All the Skills 6: A Deck-Building LitRPG recap

Arthur takes control of a depleted Blood Moon Hive and begins replacing its coercive hierarchy with organized rescue forces and a tracked currency. Repeated eruptions expose both the danger of his new cards and a wider Scourge plan. Accelerated training strengthens his allies, but an investigation of Rowantree Estate reveals the Mindsinger's control, Penn's trapped heart deck, and hidden hatcheries beneath settlements across the kingdom. Arthur and Brixaby destroy a major crack eruption, then Marion and Joy help free Penn from lethal cards and runic commands. Lionel Rowantree serves the Mindsinger and loses Master of Spells to Arthur, while Brixaby incapacitates him. Arthur expels Desmond and Sybil after their armed challenge. He finishes with four Master-set cards as simultaneous eruptions force him and Brixaby to answer an emergency summons from the king.

Previously: Arthur and his dragon Brixaby became linked to an unfinished path toward mythic power, with Arthur building a set of Master cards and Brixaby gathering complementary abilities. Their advancement carries a debt to Lung Bai and the other mythics, who expect them to meet the required tests themselves. Arthur also encountered the Mindsinger, a body-hopping Scourge enemy capable of controlling minds, but the enemy escaped. Arthur and Brixaby enter this volume still pursuing advancement while the Mindsinger remains at large.

Arthur begins his rule of Blood Moon Hive by inspecting its secret card library, only to find it stripped of valuable cards. Reginald, the former leader's senior manservant, traps him inside and flees to Wolf Moon Hive. Arthur escapes through Brixaby's portal network, pursues Reginald, removes the cards enabling his flight, and expels him from Blood Moon. Reginald confirms that Wolf Moon's leadership has offered a legendary-card bounty for Arthur. Arthur then recruits Kenzie and her silver dragon Martine, who have been marginalized under Whitaker's rule. Wolf Moon has also neglected a large colony of riderless dragons. Arthur and Brixaby offer those dragons food, possible riders, and a place in the war against the Scourgelings. When Wolf Moon riders intervene, Brixaby uses his alarming life-draining power to force Arthur's release. More than a hundred dragons follow them back to Blood Moon. Cinderwood, an elderly former tactics officer, volunteers for Arthur's retinue, leaving him with both a valuable new force and an urgent organizational problem.

Arthur rejects Blood Moon's blood-price system but discovers that the hive has lost the habit of acting without direct orders. Its first eruption response collapses when a mental attack incapacitates deployed dragons and riders. Arthur and Brixaby warn other hives, then return with legendary leaders to an eruption covered in concealed flying Scourgelings. Whitaker attempts to seize Arthur, but the other leaders stop the confrontation. Arthur and Brixaby drop a lit furnace from high altitude, collapsing much of the eruption cone and leaving the Demi Scourgeling apparently dead. Lung Bai and the king arrive to contain the remaining threat. Lung Bai expects Arthur to use Cataclysmic Firestorm. The card produces multiplying flames that consume the swarm and sterilize the battlefield, but its hunger begins to overwhelm Arthur until Brixaby breaks the connection. Arthur recalls the fire only after the infestation is destroyed. The victory establishes Arthur publicly as Blood Moon's leader, yet the card is too psychologically dangerous to wield casually. Beneath the collapsed eruption site, Brixaby senses the creature's legendary card, giving the pair a reason to return in secret.

Arthur returns to the eruption site with a small team. The Demi Scourgeling is still alive, but Horatio and Sams finish it, allowing Arthur to recover the legendary Choice of Venom. Brixaby immediately absorbs the card and collapses while assimilating its powers. Arthur attempts to harvest the eruption heart alone. Its mind magic identifies him as Arthur Rowantree, shows him Rowantree Estate, and drains him until he escapes with Return to Start. After Brixaby survives the assimilation, Arthur investigates the estate with Cressida and Joy. Penn, Arthur's cousin, cannot be located, and singing workers exert mental control over the visitors. Arthur recognizes the influence as the escaped Mindsinger's work. Rather than expose a large force to possession, he seeks help from other legendary leaders. They report that eruptions are accelerating and urge him to build a stronger retinue. Arthur secures access to a time-accelerated training space in exchange for shards and an oath restricting Brixaby's card-taking. Seers predict two eruptions within forty-eight hours, placing a firm deadline on the preparation.

Arthur sends more than two hundred riders, dragons, prospective bonders, and support personnel into an accelerated training space under Soledad, Marion, and Cinderwood. He and Brixaby enter a separate pocket where two months will pass in roughly ten outside hours. Arthur develops his cardsmithing, learning to guide card creation and to alter compatible cards through carefully chosen shards. He makes new construction, light-combat, and art-combat cards, adds an optional trigger to Return to Start, and modifies a healing card to address temporal harm. He refuses to alter his damaged legendary time card directly because a failure could destroy both travelers and the pocket. Brixaby improves flight, enchantment, stone identification, and dropped-projectile techniques. He also creates quartz protections against several forms of mental influence and discovers a forceful aerial maneuver with potential for Purple Wing. Together they develop a riding harness, stockpile javelins and rocks, and revise Arthur's telekinetic projectile card so it can launch wooden weapons. They leave the pocket with better skills, anti-control tools, and supplies for both the predicted eruptions and the confrontation at Rowantree Estate.

Arthur and Brixaby return to Blood Moon and begin replacing the blood price with enchanted garnets that function as traceable currency. When wing captains admit that Desmond encouraged them to continue the old collections, Arthur formally abolishes the practice and orders restitution. As the first predicted eruption begins, he forces Desmond and Sybil into active duty, then takes Brixaby, Cressida, and Joy to Rowantree Estate. Illusions hide armed workers, traps, and diseased dragons under mental control. Arthur is captured and made to fight Penn, but recognizes an outside fear effect and spares him. Brixaby exposes runes concealed across Penn's body, and Arthur washes them away. Penn reveals that the Mindsinger removed his cards, including Master of Combat, and filled his heart deck with lethal traps. Arthur offers him sanctuary and stores him in a timeless personal space. During the retreat, Cressida suffers a near-fatal blood curse. The accelerated training group returns early, with Marion and Asha greatly strengthened, and they remove the remaining curse fragments. Cressida wakes, but Penn's trapped heart deck and the occupied estate remain unresolved as the second predicted eruption begins.

Cressida must remain on bed rest, so she lends Arthur her Bubble Shield before the second eruption. A deep fissure opens near a city, and Sams identifies it as a crack eruption with a legendary Demi Scourgeling below. With Desmond and Sybil absent, Arthur mobilizes Purple Wing, Cinderwood's dragons, and available cardholders. Purple dragons rescue civilians while earth, water, root, fire, ice, and light users contain the fissure. Arthur and Brixaby dive through the mass of Scourgelings to the eruption heart. Arthur uses the borrowed shield to overcome a repelling force, allowing Brixaby to poison the creature and take its card before it fully hatches. They destroy the heart, but the collapse traps them. Brixaby drains nearby Scourgelings and transfers life energy to Arthur, who burns it to sustain the shield before collapsing. Brixaby carries him out in a personal space. Dan Dan, Cinderwood's long-time companion, stabilizes Arthur, and both rescuers receive legendary shards. The remaining infestation becomes a cleanup operation, and Brixaby emerges with the legendary utility card Ultimate Earthcrafter.

Arthur trades Ultimate Earthcrafter and three legendary shards to Lung Bai for five healing cards. He reshapes them into a coordinated heart-deck repair set, worsening his own temporal injury in the process. Marion accepts the set, which merges into What Is Broken Is Not Lost. When Penn is released, a compulsive song drives him to attack, and his trapped cards create pain and an expanding risk of catastrophe. With Penn's consent, Marion repairs the damage left by the removal of Master of Combat. Joy then uses nullifying claws to erase the self-restoring runes that continue to command him. Penn explains that the Mindsinger conquered Rowantree Estate after debt drove it into covert card sales. His father holds Master of Spells, a family legendary card connected to Arthur's set. A former Wolf Moon assistant also warns Arthur of a possible plot involving Whitaker, Desmond, and Sybil. Using Call of the Heart, Arthur discovers concealed Scourgeling egg clusters under settlements across the kingdom. Penn permits removal of his remaining lethal cards and agrees to help Arthur recover Master of Spells. Their immediate target is the winery above Rowantree Estate's hidden hatchery.

Arthur deploys Blood Moon Hive to Rowantree Estate with protections against mental control, orders Purple Wing to rescue civilians, and forbids looting. While Brixaby and the retinue fight Scourgelings and hostile dragons outside, Arthur enters the winery alone. Lionel Rowantree, Penn's father and Arthur's uncle, declares loyalty to the Mindsinger and confirms that stronger Scourge forces stand behind the hatchery network. Lionel traps Arthur in a runic array that blocks access to his cards and drops him among Scourgelings. Arthur disrupts the runes with raw mana until Brixaby breaks in and nullifies the trap. Lionel surrenders Master of Spells, then Brixaby incapacitates him and transfers some of his life energy to Arthur. Arthur installs the card as the fourth member of his Master set. Desmond and Sybil arrive under temporary spell enhancements and challenge his authority. Arthur copies Sybil's spell, forces a standoff, and expels them from Blood Moon Hive. The Mindsinger remains free, Lionel's lasting condition is uncertain, and Penn is alive but fragile. As seers detect simultaneous eruptions across the kingdom, Arthur and Brixaby portal to the king's palace for an emergency meeting.

Arthur leaves Rowantree Estate holding Master of Spells, the fourth card in his Master set. Brixaby has incapacitated Lionel, but Lionel's degree of control and his eventual fate remain unsettled, and the Mindsinger is still free. Penn is alive and rid of the known lethal cards and visible control runes, though he remains emotionally vulnerable and intends to reclaim the estate after his father is helped or contained. Cressida has recovered from her blood curse. Marion is exhausted after repairing Penn's heart deck, while Arthur and Brixaby continue to bear the risks of temporal damage and life-force magic. Desmond and Sybil are expelled from Blood Moon Hive after challenging Arthur's authority. The reformed hive retains its currency, rescue wing, and strengthened training force, but its internal stability is not assured. The discovery of hidden egg clusters becomes an immediate kingdom-wide crisis when simultaneous eruptions begin. Arthur and Brixaby portal to the king's palace for an emergency meeting, still short of the cards needed for their hoped-for mythic advancement.