Yugioh Card Summoner

CH.610 Portal Exploration Squad: The Ice Citadel

[Unika POV]

On day 5, we left the frozen lands. We had already been on the outskirts of them, in the lands that just had snow and a little ice, but now we are heading out of that area.

Our first flight took us over the rest of the snowy forest, and eventually into warmer climate. It then slowly turned warmer and warmer until we reached a savanna.

It had some interesting monsters, Einar, Eline and Nora were especially interested in the big cats that called it home, so we landed there and I let them explore. 

They returned some time later with two new monsters. Einar had tamed an Earth Tiger, while Nora had tamed and made a contract with a Tiger Mole. 

A tiger mole is a monster that looks a lot like a tiger, but it has mole-like claws for digging through dirt. It lives underground and hunts by ambush. And they are C-rank.

Now, Nora can use Summoning Magic, so she doesn’t have any issues when it comes to her new monster, but Einar can’t. So he will have to wait until Brian can make that portable dimensional portal generator.

While they had been away searching for monsters, we had already set up camp and had prepared our dinner for tonight, so the three of them, and their two new monsters, headed inside and we ate together.

After the meal, I got in contact with Brian. I couldn’t do it on the last trip, as the phones don’t work this far away from the portal, but now that I had a System Support, I could talk to Brian whenever I wanted. It made the whole trip much better. 

But do you know what is even better than talking to him? Being with him. And I can do that now as well. As I laid in bed, I let my mind quiet down and thought about entering Brian’s Different Dimension Factory. From there, it didn’t feel like much, and when I opened my eyes, I was in the Factory.

I had been plenty of times before, but now that I came here with our System link, it felt different. It just felt … better. I think it is just the closeness. I know only those of us who are the closest to Brian can do it this way.

After appearing there, I was greeted by some of Brian’s monsters. They were members of the Factory Security Team, and they informed me that Brian was in the Control Room. Other than Brian, only Alice, Lua, Cailie, Wilma and I could get there. Even Janina couldn’t get there without Brian teleporting her in. But I was allowed there, so I used the Factory to teleport myself.

When I got there, Brian was working on something on the holo table with Wilma. A crossbow type weapon, I think. But it looked strange, as it had features that made it look like the guns some of Brian’s monsters have.

“Hope I’m not interrupting.” I spoke up, surprising Wilma, but Brian didn’t flinch.

“No. We were waiting.” Brian responded, as he saved the designs they had been working on.

“Yes… Nice to see you again.” Wilma said. “I hope you are all doing well.”

“Yes.” I answered. “Got out of the cold areas today and arrived at a savanna. Einar tamed a monster, so how is the progress on the portal thingy?”

“Yes, but it won’t be working in time. Tracing contracts across dimensions is already challenging. Add to that the opening of a temporary portal and you have yourself problems.” Brian told me.

“But you will do it, right?” I asked.

“Of course. Just give me some more time. It probably won’t be ready by the time you return, but it will get done.” Brian promised.

I then changed the subject, as I wanted to know more about what they had been working on.

“... so what was that weapon you were working on?”

“Oh that, it is…”

“May I?” Wilma asked.

“Go for it.” Brian let her take over.

“So plenty of Brian’s Machine monsters have these weapons called ‘revolvers’. You know, monsters like Barrel Dragon. So I wanted to make one.” Wilma began. “It isn’t that difficult, a revolver is a simple weapon really. Making the caratirage … Brian, what was it?”

“Cartridge.”

“That. Making those was the difficult part. So I wanted to make something that doesn’t need them. So I made a revolving gun that uses magic to launch small pieces of metal.” Wilma said. “But as you know, guns and cannons don’t get boosts from your stats and don’t really work with System skills. So I wanted to try something that might work. A revolving crossbow. But that ran into the same problem as all crossbows. It doesn’t let you use your Strength stat. 

So instead, a magic revolving crossbow. It still shoots arrows, so the ‘shot’ skills work with it. And since you power it with mana, your Magic stat influences the speed of the arrows. It isn’t exactly perfect and we need to work on it, but it does work.”

“Yeah. You need mana control of at least level 8, preferably something like 13, to make it work.” Brian added.

“That is so high! Why does it need that?” I asked.

“Because if it doesn’t, you lose the power boost. We can make one that only needs like level 3 mana control, but it has minimal boost based on your magic stat. With this design, you get a really nice boost, but it is difficult to use. We are trying to balance between those two things.” Brian explained.

“So magic is difficult, got it.” I jokingly said. “... can you make me a bow that shoots arrows made of light?” I asked. I had tried to use Solar Flare Fox to make foxes that can be used as arrows, but I haven’t succeeded yet. So maybe if they can turn these magical crossbows into something that can make arrows, I could shoot arrows of light and fire.

“We can look into that.” Brian said.

“Some of the Ally of Justice monsters use plasma weapons. Isn’t that basically light?” Wilma asked. “Maybe we can use that?”

“Plasma is actually much closer to fire.” Brian said. “It is like …”

He then went on a decently long explanation about plasma and the stages of matter. It was somewhat interesting, but maybe because of everything that happened today, or maybe just because of Brian’s ‘teacher’ voice, I ended up falling asleep mid explanation.

The next day, our exploration of the Monster World continued.

We were flying past the rest of the savanna, and we found a desert. I had seen a small desert before, but for the Wild Pack members, and Rahman, it was their first time seeing one.

Rahman was actually the one that requested we stop at a few locations, as he wanted to take samples of the sand. I placed the samples into Storage and soon enough, Oku told me that Tahlia had analyzed the samples.

The sand samples had some interesting things. Like the fact that the sand was silica sand, which can be used to make glass. Normal deserts don’t have sand that can be used for glass making, so having an entire desert with sand that can is really cool.

There was also something called star sand. It was sand mixed with stardust, a form of magic needed for star titanium. But that sand was only in one spot within the desert. Maybe some monster in this world can use stardust, like Brian’s Star dragons can.

I don’t know if this star sand can be used for star titanium, but I made sure to gather up some, and also mark down the location. Maybe Brian will come check it out himself when he has the time.

In terms of monsters, the desert mainly had desert worms and sand alligators. There were some others, but no one wanted to make a contract with anything.

Day 7 of the second exploration.

We got out of the desert area, and found an ocean. An ocean next to a desert? Well, I guess that can happen.

Sea monsters were definitely interesting, as being able to summon them could be helpful. But sadly, we didn’t have large ships capable of underwater travels, so we couldn’t really explore the seas.

Yes, the B.E.S. ships can survive underwater, but they aren’t that mobile underwater. So if we run into a powerful underwater monster, we might be in serious trouble. Because of that, I simply had our ship follow the coast of the ocean.

Maybe I’ll ask Brian for some undersea monsters and we will return to explore the sea.

On day 8, we found another frozen land. It began with the ocean itself starting to freeze, and as we followed along what I believed to be the coastline, we reached another land of ice and snow. 

Unlike the last snow area, this area had plenty of weak monsters. Especially these small plant-monsters that had clearly adjusted for living in this cold climate.

Mer wanted to make contracts with them, and managed a few. She was really interested in how these plant monsters were living in an area like this, as usually they couldn’t, so she made sure to get some contracts.

Sadly the little plants couldn’t talk, so we didn’t get information out of them. Instead we kept searching.

We found some snow elks, who we were able talk to. Luckily most of the monsters in this world are quite calm, as they don’t fear people. Or death. 

From them, we found out the most powerful monsters in these lands. One of them was a fur covered giant, which Brian called a Yeti when I told him about it.

Another was the Eternal Ice Snake, a super long snake monster made of ice.

The last one was an ice dragon. They said she didn’t used to be a big threat, but recently she got more powerful and has tried to claim the territory of the ice dragons for herself.

And that, to my ears, sounds like Himeśaila. She has always been quite arrogant, and Brian did recently rank her up, so she would have gotten more powerful. 

We thanked the snow elks for the information, gave them some food in return, and headed for the dragon area.

Going into a dragon area might sound scary, but we had Brian’s cards on our side. Including the Dragon Capture Jar. It will prevent dragons from attacking us, and if they try to force despite it, the Jar will capture the dragon.

With that, we made our way to the ice hills, until we found a citadel made of ice. It was clearly inspired by HomeBase, so it was quite clear that we had found who we were looking for.

There were some ice lizards guarding the entrance, armed with spears made of ice. At first they didn’t want to let us in, but after I summoned Lady of D. and had her explain that we are here to see Himeśaila, they let us pass.

As we walked into the ice citadel, I began to notice statues. Statues made of us, depicting people. Us. 

Alice, Lua, Cailie, Wilma and myself. And featured prominently at a central location was Brian and Janina.

It was honestly quite beautiful, and it really made me realize that Himeśaila is more than her icy exterior. She does care for us, enough that she has made statues of us.

As we were looking at the statues, a few more ice lizards came to us. They were wearing clothes made of ice, and those clothes were a copy of the maid outfits the HomeBase servants wore.

They led us to an audience chamber, and at the end of that chamber, sleeping on a bed made of ice, was the dragon we were looking for. 

One of the lizard maids made their way to the dragon and gently shook her to wake her up. Eventually Himeśaila raised her head and faced us. 

{... Oh? … Interesting visitors came this time.} She spoke in Draconic, but luckily Lady of D. could translate it for us.

“Hello, Himeśaila.” I greeted her. I know from experience that she understands and can speak the common language.

The dragon began to glow, as her form shrank down. By the time she was done transforming, she looked like a young girl, dressed in a beautiful ball gown made of ice and dragon scales.

“... hi, Unika. … I hope you liked the statue.” She greeted us meekly, almost like she was afraid that I didn’t like the one she made to look like me.

“I think they are amazing.” I told her, and that clearly perked her up. “But you might need to update mine.” I added, as I flared out my nine tails. After all, the statue still had me with just two.