Written in the Cards Part 5

An: I got a bit carried away with fixing cards and such things... so the chapter is longer. Moving forward, I'll try to find ways to avoid some of the details.
0o0o0

"Wake up!" Derrick said loudly, imitating his old drill sergeant.

"I'm awake," Mist replied in annoyance as he woke up enough to be somewhat functional rather than the sort of drifting in and out he'd been doing for the last twenty minutes since Sarah had woken him up opening the barn door so she could play with the forge in the mirror world. He turned and glanced at the light coming through the open door then focused on the pair of teenage girls standing next to Derrick, wondering if they'd actually gotten any sleep like they were supposed to after he'd upgraded Azara's cards a couple of hours ago.

"Good, we've got a problem," Derrick told him. "The gnomes noticed a large group of people leaving the town and heading toward the farm."

"What time is it?" Mist asked as he twisted around so that he could sit up and have his legs hanging off the side of the bales of hay that he'd been using as a makeshift bed.

"About half an hour after the crack of dawn," Derrick replied. "I'm guessing someone noticed that Azara was missing and let the mayor know."

"Stupid mayor," Beth Henderson complained under her breath, wishing the bastard would leave her friend alone.

"Great," Mist muttered as he spent the mana to upgrade her Dream Binder card, giving him five cards to choose from. "One more time then I'll awaken your cards. Master of Nightmares, Eldritch Bookbinder, Crafter of Fiendish Codexes, Necronomicon, Dream Dancer?" he said thoughtfully as he read over the titles of the cards.

"Necronomicon? Is that as bad as it sounds?" Derrick asked.

Mist winced as he skimmed the card. "Yeah, we're not going with a card that requires cutting people apart and skinning them, even if it gives some nice bonuses to Necromancy."

"Yeah, no," Azara agreed. "What about Dream Dancer?"

"You'd lose the ability to conjure books and the Enchanting talent and pick up the ability to jump into people's dreams but it doesn't say anything about changing them or doing anything productive with the ability," Mist explained as he checked the rest of the cards.

"What else do we have?" Azara asked, not interested in losing her bloodline.

"Master of Nightmares lets you make cursed books that pull people into nightmares and replace the people's souls with nightmares that you control and the Crafter of Fiendish Codexes lets you forge a link between the books and random demons to create spellbooks."

"No and no, I'm not a monster," Azara argued, thinking about some of the stories she'd heard about people that got evil cards and ended up being villains. "What about the Eldritch Bookbinder?"

"It's a straight upgrade," Mist replied with a smile. "It keeps everything it already had and gives you a fifty percent discount on enchanting books and increases your magic and your Enchanting talent."

"Let's go with that," Azara told him.

"Good choice." Mist carefully selected the Eldritch Bookbinder card then spent the mana to boost her other card, creating five new cards floating over the old card. "Ancient Eldritch Librarian, Eldritch Librarian of Forbidden Knowledge, Immortal Eldritch Librarian, Void Librarian and Celestial Librarian of Eldritch Research."

"Immortal?" Beth Henderson asked excitedly.

Mist winced when he read the drawbacks. "Yeah, she's probably going to want to skip that particular card. It would make her nearly immortal but the drawbacks are a bitch."

"How bad?" Azara asked.

"You'd have to bind yourself to a library within a month and you'd die if the library is ever destroyed. You also can't leave the library once you're bound to it," Mist warned her.

Azara shook her head. "If I had time and enough gold to build an insane library with nearly indestructible walls and glass ceilings so I could see the sky, it might be worth it or if I was older, but I've barely ever left the town and I want to see the world, discard it."

Mist frowned as he read the description of the Ancient Librarian card. "The Ancient card makes you physically old but multiplies your lifespan by fifty and increases your magic, doesn't seem worth it. Same with the Void card."

"What does that do?" Beth asked.

"It gives a massive boost to void magic but she'd lose access to everything else which doesn't seem worth it considering the boost to all types of magic," Mist explained as he checked the Librarian of Forbidden Knowledge card. "The Librarian of Forbidden Knowledge looks pretty good, it gives you the ability to buy banned books for your library from a system shop."

"Necromancy and blood magic?" Azara asked.

"I don't know…" Mist trailed off when he checked the description of the last card. "Never mind, you're probably going to want the Celestial card, you don't lose anything and it boosts your physical abilities, your ink and your magic in addition to increasing your ability to use all types of magic, giving you eternal youth and cutting the costs and time requirement to research holy spells by fifty percent and other types of magic by twenty except unholy and demonic magic which take seventy percent longer."

"Any downsides?" Azara asked, not seeing a problem with being eternally young as long as it didn't trap her as a child and even that wouldn't be too horrible as long as she didn't get stuck as a toddler.

"Not that I can see, the youth doesn't kick in until you're in your twenties and I don't see a penalty to using unholy magic or anything," Mist told her.

"Even if there was, it's worth it. I'll take it," Azara said, glad that she wouldn't be stuck as a teenager for the rest of her life. "And you should probably awaken my cards before the mayor gets here."

Mist carefully selected the Celestial Librarian of Eldritch Research card then used his awakening power to create her cards. "Done and done."

Azara took a few seconds to read the description on the cards that appeared in her hands, noting the fact that both of her cards were Angelic for rarity. "Celestial Librarian of Eldritch Research: Monstrous boost to Magic, excellent boost to physical abilities, and a remarkable boost to Agility and Stamina. Excellent talent for all magic that shifts to remarkable when I'm wearing the magical robes I can summon. It kept the increased mana that I picked up last time and the ink is better!"

"We're running out of time," Beth reminded her friend.

"Sorry, I got distracted," Azara admitted as she quickly used the cards. She smiled as she felt the small pool of mana she'd managed to acquire thanks to Lisa's training expand into a massive lake of power. "This is going to be amazing!"

"My pleasure," Mist assured the teen as Victoria walked into the barn with a smile on her face.

"False alarm," Victoria told them, causing the girls and Derrick to relax. "Lisa brought a bunch of townsfolk that want to have their cards adjusted and awakened without the mayor interfering."

"I'm happy to help but I'm just about out of mana," Mist told her, having used most of his mana to push Azara's cards.

"No rest for the wicked," Victoria teased. "The alchemist's daughter has a basket filled with mana potions and most of them probably won't ask for insane cards."

"I'll take a look," Mist replied as he reached over and grabbed his boots. He quickly finished putting them on then walked outside and looked at the crowd of townsfolk that Lisa had collected. While most of the twenty five people were teenagers, a couple of people were in their late twenties or early thirties along with a white haired old man with three cards floating over his head that was standing next to a blonde girl in her late teens that had three cards floating over her head as well. "Where do I start?"

Lisa gestured at a heavyset teenager with a wide nose and ears that stuck out a bit too much for anyone to call him attractive, especially as his brown hair was more than a bit straggly. "Start with Jared, he has a couple of bad cards."

Mist walked over so that he could read the description on the cards floating over the teenager's head. 'Agony Strike: Hitting someone increases the amount of pain caused by fifty percent while decreasing the damage by ninety percent. Baron of Torture: Every strike causes increased pain. That's nearly useless if you're not a sadistic bastard.' He studied the large teenager that was looking at the ground, fairly sure the kid knew exactly what the cards did. "Did the other awakener explain what your cards were?"

"Yes sir," Jared replied without looking up from the ground. "I got lucky, he had the ability to check what cards people would get, from what he said most can't. He said that he'd buy my cards, but I was hoping I could change them if I worked hard enough so I was waiting."

"I'll see what I can do," Mist replied as he spent the mana to improve the kid's cards. He frowned when he realized that none of the options seemed any better, at least not from the point of view of a well adjusted townsfolk that didn't want to go monster hunting. "Do you have a trade?"

"My Mom taught me how to weave when she wasn't working," Jared offered, wishing he was better at it.

"I'll see what I can do," Mist replied as he picked the card that reduced the damage penalty and spent the mana to improve it. He glanced over the collection of cards that seemed nastier than what he started with. "Victoria, I'm going to need Zaldar's help with this one."

"I'll wake him up," Victoria called out from inside the barn.

"Thanks," Mist replied as he selected the card that reduced the damage penalty and boosted the user's pain tolerance. He spent a bit more mana to improve the card again and looked over the options that were worse than what he'd started with or at least nastier. 'Screw it, might as well see if pushing things makes the alternate cards better,' he mused as he picked the card that increased the amount of pain he caused by hitting people. 'Worst case, we'll just sell the card and he can buy something that isn't insane.'

"Any luck?" Lisa asked.

"Not really," Mist admitted. "The cards are technically improving but they're still questionable, probably because of a weird bloodline."

"Probably from my father, my mother has a weak regeneration card and disease protection, she never mentioned my father," Jared explained.

"Don't worry about it, we'll figure something out," Mist assured him then swapped to the next teenager, a tall boy with brown hair who was probably fifteen or sixteen. 'Better grip strength and a five percent boost to the chance to improve an alchemy product or meal that he creates.' He studied the young man. "Do you have a trade?"

"Not really," the teenager admitted. "I help my folks with cooking for the inn but I'd rather be a knight."

"Do you have any interest in cooking or alchemy?" Mist asked, curious if he could talk him out of the Baker card.

"No, why?" the teenager asked.

"Because one of your cards has a small chance to boost the quality of everything you cook," Mist explained as he spent the mana to improve the card.

"Shit," the teen cursed. "I was hoping to avoid anything cooking related."

"What's wrong with cooking?" one of the girls asked.

"No point in having cooking cards when my folks have cooking cards, I can just eat at the inn," he explained.

"Fair enough," Mist agreed as he selected the card that gave him a minor talent for Alchemy and cooking and increased his resistance to heat, not seeing a reason to specialize the card when the alchemy option wasn't any better and the cooking options lost the boost to Alchemy and weren't particularly impressive. "Tell you what, if you give me the cooking card when I awaken your cards, I'll give you a combat card to replace it that's at least uncommon quality and make sure your combat card gives you a decent boost rather than just giving you a decent grip."

"Deal!" the teenager replied without hesitation, not interested in being stuck in a kitchen all day.

"You're going to get yourself killed," one of the girls muttered.

"Let him," one of the other guys said, well aware that Ben he'd have a better chance with Sally if the idiot got himself dead. "It's his choice and you can make decent money hunting monsters if you've got the right cards."

"Exactly," Ben agreed smugly.

Mist spent the many to improve the kid's grip card, not sure what to expect. "Crushing Grip, Locked Weapons, Thunder Snap, Sinister Hand or Improved Arms. Do you want to crush things in your hands, never drop your weapon in combat, crush steel or people with your left hand or give your arms a moderate strength boost that you can probably keep improving."

"What about Thunder Snap?" Ben asked.

"It gives you the ability to snap your fingers about five times as loud as it should be which might turn into something useful or it might be completely useless," Mist explained, curious what type of insane card he could create if he pushed the stupid card as far as he could.

"Do you have a suggestion?" Ben asked Mist as Zaldar walked out of the barn.

"I'd probably go with the card that increases the strength and durability of your arms considering the card covers your hands as well as your arms, the Thunder Snap card could be interesting but it sounds like a good way to get yourself killed in the forest," Mist offered, not particularly concerned with what he chose as it was his life to live.

Ben frowned slightly as he thought about the bruises that training left on his arms when he wasn't fast enough to dodge. "Arms."

"That works," Mist replied as he spent mana to upgrade his arm card, giving him five cards to choose between.

"Which cards did you need me to shuffle?" Zaldar asked as he glanced over the group's potential cards.

Mist selected the card that pushed the durability to Ben's shoulders and boosted his general strength and durability as the rest of the cards were basically trash comparatively then gestured toward the heavy set boy with the pain cards. "See if you can get Jared something that doesn't involve pain or gives pain reduction."

"I'll see what I can do," Zaldar replied as he used his power to reshuffle Jared's first card. "Huh," he muttered when he read the description of the new card. "That worked better than I was expecting. It turned into a card that gives Pain Reduction, Minor Regeneration and a magic ability to steal people's pain."

"Does that mean I'll feel it?" Jared asked warily.

"I don't know," Zaldar admitted, not actually sure how the card worked.

"Leave that one alone for the moment," Mist told Zaldar as he turned to look at the old man with three cards that was standing next to the blonde girl with equally as horrible cards. "Weakened Bones, Clouded Sight and Spike Generation, that's worse than useless," he mused, not mentioning the fact that the card would have only let him generate spikes on his ass. 'No wonder he never bothered paying to awaken his cards, they're crap.'

"Yeah, I doubt I could sell them for enough to make up the cost of awakening," the old man admitted. "My grandfather's grandfather made a bad deal with a witch for the ability to always have an extra card. The downside is that we'll always have horrible cards until someone in my bloodline can break the curse by naturally getting a rare card. Something that is probably impossible given the fact that no one in the family has managed to get an uncommon in generations."

"I can probably fix it, see if you can shuffle his cards to something more interesting while I work on everyone else's cards," Mist told Zaldar.

"It's going to take a couple of minutes, I can only use it once a minute," Zaldar told the old man.

"I'm not in a hurry," the old man replied, happy to wait if it meant that he'd get something useful that he could give to his granddaughter.

Mist turned his attention to the rest of the group, glad that his mana seemed to be regenerating faster when he was spending it to boost weak cards.

0o0o0

"There's something seriously wrong with that kid," Derrick muttered as he watched the heavyset young man walk off with the group of townsfolk that had decided their cards were good enough after a bit of tinkering and improvement. "Who the hell gives up the chance to have a Regeneration card that can also heal people?"

"No clue," Mist replied as he put the empty mana potion in his pocket that he'd just drank so he could keep working.

"He's never been particularly good with pain and his other card also had pain reduction and stacking them isn't a good idea in most cases," Vivian offered, having grown up with Jared in the whorehouse since their mothers were in the same profession. "I'm not going to complain, it gave me the chance to pick up a Regeneration card for cheap. It's not like I have to use the ability to steal people's pain and injuries, just the Pain Reduction and Flexibility boost was worth the price, let alone the Regeneration and Durability."

"That's because he figured you'd need it more than he would," Elena pointed out, well aware that Vivian was one of Jared's only friends.

"Yeah, not a chance," Vivian argued. "Even if I didn't have some serious issues with the way the local houses were run, I don't have my mother's Disease Immunity which is practically a requirement in this town if you want to be in the business."

"Yeah," Elena agreed. "Mom makes at least half of her money off treating the guards."

The old man shook his head. "The town used to be a nice place to live, once upon a time."

"So I've heard," Elena replied with a shrug. "Speaking of nice things, is there any way I can talk you out of Ben's Alchemy card?" she asked Mist.

Mist pulled his attention off the group of townsfolk that were leaving, trying not to feel annoyed at the missed opportunities that they'd passed up on because they were willing to settle for good enough rather than being willing to wait around a couple of days or coming back later so that he could finish boosting their cards. He focused on the teenager with shoulder length strawberry blonde hair that looked like she'd just stepped out of a steampunk movie, if only because of her leather duster, black pants and the pair of bronze framed goggles on her forehead. "That depends, how do you feel about being a traveling alchemist?"

"I wouldn't mind getting out of town for a bit, where are you heading?" Elena asked, willing to do a lot of things, including traveling with a bunch of strangers if it meant she got an extremely nice Alchemy card that gave her a remarkable boost to her magic and Alchemy talent as well as double the yield and effect of the positive qualities on any alchemy or cooking products she made.

"I don't know," Mist admitted as he glanced over at where one of the townsfolk that he'd helped was assembling the wagon they'd hauled out of the mirror he'd created from the spare wagon wheel with Ted and Tiffany's help. "I figured we'd just go where the wind takes us for a bit."

"I'd have to clear things with my folks, but I don't have a problem with traveling and helping out with Alchemy related tasks in exchange," Elena told him, fairly sure her folks wouldn't complain too much since the mayor's guards had been sniffing around her folks' shop lately asking about her like they had far too many young women in the town.

"Sounds good," Mist agreed.

"Finally!" Zaldar blurted when his reshuffle ability finally gave the old man something they might be able to use, if they boosted it enough, rather than the complete shit he'd been getting. "Take a look at his Bones card."

"Brittle Eldritch Bones?" Mist asked as he checked the new card. "Huh, that might work. It would make his bones extremely prone to breaking but it would increase the durability of his bones by half of his magic attribute."

"Meaning that a mage might get a boost if they have enough mana?" Beth asked excitedly.

"That's the idea," Mist replied as he spent the mana to improve the old man's card, getting five new choices. "One step forward, two steps back," he muttered as he read the description on the Chalk Bones card, not sure why anyone would want the ability to turn their bones into chalk, especially since it didn't include the ability to turn them back. "Chalk form doesn't seem that useful. The Bonesmith card would give you the ability to lace people's bones with metal."

"Like Wolverine?" Derrick asked excitedly.

"Basically, and they'd probably end up dead in a couple of weeks because of complications," Mist complained, annoyed that a lot of the options seemed worse than useless. "Eldritch Bones and Flesh, your durability would increase by a tenth of your magic attribute."

Mia frowned as she did some mental math, trying to figure out how much magic you'd need to have before using her Grandfather's card would be worth it. "You'd need a lot of magic before that's worth it, but at least it lost the initial hit to durability."

"Yep," Mist agreed with the busty blonde as he checked the last option. "Eldritch flesh, it reduces wrinkles based on magic."

"No thanks," the old man replied. "Go with the Eldritch Bones and Flesh, someone would probably buy it, even if you can't improve it more."

"Sure," Mist agreed as he selected the card and spent mana to boost it, giving him another five cards to pick from. He glanced over the collection of cards and picked the card that dropped the durability increase down to five percent but gave a ten percent reduction in fall damage, since adding another ability was more useful than the one percent boost to durability or the rest of the cards that were crap and a couple of steps backward. "Slightly better."

"Anything is better than what I had," the white haired man replied, not particularly worried about it.

Mist spent the mana to boost the card and picked the option that boosted the abilities and included always clean to the list of abilities, figuring it wouldn't hurt. He spent the mana to boost the card, glad that the mana cost was still pretty reasonable, making him fairly sure that the number of improvements had less to do with the cost of upgrading it than the quality of the card.

"Okay, we're starting to get somewhere. The Eldritch Body Enhancement card would increase your Durability by twenty percent of your magic stat, reduce fall damage by forty percent and give you a twenty percent reduction to the cost of physical enhancement spells."

"That's less useful considering I'm not a magic user but I can see certain types of magic users paying a lot for that."

Beth laughed. "That's probably underselling it."

"The Eldritch Pudding card negates falling damage completely and gives you the ability to turn into puddling that you can then control, it doesn't mention the ability to turn back and your cards are a bit suspect."

"Is that because of the curse on his family?" Azara asked.

"Probably," Mist agreed as he read the next two cards. "Crap and crap, no thanks." He smiled when he saw the last card. "Eldritch Perfection card, you'd get twenty five percent of your magic as durability, completely reduce fall damage as long as you have at least twenty percent of your mana pool filled, you'd increase your elemental resistances by twenty percent of your magic stat and your skin, teeth and hair would always be clean all for the low cost of not being able to get sunburned and stretching your lifespan."

"How much would it stretch his lifespan?" Mia asked.

"I'm old," the old man cut in. "I'm not using it."

"I don't want you to die," Mia argued.

"I've lived through a couple of wars and Welda is waiting for me in the next life, she's already waited five years, I'm not going to make her wait forever."

"It wouldn't be forever and I'm not sure how much magic the card would give you but you'd have to age your magic stat in years to age a year so you'd probably be looking at another century or two considering you feel like you have some magic," Mist explained as he checked the amount of mana he'd need to spend to increase the old man's talent, not particularly surprised to find that he'd need a decent chunk of mana to boost his card again.

"Yeah, sorry, I haven't had sex in five years, you're not taking this from me," the old man told his granddaughter. "Besides, you'll get more use out of them than I will."

Mia shook her head, trying not to think about her grandparents having sex, since they were over fifty. "Fine."

"The mana cost jumped a lot with that last boost, let's fix Vivian's cards while Zaldar fixes your other two cards then we'll get back to it after I've drank a couple of mana potions," Mist said as he turned to look at the busty pale skinned red haired teenager with sapphire blue eyes. "Okay, let's see how far we can push things…" he trailed off as he actually read the description of the cards floating over her head rather than just glancing at the card titles. "Card Reader, one of your cards would give you the ability to read people's cards, used or potential."

"I'm not surprised, my father is an Awakener. My mother was his favorite girl before he got reassigned to another country," Vivian replied, unconsciously smiling as she thought about some of her mother's stories about him. "What else did I get?"

"Disease Resistance, enhanced stamina, enhanced allure and graceful aging," Mist replied, not seeing a point in mentioning the title of her card. 'Who the fuck decided to name the card Inglorious Bastards? Does that happen to every child born out of wedlock or is that because of her mother's profession? I guess it fits considering some of the kids had profession cards, but it's still weird.'

"So much for getting Mom's disease immunity," Vivian said wistfully, not all that unhappy since there weren't any negative traits and Mist could boost them so she'd probably end up with a pretty solid card.

"I should be able to boost it. Let me check your other card first," Mist said as he spent the mana to boost her Card Reading card, getting five options. "Huh, Hedge Witch of the Cards, increases magic and you can unlock an extra card if people haven't had their cards awakened."

"Hellfire!" Vivian blurted out, shocked that her card could give people extra cards or would be able to once Mist finished improving it. 'What the hell is his card's rank? I thought it was powerful but limited, if it can do this? Is it Angelic?'

"I should have started with that card," Mist grumbled as he checked the rest of the cards then carefully selected the Hedge Witch card as none of the rest of the cards even came close.

"It's probably for the best, one of the idiots would have ratted her out to the guild," the white haired man warned them.

"Probably," Vivian agreed, fairly sure the guild would pay a decent bounty for information on someone that could give people extra cards.

Mist spent the rest of his mana to boost the card again, surprised that it wasn't more expensive. He glanced over the descriptions of the cards then double checked the only two cards that didn't lose the ability to give people extra cards. "Witch of the Cards, gives more magic and talents for Enchanting, Rituals and Arcane Magic as well as the ability to conjure playing cards and toss them thirty feat while the Witch of the Cursed Cards, gives you the ability to give people an extra card in addition to the third card which only gives people glowing eyes and blue hair."

"That's a tough choice," Vivian admitted. "If the talents weren't amazing, I'd want the extra card but they're solid talents."

Mist drank another mana potion and put the bottle in his pocket with the rest of them. "We might be able to boost the second one but there's a chance that it goes weird."

Vivian sighed. "I can't pass up the magic and the talents."

"Okay," Mist replied as he carefully selected the Witch of the Cards card. He spent the mana to boost the card again and looked over the cards. "Looks like we have three real choices this time. The Eldritch Witch of the Mysterious Cards is a straight upgrade as you wouldn't lose anything. It would increase your magic more and give you a talent for illusions and you can pay mana to give people's cards the hidden quality if they haven't unlocked them which means that anyone with a weaker scanning card than your card won't be able to see their cards after they're used."

"That's fantastic," Vivian said, wondering what the other two cards were.

"The Witch of a Thousand Curses gives you the ability to swap one quality on a card before they awaken it with a curse which might be useful but it's probably not worth it considering the other two choices. The Eldritch Witch of Cursed Cards gives you more magic, a general talent for magic and lets you spend mana to give people an extra card that has two qualities from any of your other cards as well as bloodline appropriate abilities at the cost of having a cursed quality."

"More magic and an extra card?" Vivian asked excitedly as she weighed her options. "As much as I'd love the ability to give cards the hidden quality, I think I have to go with the extra card and general talent for magic this time, especially since Zaldar can shuffle them."

"I can't really blame you," Mist replied as he checked how much mana it would cost to upgrade the card, not particularly surprised that it would take a lot more than he had to improve the card another time. "And we'd probably need a couple of days to boost your card more and there's a chance that something would go wrong, I'm willing to wait but I'm not sure we can actually improve it all that much."

"And this card would help everyone else. Yeah, let's boost my other card to a reasonable level then call it good," Vivian suggested, not seeing a reason to risk messing up the card when it was already fantastic.

"Sounds good," Mist replied as he spent the mana to boost her Inglorious Bastard card. He glanced over the options, not particularly impressed by the first four. He smiled when he saw the last card. 'Glorious Bastard? Yeah that works.' He selected the card then paid the mana to get more options. "I grabbed the card that boosted your disease resistance to immunity and gave you a modest boost to your durability and strength as well as greatly increasing your Stamina."

"Sounds good to me," Vivian agreed, happy to have immunity to disease as the town wasn't the cleanest and diseases of all types were pretty common.

"Do you want a boost to your magic, immunity to aging, a minor boost to agility and an increased talent for ritual magic or do you want the ability to drain the life and magic out of people you have sex with? The second one would let you slowly build up your magic and physical stats but you'd leave a trail of bodies unless we can improve it to something else."

"As much as I'd love to have a power that grows, I'm not willing to have sex with the type of people that I'd be willing to kill, let's go with the first option," Vivian told him, having heard more than enough horror stories growing up in the whorehouse to know that she'd drive herself insane with that card.

"Works for me," Mist replied as he selected the Glorious Magical Bastard card. He pulled another mana potion out of the basket and drank it. "Is there a limit to how many potions people can drink?"

"Normally that depends entirely on the alchemist, some of them add things they shouldn't to increase the yield or reduce the cost, however these are safe," Elena assured him.

"Good to know," Mist replied as he spent the mana to boost Vivian's bastard card. "Okay, do you want to toss your allure ability for more magic and an increase to your running speed or more magic and a weapon training talent? Or do you want to improve your allure? There's also the option that gives you a general physical boost, increased running speed and immunity to fear. It also gives you an aura that boosts the physical abilities of any ally within sixty feet, increases the speed that they learn to use weapons and makes them immune to fear."

"Let's grab the last one, having magic is nice but having a general physical boost and the ability to boost my friends is better," Vivian told him.

Mist carefully selected the last option then spent the rest of his mana to boost her card. He glanced over the options. "Do you want to increase the size of your aura and how much it boosts your allies at the cost of your physical boost or do you want to boost the training speed for your allies or do you want to change the aura so that it gives a boost to all types of skills rather than just weapons? That last one also comes with an increase to magic and the ability to give any child you have out of wedlock a natural talent for any magic you have a talent for, regardless of the cards they end up having."

"Does the last one have any downsides?" Vivian asked, not particularly bothered by the idea of not getting married to insure her childrens’ futures.

"No but I get the feeling that it would push the card to the point where I'd need a lot of mana to improve it," Mist warned her.

"Go with the last one," Vivian told him, knowing that the ability to improve her future children's talents was something she would cherish.

Mist carefully picked the Divine Bastards card then checked the mana cost of upgrading it and found that it would take him a couple of weeks of pouring magic into the card to upgrade it again. "I think we're done, it would take a couple of weeks of pouring magic into your cards to boost them again and I'm not sure they wouldn't change into something worse."

"I went from having decent cards to having cards that can change the world, I know when to hold, just awaken my cards," Vivian told him, unwilling to take the chance that something would go wrong in the weeks that it would take to improve them.

Mist used his power and awakened her cards, causing two cards to appear in her hands.

Vivian nearly dropped the cards when she checked the rarity and realized that she'd received a legendary and a divine card. 'Dealer! What the fuck is he?!' She quickly used both of the cards after double checking the descriptions, wanting to make sure the cards matched his descriptions and that the gods didn't steal her cards away from her as some sort of cosmic trick.

"How do you feel?" Elena asked.

"Fantastic," Vivian replied with a grin, looking forward to traveling around and helping people get better cards, especially since she'd be able to get more cards in trade. "I feel slightly bad about buying Jared's card now that I know we'll be able to get better cards."

"If you don't want it, I'd be happy to buy it off you as soon as I get enough money," Derrick offered. "It fits my combat style and would increase the Regeneration I already have."

Vivian glanced between Mist and Derrick. "I'd be willing to sell it or give it to you if I can find something better, both of my cards boost magic, I might as well see how far I can push it."

"Thanks," Derrick replied with a grin, more than happy to pass up the chance to get magic for a card that would help keep him alive.

Azara giggled. "Welcome to the club."

Mist grabbed another mana potion out of the basket and drank it. "I'm happy to help, especially if you're willing to travel with us and help give people extra cards."

"Someone has to keep track of Elena and this is probably the best chance I have of getting high cards, so yeah, I'm willing to tag along," Vivian replied with a smile as she pulled Jared's card out of her pocket and handed it to Derrick.

"Thank you," Derrick replied as he glanced over the description of the card. 'Regeneration, Pain Reduction, Flexibility and Durability, yes please.' He used the card, not particularly concerned that he was missing a chance to get something completely insane since it gave Pain Reduction, boosted his Flexibility and Durability, and boosted his Regeneration which should stack with the Regeneration he already had.