Free Web NovelChapter 114: Chapter 113: Surprise Promotion, Five-Star Leader!
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"She reverted? So the power-up has a time limit."
Selene Dawnford watched the small figure on the monitoring feed shrink back into her resting form and made the observation aloud. "Makes sense. Genuine power increases don’t usually come without a cost."
"That said, this card’s combat output can no longer be evaluated as standard Three-Star," Aldric Ashford murmured, his tone carrying a faint thread of disappointment. "With that activation skill, she effectively operates at Four-Star equivalency."
Even taking the activation skill’s tier-jump into account, the c omparison was unflattering by Aldric’s standards. He’d seen Luke’s Spellcaster deploy an elaborate multi-skill toolkit. He’d seen the black dragon with its raw battlefield presence. He’d heard about the fusion with l Timaeus that had erupted at the Mist Relic. Compared to those, the small nun-themed card spirit, with her single-strike combat pattern and visibly fragile resting form, was undeniably the most modest entry in Luke’s portfolio.
Aldric was also, internally, comparing the new card against his own Polar Sea Fang, an ice-tier beast spirit that held its own against most dragon-class card spirits. By that benchmark, the small soft-cute figure on the monitor was significantly outclassed.
"Maybe we’ll see Luke deploy other card spirits soon," Aldric continued. "The new card’s ceiling is visible. To keep advancing in Phase Two, he’ll need to start fielding stronger spirits. I’m looking forward to that."
The current candidates remaining in Phase Two were the cohort’s elite. Continued advancement would force Luke to escalate his deployments. Aldric was, frankly, more interested in seeing what the dragons could do at scale than in watching another round of trident-and-light strikes.
Selene nodded.
"Even if this card’s combat capability stays at the current level, Luke has constructed two Original Worldviews. That alone places him beyond every other candidate in this exam. He could withdraw right now and Celestial Academy would still send recruiters."
The two Original Worldviews were, in any rational evaluation, the most important fact about Luke’s Phase One performance. Combat output from a single new card was a secondary consideration.
"No. The opposite may be true."
Lilith Crescent’s voice cut across the discussion with quiet authority. Both Aldric and Selene turned toward her.
"What we may be about to see is this card spirit’s actual power."
She kept her gaze on the monitoring feed.
"If the activation skill we just witnessed was all this card had to offer, Original Cards would be cheap. Luke crafted his card lineup with a coherent strategic intent. The earlier card-swipe action through the device wasn’t decorative. He registered that small spirit into the device for a reason, and the reason hasn’t been demonstrated yet."
Aldric and Selene exchanged a brief glance.
The Night Empress’s read was, as usual, several layers deeper than theirs. She’d noted the registration moment, tracked its operational implications, and concluded that significant unrevealed mechanics were still in play.
Selene was suddenly much more interested in the next round.
Inside the exam space.
The next portal opened.
Luke stepped through with Blanc walking beside him. The new arena resolved into a barren stone landscape, broken pillars scattered across the terrain, the lighting filtered through a thin gray haze.
The opponent appeared.
「 Gold-Eating Demon Rat 」 Race: Beast Quality: Common Level: ★★★★★ (Five-Star) Skills: Demonization, Tracking, Metallization, Frenzy
Two of them. Both standing upright on their hind legs, each easily reaching shoulder-height on a fully grown adult. Their fur was a deep oxidized bronze, with metallic plates rippling along their spines and forearms in jagged segmented patterns. Their incisors were the length of short swords, and their eyes glowed with predatory red-orange intelligence.
"Five-Star, in line with my estimate," Luke observed. The exam’s matchmaking had clearly escalated to the upper-mid tier now. Encountering Three-Star or Four-Star opposition this deep into Phase Two had become statistically unlikely.
He looked at the two rats and quietly suppressed a smile.
"Rats, though. That’s convenient."
Cats and mice were an ancient pairing, and Sistermon Noir, in her canonical form, had the visual presentation of a cat-themed Digimon. The matchup, in his head, was thematically perfect.
He produced the D-Ark from his card storage, the device unfolding into its handheld configuration with the smooth motion he was already getting used to. The Hyper Evolution Unit S surfaced in his other hand.
The two rats sensed something. They froze in their hunting posture. Their instincts, finely tuned for detecting apex threats, were reading the air in the arena and not liking what they detected.
"Blanche, time to go up."
Luke spun the D-Ark in his grip with practiced flair.
"Card Swipe! Hyper Evolution Unit S!"
The Hyper Evolution Unit S vanished into the D-Ark’s reader slot. The device responded with a pulse of golden light, and a torrent of densely-packed data poured out of it, sweeping outward toward Sistermon Blanc’s small figure.
The data engulfed her in a swirling cocoon of luminous information. The cocoon contracted, refining itself, and reshaped into a translucent shell.
A Digital Egg. freewёbnoνel.com
The familiar evolution sequence music started playing.
Luke’s lips twitched. "It actually does have BGM. I thought the system description was joking."
The Magic Card Civilization had apparently calibrated the D-Ark’s evolution sequence to include the canonical Digimon Tamers audio cues, complete with the rising orchestral theme that had played during every evolution scene in the source anime. The audio cue was, technically, useless. It was also unmistakably correct.
The two Gold-Eating Demon Rats took a step backward in unison. Whatever their predatory instincts had been telling them before, those instincts were now screaming.
The Digital Egg’s shell cracked.
"Sistermon Blanc, evolve!"
The shell shattered outward in concentric rings of light.
"Sistermon Noir!"
The figure that emerged was not Blanc.
She was wearing nun’s attire, but the color palette had inverted entirely. Where Blanc’s habit was pure white, this new figure’s was deep black, trimmed with subtle silver accents at the cuffs and hem. The robe’s silhouette was sleeker, the skirt cut for movement rather than modesty.
Her coif was also black, but the animal motif had changed. Where Blanc’s coif had been styled with rabbit ears, the new figure’s coif featured cat ears, slender and angled forward in a predatory alertness pose.
The visual contrast between Blanc and her evolved form was stark. White and black, gentle and sharp, prey-themed and predator-themed. The Sistermon line’s design philosophy had, apparently, been built around exactly this kind of duality.
「 Sistermon Blanc evolution successful. Sistermon Noir data updated. Mana backflow received. Realm advanced to Five-Star Leader Realm. 」
Luke blinked at the notification.
He hadn’t expected mana backflow from an evolution event. Standard tier advancement, by his understanding of the Magic Card Civilization’s mechanics, didn’t trigger realm advancement bonuses. That bonus was reserved for new card construction events. ƒreewebɳovel.com
Apparently the evolution from Blanc to Noir counted as a new card spirit being instantiated, even though the source data was Blanc’s existing identity. Noir was, technically, a separate card spirit, even if she shared evolution heritage with Blanc.
The bonus was modest. Four-Star Leader Realm to Five-Star Leader Realm. The full mana backflow he would have received from constructing Noir as an Original Card from scratch had been heavily discounted, presumably because the evolution wasn’t an entirely new construction. But it was still a free realm advancement, which was nothing to dismiss.
Luke filed the mechanic for future reference. Evolution events appeared to grant partial mana backflow when the evolved form represented a new card spirit identity. That implied that future evolutions, all the way up through Mega tier, might continue producing free realm advancements as he progressed.
"Tamer-sama, please leave the defensive line to me."
The new figure’s voice was significantly more confident than Blanc’s. Where Blanc had reported in with a soft, hesitant tone, Noir’s voice was warm and bright, carrying the easy cheer of someone who genuinely enjoyed her work. Her posture matched the voice, hands holding her weapons with practiced familiarity, one leg slightly forward in a comfortable standing-ready position.
The two weapons in her hands were dual pistols. Slender, ornate, finished in matching black-and-silver patterns that complemented her habit’s color scheme. The frames carried small engraved letters spelling out names that only Luke would recognize.
Anthony.
"You’ve got it, Noir," Luke confirmed, registering the personality difference between Blanc and Noir with quiet appreciation. The sunny demeanor in Noir’s voice was a useful counterweight to Blanc’s anxiety, and the shift in combat ethic, from defensive to offensive, opened tactical options Blanc hadn’t carried.
He glanced through the system info.
「 Sistermon Noir 」 Race: Digimon (Doll-type) Quality: Perfect Level: ★★★★★ (Five-Star) Skills: Mickey Bullet, Blessed Bullet, Sister Cross, Awakening
Mickey Bullet: Using dual pistols Anthony, performs spray-fire across a target zone. Hits inflict a crippling status; the affected target receives doubled damage on the next attack.
Blessed Bullet: Using dual pistols Anthony, performs a precise two-shot in rapid succession. Ignores defensive parameters.
Sister Cross: The signature combination technique of the Sistermon line. When activated, projects partial echoes of Sistermon Blanc and Sistermon Ciel for coordinated attack. Full-power output produces destructive force comparable to an Ultimate-tier Digimon.
Awakening: Activates the Holy Brand, entering an empowered state. Level increases by one tier for the duration.
"Skills loosely parallel Blanc’s, just translated from melee trident to ranged dual pistols," Luke noted. "Sister Cross and Awakening are shared design elements across the Sistermon line."
But where Blanc had jumped from Three-Star to Four-Star through Awakening, Noir was already at Five-Star base. Her quality had also escalated from Collectible to Perfect, the same tier as Mana. The evolution had pushed her two full tiers and one quality grade above Blanc’s starting point.
"If the evolution had selected Ciel instead of Noir, the stats should be roughly equivalent," Luke murmured. Sistermon Ciel and Sistermon Noir were both Champion-tier evolutions of Blanc, just on different evolution branches. Either choice would have produced a Five-Star Perfect card spirit. The Network Evolution had selected Noir based on environmental conditions, but Ciel remained accessible through different combat parameters in future engagements.
The two Gold-Eating Demon Rats were still standing rigid in their hunting posture. They hadn’t moved a step since the Digital Egg cracked.
They knew they were already dead. They just hadn’t been told yet.
