[CC] Chapter 53

In the back of a quiet forest, an isolated tree swayed with the gentle wind, its leaves rustling noiselessly. Thin beams of sunlight poked through the space between the verdant leaves, revealing a still body of a human boy near the bottom of of the tree’s trunk.

Then something stirred, breaking the silent stillness. It was the boy’s finger.

“Ugh…”

Shouren woke up with a groan. His mouth felt like he’d chewed on mounds of dirt. Actually, that’s exactly what had happened. The dark-haired boy retched, his stomach heaving as he spit out the wet soil lodged inside the back of his throat. How did the soil even get that far back?

I’m alive?

Shouren ran his hand over his tongue, trying to wipe away as much of the ‘dirt flavor’ as he could. The last he remembered, his nerves were contaminated with the python’s venom and he was dying of blood loss from that open wound.

He quickly checked his vault and had his cards ready while he nervously glanced around the surroundings. How long was he passed out for, and were there any other monsters nearby?

“It shouldn’t have been more than a few hours.”

Shouren’s hazel eyes flicked up at the sky, calculating the approximate time he was unconscious from the position of the sun. He staggered to his feet, and when he put the pressure on his injured foot, a grimace twisted his face. Shouren looked down on his calf, relieved the wound had closed and stopped bleeding. However, it still looked dire. Meanwhile, the area on his hand where the python bit came out looking much better. The monster had most likely struck a major artery on his leg to cause that level of bleeding.

“Something is off.”

Seeing that he was momentarily safe, Shouren rubbed his eyes in confusion. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but the dungeon seemed… different. Nothing had changed outside. Everything was the same color, the same environment, the same forest, and the same trees. However, Shouren felt that something had changed. He couldn’t explain the feeling. It was like his mind could see further. Not his eyes, but his mind. It was an inexplicable sensation to put into words.

Shouren leaned on the tree, trying to gather his memories from before he passed out.

I was fighting the python’s venom in my blood and wanted to stop its interference on my nerves. I believe it was tampering with the nerve connection between my brain and my muscles, slowing and redirecting them.

Shouren closed his eyes, pressing the back of his neck against the cool tree. He remembered he gleaned something from the effects of the venom on his body. Was it an insight?

I wanted to counteract the venom by speeding up my nerves, but I never actually figured out how to do it. And that was the last thought in my mind before I blacked out. Wait, let me check my status!

Shouren chided himself for not checking his system status the instant he woke up. If something had changed, the system would have cataloged it.

[Attribute upgrade initiated… insufficient lumen… progress halted. Intelligence E (0.8%)]

Status

Name: Shouren

Tier: 0 [Synchronization: 49%]

Class: Cardsmith [Common]

Spell Card Slots: 1/1 - Dimensional Vault [Rare]

Lumen: 3/20 (-5)

Strength: F

Agility: F

Constitution: F

Intelligence: E (0.8%)

Class Abilities <Corrupted>:

1 - Card Forge <Writ of the Forgotten>

2 - Sharding <Devourer’s Rite: 45/100>

3 - Card Sacrifice <Oblation Pact>

Traits:

1 - Corrupted Cardsmith [Unique]

2 - Veinreader [Uncommon]

3 - Lumen Weaver [Common] - 2/10 Threads

Cardsmith Recipes:

Tier 0 - Spectral Threads [Common]

“My a-attribute changed!”

Shouren’s mind blanked for a second when he saw the first notification stating the change in his Intelligence attribute.

It’s still E rank, but there’s a percentage bar added to it now. Does that mean when it reaches 100%, it will upgrade to D rank!? But how? I don’t remember the insight.

Shouren’s breaths came out in rapid succession. All his other attributes were still F rank, but his Intelligence was already in the transition phase to the next rank. However, what stumped the boy was that he didn’t remember what insight it was that pushed this transformation.

Was the insight something to do with the nerves?

Shouren recalled a pressure in his chest, but did something trigger when his mind drifted away? He checked his current lumen and began to put a few pieces together.

I used 2 units of lumen during the fight with the python, leaving me with 13 lumen before I lost consciousness. Then I woke up with only 3 lumen. Based on the first notification, I didn’t have sufficient lumen to complete the attribute upgrade. Assuming all 13 lumen were absorbed at once, this only increased the bar by 0.8%. To bring it to a 100% and reach D rank, I would need… blazes, that’s a lot of numbers… over 1600 lumen?

Shouren was boggled by the sheer amount of lumen required for D rank Intelligence. It was a stark difference from when his Intelligence upgraded from F rank to E rank. There was no progress bar then.

Only Tier 1 or higher could possess D-rank attributes, and Shouren finally grasped the reason today. He would have to spend years non-stop gorging on Tier 0 monster meat to accumulate that much lumen for a single attribute. His goal had been to bring his other attributes to E rank, but now his main attribute was already in the process of upgrading to D rank.

I think Intelligence is the key to unraveling insights.

Shouren mused as he stared at the gentle grass swaying around him. He had been wondering why he had been unlocking so many insights one after another. Shouren didn’t consider himself the smartest person, especially when he had someone like Rhea next to him all the time. His grandma was much smarter than him in everything, but she still had a F ranked Intelligence. On the other hand, since the moment Shouren started to focus on insights, he had collected them at a rapid pace.

It was no longer about being smart, but about being able to see past the veil of secrets. And that barrier was gradually dissipating for Shouren. That was the change he noticed after waking up today. He felt like he could pierce through those secrets faster now. What would happen when his Intelligence finally reached D rank?

Shouren could already feel his brain bursting with new ideas and theories of solving his previous predicaments regarding lumen and his other traits. If he pushed more, he was sure he could have a breakthrough soon.

Did you do something?

Shouren frowned and touched his chest, addressing the demon residing there. He was ecstatic at the new changes, but it was also troubling him. His growth was unusually fast, almost as if someone were deliberately hastening it.

The demonic chains didn’t respond.

Shouren sighed. He needed to force the demon to talk, but he needed a trait to tempt it with. Devouring [Common] class cards didn’t seem to entice it as much as the appearance of traits. Shouren didn’t have a solid reason to suspect the demonic chains, but his instincts were telling him that the fiend was responsible for more than simply corrupting his class abilities.

Do I even need to join Virelle’s party and enter the 2nd floor?

Shouren contemplated as he grabbed the python’s tail in his vault with one hand and the card it dropped with the other one.

My main goal to enter the 2nd floor was to use the denser lumen there to unlock more insights, but with my Intelligence now on the path to hit D rank, I could probably get insights on my own.

Shouren tore off a chunk of the python’s tail and swallowed the raw meat. He needed to replenish his lumen to speed up his recovery and to bring it to at least 5 units for the Spectral Threads card. Though the 5000 chronas and the abundant lumen on the 2nd floor remained appealing to Shouren, seeing a lone gray card drop from the python that had almost killed him, made him hesitant to use one of his three attempts there just to gain more lumen.

Moreover, he would be giving up the solo clear bonus as well if he entered with a party. Luckily, Shouren didn’t take the 5000 chronas in advance and the contract stated that if he didn’t show up 2 hours before the party entered the dungeon, the agreement would be void. This would give enough time for Virelle to find a replacement health mule.

Shouren then looked at the latest card in his arsenal.

Tier 0 - Glimmer Skin [Common]

Coat the caster’s skin in a shimmer that catches and scatters ambient light, making it harder to detect them.

Cost: 1 lumen per minute

It’s a slightly worse version of the Hide Presence spell card, but its lumen cost is lower.

Shouren tossed the card back into his vault. He tested his foot once again, seeing it get better as the new wave of lumen washed over it. Shouren missed having the Hide Presence spell card, as it let him assassinate monsters without getting hurt. If only he had the recipe for that card.

A few minutes later, Shouren felt recovered enough to move. Now that he could leave the dungeon whenever he wanted, it was time to resume his training. He took out the parchment with his goals and read them again. The python was a terrible match-up to train his hammer, but for his next fight, Shouren wanted to train it more. One failure wasn’t enough to deter him.

Taking advantage of the remaining daylight, Shouren wanted to hunt more monsters and later in the night, he would test out the changes brought by his Intelligence attribute.

His insight connected to the Lumen Weaver trait was already boiling with agitation, on the cusp of an impending transformation.