The Legendary Fool

Aleph’s lips quivered from emotion as she stared at Tom with even greater shock than she had exhibited at his rapid growth. It seemed as if her entire body was locked in place, her arms the only part that expressed motion in the form of a gentle quivering.

“You…,” Her voice cracked, the happy go lucky facade she always maintained when she was with Tom cracking with it. “...that is not a claim you are allowed to make frivolously,” she caught herself and then stared in the depths of Tom’s eyes, as if trying to discern the veracity of his words.

There was a hint of warning in Aleph’s words, a stark juxtaposition to the first time she had told him of the inheritance. Her words back then had been spoken jovially and freely and although Tom hadn’t recognized it back then, the hint of self-deprecation she cloaked with her cheerful persona.

From Aleph’s reaction, Tom was pretty certain that she had never intended, or more accurately, never thought it would be possible for her to unlock her family’s inheritance.

“I’m not,” Tom squarely met Aleph’s gaze and held it for a few uncomfortable moments before continuing, “I’ll tell you how, but before that, can I show you something?”

Aleph seemed hesitant but she ultimately nodded in affirmative.

Slowly, Tom opened his clenched Revenant Claw, revealing the solitary card that was nestled in the palm of his hands.

Tom made no sudden movements as he plucked the card with his free hand, pinching it with his thumb and index finger before he raised it, back-first, towards Aleph.

Aleph’s gaze was affixed to the raised card, the caution in her gaze fading at Tom’s willingness to openly expose a powerful card.

Droplets of blood slid down the card’s back, slowly slicking downwards towards the card’s bottom periphery. An outline of the human heart lay nestled in the center, painted in neat strokes of red. The blood droplets avoided the heart outline on their descent, yet before they could slide off the bottom edge, a change occurred.

In the blink of an eye, all the blood droplets were pulled inwards and the heart outline begun to glow a radiant gold.

Before Aleph could examine the card any further, the process reset and once again, droplets of blood slicked down the card’s surface.

It’s fine jade green border, however, told her what she needed to know.

“Is that.. your Soul Card?” Aleph mused aloud, only to immediately shake her head after. “No, that doesn’t feel like a Soul Card.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at that.

“Can you feel soul cards?” he asked.

“No, not exactly,” Aleph replied, giving him an odd look. “It is still a part of your soul, so you can feel a sense of, well, rejection I suppose, when you gaze upon another’s. Very few people are foolish enough to pull their Soul Cards out of their chest, because while others can’t use it as long as you are alive, that won’t stop you from losing *all* your stats along with the ability to wield cards.”

“Well, you’re right. It isn’t my soul card,” Tom replied, letting the implication hang in the air.

“Don’t tell me…,” Aleph gazed at Tom in what he could only describe as sheer wonderment.

“Yep,” He offered her a cheeky nod. “Got it from the assassin-boss that almost took my head off.”

“You have no idea how… impossibly hard it is to get an uncommon card from this sector,” Aleph’s tone almost sounded aggrieved, before she caught herself, “Then again, impossible things seem to happen a lot around you.”

“I think I know why you want to challenge the hardest sector of this dungeon,” Tom conspiratorially began, his voice low as he took in the Theatre of Stone. “When I was in the Noble District, I overheard some passersby gossiping about Nylev Jaxenor’s exploits. About how he received a [Rare] card upon successfully conquering it.”

“Close,” Aleph admitted. “A [Rare] would indeed be my aim if I was heading into the final sector with a team of fifteen academy students wreathed in a mixture of uncommon and rare equipment, trained in combat arts and glyphs since they took their first steps, each one armed with an uncommon card at the very least— much like— actually, exactly like this Nylev you spoke of, did.”

Tom’s gaze sharpened as the hairs on his arms rose up from the realization.

But that was impossible, the surface world shouldn’t possess cards beyond the Rare Rank; not at least according to Zenakris’ memories.

“Do you know what the Mezzanine Rank is?”

“A… Mezzanine… Rank?” Tom repeated the unfamiliar term, clearly baffled by this turn of events.

Mezzanine didn’t sound like it was higher than Rare.

“Exactly. Can you imagine a scenario where you would pick a common card over that,” Aleph pointed at his newly acquired uncommon card, causing him to raise an eyebrow.

“Uh, nope. Not a chance,” Tom replied almost instantly, without giving much thought to it. The only exception would be a healing card, but [Lifeblood] could staunch his bleeding long enough for him to use a potion even then.

“Right,” Aleph nodded. “Except, what if there was a card that offered the very limits of a common’s ability— one of the best common cards in existence among the tens of thousands of variations in existence. A card that stands at the very border of the common and uncommon…. .”

Realization dawned upon Tom.

“An almost-uncommon that only has the cost of a common card,” he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Aleph to hear.

“You catch on quick,” Aleph praised, though her words felt distant. “A Mezzanine Rare— that is what I hope to gain in the final sector, if we somehow survive till the end,” she finally admitted, causing Tom to suck in a cold breath.

“Aren’t there easier ways to…,” Tom trailed off, thinking it wise to not complete his sentence.

‘....to take revenge,’ was what he thought inwardly and Aleph was definitely perceptive to catch on. Poisoning a drink. Assassination with a ranged weapon. Some volatile alchemical reagent thrown onto a Noble Estate. All of those sounded way easier than throwing herself into a death-trap for the vague possibility of getting a powerful rare card.

“It’s not that simple,” Aleph deflected as her gaze veered away from Tom.

“But, there’s one thing I don’t understand. One thing that’s been bugging me this whole while,” Tom silently changed the subject, not willing to press any further.

“What is it?”

“Nylev Jaxenor was willing to risk his life for a Rare Card. But he wasn’t born with a Rare Card if he’s so happy. So how does he intend to equip it?”

Aleph's expression turned uncomfortable as she turned her head to meet Tom’s gaze.

“What I am about to tell you,” She began, as a flash of guilt passed her visage, “is a secret of the Nobility.”

That caught Tom’s attention.

“Have you ever stolen someone’s Deck Cards without killing them?” Aleph asked, her voice devoid of any judgement.

“You know I have,” Tom replied.

“Right. Zakeran’s lot,” Aleph nodded as the memory came to her. “Well then, you know that they reset to Level 1 when you take them away from your opponent’s Deck.”

Tom nodded.

“Did you ever ask yourself why?” She asked.

“Not really, I was too busy trying not to die back then.”

“Authority,” Aleph simply replied, as if that explained anything.

“Explain.”

“When you take cards from another person, there is a transfer of authority. The Deck Card is keyed into its previous owner’s authority and when it finds a mis-match, which is when the new owner tries to add it to his deck, all the collected experience flows back to the System. That is why you should never, ever, allow another person to lay hands on your Deck. Though for higher ranked cards, the transfer of authority takes significantly longer. ”

Tom’s heartbeat accelerated a little, thrilled at the very valuable knowledge Aleph was offering.

“I still don’t see the correlation, though.”

“Everyone is born with a Soul Card. The Commoners think that their Soul Card represents their status in life and only those of Noble Blood can ascend to a higher Soul Card. That… is a lie.”

Tom’s expression turned serious.

“Why?”

“Because… it’s not that difficult to switch to a higher ranked Soul Card. And if the common people knew that…”

“They would rip the cards right out of the Noble’s hearts instead of playing second fiddle?” Tom offered an educated guess, drawing from his high-school history lessons.

Aleph winced, but nodded.

“Severing the connection with your Soul Card is extremely painful. Not to the physical body but.. something more intimate. Meta-physical. But if I told you to do that, you would never agree to it because it would mean losing all your acquired stats, leaving you with nothing to defend yourself.”

Tom nodded vigorously.

“But what if you didn’t have to lose everything? Cards give us powers and statistics, but they are much more than that. The higher ranked Soul Card you take in will heal the damage to your soul. And you won’t be vulnerable, because… there was never any transfer of authority. All the time you spent leveling your Soul Card wont go to waste because you didn’t lose it and you weren’t killed.”

“No way,” Tom exclaimed in both alarm and wonderment. “The higher ranked Soul Card's SP will allow you to take in your former Soul Card as a Deck Card.”