"So right now, Mana can reflect Seven-Star attacks." Luke turned the implications over in his head. "Combined with the Spell Tome's power boost, Magical Hats' teleportation, and now Magic Cylinder's reflection, she can handle multiple same-tier opponents simultaneously."
The loadout was becoming genuinely frightening. A Six-Star Spellcaster with equipment that gave her damage amplification, spatial repositioning, and attack reflection. Any opponent who rushed Mana with a big attack risked having it thrown right back in their face.
"And with the Eye of Timaeus on top of all that…" Luke's eyes narrowed. The fusion would push Mana to Seven-Star Legendary. At that point, she'd be operating in the same tier as the Abyss Predator that had required the Red-Eyes Black Dragon to kill. "If we ran into another Predator-class opponent, I might not even need to sacrifice Black Star. Mana alone, fused with Timaeus, could handle it."
"Master, did you make a new card?" Two slender arms wrapped around him from behind, and a familiar scent filled his nose. Mana's voice was soft and sleep-warm against his ear.
She'd felt his level increase. That was enough to wake her from a dead sleep. After materializing her outfit, she'd floated over immediately, drawn by the new energy signature like a moth to a flame.
Her chin settled on his shoulder, and her green eyes locked onto the Magic Cylinder card in his hand. Something flickered behind those eyes. A resonance. A pull.
This card felt right in a way that went beyond the usual compatibility. The Spell Tome had strengthened her. Magical Hats had expanded her options. But Magic Cylinder felt like it had been built specifically for her. Like it had always been hers, and Luke had simply given it a physical form.
She wasn't wrong. In the anime, Dark Magician Girl and Magic Cylinder were practically inseparable. The image of her shouldering the twin cylinders was burned into the collective memory of an entire generation of fans.
"Yeah." Luke noticed the way she was looking at the card. He pulled her around to face him, then pressed Magic Cylinder against her chest the same way he'd equipped the Spell Tome and Magical Hats.
The card dissolved into her body without resistance. Her aura spiked, a noticeable increase in presence and power, though not enough to push her quality up a tier. She'd need more equipment cards for that.
"Master, this new card is… special." Mana's expression was a mixture of delight and mischief. She understood the effect intuitively. Attack reflection. An enemy's most powerful strike suddenly reversing course and slamming back into them. Ironic justice at its finest, and it appealed to her on a fundamental level.
For anyone fighting against her, Magic Cylinder was going to be infuriating.
"So," Luke said, watching the mischief dance across her face, "don't I deserve a reward?"
"Mm!" A bright, wordless sound. Mana's cheeks flushed, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek, then with a quick wave of her hand, the curtains drew themselves shut.
-----
Some time later.
"Come to think of it, there's an upgrade card for Magic Cylinder." Luke touched the spot on his cheek where Mana had kissed him, his mind drifting back to the Yu-Gi-Oh card pool. "Barrel Behind the Door. In the original game, it doubled the reflected damage and had a search effect."
If he could build it in Magic Card Civilization, even with reduced effects, the combination would push Magic Cylinder from devastating to absurd. Reflected damage times two. That turned a Seven-Star attack bounced back at its source into an impact that hit like an Eight-Star strike.
He filed the idea away. Future project.
"Time to see what the Second Authority actually does."
He opened his status panel.
*「 Luke Mercer 」*
Level: Nine-Star Commander
Authority 1: Fantasy Forge / Simulated Crafting
Authority 2: Rewrite and Reorganize / Consume mana to rewrite a designated material, reorganizing it into a material the user requires. The reorganized material maintains equivalent quality to the original.
Tools: Card Editor, Card Index
Materials: Bug Heart, Puppet Key, Dark Night Veil, Radiant Moth Cloak…
Skill: Extract
Card 1: Dark Magician Girl
Card 2: Red-Eyes Black Star Dragon
Equipment: Spell Tome
Counter Cards: Magical Hats, Magic Cylinder
Special Card: Eye of Timaeus
Luke read the Second Authority's description three times.
"This is broken."
Materials were the eternal bottleneck for every Card Master in existence. From beginners to Sovereigns to Immortals, every single one of them was constrained by what materials they could find, buy, or harvest. Entire expeditions into dangerous Dimensional Planes were mounted for the sole purpose of acquiring specific ingredients. Card Masters died chasing materials.
Rewrite and Reorganize cut through all of that. Any material Luke didn't need could be converted into one he did. Same quality tier, different substance. Waste became opportunity. Leftovers became building blocks.
It was, in practical terms, a material manufacturing system limited only by Luke's mana reserves and the quality ceiling he could currently process.
"Equal quality exchange means I can't create something from nothing. But I can turn ten useless green-tier materials into ten green-tier materials I actually need. That's not nothing. That's everything."