Chap Trap

     Jaden really wanted to add more useful monsters to his deck, starting with the weaker ones that were easier to obtain. However, as helpful as heroes like Ice Edge, Knospe, and Poison Rose might be, Neos Alius had to be first.

     Not only did his current deck revolve around a beater strategy but those other useful cards were really only useful when another player was designated. Every battle he had until now was against beasts that didn't have the capacity to function as a player even if they happened to be leaders of their individual groups.

     Thus, he had no use for effects that targeted LP directly, since he was usually the only one with LP to begin with. Those kinds of cards, while much easier to obtain, would have to wait until he was ready to mingle with the humans.

     Since LP were calculated according to a Player's largest resource stat (HP, MP, SP) giving them two LP per resource stat, using those cards with [The A-Forces] x3 alongside cards like Neos Alius would probably prove quite troublesome for human teams at his current level.

     His system being as generous as it was, unfortunately was also quite generous to his opponents and so he couldn't rely on beefing up his mana stat to overwhelm Players without lots of mana.

     His Shadow Game System, according to the terms of his contract, would automatically modify the stats of an opponent making their own mana equal to their highest resource stat. Then the temporary Artifact Cards issued to them would be activated in the same manner as his own.

     With all of these things in mind, Jaden reaffirmed his decision to exchange for Neos Alius next and continued his search for more F-Ranked beasts.

=== [Nine Weeks Later] ===

     Jaden sat inside of the new base cave he had constructed even deeper into the Forlean Forest, while looking over his new and improved deck.

[Elemental HERO Neos Alius]

☆☆☆☆ / IL 2 / Ultra Rare

Attribute: Light

Type: Warrior

AP: 29

DP: 23

SPD: 28

Effect: By sacrificing one Battle Point, one Draw Point, or one Summoning Point the name of this card can become 'Elemental HERO Neos,' while face up on the field or in the Graveyard.>

     Sacrificing either of those kinds of points wasn't something that Jaden wanted to do but, if he had a surplus of one or the other, this useful effect could be used without worry. However, until he actually had Fusion Monsters that required Neos as a material, it wouldn't really matter. 

     Normally, a player would start off with five BP. These BP could then be either converted into Summoning Points or used for attacking with already summoned monsters. BP could be converted into Summoning Points at any time but was most usually done for a player's first summoning. Since a player would normally be granted a single SP every time they drew a card, it usually wasn't necessary for the rest of the duel.

[Elemental HERO Ocean]

☆☆☆☆ / IL 2 / Super Rare

Attribute: Water

Type: Warrior

AP: 25

DP: 22

SPD: 23

Effect: Every time you draw a card you can target one 'Hero' monster you control or in the Graveyard and return it to the hand.>

     This card, while not affected by [Luminous Spark], still had an incredibly useful effect. Both this card and a few of his other recent acquisitions would actually go into his eventual Perfect Deck Build.

[Elemental HERO Vaporia]

☆☆☆ / IL 2 / Ultra Rare

AP: 15

DP: 17

SPD: 25

Effect: You can substitute this card for any one 'HERO' Fusion Material Monster. When you do, the other Fusion Material Monster/s must be the correct one/s. You can discard this card to the Graveyard and add one Polymerization from your deck to your hand.

     Vaporia was actually the one card he had acquired so far that he was most proud of, since it was one of the Original Heroes he had created during his editing escapade.

     Like all of his Original Heroes, she had a solid monochromatic humanoid core that made up most of her body. Around that core of constantly shifting waters, a thin semi-transparent membrane of deep blue skin was wrapped around it. Throughout her semi-transparent skin one could clearly see veins that crept along her entire body of a slightly lighter blue color. Looking at her eyes, one could see they looked like Oracle Eyes the same color as her veins. No iris, pupil, or anything else. She also had a set of four insectoid-like fairy wings that looked exactly like her venous skin.

     All of his original Heroes were based on a similar art style with the common themes of a core body, semi-transparent skin stretched over that core, spidery veins visible across the body, veiny insectoid-like fairy wings, and Oracle Eyes. They were all visibly shorter than the other Heroes being only about half the other Heroes average height.

     Having made all monsters in the game effect monsters and having relegated all monsters into individual Archetypes, [King of the Swamp] was no longer universally applicable. It applied only to monsters from the newly created Swamp Archetype and every other Archetype now had a card with similar effects that was unique to that Archetype.

     Thus, when creating his new Heroes he had made Vaporia as a kind of [King of the Swamp] clone, so that his Archetype would have that effect available.

     Some other cards he exchanged for, that did more or less what they did in the original game, were: [Skull Invitation], [Rainbow Life], [Fusion Sword Murasame Blade], [Solemn Wishes], [Favorite Hero], [Parallel World Fusion], [O-oversoul], [Double Hero Attack], [Call of the Haunted], and [Minor Goblin Official].

     Knowing that because his monsters are essentially a new form of life on this planet with their own individual stats and abilities, he didn't pass up the chance to pick up [Elemental HERO Ice Edge] so he could finally keep his food cold. He also grabbed [Elemental HERO Voltic] so he could get back monsters banished by [Miracle Fusion].

     After exchanging for all of the Spell, Trap, and Monsters cards he wanted in the short term he then set to work on raising the Intelligence Stat on all his monsters to Level 2. This, along with acquiring his three Ultra Rare cards, is what had taken up most of his time during these past weeks.

     Exchanging for cards, with the system, usually required one Full Seal Card per star rating of the card to be exchanged. This meant that one Level 4 Monster from the system's Exchange Shop would require four fully sealed Shadow Cards.

     This, however, was only in the case of Normal rated cards and also only in the case of the Shadow Cards being sealed with all three aspects of a Human.

     Jaden had taken to calling Shadow Cards that had both Soul, Body, and Core sealed within as Full Seal Cards and, even though it didn't make any sense mathematically, he referred to Soul only seals as Quarter Seals and referred to two aspect seals as Half Seals.

     The system usually gave a standard assessment of a card's value in terms of Full Seal Human cards. If he wished to use Monster Shadow Cards as a replacement the price would only increase. Of course, it goes without saying that a decrease in the seal level of a Shadow Card would increase the required number of cards for exchange even further.

     Thus, the past nine weeks had been an almost nonstop grind in order to flesh out his bare bones deck that currently held mostly duplicates.

     The last thing that he had accomplished during this time was to collect enough cores to get his Psyche Stat all the way up to the border of E-Rank. While he could still use his deck for a long while even with the inclusion of his new cards, he knew, if he didn't keep his maximum Mana up high enough, he could easily find himself in a tight situation where all of the advantages he normally had would be useless.

     With all of these developments, Jaden felt as though his decks capabilities had reached a whole new level and, even though he still had a huge list of cards to exchange for, he was sure his current deck would get him through most situations as long as he played his cards right.

               ==== Flashback ====

(Shortly after having acquired [Luminous Spark] and moving out of the Starter Zone.)

     Jaden was sitting in his base cave munching on some magical beast meat, while many of the cards in his deck lay on the ground before him for inspection.

     As he sat there contently thinking of how to best build up his deck, he was struck by a thought that immediately regretted not having thought of sooner.

     'Wait a minute… if these cards are artifacts that perform magic for me by utilizing my own magic, why have I never felt this magic being used. I've been using these cards and the bracelet for quite a while now. Shouldn't I be able to notice something… anything? The more I think about it this is an incredibly bizarre thing.

     'Not being able to sense magic in my old world was understandable and even in this world, if I was uninitiated or some such, it might still make sense. These things, however, are literally manipulating the magic in my body without my knowledge or know-how. I literally can't sense a single difference between just sitting here and sitting here with all of my monsters summoned.'

     "Hey, Sprite!"

     The Shadow Game system Jaden possessed had many differences from the Universal System of this world and one of those differences was the level of personalization he could achieve, since his system belonged to him alone.

     Because the information given to him during his soul state was quite sufficient, he really didn't have a pressing need to question the system very often. Although, he had questioned the system a couple of times concerning a few minor points, during his first couple of days.

     During this time, he had also fiddled around with the many customization options the system made available to him. Having noticed that the Shadow Game field was almost entirely holographic, he had asked the system if it could construct a hologram of his liking and use that hologram to speak out loud. The answer, he was excited to discover, was yes!

     Jaden had made this change in hopes of not feeling quite so lonely out in these beast infected woods and so he wouldn't look like a crazy person when speaking to his system in public.

     The design he had chosen for the holographic avatar of his system was basically Dark Magician girl with Transparent fairy wings, elvish looking ears, and turquoise eyes. Although, her armor was more like a tight fitting dress made of thick cloth and was primarily white with pink outlines. The armor had mostly the same design as Dark Magician girl's as did the scepter she carried. Whenever she stood up straight she was barely taller than the length of Jaden's hand.

     This was Sprite! A name he had chosen from one of his original Heroes. Ever since her creation, she had been Jaden's constant companion, with the exception of when he was dueling. It was the system's job to maintain balance and fairness within the Shadow Games. So, as soon as a game was initiated, Jaden would immediately be cut off from any non game function contact with the system.

     Upon hearing her name being called, her ears perked up and she turned her head, from where she sat dangling her feet from Jaden's right shoulder. "Hmmm?"

     "All of these spells that are supposedly using my mana to form mana patterns for their magic, why is it that I can't feel anything happening. It's like there's a tremendous amount of amazing stuff that's going on inside my body whenever I duel yet I can't sense any of it at all. Why is that? Shouldn't I have some kind of Mana Detection or something? Will my system always do the magic for me? Will I never be able to learn magic for myself?"

     Sprite flew up off of Jaden's shoulder and came to a hovering rest in front of Jaden's face while nodding her head and saying, "Mmmm Hmmm, Mmmm Hmmm, Mmmm Hmmm! I knew you'd ask this question sooner or later but, of course, I wasn't allowed to tell you before you asked.

     "The answer is quite simple. You see, you would normally develop the skill Mana Sense quite quickly after being exposed to magics cast by your Artifact Cards. The problem is the danger of you accidentally interfering with the operation of those spells that are currently beyond your capability. Mana Patterns can be very fragile and finicky. If even the tiniest error occurs while forming the patterns, severe backlashes, up to and including death, can easily occur.

     "For this reason, the ability to sense any mana at all was completely blocked off from you. I could only reveal the knowledge that you can choose to turn this ability back on after you had asked about this specifically and you had been adequately warned of the dangers.

     "As for learning magic for yourself, it's completely possible. You simply need to acquire the skill Mana Sense and then the skill Mana Manipulation. After that it's simply a matter of practice and obtaining the knowledge of various mana patterns that create spells.

     "Of course, it's highly recommended that you not unblock your ability to sense mana until you have had an opportunity to study magic in a safe environment and only to turn it on whenever you have no intention of using your Artifact Cards."

     Jaden couldn't help but frown after hearing this. After arriving in this world, he had tried his best not to think about whatever powers that be who had given him this miraculous system. However, it seems they had interfered even more than he suspected.

     "You said that you couldn't tell me. Why not? Do you know anything about who created you or why they chose to give this power to me?"

     "Nah ah uh!" Sprite began waving her index finger in Jaden's face. "You should be smart enough to figure out that that's not something I can tell you."

     "Yeah, I kinda figured as much. *Sigh* Oh well, who even cares at this point? I'm bout's ta be a mutha'fuckin wizard, up in dis bitch! Hells Yeah!" Jaden responded as a giant toothy grin dominated his face.

     "You do remember my warning, right? I presume you mean you're going to learn magic at some point?"

     "NOPE! I'm bout's to get down and dirty wid dis mana shit, right now!"

     "Ummm, I wouldn't recommend that! Also, why do you keep talking like that?"

     "What? Why? You gotta problem with the way I talk, bitch? I'll talk however I wanna talk! You cain't tell me nutin, hoe!"

     "Jaden, please stop! Why are you acting like this?" Sprite pleaded with a helpless expression on her face.

     "Yeah, no, you're right! I took it a little too far. Sorry about that! Just got a little excited and got too caught up in my role play. Anyway, the point is that this mana shit is happenin. And it's happenin right mutha'fuckin now. And I don't give a fuck  what you gots ta say about it. Right, right, sorry, sorry, I'm... it's just… I'm just so excited right now. Just... give me a second to calm down, alright. Then we can start my wizard training." Jaden explained as he began taking deep slow breaths.

     "Wha...you mean you're still going through with this?" Sprite asked disbelievingly.

     "WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST TELL YOU, BITCH!"

               *In a French accent*

                   One Hour Later

     Once Jaden had finally calmed down and explained his perfectly valid excuse for ignoring her warning, he sat down inside his base cave, like a meditating witcher, and began clearing his mind.

     There might be some risks associated with trying to do this so soon but, given the fact that he wasn't anywhere near ready to start interacting with society yet, he wanted to chance it. He still had many cards he wanted to acquire, before trying to take on human players, and every second that he spent grinding could also be spent familiarizing himself with the magic of this world. Otherwise, he would feel as if his time was being wasted or, at the very least, severely neglected by not optimizing the kinds of training he could do simultaneously.

     Thus, he was going to try and calm his mind, try and guess which of his Normal cards required the simplest magic pattern, turn on his mana sense, and then just focus all of his mental energy on watching the process happen without interfering. Hopefully, it wouldn't take too long to acquire the Mana Sense skill and he could turn it back off, take a break, and think over everything he had experienced to prepare himself for acquiring the Mana Manipulation skill.

     He had chosen the Trap Card [Feather Wind] not only because its Normal rating from Duel Links had carried over to his Shadow System but also because its effects were genuinely rather simplistic, as far as Yu-gi-oh cards go. In the unlikely event that there was some type of backlash, hopefully it wouldn't be so bad.

     However, despite his earlier outburst, he was confident in his ability to remain detached and passive once he got down to business.

     Once he felt he was ready, he told Sprite to unblock his mana sense and, despite her reservations, she complied. Jaden activated his IB, which was a higher tier artifact that worked solely on external mana. He then braced himself mentally and placed the card face down in the spell and trap zone of the DiaDhank type duel duel interface that his IB spawned.

     He then called Avian, who was already summoned, to his side and activated the trap card.

     "HOLY SHIT! Would you look at that?!" Suddenly, an image of an oddly shaped pattern or mana flows, or strings, or something appeared in his mind. It was initially distracting and he wanted to reach out to it and exert control over it.

     Even with him never having sensed mana before, once he did he immediately felt uncomfortable having his mana controlled inside him without having some influence over it. His mana was essentially begging him to reign it in and reclaim control. He understood now why Sprite and whoever else thought that this was a dangerous idea.

     Despite this compelling sensation, he had fully understood the consequences of interfering and so remained firmly committed to his passive role as a watcher. Simply waiting for the notification that should hopefully come sooner rather than later.

     In a little less than a minute he finally heard Sprite's voice in his head, 'Congratulations, Jaden! You've successfully acquired the skill Mana Sense.'

     Quickly retrieving [Feather Wind] with a wicked smile on his face, he deactivated his IB and began going over everything he had seen and sensed.

      Acquiring Mana Manipulation went nearly as smoothly as acquiring Mana Sense, however, it did take quite a bit longer. There was nothing the system could do to help him with this. He simply had to keep utilizing his will to grasp at the thread like strands of mana that, according to his Mana Sense, seemed to just float around everywhere like extremely long silky dandelion seeds.

     Once his will had successfully grasped a strand, he held and examined it for as long as he could before the thing eventually escaped his relatively weak grasp. He simply needed to repeat this task several times, until the notification arrived.

     External mana was apparently much harder to control than internal mana but most people started with external mana because one's own mana core was essentially a massive ball of knotted and tangled mana strings. Once you were able to effectively manipulate external mana, accomplishing the task of untangling your mana core and shaping it into a neatly wound ball that could efficiently unleash mana threads would become much easier.

     'Mana Sense should level up passively as I duel, as long as I keep it unblocked. Mana Manipulation, however, will require a lot of work. I should try and get used to sensing mana while I'm active. Then maybe I can train my Manipulation in between duels.' Jaden thought, as he got up off the floor and headed outside.

     He would take a quick bath in the river and then head to bed. Being his first full day of magical training on top of his grinding, he would need plenty of sleep tonight.

             ==== End Flashback ====