Ethan glanced at his status panel and blinked.
Right. He wasn't just a Card Maker. He was a Card Master.
Which meant he could actually use the cards he made.
He looked down at the purple-bordered card in his hand, and an idea sparked.
Cards could be summoned and recalled at will — that was the basic mechanic. But there was a critical catch: if a summoned character died while deployed, they didn't just go back into the card. They were gone. Permanently. The card would be nothing but a blank piece of expensive cardboard.
After recalling a card, there was a one-hour cooldown before it could be summoned again. The timer started the moment you pulled them back.
Out in the wild — in Rift explorations, for example — you had to recall your cards before they took lethal damage. Miss that window, and your investment was toast.
Ethan stared at the Big Big Wolf card, turning it over in his fingers. He hesitated for a few seconds.
Should he try summoning it?
He had 700 Psionic Energy, and a Tier 1 card only cost 100 to deploy. The math wasn't the issue.
The real question was what would happen. Cards at Purple quality and above were supposed to have independent consciousness — actual thoughts and personality. Maybe Big Big Wolf could help him brainstorm the rest of his deck.
"Screw it. Let's find out."
He walked to the open space in the middle of the living room, held out the card, and channeled Psionic Energy into it.
Purple light erupted from the card's surface, swirling outward and sketching a luminous portal in the air. The light pulsed once, twice — and then a figure stepped through.
Ethan's jaw dropped.
It was anime style.
Not the photorealistic look every other card in this world produced. Not a flesh-and-blood wolf standing in his living room. This was a two-dimensional character rendered in three-dimensional space, as if someone had reached into a TV screen and pulled out a cartoon.
The Big Big Wolf standing before him was exactly the same as the one he'd drawn on the card. White lab coat. Protective goggles. Scanner on his head. Welding torch in hand. Every line, every color, every exaggerated proportion — all perfectly preserved.
"Eh?" Big Big Wolf landed, stumbled slightly, then steadied himself. He looked down at his paws, flexed them experimentally. Reached up and touched his own face. Then, slowly, he raised his gaze to meet Ethan's.
"Is this the real world?" His voice was exactly like the cartoon — slightly nasal, vaguely pompous, with an undercurrent of genuine curiosity. "Looks a bit different from the show."
"You can tell you're an animated character?" Ethan asked carefully.
"Obviously." Big Big Wolf shrugged, then strolled over to the couch and sat down like he owned the place, crossing one leg over the other. "I've got all the memories up here." He tapped his temple. "I know I'm from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf. And I'm guessing you're my boss now? A Card Master?"
"Something like that." Ethan walked over and sat across from him. "I'm Ethan. The guy who made your card."
"Made my card." Big Big Wolf tilted his head, looking thoughtful. "So you... created me? Or more like you pulled this King out of the story and dropped me into your world?"
"That's one way to look at it."
"Interesting." He stroked his chin with one claw. "So why'd you do it? There aren't even any sheep here."
Ethan stared at him.
What kind of logic is that? You're acting like you could actually catch one. And didn't you end up friends with Pleasant Goat anyway?
He decided not to say any of that.
"Hey — before we get into it," Ethan said, reaching for a scrap of paper on the side table, "sign this for me."
Big Big Wolf gave him a deeply confused look.
But he signed it anyway.
Ethan tucked the autograph away carefully, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. A childhood dream he'd never expected to fulfill — getting Big Big Wolf's autograph. In person. Sort of.
With that out of the way, he explained the situation: the Card Master Tournament, his deck strategy, and the equipment problem he was trying to solve.
Big Big Wolf listened with his arms crossed, eyes darting back and forth as the gears turned.
"So what you're saying," the wolf summarized, "is you need a card that lets me build stuff. Equipment, gadgets, weapons — that sort of thing."
"Exactly."
Big Big Wolf thought for a moment. "How big is a Tier 1 field card's coverage area?"
"About thirty feet, give or take." Ethan wasn't entirely sure — the original Ethan had never used a field card — but that was his best estimate.
"Thirty feet is plenty." Big Big Wolf's eyes lit up. "Make me a thirty-foot junkyard, and this King will have a mech built for you in under a minute."
The second the words left the wolf's mouth, Ethan understood.
Of course. Why hadn't he thought of that?
Field cards were a special category. When deployed, they generated a specific environment in a designated area — forests, deserts, city ruins, you name it. Most players used them as terrain advantages or to block line-of-sight.
But for Big Big Wolf? A junkyard field card wouldn't be cover. It would be a buffet.
"I'll start right now."
"Whoa, whoa — slow down, Boss." Big Big Wolf waved a paw. "Think about the settings first. A junkyard can't just be an empty lot. You need to define what's in there. You can't expect this King to build a mech out of plastic bottles and tin cans."
Funny you should say that, Ethan thought. In the show, you built rockets out of worse.
But this was reality — or close enough — so he took the wolf's advice seriously.
They spent the next half hour hammering out the details. What kind of scrap materials. What categories of parts — mechanical, electrical, structural. The density and variety of the junk pile. Whether materials should regenerate over time.
By the end of it, they had a complete blueprint.
"Alright." Ethan stood up, ready to get to work. "I'll build it now."
Big Big Wolf raised a paw. "Hold on, Boss."
"What?"
"Send me back first. I've got dinner with Red."
Ethan blinked. "...You can go back for dinner?"
"After I return to the card, I go back to my world. Where else would I go?" Big Big Wolf spread his paws like this was the most obvious thing in the universe. "Look, I appreciate you bringing me here. I really do. But this wolf has a wife, a kid, and a warm bed waiting for him."
Ethan had never heard of anything like this.
The original Ethan had never owned a Purple card. White and Blue cards didn't have intelligence — they were basically NPCs, following orders without any inner life. Nobody had ever mentioned that Purple-tier characters could go home when recalled.
"...Alright then." He pulled out the Big Big Wolf card. The illustration on its face had gone gray — the universal indicator that the card was currently deployed.
Big Big Wolf walked to the center of the living room, gave a jaunty wave, and grinned. "See you next time, Boss. And make that junkyard good — this King has standards!"
Ethan willed him back.
A streak of purple light — and Big Big Wolf was gone. The card's illustration brightened, returning to its normal vivid state.
The apartment was quiet again.
Ethan let out a slow breath, sat down at the desk, and got to work.
The story setting for the field card was straightforward:
Tucked into a forgotten corner of the city sat a small, unremarkable scrap yard — the kind of place people drove past without a second glance. Discarded machinery and salvaged parts from every industry imaginable piled up year-round, forming mountains of rust and possibility.
To most, it was trash. To anyone with the right eye, it was a goldmine — gears, wiring, hydraulic cylinders, circuit boards, structural steel, all waiting to be repurposed.
Strangely, the yard never seemed to run dry. Even when cleared out completely, new scrap would materialize within days, as if the place had a will of its own.
He picked up the pen and started drawing.
This one came together fast. Field cards didn't demand the same level of character artistry — what mattered was atmosphere. Conveying the density, the clutter, the feeling that anything useful could be buried in the next pile.
Twenty minutes.
The story injection was even simpler. Field cards cared less about narrative and more about environmental completeness. The System wanted to know: what does this place look like? What's in it? What are its properties?
He wasn't shooting for Purple here. Blue was fine. Blue was perfect.
The card glowed.
White light... then blue.
[Card Name]: Small Scrap Recycling Station
[Quality]: Blue (Rare)
[Rank]: Tier 1
[Type]: Field Card
[Story System]: None
[Cost]: 100 Psionic Energy
[Effect]: Summons a 30ft × 30ft scrap yard at a designated location for ten minutes. The field contains a large quantity of scrap mechanical parts and raw materials.
[Trait]:Part Regeneration — Automatically generates a small amount of basic components every minute.
[Evaluation]:"One man's trash is another wolf's arsenal."
"Done." Ethan pumped his fist.
The combo was online. Big Big Wolf plus the scrap yard. Deploy them together, and the wolf could arm himself — or build something far more dangerous — before the enemy even crossed half the field.
Now he just needed to figure out what else to pair with them.
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.