The Rising of the Card Mage Part 1

In his sight, Jena's room door suddenly went missing and it was replaced with the view of a forest. Ahli saw that he was running toward a bunch of green things that gathered on his path. He was unable to stop and with that, of course, he hit them. He fell on top of some of the green things that acted as a cushion. But then he quickly realized what those green things were. GOBLINS!

Ahli quickly rolled his body and stood, distancing himself from the ones he landed on. As he looked forward, he saw a bunch of goblins that were not happy with what he had done. Their sharp teeth were shown between their lips, and even though he knew about goblins from the many fantasy stuff that he devoured, it sure was scary to see the real one for the first time.

"I don't know if I have to thank you or not, but it was stupid to hit them like that." A female sound from Ahli's back made his attention shift.

A few feet at the back, a girl that seemed to be the same age as his, stood with her sword drawn. She had brown hair and looked East Asian; however, she was wearing garb and gears of those of European Medieval. She was holding a long sword with both hands and in a defense position. Behind her was a tall cliff, so technically the two of them were cornered by the goblins.

[Is this cosplay?]

Ahli was confused seeing her, but he quickly seized that thought as he watched the sharp teeth of one of the goblins in front of him.

<Hello CARD MAGE, you may now access the knowledge of CARTA>

<DESIGNATED CARD SYSTEM: GICMA>

<START 15 PROTOCOL: CARDS>

Ahli was surprised to hear the same voice as the one in Jena's room. He looked around to find the source of the voice, yet, there were no hints of any individual that could be the source of the voice.

"Hey, what are you doing?" It seemed his confusion and movements had caught the eye of the female swordsman.

"Oh, no. Its…" However, before Ahli was able to explain the situation, light came out from his left side and it made him look in its direction.

There he found the deck box from Jena's room had been attached to a belt that he didn't even realize he had worn, or in this case, might be forced to be worn.

The light continued to glow and it released waves of circle of runes that grew enveloping the area with Ahli as its core. The bright phenomenon made everyone squint their eyes as the waves became faster with each circle that came out of the deck box.

When it reached its highest speed, it suddenly ended with a flash and made everyone close their eyes, stunned not moving from their place.

Ahli slowly opened his left eye first, to take a peek at the deck box on his left side. It didn't show any other surprise or changes of state. With that, he assumed that it was safe to open his other eye. By then, even though he was curious about the deck box more, he caught the movements of the goblin surrounding them.

One of the goblins had regained its vision quicker than the others and from how aggressive it leaped toward Ahli, it seemed it had superbly annoyed with the light of the deck box.

"WATCH OUT!" The female swordsman's warning came in quite late as by then the goblin strike was unavoidable and surely would hit Ahli. He  himself could not close his eyes in time to avoid seeing the horror coming at him and grew with fear the more the goblin closed its distance with him.

But, In a sudden turn, three giant card illusions came out from his left side, from the deck box to be precise. It acted as a partition, shielding Ahli from the Goblin who smacked its face to the illusions and fell. The illusions themselves then transformed into smaller beams that landed on Ahli's left hand. On it, they transformed, and what he saw after, surprised him even more.

The three cards had the illustrations of some of the Card Master game cards that he's familiar with, even though with a different layout.

<Conversion to Gicma COMPLETED. You are now ready sling your spell>

<Starting 5 Life:>

<Turn 1>

Again, the voice just came out of nowhere, but this time Ahli did not question it anymore as he was already 100% sure it came from the deck box.

He looked toward the goblins and saw a familiar box floating on each of them. It was the power and life that usually accompanied the unit summon spell of Card Master. With the stats of 1/1 on each of them, it meant that their strength would be worth 1 point and it would need a power point of 1 to kill them.

Ahli also looked at the female swordsman and strangely enough, she did not have those stats. He wondered why that could happen, but he set aside the question for later and quickly analyzed the cards and saw how it has similar symbols for the cost to play the cards.

But a question arose, as none of the cards were able to be used to produce mana. With that he tried to call the system.

"Hey, Carta! How do I generate mana?"

There was no answer from the system at all and he started to panic as he noticed that the goblin that had smacked his face had stood again, showing how they could recover quite faster than normal humans. He quickly analyzed again the cards in his hand, but no more info he could find on those cards. Ahli was at the edge of desperation when suddenly he heard.

<TURN 2>

"Hey!" Ahli used that moment of notification to interact with the System, yet, again, there was no reply. It was by then he concluded that the System did not have any intelligence, unlike most of the light novels he ever read. It was by then as well, that a card landed on his hand.

Before he was able to check the new card he got, he saw three goblins rushing toward him. He was able to avoid the first two by jumping to the back, but, there was not enough time to react to the third one. It jumped toward him while holding a knife high above his body.

Fortunately for Ahli, a piece of steel shielded him. The female swordsman had moved in between them and in a quick combo move, she continued her intervention by landing a straight kick on the third goblin, making it fall back, furthering its distance from Ahli.

"We will talk if we escape this ordeal." She glared at Ahli from her left shoulder.

Ahli was unable to reply as she moved forward facing those three goblins, but he felt anger in her voice tone and aura. Ahli wondered why did she emit such a strong one like that.

He saw how the female swordsman fended them off one by one. And From the way she dealt with them, showed how pro she was in combat. Seeing no more goblins approaching them at the moment, Ahli quickly checked on the new card that he got.

There, at the bottom part of the face side of the card, he found a mana symbol. This is supposedly does not exist in Card Master, but he is familiar with another card game that uses that kind of mana system, the little brother of Card Master, Summoner Master.

In Summoner Master, spell cards are used as permanent mana sources by placing them in a reversed position, with the mana symbol at the bottom to be at the top. The downside of this system was that once they are used as the mana source, they won't be able to be used as spells again. This means that hand management would be an important thing and if he's not careful in doing so, he might not have enough spells to defeat all of his enemies.

One mystery down, but another one popped up in his head.

[How in the hell am I supposed to activate these cards? Voice command? Like King of Cards anime?]

Ahli was not sure if it would work, but he knew he had to try. He then read the name of the new card with its ability,

DEMOLITION

2 + Fire Mana

[Magic Spell]

Destroy any inanimate object on the battlefield.

Mana: Fire

Ahli pulled it out from his hand and he placed it in front of him while shouting, "I set Demolition as a mana source."

The card vanished immediately and transformed into a shard shape crystal. The method worked, and with that, he kinda understood how the system works.

As he saw the other goblin seemed ready to join the fight, he checked on the other cards and found none that he could use at the moment, as they cost more than just one fire mana. He came to think how cruel whoever gave him the system, with no proper support for newcomers. But fortunately, he heard the System's voice again.

<Turn 3>

With that, another card appeared and landed in his hand. Ahli looked at the card and he was surprised while feeling lucky at the same time when he saw the card's name and stats of it.

FLAME BLAST

Fire Mana

[Quickening Spell]

Deal 3 damage to target enemy

Mana: Fire