The Legendary Fool

160:

[Auto-Analyzing…

Deckholder ownership uncontested. Increasing appraisal rank by two grades…

Quickdraw Quickshuffle, Rare

Requirements: 37 Proprioception, 25 Physical

Description: A seamless fusion of Ferracite and Vorpal Wyrm Leather, this artifact was designed and crafted by a skilled artisan whose intent has seeped into this Deckholder. Ferracite, also known as Quick Metal, is an exceptionally malleable metal that can harden into a chosen form in a matter of a second, while Vorpal Wyrm Leather is known for its resistance to elemental energies. Eight Cards up to the Rare Rarity can be slotted in this Deckholder at once.

Weapon Skills:

1. Quickdraw: Once the wielder has equipped this Rare Deckholder, eight cards upto the Rare Rarity can be slotted within it. At any time, the wielder will be able to visualize the order of the stacked cards and be able to freely manipulate their order at will. One card can be Quickdrawn at any time, allowing a thread formed out of Ferracite to tug the chosen card into the wielder’s hand nigh instantaneously and currently equipped cards can be swapped at a moment’s notice.

If there is any external attempt to seize/displace the drawn card from the wielder’s possession, it will automatically be drawn back into the Deckholder.

2. Quickshuffle: Activating this weapon ability requires eight cards to be stored in the deckholder. Once this requirement is met, activating this weapon ability shuffles all the available cards nigh instantaneously, designating a random order to them.

Once the wielder Quickdraws upon the first card, they must use it upon an enemy within one minute. Successfully accomplishing this fills the kinetic energy gauge of Quickdraw Quick Shuffle by 10%. Successfully chaining a following attack with the preceding one continues to fill the gauge by 10%, until the eighth card is successfully chained for 30%.

Raw Kinetic Energy cannot be stored within Quickdraw Quickshuffle for longer than two hours.

Once every twenty four hours, the order of Quickshuffle can be rigged by the wielder.]

“Whoa,” Tom whispered as he held his newly acquired Deckholder, reverently cupped in both his hands.

The left-handed glove part of Quickdraw Quickshuffle was fashioned out of a brownish-green scaled leather, a uniform pattern of small, tightly placed ridges running across its outer surface.

Tom needed to flip the glove to find the metal deckholder that was attached to the long sleeve of the glove by a metal armband that looped over and around it.

The Deckholder itself was an unassuming rectangular box that had been forged out of a silvery-white metal. There were no adornments or engravings on the box itself, a small slit that was wide enough to slot a card the only opening he could find.

Thin metal threads originated from within the Deckholder, five in total that branched off to each claim a path towards the fingers. Held in place by diminutive metal ringlets that had been knit into the softer, smooth brownish-green leather that lacked the bumpy scales that had been used on the outside, it was clear that the threads played a key role in the design of the artifact.

Tom didn’t hesitate any longer as he slipped his left hand into the glove, which looked like it was a size too big for him.

He blinked as the glove tightened around his left hand as soon as he was done slipping it on, only for his expression to change as he felt a shared pressure across all its fingers. It felt like the glove wanted to instinctively ball up into a fist. It was clear that the strings were far more tensioned than they appeared to be, or at least, became when a wielder tried to claim the artifact.

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Regardless, Tom didn’t have much difficulty fighting off that pressure and it only took him a few minutes of clenching and unclenching his left hand to get used to it. Though it wasn’t as if the pressure was gone, no. It had just fallen in intensity, from an active pressure weighing down on his hand to a dull tingling.

‘That explains the twenty five Physical requirement,’ Tom thought, wondering if the tensioning in the glove had something to do with the kinetic energy he could avail if he used it correctly.

With his gloved hand, Tom unhooked the common deckholder he had been using as a stand-in, placing it on his study table. Opening it, he pulled out the eight Deck Cards he was currently using.

Currently, the card he was most interested in was Shadow Wraith, given that it had acquired a massive amount of experience after he slayed a Nether Shaman.

[Card Name: Shadow Wraith

Rank: Rare

Level: 12

Skill Upgrade Points: 11

Ability:

1. Umbral Forge, Level 1: Allows the wielder to extend their influence over shadows within 250 square meters of them at any given time, allowing them to weave and shape the shadows. Once shaped, the wielder can convert the shadows into layered Umbral Metal. The converted Umbral Metal shall retain the momentum and direction that was imposed upon it in shadow form, but the wielder will no longer be able to reshape or influence the metal after conversion.

Umbral Forge can only convert shadow into umbral metal when there is no organic or inorganic material in contact with it.

SP Cost is variable on the quantity of shadows being shaped and converted into Umbral Metal.

2. Shadow Shift, Level 1: Allows the wielder to synchronize with a shadow that is under their control, as long as the shadows have a minimum diameter of 30 inches. Once synchronized, the wielder can shift into any other shadow in their control that meets the minimum diameter requirement and is within their region of influence.

SP required per shift within the same pool of shadows: 20

The greater the non-shadowed area that is needed to be traversed, the greater the SP cost. ]

“Twenty SP?” Tom muttered under his breath, his expression scandalized. He’d definitely figured out the reason why Zeth had pooled his shadows as one to blanket the ground, even though the master of the shadow guild would’ve had a far higher level than him.

He knew that accomplishing something like that would require practice but even then, Shadow Shift was simply too useful an ability to not invest in.

After taking what felt like an hour to deliberate over his choices, Tom made his decision. Four Skill Upgrade Points were invested into Umbral Forge, while the remaining seven went to Umbral Shift.

The final result put Umbral Forge at Level 5 and Shadow Shift at Level 8, which seemed crazy to Tom considering that this particular deck card had been level 1 a couple of hours ago and leveling a Rare wasn’t supposed to be easy to begin with.

His range of influence jumped to 325 square meters and the umbral metal he converted his shadows into were now layered, which Tom assumed meant that they’d be more durable. The required SP for him to Shadow Shift in the same shadow dropped to thirteen, which still wasn’t cheap but at the same time, his SP pool was far larger than pretty much everyone he knew.

Zeth definitely had to have heavily invested in the Shadow Shift ability, but Tom didn’t need to lower the cost as desperately due to his higher SP pool.

Once that was accomplished, he didn’t hesitate to organize his deck cards into a neat pile, before he slotted them all in at once.

The mental connection between him and his artifact was established and Tom didn’t wait long before thinking of the Mirror World card.

He blinked, more out of disbelief than anything else.

The card was already nestled in his palm, a thin string looped around it’s width that led back to the slit in the deckholder.

Curious, Tom held the deck card between his thumb and index finger, before making a motion of slamming the loosely held card against the study table. If it made contact, it would certainly fly out of his grip.

But instead, the moment it did make contact, the card was yanked out of his possession and pulled back into the deckholder with unerring precision.

“Wow, that’s useful,” He muttered to himself, even as he was starting to see why the Deckholder required 37 Proprioception to wield.

In a way, it was weak. Weaker than the revenant claw on paper, atleast. One lacking proprioception wouldn’t be able to navigate the battlefield quickly enough to start chaining the Quickshuffle ability in succession. Activating eight abilities in eight minutes wasn’t hard, but activating them against actual enemies, now that was a different matter entirely.

For such a high requirement to properly use, Tom found himself wondering just how powerful that Kinetic energy could be at full potential.

He vowed to find out for himself.