Age of Summoner

“If you want to put it that way. And, by the way, you know about the World League Tournament?”

“I saw those briefly on TV.”

Rin nodded in return.

“Duel battles come in various forms, whether solo duel or tag team duel, free running duel or boss duel; but the most popular form—which was also used in professional tournaments—seemed to be the solo duel, the kind used in the Master World League.”

In a short while, Rin reached the farthest corner inside of the Duel Zone where the zone supervisor’s office desk was located. A tall man sat behind the desk with his legs stretched out, carefreely reading an AOS magazine without even paying attention to the noise of people walking around him. This might be because of the headphones on his ears blasting music so loud it could be heard from the outside.

“Mister Boe!”

Rin then jabbed him slightly before leaning her face towards him. He suddenly ceased his actions and put down his magazine. He smiled widely the moment he saw the young lady.

“Aah!? How it’s goin’, Rin? Why aren’t you home yet? You are usually gone by seven.”

The young man, “Boe”, greeted immediately before placing his magazine on his desk.

“I’m about to go home, but I have to carry out a quest mentoring a new player first.”

She then glanced at Joke who was standing still beside her. Once he heard that, the young man, Boe, cried out—“Oh!”—before looking around, embarrassed.

“If so, you will have to wait for a bit. All the rooms are currently full. But it won’t be long ‘cause Sith was in there testing his deck for a couple of hours now. He’ll be out in a bit.”

He asserted while pointing at room number six which was occupied by a man who was fighting furiously, calling out a huge warrior to slay some large creature—which Joke was unable to see clearly—that seemed similar to a cloak floating midair.

“Oh, okay.” Rin smiled. “If then, can you please reserve that room for the two of us? We won’t be taking long. An introductory quest only requires him to win against a lowest-level bot, so ten minutes would be enough.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Boe smiled in return before typing into a computer to insert some information. He then grabbed a microphone, which was placed nearby, before holding down its button.

“Mr. Sith, Sir. Please hurry up. There’s someone in line after you.”

“Aye, aye. I got it. I’ll be done in just a few minutes.”

A cry came out from the room, a reply that caused Boe to chuckle before turning to smile at Rin.

“Sith looked kinda pissed.”

“Why? His deck isn’t working out?” Rin asked.

“The deck’s probably fine. But he freakin’ tried it out on an extremely brutal bot.”

“Which one?”

“The one from the Singaporean champion’s decklist.”

Rin went agape at those words before also peeking inside room number six. When she saw that the young man inside was extremely frustrated, she also cracked out a giggle.

“If that’s the case, it seems like Sith will probably continue with his frustration. I have already taken a peak at the previous Singapore champion’s deck—an extremely disgusting control deck. It appears like Davie aimed at climbing the ranks up into the Asian Master Series, too, I guess. But to even build up such a monstrous deck, that’s extremely cruel.”

“Yeah, right?” Boe also sighed. “And to also freakin’ choose Davie’s self-automated bot full on like that and also adjust it to the hardest level; where does all those self-confidence come from, thinking he could win against them.”

Rin laughed loudly at those words before nudging Joke to follow her to room number six, which nobody seemed to be lining up for. Before Joke could become any more confused than this, Rin decided to give him a few explanations.

“As you see, Joke,” Rin asserted, “it was indeed fun and eye-opening to go out on adventures in Arcadia, but these duels are also considered to be of importance in the world of AOS; therefore, every AOS competition will all be in the form of duels. As for the world of Arcadia, that is more like a place for training and adventuring to discover the game’s secrets.”

Joke nodded. He knew full well that players were more interested in duels than going online in Arcadia.

“So, are the rules for duels different from the ones in Arcadia?”

“They’re different,” Rin answered immediately. “Because adventures inside of Arcadia come in the form of an MMORPG, the fights there will all be about collecting experience points through card actions like other typical games; but when it comes to duels, the rules are more about winning and losing. It also emphasizes the tactics of each summoner, which makes these battles more intense.”

The two of them then stopped short in front of room number six. They both stared at the figure of a young man—who was probably “Sith”—using his Half Cards furiously battling away against his enemies.

“As for duel rules, I’ll first teach you the standard variant,” Rin said smilingly. “In a duel, a player will each have exactly one hundred cards—no more, no less. Each can divide up the types of cards in their deck any way they like, but it can’t contain more than two Skill Cards of the same name. Apart from that, none of the other cards can be duplicates.”

Joke nodded at this explanation. He had been curious as to why none of the cards in the deck he borrowed from the store looked the same. He now knew the answer to the question: it was a rule for duels.

“Each summoner will have fifty units of life points (LP).”

“Life points?” Joke narrowed his eyes.

“Kind of similar to energy for their life span. The side that runs out of life points first loses.” The young lady beamed. “Each tournament has different rules concerning the amount of initial LP; some start at thirty, some at forty. But typical duels will be set at fifty per game according to standard rules.

“And how do we lower the opponent’s LP?” Joke asked.

“There are lots of ways, but mainly through destroying the opponent’s halves.”

Immediately after Rin had said that there was some moving going on inside of room number six in front of them. A half belonging to the young man, Sith, was bitten up by some black magic spell until it shattered into the disappearance. At that moment, the number of each summoner’s LP lightened up on the glass window in front of Joke with the player in red’s number decreasing to the point where it was nearly zero.

“Just like that,” Rin explained. “If you look closely at the bottom of our Half Card, there will be the letters ‘DP’ written down along with some numbers. That stands for ‘damage points’, which are the amount of LP we have to pay once that half lost the fight.

Joke cried “Oh” upon hearing that. He then picked up his deck’s special card to have a look.

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Oberik LV30 (Earth)

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♦♦♦♦♦♦

Race: warrior

* atk +2 / def +2 when equipped with weapons *

* When attacked to death, two minutes of immortality granted upon sacrificing weapons in its hands*

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Attack-4

Defense-7

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HP 15,000 (DP-9)

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A number was indeed there, just as Rin had said. When he compared it with other Half Cards, he realized that the stronger or the higher level the half, the more damage points it had.

“So, we have to attack the opponent’s half until their LP’s all gone to win?”