I Told You to Create Cards, Not to Slay Gods. [4]

[However, I am willing to make a deal with you.]

[Alice knew in her heart that it was you who saved her life, so she was willing to accept your offer, even if it meant losing everything. For the sake of gratitude and revenge, the girl was ready to sacrifice it all.]

[Will you take over my body? she asked curiously.]

[No, I’m a man. I wouldn’t invade a woman’s body like that.]

[But my chest is small. The villagers say if I cut my hair short, I’d look like a pretty little boy.]

[Uh... that’s not what separates men from women.]

They engaged in a friendly discussion, momentarily forgetting the threat of the raiders.

But they had little time—the bandit leader, Linfu, followed his creed of “No enemy left without a corpse.” He descended the hillside in search of Alice's body, only to find her alive. Enchanted by her beauty, he launched an attack.

[You taught Alice the first-tier spell: Fireball.]

Ding! You obtained the Spell Card: Fireball.

Alice's first attempt at casting the spell was clumsy, and Linfu dodged it effortlessly.

Remaining calm, Alice feigned panic, stumbling backward into a pile of pebbles. Seeing this, Linfu's eyes lit up with lust, and he lunged forward to assault her.

With Linfu closing in, Alice cast Fireball at point-blank range, striking him in the groin. He collapsed, writhing in agony.

Seizing the moment, Alice exhausted all her remaining mana, channeling it through her magic ring to cast three more Fireballs at him, each one hitting its mark. Linfu was dead.

Ding! You obtained the Spell Cards: Feigned Weakness and Grim Resolve.

Alice, you’re incredible!

You’re a goddess!

In just one fight, Alice had earned Shen Sui two Spell Cards—a high-efficiency feat, to say the least.

Eager to see the new cards, Shen Sui immediately checked their effects.

Grim Resolve was similar to Yu-Gi-Oh!’s card “Companion in Arms.” When one of his followers was destroyed, it would allow him to take down an opponent's follower with it. Although it targeted, it was still a solid card in the current Soul Card dueling environment.

Feigned Weakness, however, left Shen Sui slightly dissatisfied. Reducing one of his own followers' Spirit Value to zero just to stop the opponent from battling? It felt underwhelming.

Does that make sense? Absolutely not!

[You express dissatisfaction with the card's effect. You have gained the right to modify the card.]

Shen Sui immediately got to work revising Feigned Weakness.

Target one of your followers on the field, reducing its Spirit Value to zero until the end of the turn. Your opponent cannot activate Spell or Follower Card effects...

Before he could finish, the modification failed.

Apparently, a 5-star card couldn’t handle the effect he had in mind.

Frustrated, Shen Sui started to add more restrictions to the card. His original plan was to make the card usable during his opponent’s turn, shutting down their plays entirely.

I love cards that bring a smile to my opponent’s face, Shen Sui thought mischievously.

But things turned out to be harder than expected. If Feigned Weakness had been a 15-star card, he could’ve done whatever he wanted. But at 5-stars, he had to settle for compromises.

After considerable effort and experimentation, Shen Sui settled on a revised version that he was reasonably satisfied with.

Card Name: [Feigned Weakness]
Type: Spell Card
Star Rating: 5-Star
Effect: Activate only during the start of either player’s turn. Pay half your Life Points and discard one card from your hand. Then, target one follower on your field, reducing its Spirit Value to zero until the end of the duel. For the remainder of that turn, your opponent cannot activate effects of the same type as the discarded card.

To increase the limitations, Shen Sui ended up turning the 5-star card’s effect into a mini-novel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as strong as his original design due to the activation timing restrictions. In the earlier version, he could’ve activated Feigned Weakness during the main phase, summoning a follower and discarding another to shut down his opponent’s hand traps.

This strategy was no longer possible with the revised version, but it still had potential to frustrate opponents effectively. It was enough to boost Shen Sui's confidence for the upcoming duel exam.

Alright! Let’s see what my dear Alice has been up to while I’ve been editing cards.

Excited, Shen Sui returned to the main interface, only to be greeted by a wall of text detailing Alice’s actions. Clearly, even during the time he spent revising the card, Alice had been busy.

[Alice's mana was depleted, but she refused to rest and recover because the surviving villagers were still in the hands of the raiders. She called out to you, seeking any spells that might help.]

[You did not respond.]

[Undeterred, Alice climbed the western hill overlooking the village and cast Fireball with what little mana she had recovered.]

[Alice set the hillside forest ablaze.]

[Struggling with the effort, she dragged Linfu’s corpse up the hill and tied it to a massive boulder.]

[As the roaring flames spread, Alice pushed the boulder down the slope, sending Linfu’s body hurtling toward the celebrating raiders.]

What?! Is this really something a sixteen-year-old girl could do?!

[The raiders saw Linfu’s brutalized corpse and the distant flames, believing the Imperial Army had arrived to exterminate them. They decided to flee, taking a few young, healthy women with them.]

[The raiders intended to kill the remaining women.]

[Alice, exhausting her mana reserves, cast one last Fireball at the raiders.]

[Ordinarily, the raiders wouldn’t have been so easily frightened. However, the intense heat from the burning forest caused a rain cloud to form overhead. By a twist of fate, a bolt of lightning followed the trail of Alice’s mana, striking her Fireball. The resulting explosion killed several raiders, who panicked, thinking knights from the Church of the Thunder Lord had arrived, and scattered.]

Ding! You obtained the Spell Card: Thunder Strike.

What?!

Shen Sui suddenly had the feeling that Alice might not need his guidance at all—that this girl was more than capable of stirring up chaos on her own.

But the text wasn’t finished.

[The raiders fled, but Alice did not rejoice. Battling the excruciating backlash from her depleted mana, she searched the remaining survivors in vain. Her best friend, Anna, had been taken.]

[The knights of the Thunder Lord’s Church arrived belatedly, shamelessly claiming credit for driving off the raiders. They demanded an exorbitant fee from the villagers for their “rescue.”]

[The knights seized the villagers' lands and their newly harvested wheat fields. With all the men gone and their lands stolen, the village had no future. The surviving women decided to seek refuge in Andrew City, hoping to find relatives who would take them in.]

[Alice’s aunt left without her, abandoning Alice, who had lost everyone she cared about.]

What a miserable girl.

Seeing this, Shen Sui felt a pang of empathy. She had family, yet she had lost them all—much like how he had come to accept his own strange journey to another world.

Honestly, it’s better to be an orphan than to have parents who gamble and abuse each other, he thought with a bitter smile.