A Teardrop
Grabbing the stack of ten cards in a delicate little hand, the little girl began to place them down one by one in two rows of five in front of Eclipse. As she placed down each card, they began to glow a shade of white one by one. All of the cards she placed down had a white glow except for the very last one that had a green aura around it.
"I'm assuming that this is a phenomenal draw." Eclipse said jokingly. Sighing as if she were annoyed and tired, the little girl waved her hand. A screen appeared hovering in front of Eclipse.
~~~~
Lottery Summoning Rankings-
The aura around the cards drawn determines the potential of a subordinate. This means that the subordinate's bloodline is pure enough or strong enough for them to level up to the specified rank of their potential given time. The actual level that they come with can vary from level one to the max level that their potential specifies (It's all based on luck).
G Rank- aura is white
F Rank- aura is green
E Rank- aura is blue
D rank- aura is purple
C rank- aura is pink
B rank- aura is red
A rank- aura is gold
S rank- aura is black
Above S rank- aura is rainbow
~~~~
Looking at the color of the auras and then at the information, Eclipse couldn't help but frown when he saw how terrible his draws were. Noticing the look on his face, the masked girl then spoke up to clarify some confusion.
"Your luck is actually better than you think. It is common to not get an F ranked subordinate in the first 49 draws, which is why I set up a rule to make it so every 50th draw will be an F rank at the minimum." She said, clarifying his confusion and being kind to him for once.
"I see." Eclipse said. He sat there and waited for the cards to be revealed to see what subordinates he would get to defend his dungeon. His excitement and anticipation for the final card that held the F rank now at an all time high. He sat there for a few moments before he heard another annoyed sigh.
"You do know you have hands right? What, do you want me to do everything for you?" She asked in an annoyed tone. "What next, are you gonna ask me to feed you like a baby or something?"
Eclipse was starting to get truly annoyed with her now, and right when he was about to make a remark he remembered the incident from earlier. "Hhhhuuuuu." He exhaled a deep breath before ignoring her remark and started flipping the cards.
"Oh, I forgot to mention. Since you only have one floor that has a specific type of environment, I took the liberty of limiting the subordinates you can get to creatures that can live and adapt to that floor. This may prevent you from getting various other creatures for now, but as you get stronger and unlock other environments I'll unlock other creatures for you to be able to summon." She said in a proud tone pumping out her nonexistent chest. "Oh and these limitations also naturally transfer over to the shop function of your summoning skill also."
On the verge of lifting up a card, Eclipse paused when heard the last remark. "Shop function, I'll have to check that out later." He thought to himself as he continued to unveil the first card covered in a white aura.
Flipping the first card over an image of what looked like a clownfish with an angler fish's light bulb hanging in front of its head. The photo was animated as it showed the fish swimming through the ocean, every so often opening its small mouth to reveal a row of needle-like teeth.
The description read as follows- Carnivorous Clownfish- A carnivorous fish that usually prowls the water at night using its light to draw in bait. The fish is a schooling fish that sends out scouts solo, and when one finds a prey they will flash their light in a specific pattern to alert the school. The school then swarms the target, and is able to take out some targets with higher sub rankings then them. The fish are able to breed and grow a self sustaining population if there are a few of them initially.
Max Potential- {G-}
Current Rank- {G-}
Reading the description, Eclipse was fairly satisfied with the monster he had. What's even better was if he could pull a few more of these from the cards he drew, they could self sustain their own population which means he wouldn't have to spend tokens to buy new creatures to defend his home!
Praying he could get at least one more Carnivorous Clownfish, Eclipse flipped the next card. "Yes!" Eclipse said as he saw a familiar orange and white pattern. Now he had a monster that would slowly increase in numbers on the first floor.
Excited about his good luck, Eclipse flipped the next card over. "Hmm another clownfish, I guess it will increase the initial speed at which the population will grow." He said trying to reassure himself, but he still got a bad feeling from this.
Quickly he started flipping over cards one after another. The next five consecutive cards were all carnivorous clownfish. With only two cards left he flipped over the last glowing white card with little to no expectations of it.
An animated image of a coral reef showed as waves rolled over the shallow area meaning it must've been low tide. Excited at the new card being drawn, Eclipse tried to spot his new subordinate among the coral, after souring the animated image he finally saw it. A thin black, red, and yellow looking creature that he originally took as a piece of seaweed was moving across the various surfaces of coral. Slowly the image zoomed in on it to show what looked like a poisonous water snake that had countless centipede like legs that it used to travel from tide pool to tide pool to find food.
The description read as follows- A poisonous chimera that was made in a lab by a mad scientist through crossing a poisonous water snake and a large poisonous centipede on his planet. No one knows why he crossbreed those two animals, but to everyone's shock and horror the snake thrived on the world it was created on as it was able to traverse on both land and water. It also had poison that causes heart attack in its fangs, and each of its legs are encased in a paralyzing poison to keep its target held in place.
Max Potential- {G}
Current Rank- {G-}
"Hmm, I wonder if I can extract either of it's two poisons." Eclipse thought to himself as he held his chin in thought. "Now it's time to look at the big boy." Eclipse said to himself flipping over the last card covered in a green aura.
Flipping the card over revealed an animated image zooming in on a sunken pirates ship. Zooming in on the wheel of the pirate ship was a skeleton of a dead pirate captain in a partially decaying red pirate outfit. A sharp golden hook on his left hand, a cutlass in his right. Upon his left should rested a full skeleton parrot. A red pirate hat with some white fluff rested atop his skull that still had some long black hair flowing behind his head his the currents. All of a sudden the empty eye sockets start to glow green as the skull turns and looks towards Eclipse's direction.
Description- Jenkins Golden Hook- A once mighty captain of a pirate crew that experienced one tragedy after another when he stole a treasure chest from a siren that was cursed. He first lost his hand to a kraken, and then his crew when surrounded by a navy fleet. After surviving the battle as the lone survivor with only his parrot left to keep him company, he met his demise at sea when a giant storm came out of nowhere that sank his ship with him on it. His anger at the siren that tricked him and ultimately caused the downfall of this mighty pirate has led to him turning into an undead. Legends say that he will do anything to get his revenge to help put both his and his crew's souls at ease.
Max Potential- {F+}
Current Rank- {G}
"Awesome." Was all Eclipse said as he read the description of the card. "Now that I got my new subordinates, can you tell me before I go how I summon them?"
"I'm sure you already met the old geezer since you have your first floor of your Abyss. The summoning cards are like the fragmented dimension marbles, you just need to crush it to summon them. But just make sure to crush the cards for the fish monsters in the water unless you want them to die on land." She responded with a bored look turning around to walk away.
"Oh, one other thing. If you aren't going to summon them now then just store them in your inventory for later." She said in an exhausted tone while walking away without looking back.
"I had an inventory this entire time…" Eclipse thought to himself. "Oh well, no use despairing about it now."
Eclipse opened up his inventory and quickly stored his summoning cards inside. Right before he closed his inventory he noticed he had a single item inside that he had never seen before. "What's this?" He mumbled to himself as he read the description.
#%>@$&'s Tear-
Description- An item of unknown rarity and power that looks like a universe shaped into a teardrop. It is said to hold the deepest desire and dream of #%>@$&, a dream that is considered by reality itself to be impossible and mocks #%>@$& for their greed.
Use- An item used for some kind of tribute. Effects are unknown but it is theorized to be able to grant the deepest unknown wish of the person who uses it.
After reading the description of the item, curiosity got the better of him as he pulled out the item to look at it. The moment the item got pulled out the entire area seemed to shift as both he and the little girl were pulled into a new subspace that was surrounded by countless galaxies.
All of a sudden a powerful aura leaked out from the tear. The aura was so powerful that the surrounding galaxies and cosmos started to die out as the aura was suppressing them to the extent that the stars themselves were being extinguished. Even the mysterious girl was on her hands and knees trembling and trying to catch her breath.
However, for some unknown reason, unlike the little girl who was affected by this presence, Eclipse was totally fine. If anything this aura that was leaking out from the tear felt familiar and even comforting to him.
As he watched, the loli slowly started to stand back up and walk over to him. Her once beautiful dress covered in wrinkles, her mask had a giant crack going diagonally across it.
"Why do you possess something like that mortal?" She asked. Except for the first time since he interacted with her, her voice contained an emotion he never thought he would hear in her. Her voice was trembling with fear.