Ryan's

"1383 DR, the Month of the First Thaw, the Day of Early Dew

Following me into this world, the Spark that had stayed with me for 16 years had finally faded away. From now on, I might be the only one who still remembered a Dwarf planeswalker named Augustus.

Only today did I discover that Augustus had, in fact, left something behind. At the moment of his death, he had placed his knowledge and cards within the Spark as a gift for some fortunate successor who would inherit his planeswalker legacy.

Unfortunately, after drifting through the boundless depths of the Void for who knew how many years, Augustus's deck had been completely depleted just to preserve the Spark. Only two basic cards remained.

I thought that if my soul from another world hadn't happened to collide with the Spark drifting through the Void, then given a little more time, Augustus's legacy and the traces he left behind would have vanished like passing clouds.

No one in this vast world would remember the Dwarf Mage who had once stood up for his people and brought down three Arcane Floating Cities in a fierce battle for what he believed was right. No one would ever miss him again.

I hadn't wielded the power of a planeswalker for long, but I was already deeply awed by its wondrous might. Whether it was forging pacts with all things and summoning projections of their power through cards, or casting spells instantly and raising barriers with the aid of cards, these abilities were all incredibly powerful.

The ability to cross space and time allowed planeswalkers to encounter different systems of power and expand their repertoire. What made me happy was that I now had hope of returning home.

Like a fox dying with its head turned toward its den, or fallen leaves returning to their roots, the wanderer in a foreign land would one day return home!

After spending the night organizing and reviewing the memories and legacy Augustus had left behind, I discovered that this power was far more wondrous and mighty than I'd imagined.

The planeswalker card—the one inscribed with "Ryan Chris"—was actually a ticket to immortality!

No, no, that wasn't quite right. I should say that it was the very symbol of immortality!

The numbers on the card were far more important than I'd imagined.

It turned out that when I first came into contact with the planeswalker card, the Spark had spent some of its original mana to summon me into the present world as a planeswalker. In other words, I'd summoned myself?

But those were minor details. The most important thing was that as long as I could spend 10 points of blue or green mana every day, I wouldn't die of natural aging. In other words, I was already immortal?!

No wonder Augustus had been able to face off against the greatest creations of the Magical Empire—the Floating Cities—all by himself. Though he had not the slightest trace of highborn blood, with thousands of years of experience behind him, the Dwarf planeswalker had wielded power like that of a god.

Unfortunately, I was still far too weak. This immortality gave me no sense of security at all; instead, it only made me more anxious. If those nearly-mad Legendary Mages and demigods of Faerûn, whose lifespans were almost up, learned of it, they would stop at nothing to get their hands on this power.

Just imagining a horde of demigods and Legendary Mages coming after me made my scalp prickle. I'd better keep being careful and stick to my principle of staying under the radar until I'd carved out a future.

I absolutely couldn't use a planeswalker's abilities unless I had no other choice. If I exposed myself, it would be like a child walking through a busy market with a fortune in gold—and running to another plane might be my only option.

But I learned from the legacy that the upkeep cost of being a planeswalker increased along with one's strength. That meant a planeswalker had to keep traveling to build up their resources and expand their repertoire, maintaining the balance that way. Augustus had especially warned me never to pursue strength so obsessively that I neglected to build up my reserves. If a planeswalker ever became unable to pay his upkeep, eternal oblivion would be all that awaited him.

That answered one of my questions. Planeswalkers never stayed in one place like those reclusive Legendary Mages, shutting themselves away to study and struggle toward the next level.

As they grew, their level rose and their power increased, and they became more adept at using Chronos Cards. At the same time, the mana required to sustain them also increased, so they needed more and stronger Land Cards to remain immortal. That was why planeswalkers kept traveling through space and time.

I also discovered something amazing. Although planeswalker cards were called Chronos Cards, they were, in essence, contracts between a planeswalker and the natural environments, creatures, machines, objects, spells, and even abstract concepts of different worlds. Cards were simply the form in which the Spark granted them power; in reality, they could take any shape the user desired.

I gave it a try and successfully turned a card into a huge, star-shaped sapphire. The card's image appeared in the center of the gem, while the text appeared across its facets. It was absolutely amazing.

But when I thought about having to throw away those gorgeous, exquisitely crafted gems whenever I used them in battle, my heart began to ache. It was practically like bludgeoning people with money. My poor heart couldn't take that kind of shock, so I promptly turned them back into cards.

Perhaps if I ever ran into a difficult enemy, I could turn the cards into something like excrement and throw them at him. It wouldn't be very damaging, but it would be incredibly humiliating.

As for why they took the form of cards, I searched through all the legacy information in the system records and finally found a rough explanation tucked away in a corner.

According to Augustus's records, planeswalkers used cards to carry their power for two reasons. First, cards were light, portable, inconspicuous, and extremely practical. I agreed with that. And cards were cool to use, too.

The second reason came from a legend. Nobody knew how long ago, but the first planeswalker had come into being somewhere in the endless reaches of space and time. There were all sorts of stories about this pioneer. Some said he was a monster hunter who carried two swords; others insisted he was a bearded tavern owner.

Whatever the truth, this pioneer had lived by the principle, "When in doubt, play a round." He had established the name and design of Chronos Cards, including their costs, creature types, card levels, and so on, thereby founding the planeswalker tradition. Most planeswalkers had kept to these conventions ever since. It was a tradition, after all.

Still, I had to say, that legend was full of holes. Could that monster hunter have been the legendary White Wolf, Geralt? If the world of the Conjunction of the Spheres had planeswalkers, Geralt was certainly the most likely candidate.

If being a planeswalker meant playing cards, then I was all fired up. The skills I'd honed playing Gwent and Hearthstone in my previous life would finally come in handy in this one.

But I still had no idea why I'd known about these worlds in my previous life.

Whether it was the continent of Faerûn where I lived in this life, the familiar, towering peak of High Hrothgar in Skyrim that I'd seen in Augustus's memories, or Stormwind City from World of Warcraft, which had left a deep impression on me—all of these places had appeared in games in my previous life!

Was this the result of higher-dimensional information spreading and becoming entangled between different worlds in the multiverse, or was it because of something special about Blue Star itself?

If it was the former, I'd have a general idea once I'd traveled through a few worlds and checked whether similar stories and games existed in different ones. But if it was the latter, I might have to reassess the significance of that seemingly ordinary blue planet from my previous life.

There was one last thing. It wasn't until I became a planeswalker that I discovered the true nature of that pocket dimension. I really had underestimated the power of planeswalkers."

Ryan stopped writing there. Then he seemed to recall how, at midnight, the strange changes in the pocket dimension he'd treasured so dearly had made him feel as if the sky were falling and left him utterly hopeless.

Ryan sighed softly, feeling relieved. A Spark appeared in his palm, then its fiery heart expanded rapidly. The brilliant sparks swelled a thousandfold, ten thousandfold, and swept through the entire room like a tide.

Ryan's vision blurred. Suddenly, he was in a boundless, vast, misty space. Faint gray fog surrounded him on every side, stretching so far that there was no end in sight in any direction.

Ryan floated calmly in the vast emptiness, moving forward with his thoughts. He flew for a while before a desolate plain suddenly appeared amid the endless gray fog, as conspicuous as a dark spot of ink on a sheet of white paper.

All around the plain, white light rippled outward in concentric circles. Ryan looked at the scene before him and continued writing.

"It turned out that the pocket dimension Augustus left behind was a remnant of a planeswalker's world. My newly kindled Spark had reactivated it, giving me a new planeswalker's world of my own.

According to Augustus's records, a planeswalker's world was a unique canvas upon which planeswalkers could freely paint their infinite possibilities and wonders.

The gray mist drifting through a planeswalker's world represented the chaos of creation, the graveyard of all Chronos Cards after their destruction. The planeswalker's world was also the planeswalker's deck, where all Chronos Cards existed. Most importantly, the Land Cards projected their terrain into this world, becoming unique landscapes.

Unfortunately, I currently had only one basic Land Card, inherited from the Dwarf planeswalker:

[Western Wasteland:

Type: Basic Hill

Effect: Produces 12 white mana per day

Dragonfall Land, the beginning of legend]

I now truly understood why Land Cards were the foundation of everything. I only wished I were stronger. Then I could claim a piece of every place I'd seen and turn it into my own Land Card. I'd have to try to see if I could turn my family's lands into one. Otherwise, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had no real foundation.

From Augustus's memories, I'd also seen a glimpse of what the Dwarf planeswalker's world looked like: towering brass spires alongside vast, magnificent cities of steel; enormous steam-powered constructs and iron spiders covering the entire city; countless streams of white mana shining as brilliantly as the sun. The entire world was steeped in the Dwarves' crude, simple style.

According to his records, he had inherited this technology and legacy from a vanished people called the Dwemer on a planet called Nirn. The sense of déjà vu was so strong that I'd bet my head that if this wasn't the world of The Elder Scrolls, I'd stand on my head and wash my hair!

I really couldn't wait to see what my own planeswalker's world would look like in the future. I imagined it would be magnificent and awe-inspiring, too."

Ryan recorded the shocks and emotions he'd experienced that day in the system, then created a new folder in a prominent place on the home page and named it "Planeswalker's Journal."

Smiling with satisfaction, Ryan pulled back the curtains and looked outside. The heavy, ink-black curtain of night was slowly lifting, little by little. Dawn was near.