You Want Chap On Me?! I Chap On You!

     The wolf type beast didn't slow down at all, while charging headlong towards Jaden. It jumped up with its fore limbs stretched out, presumably trying to tackle Jaden, while snapping its jaws towards his throat.

     However, the expectations of the wolf were completely subverted as it fell back to the ground, being unable to move Jaden in the slightest. Its body had been repelled and its target didn't seem to have suffered any injuries at all.

     Information, in the form of instincts and intuitions, began flooding its mind as the Shadow Game attempted to explain the rules it should follow. The wolf couldn't quite grasp the situation but he knew now that his prey was more dangerous than he initially suspected. Thus, he lifted his head upwards and released a resounding howl.

     Not waiting for its companions to arrive, it was about to go on the offensive once more, when suddenly three other creatures appeared in between itself and its prey. The wolf had never before seen such creatures but it clearly perceived the creatures as a threat and immediately dashed towards the center most creature.

-----

[Unauthorized Attack Detected]

[Modifying Life Point Total]

[LP: 100 >>> LP: 123]

     Jaden had immediately summoned three of his monsters to the field, as soon as he received the Life Point boost from the monster's attack. This signaled the beginning of the game and, since he had no monsters on field when he was attacked, he could summon as many monsters as possible from his hand. This was one of the drawbacks of trying to cheat the Shadow Game Contract. The more the rules were broken the more benefits Jaden would receive.

     Normally, there was only room for five monsters on the field and you were allowed only one normal summon per Draw Point consumed but any number of special summons were permitted until the field was full.

     Jaden knew that, as he grew in power and experience, he would eventually unlock more of his system's features but, for now, he had to settle for only five total monsters. Even his Extra Deck was temporarily limited to only six monsters, until further upgrades were acquired.

     Because he had been attacked in an unauthorized manner, he received two Draw Points instead of the standard one. So long as he had Draw Points available, he would be able to draw cards equal to the number of those points.

     Normally, each Player would have one Free Attack for each monster they controlled. If one of their monsters continued attacking after utilizing the Free Attack, their opponent's Draw Points and Battle Points would both rise by one. 

     While he hadn't made this particular change himself, he had renamed 'Turns' to 'Draw Points' since the concept of turns made very little sense in the context of these new mechanics. When one considered that, according to the new mechanics, the only thing that turns affected were the number of attacks, draws, and normal summons permitted, the word 'Turn' would just seem to be out of place. 

     Thus, every time someone drew a card they could have each of their monsters attack once. Continuing to attack after this, would lead to the opposing party's Battle Points going up along with their Draw Points, since DP went up with each attack regardless. This is what lent so much importance to the Speed stat within these new rules.

     Although, these Battle Points only limited the number of attacks you could make, once your opponent's Life Points were vulnerable. Any other time you could continue attacking, even after your Battle Points had reached zero. Once your opponent's Life Points were vulnerable, you could only finish attacking with your remaining Free Attacks, unless you had surplus Battle Points.

     Jaden watched as the wolf darted towards his Sparkman. The wolf was quick but Jaden could control his monsters with just a thought, even if he enjoyed calling out his moves whenever it was safe to do so. As soon as he saw the wolf start to move he had already ordered his Sparkman to avoid the wolf's advance.

     Following Jaden's orders, Sparkman stepped out of the wolf's path and brought back his fist charged with lighting. Seeing the wolf miss him by just a hair he quickly stepped toward the wolf, who had jumped past him, and smashed his fist into the wolf's back.

     An explosion of blue sparks wrapped around the wolf's body causing it to whimper in pain for just a few seconds before finally falling limp onto the ground, its already black fur sending wafts of smoke into the air.

     Just as Sparkman was punching the first wolf, five more wolves could be seen in the distance, making a mad dash towards their location. Luckily for Jaden this first wolf seemed to be on the weaker end of the F-Ranks. 

     With a six point boost from [The A-Forces] and a five point boost from [Luminous Spark], Sparkman currently had twenty seven Attack Points.

[Elemental HERO Sparkman]

☆☆☆☆ / IL 1 / Rare

Attribute: Light

Type: Warrior

Attack- 16 >>> 27

Defense- 14 >>> 9

Speed- 20

Effect: Whenever this monster lands an attack on a Defense Mode monster, if the target's defense is equal to or greater than Elemental HERO Sparkman's attack, the target will be paralyzed for as long as Elemental HERO Sparkman remains on the field.>

     As soon as the game started, he was permitted a five card hand. With the beast's attack giving him two and then a third draw, he now had a total of eight cards to work with. 

     Since the system eliminated random draws from the Shadow Game, all he needed to do was think of the card he wanted and that would be his next draw, even if he was still limited to only playing the cards in his hand.

     [Luminous Spark], [The A-Forces], Sparkman, Burstinatrix, and Avian were his go to starting hand. His first pull was usually [Polymerization] and his second was usually either a trap card or a second copy of [The A-Forces.]

     Since he knew he would be playing Polymerization as soon as that wolf died he drew [Hero Blast] and then a second [The A-Forces] for his third draw.

     He first laid down his trap followed by [The A-Forces]. He then activated [Polymerization], just as the leading wolves were entering the Field Zone. Summoning Flame Wingman in Attack Mode, he waited for the two leading wolves to attack. 

     Since the system kept him updated on his opponents stats, he knew both of these monster's Attack Points were below Flame Wingman's full twenty nine Attack Points but only one was below Sparkman's now twenty five Attack Points.

     Ordering them to engage with the appropriate targets he allowed his monsters to be attacked repeatedly in order to accumulate DP. 

     Unlike normal battles, inside the Shadow Game, you needed to have Attack Points greater than whatever stat of your opponent you were engaging, if you wanted to do any damage at all. In these battles of stats, an equal match would result in a draw, having less would lead to defeat, and having more would insta-kill the target. Hitting a stronger opponent with an attack weaker than him wouldn't kill the attacking monster but it would damage the player's Life Points and cause no damage to the targeted monster.

     Just as the two wolves were launching their first attacks, the other three wolves entered the Field Zone.

     Jaden activated Hero Blast and, with its effects resolved, immediately summoned Burstinatrix to the field.

     The first two wolves had just completed their second attacks and were winding up for thirds, whenever the other three closed in on his monsters.

     Moving as fast as he possibly could, Jaden drew another Sparkman and another [The A-Forces] and played them both instantly, while ordering his monsters to attack with full force.

     With three [The A-Forces] and [Luminous Spark] still in play, his monster's Attack Points were off the charts for a G-Ranked team. Flame Wingman currently had fifty, both Sparkmen had forty five, and Burstinatrix had forty one.

     Upon his command, all four of his Heroes sent out blasts of elemental energy. Lightning and fire burst forth from these creatures, who possessed a seemingly noble aura, and wiped away all five of the remaining black furred wolves.

     Once the creature's bodies stopped moving, Jaden pulled out six Shadow Cards and threw them towards the corpses. All six cards homed in on a separate corpse and came to a stop horizontally in mid air, hovering over their respective corpses. A ring of black energy erupted from each card going on to blanket the wolves' corpses entirely and then immediately retreating back into the cards, having successfully claimed those souls.

     The Shadow Cards flew back towards Jaden, ending up in his hands. Looking at the six newly filled Shadow Cards, they looked exactly like regular monster cards only the details were badly faded. 

     Regular monster cards possessed only the image of the monster occupying the entire front of the card. Any information one wanted to know, about said card, could be easily gleaned by simply focusing on the card and the information would flow naturally into one's mind. 

     If he had sealed the cores and the corpses as well, this wouldn't have happened. He would have six fully usable copies of the [Red Eyes Black Wolf], as the card name read, but these would have to do for now. He needed food badly and leveling up his own personal strength had been put off for long enough. This was currently the best use of his available resources.

     With the rules of the Shadow Game no longer restricting his Summoning, he called forth all twenty four of his monsters, giving his Sparkmen and Wildhearts the task of helping him with the corpses and the others forming a wide perimeter around himself.

     He hadn't eaten anything, since he left the Starter Zone last night. It was almost noon at this point and a warm summer breeze would occasionally break the sun's steadily intensifying heat, as it rose higher in the sky. His hunger hadn't reached the level of desperation but there was no reason to delay his gratification when he had food in his hands.

     One of his Sparkmen was the first to arrive at his sitting location with one of the wolf corpses. He asked his Sparkman if he could somehow remove the beast's skin or open up its skull to which the blue and gold humanoid responded by stomping on the wolf's skull and nearly turning it into paste.

     'Right!' Jaden thought, 'Still only level one Intelligence.'

     Luckily, the core, which was usually located near the back of the skull just on the inside, wasn't damaged and he successfully retrieved it along with five more from the other corpses.

     Deciding that having his low Intelligence monsters cook his food would probably not be a good idea, he simply had them gather wood for a fire. Burstinatrix ignited the pile of dry wood and Clayman raised a small earthen barricade around the fire along with a small earthen stump for Jaden to sit on.

     Jaden's ability to actually carve meat from those corpses was almost non-existent and so he had to jankily manipulate Wildheart to use his sword, without giving him any complicated commands.

     By the time he had finished removing all of the pelts and bones from the corpses, he had a pile of tattery torn pelts and a stack of shredded messy wolf meat. It was all rather pathetic looking but ultimately his stomach couldn't care less what the food looked like, as long he ate something soon.

     Using some nearby sticks as skewers, he placed the wolf meat on the sticks and began slowly roasting it. It took a little over half an hour but he finally had some cooked meat and immediately began chowing down, while ignoring the bland gamey flavor.

     A couple of hours later, after not only eating but also skewering the rest of the meat and cooking it all, Jaden set his sticks aside and called back all of his monsters. The two Wildhearts he'd just sent back to the base cave with the rest of his cooked meat and torn pelts being the only exceptions.

     He currently had six F-Ranked cores at his disposal and those should be enough to get at least two of his stats up to F-Rank. 

     Soon after his arrival, Jaden had discovered that he had access to all of the functions of the Universal System of this world through his own system. A status screen being one of these.

     His first inspection of this screen showed all of his stats being at nine, just one point away from G-Rank. Normally, it would require one core to increase one's stats by one point. However, higher ranked cores could increase a particular stat by several points depending on the rank.

     It hadn't taken him long to acquire seven G-Ranked cores to break into the Ranking system, before starting his dedicated grind. However, he noticed that his monsters' strength all remained exactly the same. 

     This is when he realized that, in his excitement, he had forgotten one critical piece of information the system had given him. The increase in his monsters' strength didn't occur at the breakthrough to a new rank but rather one point before the next rank.

     With all seven of his stats currently sitting at ten, he gathered the F-Ranked cores and began using the system's function to designate a stat and began absorbing their power.

     After all six of the cores were assimilated, he could feel a qualitative change in his body, like pure power was flowing through his veins. After flexing and stretching with his new power for a few seconds, he pulled up the system window and checked out his new status.

[Status]

Name: Jaden Yuki

Class: Contract Mage

Race: Human

HP: 220

SP: 100

MP: 100

Strength- 22

Vitality- 22

Endurance- 10

Dexterity- 10

Psyche-10

Willpower- 10

Perception- 10

     Jaden chose to focus on Vitality and Strength, since those were the only stats that translated to his monster's stats. Even Speed was something that was automatically upgraded once the other two broke through. 

     He didn't need to worry about his mana right now, since he simply didn't have enough powerful cards in his deck to put a decent dent in his mana reserves. The efficiency of his system was really high when playing with weaker cards.

     As he recalled the information regarding his stats and their relation to his monsters, he also remembered that, even though only Strength and Vitality would translate into improvements for his monsters, he couldn't focus exclusively on those stats to hasten his progress through the ranks. He could only advance his monster's by one rank before needing to get all of his stats up to par before upgrading them again.

     Summoning Bubbleman and Avian, he checked their Attack Points, confirming a theory he had recently formed. Bubbleman's AP were at 18 and Avian's AP were at 20. This seemed to confirm that Bubbleman, currently his weakest monster, would always have an AP one step lower than the breakthrough requirement and Avian would always have an AP that was one step higher than the breakthrough requirement. Whether or not that step was always exactly one point seemed not only less likely but also less desirable. 

     Given that the higher ranks of power quickly escalated into the tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of points, maintaining such a pattern would obviously be hugely detrimental. 

     That, however, was something he could worry about later. He needed to start grinding again. There were quite a few weaker cards he could acquire easily that would be useful to him but he still wanted one more powerful card before focusing on those weaker ones.

     [Elemental HERO Neos Alius] was a must have for any Hero beater deck and this was precisely his next target.

     Dismissing his monsters once again, Jaden set out in search of more F-Ranked beasts.