellow Honey Agaric | Hp: 0→4

Lye | Hp: 4→0

Crafting failed!

Yes! He had healed [Yellow Honey Agaric]. This changed things. The graveyard wasn’t a place from where there was no return. He could bring cards back from certain death if he had the right healing agent.

Kai went through the notification. He hadn’t been able to create any new cards, but he had transferred the hit points from [Lye] to the mushroom. He had healed the [Yellow Honey Agaric] card! He could heal cards!

He had one more ash card. He made one more [Lye] with it.

[Water] + [Ash]

Ash | Hp: 1→0

Water | Hp: 1→0

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Lye].

It was time for his next experiment. From his history lessons, he recalled that lye could also be used to treat corroded metal. There was a card that Kai really wanted to craft with.

Train Tracks (Uncommon)

Hp: 0

Vp: 4

But the problem was that [Train Tracks] had no hp, so it couldn’t be used in crafting. It was such a pity since it seemed like the perfect match for [Mining Wagon].

“Let’s hope this works?”

He grabbed [Lye]. The best thing about [Lye] was that he didn’t waste its hp when he experimented with mixing it with other cards that were zeroed out. If something couldn’t be healed with it, the table just remained dark. But if it did, the hp was immediately transferred from one card to the other.

[Lye] + [Train Tracks]

Lye | Hp: 4→0

Train Tracks | Hp: 0→2

Crafting failed!

It had worked! Thank you, Albert! Thank you for your boring history lessons. Even though [Lye] was more effective in healing the hp of vegetation cards, it still managed to grant [Train Tracks] a couple of hp points. That was enough for him to use it in crafting. He hurried to experiment with the combination that he was sure would work.

[Mining Wagon] + [Train Tracks]

Mining Wagon | Hp: 1→0

Train Tracks | Hp: 2→1

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Mystery Box].

Kai wanted to dance with joy. It had been so challenging for him to deal with the pressure of the snap arena. But now, everything was going well for him. He couldn’t see how his opponent would surpass his point count. He looked at the [Mystery Box] card to check its stats.

Mystery Box (Rare)

Hp: ??

Vp: ??

What? What in the world did this mean? “Daisy?” he said to the room around him. “What am I supposed to do with this? Shouldn’t you have given me a batch of diamonds or something?” He wasn’t expecting a response from the AI and wasn’t given one anyway. Being so alone, with no one to talk to, was too much. He had to do well on this exam. It wasn't just to get the cure to the blight. If they didn't get more inhabitants, he and Ariel would drive each other crazy. They needed more people in the sector!

How was he supposed to know what to do with [Mystery Box]? He studied the drawing on the card. It had a wooden crate with red question marks painted on its sides. What was this for? Daisy was a cruel examiner. She kept hiding the rules of the exam.

After calming down, he regretted not using [Lye] on the pickaxe or the [Mining Wagon]. It would have been much better than giving so many health points to a stupid mushroom. He was so irritated by it that he decided to do something to abate his anger.

[Fire] + [Stonerock Succulent]

Stonerock Succulent | Hp: 1→0

Fire | Hp: 4

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Ash].

[Fire] + [Yellow Honey Agaric]

Yellow Honey Agaric | Hp: 4→0

Fire | Hp: 4→8

Crafting Successful! You've crafted [Ash].

Kai smiled like a mad scientist as he saw the fire card growing bigger and bigger while he had just secured two more [Ash] cards. There was no stopping him!

Ch. 13 - The People of the Bonfire

INDEX

Ch. 15 - Obsessive Rumination