Deckard finished watching the match between BatterMatter and DarkDefect, and kept going through Keon's file.
It was already late by the time he finished going through the whole thing. He had watched every single battle and read through every deck list.
As he sifted through the data, he kept thinking about how his current deck would fare against these players. The honest answer wasn’t encouraging. He might hold his own in a few matches, but overall, he wasn’t confident.
You got a new message.
“Uh?” Deckard raised an eyebrow when he saw the sender: Keon.
“Hi, StubbornTiger. I just heard that the last two slots have been taken. I don't have any intel on the final contestants yet, but I've put some feelers out. Once I get something concrete, I'll send you an updated version of the dossier.
Keon”
Having someone like Keon handle the scouting was a major time saver. It gave Deckard more room to focus on what actually mattered—his deck.
He opened his browser and pulled up his Terralore profile.
StubbornTiger
League: Aquascape
Place: 3287th
Points: 616
The move to wagering uncommons had sped his climb through the ranks—his total point count for the season now sat at 616 and rising. He was already comfortably within the top ten percent and well on track to qualify for the regional league.
His collection had also grown substantially. Since he first started playing Terralore, he had acquired 387 new common cards and 139 new uncommons. That was nearly four times the number of cards he’d managed to collect during the entire month he’d spent on the island.
After the first hundred uncommons, he wasn’t pulling new cards in every match anymore, but every other game still yielded something fresh. A few of those finds had already made it into his deck.
He opened the list he had compiled earlier. Out of the uncommons I want, I’m only missing a couple of them. He wasn’t worried about getting them, though. It was just a matter of time before he got them.
This brought him to the more pressing question: how could he further improve his deck?
His problem wasn’t with commons or uncommons anymore. He had those in spades. What he lacked were the higher rarities. Since he started playing in the Gaming Parlor, he had obtained no new rares, epics, or legendaries.
Sure, rarity didn’t always equal power. There were outliers—common cards that punched above their weight, and legendaries that looked impressive but underperformed. But in most cases, the cards that could truly elevate a deck came from those upper tiers.
However, it was almost impossible to get those in the Gaming Parlor. Who would risk a genuinely good card in a wager?
I have to get back out there soon. I need to subdimensionalize rarer creatures.
With a Novice rank in the Card Master profession and his regional league qualification practically in the bag, it was time to return to running dungeons. His best shot at a power spike lay in subdimensionalizing bosses and elites—or completing sets.
He closed his Terralore stats, and pulled up another site: , short for Terralore Library.
A massive catalog of cards appeared on his screen, with a daunting number in the top left corner: 71,289. That was the total number of discovered cards to date, and the count continued to grow by the day. Even though he checked the site almost daily, the scale of it still amazed him.
He filtered the entries by region and selected Aquascape.
The list narrowed into the hundreds—still an impressive figure.
His screen filled with a familiar lineup of sea creatures: sea snakes, otters, turtles, finches, and lizards. Most of these came from the five dungeons around Aquascape for players between levels 10 and 20. There were many other higher-level dungeons, too.
Beyond those, the open sea around the city offered more: roaming shellfish and starfish, wild bosses like stingrays, octopi, and sharks.
After a week of playing hundreds of matches, many of these cards had become familiar. But others were still entirely new to him.
Let’s focus on the creatures that actually match the island affinity. Let’s also stay with creatures level 20 and under and scratch off commons and uncommons.
With the filters in place, the list became more manageable. He scrolled through it carefully.
Time was short. Realistically, he was only going to be able to capture a few of these.
Whether or not he came out of this with a stronger list would depend entirely on choosing the right targets.
*
Deckard had come straight to the center of Aquascape after logging back in. After so much time cooped up in the Gaming Parlor, it felt good to be out in the open—well, as open as a massive underwater cave could feel.
High above, through the glass slit in the cavern ceiling, sunlight filtered down through ocean water. A whale and her calf drifted lazily past, their shadows sliding over the city below—Aquascape’s equivalent of passing clouds.
Across the square and the teleportation pad, the large auction house loomed with little dots entering and leaving it.
He followed one of the main avenues at random, then ducked into the first narrow street he found. It didn’t take long before he spotted his destination. It was a building covered in vibrant coral. Above the entrance, painted in golden letters, were the words: “Dolphin Inn.”
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Deckard wove his way through the crowd and stopped at the door. Just before stepping inside, he glanced over his shoulder, scanning the street. He saw nothing suspicious, but the unease in his gut lingered.
He pushed open the door.
Warmth wrapped around him like a blanket. The smoky air carried the scent of ale and roasted fish. Players and NPCs sat around wooden tables, laughing over drinks and piled plates. A hearth crackled in the corner.
At the counter stood a young Oceanling woman with curly red hair. Gills peeked out just beneath her neck, flexing slightly as she spoke. She slid a frothy mug of ale across the bar to a blue-skinned, broad-bellied man—likely a cousin or uncle by the resemblance—who waddled off toward a table of rowdy patrons, his webbed, bare feet slapping softly against the wooden floor.
Deckard approached her.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello, sir. Welcome to the Dolphin Inn,” she replied, her voice sing-song. “What can we do for you today?”
“I’d like to rent a room,” he said. “One with absolute privacy,” he said, glancing nervously over his shoulder at another player who entered the inn after him. They didn’t even glance in his direction as they took a seat at one of the tables, but that didn’t mean they weren’t following him.
“Not to worry—we’ve got rooms just for guests who value discretion. One gold per day.”
Deckard swallowed the sting in his wallet. “Sure.”
She reached into a drawer and pulled out a brass key, the handle shaped like a dolphin’s tail. She handed it over and held out her other hand expectantly. Deckard placed the coin into her palm, trying not to cry as she heartlessly whisked it away.
“The suite’s on the third floor. Room 14,” she said. “Don’t be alarmed by the guards outside. They’re there to keep your business yours. We take privacy seriously here at the Dolphin Inn.”
She gestured toward a staircase that curved gently along the back wall.
“Thank you,” Deckard said.
“Anything else? Meal? Drink? We’ve got crab stew straight off the pot.”
“Sounds delicious, but I’m good, thank you,” Deckard replied, already heading toward the stairs.
He climbed, crossing paths with other players along the way. From what he’d read, logging out inside an inn charged a passive buff that activated the next time a player logged in—hence the popularity.
On the third floor, two blue-skinned guards in blue tabards patrolled the hallway.
Seeing the guills on their necks, he raised an eyebrow. Is everyone working here an Oceanling?
He inspected them.
Dolphin Inn Guard
Lvl. 40
????
Yikes. That’s a high level.
Sensing his approach, both stopped and studied him.
“This floor is off limits,” one of them said as the other rested a hand on his scabbard, ready in case Deckard tried anything.
Deckard held up his key. “I’ve rented a room for the day.”
The tension dropped immediately. Both guards relaxed.
“Please, sir,” the first one said, stepping aside and gesturing toward one of only three doors in the hall—a polished wooden frame with a golden number 14 mounted above it.
Under the guards’ watchful eyes, Deckard opened the door. Instead of leading directly into the room, the key had opened a narrow entryway, with a second, reinforced door at the far end that looked like it belonged on a vault rather than an inn room.
This place is seriously secure. Two locked doors and a guard. Perfect.
Deckard crossed the hallway and used the key again.
Inside, the suite was compact but well-appointed. Pale blue curtains stitched with flowing wave patterns framed the single window. A low, wide bed sat at the center, made from twisted sun-bleached driftwood. The furniture had delicate carvings of dolphins, and a large rug shaped like a giant starfish stretched its arms into the room.
Deckard crossed the room and shut the shutters, then latched the window itself. He pulled the bed sheets free and stuffed them into the cracks along the doorframe, carefully sealing every gap he could find.
He remained still for a moment. Not a sound. He couldn’t hear anything outside, which meant no one would hear him.
What he was about to do was bound to put on quite a spectacle—the last thing he wanted curious eyes to witness. He still wasn’t sure if someone had followed him from the Auction House, and he wasn’t about to take any chances.
Ideally, he would’ve done this inside a dungeon, but he needed to know what stats and skills he could count on before buying gear and supplies.
From his inventory, he pulled out all the cards he’d earned over the past week. Together, they formed a thick stack of five hundred. They weighed heavily in his palm; he could barely hold them in one hand.
A slow smile formed as he looked at them—proof of everything he’d accomplished in Terralore so far.
Deckard took out his Dimensional Binder and left it open on the floor. Drawing a deep breath, he steadied himself. He’d been itching for this moment. “All right. Time to become stronger before I go back to running dungeons.”
He gently placed the entire stack onto the binder.
Tiny silver nanites rose from the surface and climbed the stack like ants discovering sugar. Once they’d fully covered the cards, a sharp hum filled the room—like the whine of an engine spooling up—and then, there was a flash. His vision went white.
The Dimensional Binder was hungrily digesting everything it’d fed it, releasing an absurd amount of energy as it did.
The light only began to fade after two minutes, and as his eyesight returned, he found that the Dimensional Binder was filled with new pages. A series of notifications appeared before him.
Congratulations! You’ve collected 100 water affinity cards!
You’ve unlocked a new skill: [Webbed Feet Gene]
Congratulations! You’ve collected 250 cards!
[Repository Recharge] has been upgraded.
Congratulations! You’ve collected 500 cards!
[Repository Recharge II] has been upgraded.
Congratulations! You’ve collected 250 water affinity cards!
[Webbed Feet Gene] has been upgraded.
Collection updated:
+3.2% movement speed,
+6.1 attack,
+78 HP,
+2.3% HP regeneration,
+2.9% attack speed,
+1.7% crit chance,
+4.6% crit damage,
+9 energy points,
+2.4% energy regeneration,
+1.8% damage resistance,
+0.7% status resistance,
+0.4% fire resistance,
+0.3% nature resistance,
+5 Kg carry capacity,
+0.8 healing bonus,
+0.3% cooldown reduction,
+0.4% card regeneration,
+0.7% throwing deck capacity
Deckard was dizzy with all the text flooding his screen. So many stat gains. There were also two upgrades to [Repository Recharge] and a brand new skill.
He went over the stats. He had become tankier, faster, and his DPS had gone up. Together with [Lone Vanguard], he would definitely be able to solo the dungeons around Aquascape now.
He turned his attention to the milestone skills. He’d gained [Repository Recharge] as a reward for collecting 50 cards, but he hadn’t received another collection bonus like it since then. No wonder. The next tiers were at two hundred and fifty, then five hundred cards.
He pulled up the new version of the skill.
Repository Recharge III (Legendary)
After gaining access to the genetic and behavioral information of several creatures, your [Dimensional Binder]’s memory expands, allowing it to generate cards more quickly.
Skill effects: Active: For one minute, speeds up card recharge and generates a new blank card in your inventory. One new card every 10→2 seconds for one minute.
Passive: Increases the number of cards you can keep out of the [Dimensional Binder] by +1→5.
It now generated five times as many cards per minute and passively boosted his throwing deck capacity fivefold! The cooldown and energy cost had dropped, too.
This will significantly speed up my dungeon runs.
But what really got him excited was the other skill: [Webbed Feet Gene].
