The First Lich

 "Chance is a fickle mistress. One day you could wake up to a fortune and the next total ruin. Many think they are the one who will win while they see many others fail. It is through hard work and a strong foundation that success is built."

 My first card. This is a very important milestone in my cultivation. Before I even try to create it, I need to decide my 'build.' I already know I am going to want to be a spell-slinging reality-bending mage but that is too broad of a build to use. First of all, I have the undeath energy core card. That sounds like something a necromancer build would flourish with. I do like the idea of having an army of minions that never tire, never fear, and never hunger. Looking around, I grab a stack of papers, ink, and a quill. Staring at the quill reminds me of all the frustration that came with it. Hours spent with my mom... I need to focus! I am never going to get anywhere if I let myself get lost in what I lost. Ok, I need to write down what I will require form my path. First of all, Sustainability is a must. Self-sustainability is even better. I will not be able to go into towns and cities to get specialty supplies. This means that I will need to go down a combat-crafter-summoner route.

 Combat because living in the wilds is dangerous, and I will need to travel to gather rare materials and supplies. Crafting will be necessary to turn those gathered materials into cards and other things that will allow me to not only survive but thrive. I am thinking of throwing summoning into the mix because many hands will make light work. I just hope whatever I can make at first is smart enough to not get in the way. That is pretty much the base of everything I need. 

 Now, I want to be a mage. That means for the combat part I will need a way for enemies to not be able to harm me. Summoning will help with that. The next part and last part of combat, as my dad used to say, is to kill. After that thought I force myself to continue to write. In order to kill something, I will need some form of damage dealing ability. Right now, I am safe enough to focus on other parts of my path. That means I can focus my first core card on enhancing essence weaving. That will help me to both craft cards and cast spells with essence. Currently I could lob balls of undeath essence at things but that is one of the most basic forms of attack spells out there. I can do better than that.

 For my card crafting I don't want to have to go to a certain place to craft. One of my favorite books that I read while growing up here is the Spell Weaver. It tells the story of one of the most powerful mages to be born during the reclamation age. During that age there were many abominations, rouge relics, and haywire spells still roaming the land. All of these dangers from the war caused the surface to be extremely hostile to any form of civilized life. Newly established villages disappeared overnight, and fortified castles were always on the verge of collapse. During this time the Weaver was one of the most successful mages there was. This was all due to how he was able to sustain himself in areas where even air was a precious commodity. I need to be able to craft anywhere and at any time. I think I will name my path Necrotic Manipulator for now. 

 For my first card, I think I will be doing something with my hands. One arm slot will be dedicated to control over my arms while the other will need to enhance my essence manipulation. Next would be my eyes. I need to be able to see essence. This will allow me to have finer control over essence and recognize patterns in the cards. That will allow me to copy the patterns into a notebook for reference. That is a good idea! one of my card slots could be for that! Now that I have an idea of what I need, I now have to craft cards to figure out how to do it.

 As I get ready to craft a card, I set what I have written to my side and set a new sheet of paper where it was. Out of the corner of my eye I notice my mom's desk. Looking at the mess of papers and books around me and the bookshelf I am leaning against. My mood dies a little and I whisper, "Old habits die hard." Gathering up the sheets of paper I walk over to the desk and set everything down. As I stand there and look at the chair that my mother always used, I hesitate before sitting down. I need to focus for this next part.

 As I shove my sadness back down, I reach into my core and grab a strand of essence. It honestly is a lot easier than I thought it would be. All I did was grab some of the essence sitting in my core and pulled it through one of the holes in my core. As I pulled it out it naturally was turned and twisted into a strand by the movement of my core. I can already see the benefits of modifying my core. The other benefit is the unexpected cycle of undeath essence that has started in the room. As I noticed that the grip I had on the strand loosened and was sucked back into my core. That could make things more difficult.

 Ignoring what just happened I turn my attention back to what I can sense in the room. A sort of cycle has been happening all around me and I haven't noticed. This is exactly why I want one of my cards to allow me to be able to see essence. I would have noticed this sooner. From what I can sense, as I read essence was gathered in my core and when my core filled up it was forced through the holes in my core. A normal core would gather essence into my core and stop once full, but mine didn't. Instead, once it filled up it started to spill back out. This caused my core to gather all the essence in the room and turn it into undeath essence. 

 Once there was no more essence to convert in the room it just started to circulate my essence which seemed to have stopped it from getting contaminated. Whenever other essences that leaked into the room from outside tried to convert the undeath essence into something else my core would consume both it and the contaminated essence turning back. As I sat there, I was amazed at the battle that my core was battling against the other essences. Magic is awesome. If this is what was happening on a larger scale to the Deadlands, then I need to get as much power as soon as possible. Getting back to the task at hand, I reminded myself great power needs an equal foundation to base itself off of.

 Focusing back on my core, I grabbed another strand of essence out and watched as it was spun into a single thread as I pulled it out. Then I grabbed the end of it and started to spin it into a ball. After a fourth of my core had been emptied, I cut the base of the string and prepared to compress the ball of undeath essence I had made. In order to focus on compressing it easier, I grabbed the sides of the ball with my hands. Even though I can't use my physical strength to compress it, the image will help me to focus my mental strength. Then I squeezed. The room faded out of view and all I was focusing on is making the ball smaller. When I had finished making it, it looked like a baseball sized ball of yarn.

 As I squeezed, I felt a mounting resistance. When it got to the size of a chicken's egg, I couldn't get it any smaller. As I held it there, I felt the essence wiggling and shifting into something new. This was the process of creating a random card. For what felt like hours, I held it there. Eventually I couldn't hold it anymore. My hold on the essence slipped and the ball floated into the air in front of me. Just as it reached eye level it started to resolve into a card. As I watched I could sense the essence settling into its new form. The card seemed to be half formed, but it seemed stable at least. I slowly reached up to grab it. As my hands brushed against it, it dropped towards my hand and promptly missed. I wasn't prepared for it to stop hovering, so it hit the floor with a clatter. It fell face down on the floor.

 As I reached to pick it up, I heard a crack like glass cracking. That sounds important. I take the basement steps two at a time and slam into the nearest window seal. As I glanced out the window, I saw cracks like a spider web spread across the barrier and it shattered.