One Day Early: My Infinite Card System

3 - Ascent of the common man

The air inside the torch of the Statue of Liberty was thick with the coppery tang of eagle blood and the acrid smoke of the Kong Punch. William’s left hand, still slick with gore, rested on the card that now burned with the cool, infinite glow of absolute power. He felt the crushing fatigue of the ultimate attack—the deliberate zeroing out of his vitality—but before unconsciousness could reclaim him entirely, the newly acquired skills began their work.

[ Iron skin (passive) ] had activated the instant the eagle attacked. Now, with the card’s owner dead, the passive defense remained engaged, continuously drawing on the colossal wellspring of mana. [ Auto heal (passive) ] flared to life as his vitality bottomed out. The system, interpreting the limitless supply of mana, didn’t just double the healing rate; it applied the exponential function without hesitation.

Four times mana means thrice the healing speed, eight times mana means four times healing speed, so on and so forth.

With Infinite Mana fueling it, the healing didn't feel like recovery; it felt like instantaneous reversal. The exhaustion that should have lasted for days was aggressively chased out of his cells. His heart, which had been slowing to a dangerous, thready beat, roared back to life, pumping mana-laced blood with violent efficiency. He felt his muscles twitch and mend, his consciousness sharpen from a dull ache to a hyper-aware pinprick.

He was whole again. Not just whole, but reinforced. The process was complete in less than thirty minutes.

William stood up, his limbs heavy but obeying. He wiped his hands clean on the remnants of the eagle’s destroyed feathers. The eagle itself, having been killed by a human who initiated a skill set, was gone. In its place, scattered across the floor, were a handful of material cards: a few for [ Eagle Feather (Common) ], and one surprisingly heavy card for [ Bald Eagle Beak (Uncommon) ]. He swept them up and accepted them into his host space. It wasn’t the Item Box he truly wanted, but the host space—a simple, default pocket for skills and materials—was enough for now.

The main concern now was descent. It was currently around 1:30 AM. He had a window of roughly four hours until dawn, when the system’s next great disruption—the sudden, explosive growth of the world's flora—would make the journey exponentially harder. He needed to be home, packed, and rested before the planet turned into a jungle.

He clipped his carabiner into the rope he had used to ascend the bronze exterior. The descent was faster, slicker, and terrifyingly silent against the backdrop of a distant, muffled city-wide scream.

Getting the kayak back from the Ellis Island dock was easy. The few police boats that had approached earlier were now long gone, drawn away by the fires, the random lights, and the spreading madness in Manhattan and New Jersey. The chaos on the water was minimal compared to the land, but the water itself felt alien, the currents stronger, the waves colder.

He rowed for two hours, his arms now driven not by mere muscle, but by the bottomless well of mana that continually reinforced his efforts. The infinite supply didn't grant him super-strength or agility, but it made fatigue a forgotten concept. Every stroke was perfect, unvarying in its power.

He reached the Hudson’s New Jersey shore near his parked car just after 3:30 AM. The sight of his sedan was a small, comforting anchor in a world that had ripped itself free of gravity. The street, however, was a nightmare. Two cars had collided, and the drivers lay twisted on the pavement.

Neither had touched a skill card before dying. Their bodies were simply bloody, broken human meat, their faces frozen in expressions of pure, incomprehensible terror.

But between the two wrecks, there was a new kind of terror: a Symbiote Wannabe.

It was exactly as the future had shown him: a faceless, stick-like creature, black from head to toe, its arms ending in wicked sharp, bone-white claws. It was twitching over a floating [ Car Key Card (D-Grade) ]—a relic of one of the drivers.

The sight of the creature, a spawn of human death, didn't stir fear in William; only a cold, methodical focus. The creature was small, barely human-sized, and unevolved. A perfect test subject.

He didn't hesitate. He dropped his paddle and ran forward. The Symbiote Wannabe, sensing a new living target, immediately scuttled away from the card and launched itself at William with a soundless, predatory leap.

It struck William’s chest. The claws hit the invisible shell of Iron Skin.

Clink.

The force of the blow was massive, enough to shatter a ribcage, but the mana field held. The Wannabe’s claws did not even pierce the outer layer of his shirt. The creature recoiled, its faceless head tilted in confusion.

William didn't wait for its next move. He wound up his arm and delivered a measured, controlled Kong Punch. He wasn't aiming for a kill; he was aiming to disable and test his current limits.

The punch, delivered with only a fraction of his available mana, still hit like a wrecking ball. It didn't punch through the creature this time, but struck its chest with concussive force, sending it flying into the side of his own sedan with a hollow, wet sound. The creature crumpled, twitching one last time before dissolving into black smoke.

Where it died, three cards materialized: [ Symbiote Viscera (F-Grade Material) ], [ Symbiote Essence (E-Grade Material) ], and the aforementioned [ Car Key Card (D-Grade) ].

William snatched the cards. He didn't care about the key, but the symbiote materials confirmed that even the lowest-grade monsters were dropping resources. The apocalypse was a machine, and William had just found his currency.

His apartment was on the third floor of an old, semi-gentrified building in downtown Jersey City. The two-bedroom unit was small, but he owned it, and as such, it was still a sanctuary.

He bypassed the lobby, which was deserted and eerily quiet save for the distant, faint sirens. He took the stairs two at a time, his breathing regulated by the endless flow of mana.

Inside his home, the apartment was exactly as he had left it: Spartan, organized, and depressingly normal. The contrast between the hell outside and the perfectly preserved, beige walls inside was jarring.

His time was critically limited. He had to secure the resources that were still in their physical form, before the next wave of the system’s resource conversion.

He spent the next hour in a frenzy of organized panic.

First, the electronics: his laptop, his backup drives, his tablet. Each item was small enough and important enough to warrant a card. He touched them, focusing with the intent he'd used on the Blank Card, and watched as a subtle, silver light enveloped each object, compressing it into a single, compact [ Laptop Card (C-Grade Utility) ], [ External HDD Card (D-Grade Utility) ], and so on.

Next, his armory, sparse as it was: a high-quality survival knife, a multi-tool, a small first-aid kit, and a few dozen rounds of sealed ammunition he’d kept in a floor safe. Each became a card, the utility items instantly recognizable.

The hardest part was the library. William was a history buff, and his most prized possessions were his physical books—maps, military history, and survival guides. He couldn't card the whole shelf at once. He meticulously went through them, turning the most crucial three dozen into cards, including a tattered copy of The Art of War which became a curiously high-grade [ Ancient Strategy Card (B-Grade Intellect) ]. The vast majority of the books remained, protected for now by his ownership, but a logistical nightmare to move.

Finally, clothes. A sturdy pair of work boots, two changes of durable outdoor gear, and his favorite thick winter coat became [ Tactical Garb Card (D-Grade Defense) ].

When he was done, every item of value he could reasonably use or not replace was now a weightless card in his host space. He had approximately two hours until dawn.

He looked at his bed. Despite the incredible, mana-driven healing, the Kong Punch was a move of absolute desperation and came with a massive mental toll. He needed to process the reality he was living in, and the best way to do that was to reboot his system.

He set a clock on his phone for 5:00 AM, just an hour before true dawn. He lay down on his bed, fully clothed, and let the darkness claim him. Even in sleep, the Auto Heal worked relentlessly, burning off the last wisps of the adrenaline and existential dread.

William woke up precisely at 5:00 AM. He didn't need the alarm. The world had woken him.

A deep, continuous grating sound resonated from outside. It sounded like a thousand knives being sharpened on concrete.

He leaped to the window. The transformation was already beginning.

The sidewalk below, yesterday a cracked slab of concrete, was now violently split by vines thicker than a man's arm. The ornamental maple tree on the corner had exploded in size, its branches reaching ten stories high, its leaves huge, dark, and veined with poisonous purple.

The city was dissolving into a primeval, neon-laced jungle.

And there, right outside his window, rooted firmly in the earth where the neighbor's prize rosebush used to be, was his first target.

It was a plant about the size of a minivan. Its body was a thick, fibrous trunk, ending in a massive, hinged maw lined with teeth like shards of obsidian. Thick, sticky-looking, pink tendrils writhed from its base, slamming against the building's brick exterior.

[ Fleshmangler Vine (Evolved Flora) ]

It was a carnivorous plant. It was hungry. And it was exactly what William needed.

The plan to raid the supermarket for Symbiotes was sound, but that was hours away, and the streets would be far more populated and dangerous by then. This was a gift—a resource drop delivered straight to his doorstep, safely isolated.

William retrieved the [ Survival Knife Card ] and the [ Tactical Garb Card ] from his host space. With a thought, the knife materialized in his hand—cold steel, perfectly balanced—and the durable clothing instantly draped over him, replacing his slightly torn travel clothes.

He knew its weakness from the future: its thick, durable hide protected it from anything short of a direct hit from a B-grade skill, but the inside of its maw was soft, vulnerable tissue.

He needed to get close enough to stab it directly in its gullet, and for that, he would need to tank its attacks.

William took a deep breath. He didn’t use the door. This wasn't about stealth; it was about pure, aggressive resource extraction. He kicked out the window pane.

The sound of shattering glass instantly drew the plant’s attention. The maw turned and emitted a screech of scraping thorns. One of the thick, pink tendrils lashed out, smashing against the windowsill where William had been standing a split second before.

He jumped onto the fire escape railing, dropping down two floors. The plant, too slow to track his vertical movement, slammed a tendril against the wall below him.

WHAM.

William jumped off the fire escape and landed directly on the root-mangled pavement, 20 feet from the Fleshmangler.

"Come on, you overgrown Venus flytrap," he muttered, gripping the knife.

The plant launched its attack, two massive tendrils whipping toward him from different directions. William didn't dodge. He stood his ground. He held up his left forearm and let the tendrils strike.

BZZZZZZT. CRACK.

The sound was not that of tearing flesh, but of rock meeting energy. The impact force was immense, sending shockwaves through his bones that rattled his teeth, but the Iron Skin—powered by the inexhaustible furnace of Infinite Mana—held perfectly. A faint, glowing white barrier, a perfect suit of armor forged from raw energy, had sprung up a millimeter from his skin. The tendrils snapped back, the outer layers of the plant's flesh slightly scorched from the sheer mana resistance.

The plant was momentarily stunned. That was his window.

William surged forward, moving with a speed and focus he hadn't known he possessed. He reached the maw, which was beginning to clamp shut. He slid beneath its closing teeth, the obsidian shards scraping the air above his back.

He was inside the plant’s mouth. The stench was overwhelming—sweet decay mixed with something metallic and poisonous.

Without hesitation, William drove the survival knife up, aiming for the soft, pulsating organ at the back of the throat.

“Kong Punch!”

He didn't need to shout the name, but the internal command focused the skill’s power. The knife channeled the released mana, becoming a drill bit made of pure force. It tore through the soft tissue, sinking in up to the hilt.

The plant didn't scream; it spasmed, a violent, world-shaking convulsion that threw William out of its mouth and onto the street. He rolled, coming up onto one knee as the plant thrashed wildly for three agonizing seconds, showering the street with dark sap, before it finally collapsed, its obsidian teeth smashing against the ground.

The colossal plant dissolved entirely, vanishing from existence.

William stood up, his heart pounding a triumphant rhythm, his body already repairing the minor muscle strains from the impact with the pavement. He was left with a perfect circle of clear, empty asphalt, and a dazzling array of cards scattered on the ground.

He had expected plant fibers, maybe seeds. He had not expected the bounty that lay before him.

There were material cards, certainly: [ Fleshmangler Leaf (Uncommon) ], [ Evolved Sap (Rare) ]. But there were also four, bright yellow [ Food Card (F-Grade - Basic Ration) ] cards—perfectly preserved, high-calorie nutrient bars.

And then there was a single, shimmering green card that pulsed with a clean, living energy.

William picked it up first.

[ Green Thumb (Passive) ] [ Increases the rate of growth of cultivated flora by 10x. Decreases the time needed to harvest crops by 50%. ]

The perfect resource-gathering skill. William smiled, a savage, victorious expression. It was better than he could have hoped. The fight was over. The game had truly begun.