While the masked man thawed off, Nero gathered Henry and Charle's body and began to check them for any useful cards they were carrying, as well as any potential hints as to what they had wanted from him, or who was ordering them. At the same time, he could not help but let his mind wander a bit, thinking of the versatility of cards.
The reason he had discovered the small loophole about Ultimate grip was because of the discrepancy he noticed in his own Innate card. He recalled its details.
Name: Cryoflame
Image: Conjures a fire that absorbs heat instead of emitting it
Type: Innate
Star rank: 0
Ability: [The Cryoflame burns with a brilliant blue hue, its flames shimmering with icy tendrils and frosty wisps. Instead of consuming fuel and emitting heat, it consumes only heat and produces more flames, leaving the target frozen whole instead of ash]
Flavour text: "The death of a Kolari is written, and it is on the battlefield."
Although eloquent in the way it was stated, the ability clearly mentioned that it consumed 'only heat' and used that to produce more flames. So technically, the cooling effect of the flames is a result of them absorbing heat!
But the flames clearly displayed the ability to counter cursed energy, not to mention combat other forms of energies - such as the pink attack the masked man tried to launch at him that would leave a chain mark on his body.
The flame also allowed him to directly destroy cursed items. None of that was stated in its description, so why did that happen? That caused Nero to consider more carefully what exactly 'heat' was. Since he didn't know if the card was referring to metaphysics or plain old simple physics, he contemplated heat from both angles.
That is when he encountered a small misconception he had about heat. To be sure, he even went and consulted his teachers in school about it. In Nero's mind, heat referred to the temperature of an object. But, as it turned out, in physics, heat was defined as the transfer of thermal energy. Basically, it was a process by which temperature change occurred. So… the card consumed a process?
That did not make sense.
According to his original misconception, the flames were absorbing the temperature of whatever they burned, but if he misunderstood the meaning of heat, then maybe he had misunderstood his innate ability to begin with!
Then he asked the teacher about a metaphysical perspective about what heat is. But, as a high school teacher, he was not really qualified to comment on such an advanced, and frankly abstract field.
To get a satisfactory answer he would either need to pursue researchers, or perhaps head to Nova which has the most advanced and largest repository of knowledge in the modern world.
For now, he would have to go about judging the limits of his ability based on his experiments. All he could conclude, after all his tests by himself and those with Footer, was that his flames consumed energies of various kinds, though it still seemed to have a preference for thermal energy.
The fact that he did not fully understand the innate ability also explained why some of the behaviours of his flame could not be predicted. Perhaps that is why it was also effective against curses - it might be trying to absorb cursed energy, though that obviously did not feed the flames in the same way.
There was also Wendy's ability. He always knew it was powerful. After all, being able to coat any edge with venom, and many different kinds of venoms at that, made her a huge threat. But it was only recently that Nero began to ponder why the ability specifically said venom instead of poison.
He couldn't find any deeper meaning in it, except that venom needed to be actively administered into the body whereas poison could be absorbed naturally. Considering that it was coating weapons, that was more fitting anyway. But truth be told, the venom she coated on his spear was just as much responsible for killing that Initiate as his own abilities. Without it, his task may have been much harder.
Nero eventually had to put his wandering to a stop when he pulled out all the cards that Charles and Henry were using. Since Ms. Zim had informed him to never use others cards he wouldn't, but it wouldn't hurt to look.
Their collection was not so impressive though. Henry's cards, beside Air bullet, basically just helped quickly set up traps, which explained how he had been able to prepare so many to lure Nero into, as well as one card that allowed him to blend in with his environment as long as he stands still.
Charles, on the other hand, had cards which helped his eyesight, sped up his aether recovery, and a few basic survival cards for first aid purposes.
Besides the cards, they had nothing suspicious, which was to be expected. Nero had to wait for a few hours for the masked man's body to thaw enough so that he could move him, and check his cards. Predictably, his cards were much better. It also made sense why he hadn't attacked Nero in more diverse ways.
He had only one attack card to begin with!
Name: Ariel Pincer
Image: A number of small darts in the air
Type: Offensive
Star rank: 1
Ability: [Materialise darts in the air anywhere within 20 metres of yourself and shoot at a target!]
Flavour text: "A rain of darts to shower my enemies."
Besides that, he also had a defensive card, which he never ended up using.
Name: Bulwark
Image: A wall of dirt
Type: Defensive
Star rank: 1
Ability: [Raise the dirt in the ground to form a defensive wall around you]
Flavour text: "The walls of Dana will stand forever," - Golden Mistri
Besides that, there was also a common First Aid card which was basically a more effective version of FAK and could stop bleeding really well, as well as treat minor injuries. But it was ultimately the last three cards which were the most interesting.
Name: Unseen
Image: A vague silhouette of a man surrounded by mist
Type: Stealth
Star rank: 2
Ability: [Gain partial invisibility by blending in with your environment, as well as partial immunity to scans and aura detection]
Flavour text: "Spectre's move unseen, even from the horrors of the night," Giovani Belim
Name: Distortion field
Image: A blurry circle hiding a group of people from view
Type: Illusion
Star rank: 2
Ability: [Hide a certain region from view or detection]
Flavour text: "Not every good deed can be done in public, and every sin in the dead of night," Giovani Belim
Name: Leash & Collar
Image: A collar attached to a chained leash
Type: Binding/Diminution
Star rank: 3
Ability: [Mark a target, making them your slave. Once the spell has taken effect, the original user of this card will forever have control over the slave as long as the mark exists. The user can vague detect the slave emotions as well as location, and can punish them at will]
Flavour text: ""Kneel, for none may stand in my presence," - Unknown
Nero did not fail to notice how the only offensive and defensive cards the masked man had were only 1 star cards, but the rest were higher. Especially Leash & Collar. Nero had never heard of a card that allowed others to be enslaved, but then again, it only made sense that such things would not be widely known.
A chill went through his heart as he read its ability, and realised exactly how lucky he was that he had, unwittingly, gained a way to free himself of such binding spells. After all, his tattoos, for as massive and intricate as they may seem, served only one very important purpose.
His tattoos were there to make sure that Nero could never be marked by any spell! This was in preparation for his eventual revenge. Even though Nero may not know everything about great families, he knew that if he killed one of them, chances were high that he would be marked in some way so that he could be tracked down.
Such things were common knowledge exactly to dissuade others from trying. That was also why cards that could remove tracking or tracing were extremely rare and never sold publicly. He was lucky that Irene had long ago told him she had a way to help him with that.
Speaking of great families, his red headed friend. Nero sat down on the ground next to the corpses as he thought about what he had just learned! Was Gabriel really from the Anzem family? It was something he would not quite believe until the boy confirmed it himself.
But if that was the case, then what the hell was a kid from the second strongest family in all of Kolar doing here living by himself?
Nero didn't think about this for long, as he suddenly jerked himself off the ground and pointed his spear at the man who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.