Chapter 177

Chapter 177: Act 111 – The Legacy of the Traveling Mage (Part 1) (First Update, Seeking Subscriptions and Recommendations)

“What’s… this?” Brendel was a bit dazed.

“As you can see, my Lord,” Husher pressed his lips into a straight line, feigning calmness and mystery, while excitement sparkled in his light brown eyes, “These are Fate Cards!” He opened the book, separating his thumb and index finger, pointing at the six cards attached to the pages of the book one by one.

“I know,” Brendel asked, unable to take his eyes off them, “but how could there be so many?”

He looked at the booklet. If there were six cards per page, there should be at least forty or fifty cards.

“Uh,” Husher raised his eyebrows, “It’s better to let Mr. Charles answer that question for you—”

“Charles? You know him too?” The young man turned his head, looking at Husher with confusion.

“Of course, the creatures on the cards are interconnected. In a sense, we exist in the same subspace created by you, the traveling mage,” the mercenary captain said casually, holding the book with one hand. “When we are not summoned, we live in territories constructed by the land cards. In another sense, the wealth and elements you pay serve as sustenance for us to act in the material world. The higher the unit, the greater the maintenance cost is.”

“Uh-huh,” Brendel noted the term ‘subspace,’ and then when Husher mentioned ‘sustenance,’ he instinctively glanced at his remaining resources: Nature 6, Water 6, Wealth 67, Prestige 17. Of course, there were still some leftover element crystals from last time, half of which were Fire.

Then he eyed Husher with suspicion: “That doesn’t sound like something you’d say.”

Husher chuckled, “Hehe, wise Lord. Those are Mr. Charles’s exact words. I’m just a messenger.”

“Can you contact him?”

Brendel suddenly felt like he had asked a pointless question, as he saw the mercenary captain nod. “Alright then,” he said, “if that’s the case, can you tell me what’s going on now? I remember Tumen told me that only the traveling mage himself or someone authorized could see the Fate Cards. But how does this guy have so many of them? Is he actually a traveling mage or does he have some potential, or are these things not actually found on the Dark Priest’s body?”

“No, they were indeed obtained from the corpse of the Dark Priest. But unlike ordinary Fate Cards, this is a card collection—”

“What’s the difference with a card collection?” Brendel interrupted.

Husher paused for a moment, as if waiting for an answer from the other side. Then he looked up and said, “Mr. Charles said that the lifespan of a traveling mage is not infinite. When a generation of traveling mage approaches the end of life, the cards they collected will be sealed together. Cards in this state are materialized, and even ordinary people can see and touch them, but to them, these cards are no different from ordinary tarot cards used by diviners. However, for another traveling mage, this is a precious legacy. Of course, there are other situations where card collections could be left behind, but the most common is the former.”

“You mean to say that the Dark Priest accidentally got this card collection, but he didn’t understand what these things were for?”

“Very likely, but Mr. Charles believes that it doesn’t rule out your speculation, my Lord.”

Brendel shook his head. If that guy was truly a traveling mage, why wouldn’t he use the cards against him? What Charles said was likely the truth; he knew the young man was just subconsciously flattering him. But then he thought for a moment and immediately asked, “So does that mean there’s a possibility of mages plundering cards from one another?”

“Indeed, there is such a possibility,” Husher said earnestly, doing a good job as a messenger. “However, most battles between traveling mages do not involve life and death struggles, as most cards are not unique. Unless one is truly mad, few would kill for a Fate Card.”

“What does not unique mean?”

“Most cards are not unique. There can be multiple identical copies of the same card that exist at the same time in different places, even newly created card sets are the same. However, each card is special to the traveling mage themselves; you can summon the Highlands Vassal, and I will serve you. Other traveling mages may also have a card named Highlands Vassal, but they may not be able to summon Charles – it could be Mage Duncan, or it could be Ava. In short, the rules are embodied based on the summoner’s subconscious, and once established, they will not change—” the mercenary captain shrugged, explaining: “So, my Lord, next time if you want to summon a dashing blonde-haired, blue-eyed mercenary captain named ‘Nightingale’ to serve you, that will also be impossible. By the way, the first half of that sentence was Mr. Charles’s exact words, and the second half was my addition.”

Are you implying that I’m a middle-aged man fan? Brendel’s eyelid twitched, and he said in a deep voice, “That addition was unnecessary; also, you mentioned sealing, meaning I can’t directly use the cards above.”

Husher nodded.

“And then?”

The mercenary captain handed over the black card collection.

“Huh?”

“You’ll know once you take a look.”

Brendel reluctantly took the card collection with some doubt. As soon as his fingers touched the first card, strange text appeared before his eyes—1400 Prestige. He was momentarily taken aback and concentrated carefully, and the text immediately became enriched:

Platinum Angel

(Unending Alliance XIX)

Any 40, Mana 50

[Artifact—Artifact Creature/Angel, Level 60 Elite]

When the Platinum Angel is on the field, the summoner will not die from damage.

Maintenance cost: When the Platinum Angel is on the field, pay 10 Any, 10 Light daily.

‘The immortal secret lies buried in the heart—’

Tip: To unseal this card, you need at least 1400 Prestige.

1400 Prestige? Brendel almost threw the card collection away. When Charles was still around, he could earn 1 Prestige daily from the Highlands Vassal card, but he had only managed to accumulate 17 Prestige so far. After this card went to the graveyard, the source was cut off—1400 Prestige, for God’s sake, even if he attempted to plunder, he couldn’t possibly gather that much. Was this card collection playing with him?

He looked at the unidentifiable Platinum Angel drawn in an oil painting style on the card, momentarily speechless, but his gaze unconsciously drifted to the next one:

Elixir of Immortality

(Unending Alliance X)

Light 10, Mana 50

[Artifact—Artifact/Curio]

Tap, and pay 5 Light. You recover half your life, and return the Elixir of Immortality and your graveyard to your deck.

‘Bottled life. The flavor isn’t quite to my liking, nor is it fresh, but at least the effect is the same.’ —Baron Xin

Tip: To unseal this card, you need to pay 2000 Wealth.

Brendel struggled to suppress the urge to spit blood. While he did have a little wealth, compared to the required 2000, it seemed almost insignificant. Husher didn’t bring this to him just to cause internal injury, did he? These cards were remarkably powerful, but the costs required were astronomical for him at this moment. However, he thought for a moment that he hadn’t offended this guy recently; he didn’t seem motivated to do this. What was the meaning of all this? Unable to hold back his doubts, he flipped through the pages again, only to find that the quality of the cards decreased the further he went, but the costs gradually became more bearable.

Lord of Sacred Flames, Time Reflection, Ionah’s Judgment, Nia the Lion…

Just a rough estimate, the entire card collection had at least more than forty cards, of which light and dark cards each accounted for half, with a few red cards as well. There were land cards, but their payment methods varied. Some required Prestige, some required payment of Wealth, some required the level of the traveling mage—Brendel ignored those as he was still just at level one and found that this seemed unrelated to the experience system; he had no idea how to upgrade that profession’s level.

And these were still relatively conventional; others were things he had never heard of, for example, requiring certain resources, certain land cards, or even certain barriers, and others demanding other profession levels—like the ‘Time Reflection’ card, which explicitly stated that the owner needed to have at least level twenty in Wizard to unseal. In short, there was a bewildering variety.

However, most of what Brendel looked at, he currently lacked the capability to satisfy.

As he flipped through the pages, his eyes gradually lit up. Because soon, he discovered at least two pages of ten cards that he could completely afford, respectively being Scarlet Vanguard, Black Earth Lion, Hymn of Light, Roshar’s Marketplace, Root Marsh, Eternal Land, Sound of the Abyss, Master Kazandu, Helial Guardian, and Holy Archangel. However, even these ten cards, deducting the single price, with his current strength, he could only draw three of them.

Therefore, he had to make a choice—

Brendel needed the dark element land card first, and he unhesitatingly chose Root Marsh. But after paying 10 Wealth to acquire this card, he found that this land card was clearly not as mature as the Elven Secret Land—in fact, other than providing 1 point of rogue dark element weekly, tapping Root Marsh only earned him 1 dark element. Compared to the latter, which offered 2 points of nature element and 1 point of water element when tapped, the disparity was huge.

However, at least that solved half of the maintenance cost issue for the Unicorn Knight card; the remaining issue was Wealth.

Therefore, his second choice was Roshar’s Marketplace—this was a special land card that could provide 2 points of Wealth and 1 point of earth element daily, and when tapped, could yield 6 points of Wealth. Its unsealing price was also double that of basic land cards, requiring 20 Wealth. After paying for this card, Brendel still had over 10 points of Wealth left, and in fact, could still buy a basic land card, but considering the need to maintain the presence of the Elven Maiden Medisa, he had to let it go.

As for the third card, without a doubt, it was the resurrection card he needed the most—Holy Archangel.

Holy Archangel

(Unending Alliance III)

Light 5

[Creature—Angel/Knight, Level 20 Elite]

When the Holy Archangel enters the field, choose a non-black card from your graveyard and shuffle it into your deck.

Maintenance cost: When the Holy Archangel is on the field, pay 1 Light daily.

‘Light of mercy descends from the heavens, the messenger of God moves forth from the light—’

This card requires 10 Prestige to be unsealed, which fortunately means Brendel wouldn’t need to pay anything from his already meager treasury. However, what made Brendel a bit awkward was that he now neither had a light element land card nor any light element crystals, so retrieving Charles or the Wind Spider from the grave was still just a fantasy. He could only pat Husher on the shoulder and ask him to relay to Charles, requesting him to linger in the graveyard a bit longer.

Then he recalled another question: the day he asked Husher how to retrieve from the grave, didn’t the guy resolutely tell him that only dark element cards had such means? He couldn’t help looking at this guy with suspicion, only to see the seasoned mercenary captain hesitate for a moment before responding that even he was just guessing back then and only had a vague understanding.

Brendel was instantly in tears.

…

(P.S. I inadvertently found that I haven’t seen Amber in any recommendation positions for a long time, and the collection hasn’t increased in ages. Please, fellow students, give some recommendations to help this book show up on the homepage or something.

Please, in light of my hard work, give some subscriptions and recommendations!)(To be continued. To know how the story unfolds, please log in for more chapters, support the author, and support legitimate reading!)