Neon immediately felt her mana was drained and while getting drenched in seawater at the initial burst. She stood up, panicking, and went out of her lab to see the damage.
The water flowed out of her lab and into the tower floor, flooding the stairways and dripping down to the tower's atrium. A few mages and apprentices got drenched by the sea water and looked at the source with surprise. The tower's alarms rang, and every mage inside their laboratory stepped outside to see the commotion.
Neon could only smile wryly and apologize in embarrassment. She explained that she made a mistake in a spell experiment and made a brief report about it. The tower officials didn't particularly hound her about the incident, as it is common for there to be mishaps with such experiments.
The maintenance report from the tower's custodian said that she didn't do much damage or cause harm to the other mages, so the officials decided to just reprimand her a bit. One of the older officials who was familiar with her even teased her, saying that this should be Neon's first large spell accident and should be noted down on a calendar, to which the other officials laughed which made Neon blush lightly in embarrassment.
After that, Neon immediately rushed back to her lab and cleaned up the mess. She then took the card Umi out and stared at it for a few seconds, deciding not to apply mana to it again. She immediately packed her stuff and decided to go straight to Milky's.
"Interesting..." Unbeknownst to her, in the tower's highest room, a scraggly bearded old man was deep in contemplation after witnessing the entire ordeal through a floating crystal ball.
~~
A two story building stood tall in the central street of Kalamar, people of all sorts come in to and fro. The building had simple yet sophisticated architecture. At first it didn't seem to have any distinguishable features aside from a huge sign on its front, but from the 2nd up to the 3rd floor it had balconies that offered a spectacular view of the city's port side and the facing ocean. This was Kalamar's Adventurer's Guild, where people of various professions flock in order to take jobs from people of various needs.
As you enter its gates, you'll be greeted with a pub style dining hall where adventurers gather. There are some who quietly eat their meals, others forming strategies for their missions, some loudly clamoring and clinking mugs filled with ale. Crowds also gathered towards the bulletin board with numerous postings of jobs that is near the reception area where a group of women deal with clients and adventurers alike.
Beyond these areas are meeting rooms that clients and adventurers can rent to conduct business. A set of stairs lead to the second floor where distinguished adventurers are provided with rooms that can act as their base of operations, the offices of various guild officials are also located here.
Trell stood in front of a door with a sign that read "Arwa" which meant under the sun in ancient Kalamarian. He grasped and fiddled with the short sword his group found on an exploration quest a while ago. He was able to study some of its markings only after finishing a few rounds of duels with his nephew, he found that the markings were similar to relics found from ruins of a fallen empire in the far north, the plateau where a few kingdoms like the barbarian kingdom Drur, stand.
He knocked in certain rhythm two times and a deep, gruff voice yelled 'Come-in!" Trell opened the door and entered a spacious room. It was one of the second-floor suites with floor-to-ceiling French windows and a wide balcony. With sunlight flooding in, it cast a warm, golden glow over the entire space. Trell was greeted with the sight of a buff, platinum-haired, pointy-eared, shirtless elf that was carefully polishing a set of spiked guantlets. Behind him was a snoring, short-haired, thick-browed, clean-shaven, burly dwarf with a half-empty mug of ale dangling from his stubby fingers laying on a cow-hide sofa.
"Good morning, Captain. Any news on the sword?" the buff elf asked as he squinted his eyes while trying to gently clean the nooks and crannies of his gauntlets.
"Morning to you Sal, I have some findings, but nothing conclusive for now. How many drinks did you and Hal have?" Trell asked as he sat down the sofa.
"I just had three drinks but Hal almost emptied three barrels of ale... Ah! he put the tab in your name again by the way." Sal exclaimed.
Trell turned to the snoring dwarf and sighed, "Heh... I'll just have to deduct some of his share of the spoils until it's paid off then. It seems that we're waiting for Poly and Alma, have you gotten any requests or checked the board?"
"Captain your memory's getting bad, both ladies said they have some matters to attend to and will be back in three days, so the day after tomorrow." Sal quipped, "Nothing interesting on the board, but the mage tower requested that we assist in one of their investigations, Cradler's Reef."
"How's the pay?" Asked Trell as he felt the right pocket inside of his windbreaker, taking a green card that had a shiny gloss. Inside the green card there was a menacing looking sword with an ominous aura surrounding it.
"Pretty decent, nothing to write home about. But the one leading the survey this time is Sir Gola himself." The elf answered back as he glanced at his captain who was focusing on the card, he was also intrigued by it.
"Oh so the Eye of the Seas will be spearheading the survey huh? One can rarely meet a B-Tier mage, I guess we could take it once those two return." Trell replied nonchalantly as he took out some more cards from his pocket, he noticed that Sal had stop repairing his gauntlets and is now staring at him questioningly. "Oh these? Haha, these are just art pieces called cards, they're used to play a game but they have very detailed images and very readable letters even though they're tiny, better than books I say."
"Quite strange indeed, even though these 'cards' are the size of a palm, I can still see the images and letters. May I have a look captain?" Sal gestured with his rough and calloused hands.
"Sure, just be careful with them. The kid who sold them to me said they're durable but they're quite pricey and he said that they were considered luxury entertainment goods." Trell handed his deck of cards to Sal.
Accepting the cards as gently as he could with his rough hands, Sal was surprised on how smooth and cool to the touch they were. He looked at the artwork carefully for a minute, amazed at its high quality details. Afterwards, he read the card text and furrowed his brows while mumbling as he read.
"I don't quite understand some of the terms in this card, but I assume this would make sense once I play the game you referred to huh captain?" Sal furrowed his brows and looked up to Trell.
"Well, the game is quite fun although some of the cards are trickier and more useful than others. How about this, I'll bring you to the shop that sells them and we can play a round or two."
"The material is like nothing I've ever seen before captain, it feels like a mana crystal yet it doesn't undulate any mana radiation. It's so uniform, it feels like highly processed and refined paper." Sal said as he continued to inspect the card.
"I'm not really sure what it's made of either. Truthfully speaking, I forgot to ask the store owner after playing the game for quite some time yesterday. Though you must admit, it feels very delicate yet it is more durable than flimsy paper."
Sal then suddenly stood up. "Ah! Captain! This card thingy feels like one of those artifacts we sold that could hold mana!" he exclaimed, his voice tinged with the same awe he'd shown the first time they unearthed a functioning relic from the ruins they explored on a previous job.
Trell paused mid-thought and leaned forward. "You mean those whispering sigils? The ones the scholars from the Royal Academy fought over?"
Sal nodded rapidly. "Exactly! That one felt like polished bark, layered with trace rune fiber—but these… can absorb ki..." He lifted a card closer to his face. "These are also cleaner, with no visible runes, and yet it reacts to energy like it's embedded with dense lattice channels. I noticed it when some ki leaked from me, just a tiny bit and it was absorbed by this thing!"
Trell was surprised, normally, only mages of high caliber like B- tier mages and warriors can accurately sense and control their personal energy leakage. He, as a C+ tier mage can barely sense his mana leakage but elves like Sal have this natural talent. This made Sal notice the anomaly, with some curiosity he gave back the card to Trell.
"Try channeling some mana into it, maybe a trickle will do, I'm really curious as to what it'll do since those sigils contained whispers from mages past." Sal said.
Trell scrunched his brows, this made his wariness and suspicion about the store and its owner's origins once again. He was naturally a cautious person due to his profession and boatload of experience, he casted a protective sealing spell just in case things go awry. Looking at Sal who nodded as he wore his gauntlets and entered a defensive position, the room was filled with silence, except with the loud snoring of a dwarf sleeping on the couch.
As Trell injected mana bit by bit into the card, he was surprised as the card glowed a light luminescent hue. The glow intensified as the mana was absorbed until a bright flash and low hum pulsed through the room in an instant. Trell noticed that the seal he casted was broken but what's more puzzling is that he now held an ominous looking sword, it only appeared that way yet Trell felt that the aura it was emitting was so purely neutral.
It was the same sword in the card's artwork, Sword of Deep-Seated.
"Ugh... captain? You called them lu.. luxu-ree entertainment goods meant to be played like toys right? Are you sure that this isn't some sort of legendary artifact from an Archmage's secret inheritance ruin?" Sal questioned as he scratched his head, he has never heard of things like cards which seem to be capable of storing weapons, much less artifacts like the sword which his captain was holding. Just by the aura emitting from the sword, Sal could judge that it should be at the very least a mid level artifact.
Trell didn't really hear what Sal had said, he was awestruck by the power flowing from the sword's hilt coursing into him. He felt that it increased his overall strength by almost half a tier. Yet, it didn't feel malicious or invasive, it actually felt like it is his own power that he had unlocked naturally. He swung it lightly a few times and the sword did not feel heavy, rather it felt like it was an extension of his arm and a part of him.
"Captain, how does it feel?" asked Sal, Trell didn't answer but stopped injecting mana, the sword lost it's glow and with snap it turned back into a card.
"I-I need to go see that shop!" Trell awoke from his reverie.
"Hey! I'm coming with you, these card things are so interesting!" Sal grinned, the two hurriedly left the room, leaving a snoring dwarf on the couch in peace.