Bab 4: Testing

The same night that Tobias manifested his quirk, he wanted to test the limits of his newly awakened quirk.

'Okay, mom and dad are asleep. I want to sneak out and go to a park and test out my quirk. But should I? I think I'll hold off on that for now, just until I'm more familiar with my quirk. For now, I'll do some tests in my room.' he thought, before picking up the deck of cards that his parents gave him earlier in the day.

'I already tried TF's stun ability, I should try to do his other two empowered cards, the red card, and the blue card. The red card is pretty simple, a small mana explosion that also slows, while the blue card might be harder to make since it's a mana restoration card. Though in my case it would be a stamina restoration card. But the question now is, can my cards work if I don't hit something or someone?

Can I use them in a more Yu-Gi-Oh style with monsters, spell cards, and trap cards or is it only Twisted Fate style where the cards have to hit the opponent, except for the teleportation? Or does it depend on how I imagine the effect? If I imagine the effects of a stun card, I subconsciously go to TF's stun card, which has to hit. But if I imagine a stun card where the effect is a bolt of lighting meant to stun in a similar fashion to TF's, can I activate it from my hand?

This ability is a lot more intricate than I first imagined. I thought it would be more like TF but it seems it's more like Card Magic from Fairy Tail. If I remember correctly, the Card Magic user from Fairy Tail both throws the cards and activates them from hand to launch a spell. To be honest, I'm glad it's more like Card Magic since it adds another usage path compared to TF. Anyways, let me try to create the blue card.'

Picking out a single card from the deck, Tobias began to think about creating the blue card. From his passive intuition, he was able to figure out that creating one blue card would take almost 50% of his stamina and the return would be 15%.

'That's a lot better than I expected. 15% stamina regain is incredible. I could create a lot of blue cards to hold in reserve and I could theoretically fight forever. Though it might restore stamina, I suppose it doesn't restore mental fatigue. What if I try to create a mental fatigue restoration card and a combo of stamina and mental fatigue? I'm certain the stamina cost would be through the roof but it's not like I have to make it figure it out.'

Using the same card, Tobias began to think about creating a mental fatigue restoration card only to find out he didn't have enough stamina to create a single one.

'I thought it would be almost my entire stamina, but for it to be more than I can afford is a little surprising. I guess when it comes to things related to the mind, the cost is higher. I'll hold off on creating reserve stamina restoration cards until I'm done testing. Actually, I don't even know if the card will last forever or if they return to normal after a certain amount of time has passed. Another thing to test out.

Now, let me try to create the red card. A small explosion plus slow effect, I'm guessing it'll take more than the gold but less than the blue card.'

As with the other two tests, Tobias imagined the card effect he wanted and knew that to create the red card would take 5%.

'Not bad, but I'll need to test the effects myself. I'll convince mom to let me test them tomorrow with her supervision. Let's see how much a teleportation card would take.'

Imagining the effect of a teleportation card, Tobias was not surprised at the information.

'Well, no surprise there. I knew it would be more than the mental fatigue restoration card, but that much more is kinda crazy. I can't tell exactly how much, but I know I need to train for a while to be able to attempt it. Unless I lessen the burden on the effect. The effect I was imagining allowed me to teleport somewhere I've been before, but Twisted Fate's teleportation relies on a beacon. If I were to imagine the card with a beacon in mind, it should lower the overall cost.'

Attempting the teleportation card with the new parameters in mind, Tobias was able to verify his assumption.

'It definitely lowers it drastically, but it still requires more than I currently have. It's good to know that I might be able to add certain parameters to stronger effects to lower the overall cost. Since Yu-Gi-Oh is on my mind, let me try to create a normal monster card. I should start simple and what is else if not the iconic Kuriboh, although it is an effect monster. I'll just imagine it as non-effect seeing as I don't remember what its effect even does.'

With the image of Kuriboh in Tobias' mind, he imagined the effect he wanted from the card. A monster summon card with no effect, and the amount of stamina surprised him.

'75%? That's a lot less than I thought. Though considering Kuriboh is on the weaker side when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh monsters, it makes sense. Okay, I've semi-tested most of the things I wanted to, but I'll wait until tomorrow to confirm all my hypotheses. Except for the blue card and the potential timer on the cards, I'll do that now.'

This time instead of wanting to know the stamina cost of creating the stamina restoration card, Tobias actually created it. The card he had in hand shone for a split second, just like the first time. And just like before, it had all the information about the card on the front. Unfortunately, since it was Tobias' first time creating such a cost-heavy card, the sudden loss of stamina caught him off guard.

Tobias got dizzy by the sudden stamina difference and fell on his bed. Fortunately, he was able to recover quite quickly and managed to refrain from making any noise that would wake his parents. Now, sitting down on his bed, Tobias was trying to snap out of the small dizzy spell.

'Well, that was unpleasant. At least I know the more stamina taken, the possibility of that happening increases. Another thing I need to get used to. On another note, however, it worked. A genuine Twisted Fate blue card in the flesh. I still can't believe this is real. Anyhow, that stamina cost hit me hard, I better go to sleep so I can try out my quirk tomorrow.' thought Tobias before placing the newly created card on his bedside table before falling asleep.

"Tobias, wake up sweety."

Tobias hearing the voice of his mother instantly awoke, because the tone she used was something he was terrified of. And looking at her smiling but not smiling face, he knew he was correct.

"What is that?" she asked pointing towards the nightstand.

Tobias turned to look at where she was pointed only to see the [Blue Card] he had created the night before.

"I-it's a c-card."

"Yes, I know. But why does it look like you used your quirk? You wouldn't do that, now would you? Not when I specifically told you to only use it under my supervision. My son would know better than to do something so dumb." she said with the same expression on her face.

"O-of course n-not. It m-must have appeared out of nowhere. That's right! I remember I heard something in the middle of the night and I think a fairy must have dropped it there." explained Tobias knowing she wouldn't buy it but hoping she would be more lenient.

"Oh, poor fairy. I guess we should return it then." she said before going to pick it up.

"No! It's obviously mine, but I'm doing an experiment." he conceded.

"Before I hear about your experiment, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry. I know you said only under your supervision but I couldn't wait." he said while hanging his head.

"Oh, fine. You know I can't stay mad at you for long. But for the first few weeks, try to refrain from using it on your own, okay? I'm just worried about you." she said before smothering him in a hug.

"Okay. I love you, mom." he muffledly said as he was being smothered before being let go.

"I love you too. Now, what experiment are you doing?" she asked.

"Since my quirk uses stamina to give cards the effect I want, I thought maybe I could create a card that gives me stamina. And I did." Tobias said before going to pick up the card to show it to his mother.

"..."

"Mom, are you okay?" he asked as he waved his hands in front of her.

"Y-yes, I'm just in shock at what you've done. But how much stamina did it take for you to create this card?" she said realizing that something as strong as the card's effect would take a good amount of stamina.

"Only 50%."

"What?! 50%?!" she said before inspecting him.

"Mom, it's okay. Nothing happened to me. I just felt a little weak for a few seconds because I'm not used to it yet."

"Only under our supervision until I give you the okay, do you understand?" she said.

"Okay. For the experiment, I wanted to see how long the cards would last. If they disappear after one day I need to know now instead of one day when I'm fighting a criminal with old cards and they don't even work."

"My son is so smart." she said before smothering him again.

Seeing as the nurse was able to give Tobias an extra day off from school after breakfast Tobias and his parents were now standing outside in their backyard.

"Okay Tobias, you can use your quirk right now, but don't overdo it." said his dad.

"Got it. I'm going to try out what I think will become a core part of my future fighting ability." he told his parents before taking out a card and creating a [Red Card].

"What does this one do son?" asked his dad.

"It's a small explosion that should also have a slowing effect. It only cost 5%, so don't worry mom." he said preemptively.

"Wait." said his father before going inside and shortly after coming back out with a training dummy that he placed in the yard.

"Where did that come from?" asked Tobias.

"I use it on occasion to relieve stress and since you can't hit the tree this is the next best thing."

"Thanks, dad." said Tobias before he threw the card at the dummy.

BOOM

All three with open jaws, looked at the dummy only to see it a crater in its chest.

"Awesome."

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This chapter took me a little longer to write because I was thinking about how I wanted his quirk to function, at least the specifics. I decided to go with the activation effect of the card depending on the effect, so for the TF red and gold card, it would work based on hitting the target while the blue card would work by activating on hand or hitting someone else with it.

While for the monster summon cards it would work like the blue card, activating it from hand summons a monster, and I'm also making it so there are no effects on monster summons besides tribute for stronger monsters but that's later down the line.

I'm also debating on whether or not to make it so activating cards also takes a little bit of stamina, but like .5%.

And I'm also not pigeonholing myself into only Yu-Gi-Oh cards, it's just there are so many that's it very useful for reference. He's still going to be a card mage essentially. Also going to have him work on hand-to-hand combat because it'd be dumb not to.