Jessica sighed. At least the coffee was good. And her brother wasn't twitching as much... Explaining this Realm seems to have calmed him down slightly. "So people basically find Soul mates using these cards like some sort of dating hookup app?"

John wiggled his hand. "Sort of… Sometimes the connection is deliberate, other times it can be unconscious or even bind a group without all of them being aware of it… Depends on how powerful the Souls of each individual is to the others."

She sipped once more, slowly chewing over the concepts.

It was mostly a symbiotic relationship, in the end.

The entities represented by the cards, or Soul fragments, would interact with the Duelist.

The Duelist would get something like a 'Soul workout' from said interactions.

As the card player grew in power, a resonance effect would benefit the entity said cards connected to… Absorbing traces of Magic and Psychic power and Belief and all that. An ongoing slurping of the slurry of humanity, the messy power sources becoming more beneficial the more they improved.

Jessica glanced at the documentation. "What do the people get out of it? I mean, why is having an enhanced Soul worth doing all this?"

John happily drank his hot chocolate. "Social and personal power." Slurp. "Oh, and some people just REALLY like competitive games too, so there's that."

She waited for him to see her expression, and John blinked, before changing the information on the table. "Look at these famous people. Can you guess which ones play Duel Monsters, or one of the other less popular variants?"

Um, let's see… "These two, because of that crazy hair style. Her and him, who wears cloaks like that? And… Wait, does this dude have a metal eyeball!? That's crazy?"

John glanced at said image. "Ah yeah, about that particular dude: Don't talk about the eye thing to other people. It's some sort of old artifact from Egypt that messes with people so no one finds it odd that a rich person basically ripped their own eyeball out to use that thing. Anyway!"

He flicked the pile of images over and waved his hands. "The answer was: All of them. Each and every person in power plays this game, or something similar. Every politician, each business owner, all fashion stars, entire teams of sports athletes… With stronger Souls, they work harder, play stronger, create more… And that's just the basics."

Her brother began showing crowd shots and tapped one. "Now look at the other side… What's wrong with this image?"

Jessica quickly assessed the photo. "Besides it showing two teenagers playing a card game on top of a train, surrounded by groupies?"

He nodded. "Besides that. What's wrong with the crowd?"

Hmm. "Nothing really? They just seem like normal people. Except for that guy with the odd hat."

John nodded… Then turn the image upside down. "Now, describe ANYONE else, besides the two duelists and the hat bro."

That would be easy! She'd done observational training for years in… Hang on… "Holy crap, I can't even remember how MANY there were!"

Her brother shrugged. "Weak Souls. Not even caused by the card games or whatever, just… Everyone here seems to have very fragile Souls from birth to begin with. Might be why Soul strengthening methods are so valued here, even if most of the participants are unaware of the training they are undergoing when they battle Doom Donuts against a Master of OZ."

John sipped from his cup again. "People with weak souls will sort of clump up when they find a powerful Duelist, like minions. Just hanging around powerful people will eventually allow some of them to improve bit by bit, potentially allowing them or their children to one day be a strong Souled person and become something great in this world."

Yep, this whole mess was strange. "...Do we have to mess with this stuff?"

Her brother's eyes sparkled! "Yes. Yes we do."

Sigh. "Fine. The world runs on a card game: What do we need to do?"

John began counting his fingers. "Find a reputable card shop, which was easy enough for me to do. Have each of us buy a booster pack… And then hide somewhere."

Wait, what? "Why?"

Her brother emptied his drink. "Because YOUR Souls are hidden away with the rest of your actual self in my Pocket, and MY Soul is far too powerful for this place. To open a booster pack, I'd need to turn OFF a bunch of defenses that we have going on right now."

That… Did not sound like a good idea. "Then can't we just buy cards directly instead of gambling on a booster pack?" That was always a cheaper plan anyway, not to mention less random.

Not that they didn't have a lot of money, she'd SEEN the account John had already set up for them here.

John absently Pocketed the trash and Crafted himself a new cup of sweet full goodness. "Not if we want to meet our 'Soul Mates', or Duel Monster Partner. We need to use booster packs to allow the blank cards inside to transform into Soul fragments compatible with our essence. Oh sure, some people resonate so strongly with their other dimensional or imaginary partner that they can literally stumble upon their perfect card just lying out in the street or win some prize or whatever, but I refuse to lower my security settings down THAT far."

He grumbled as she considered the issue as a whole. "Will this even work for us? I mean, any connections we make with these 'fragments' will be lost when we move on, right?"

Her brother nodded. "Oh yeah, though I can fake the interaction if we can record enough samples while here and simulate it through a module or two. Obviously our Soul growth will be restricted and slowed once we are outside of this Realm, but it won't stop stimulating our advancement entirely."

Sigh. "You just want to play the card game."

John's grin was epic! "This stuff is CRAZY! Cards can change the weather, spiritually connect ghosts to other planes of existence, allow impossible technology to advance just by proxy! Plus, I think there is some sort of hidden super god in the background that no one is paying attention to who keeps messing with stuff, and I want to see if I can connect with him."

Oh dear. "The cards can connect with gods?"

He shrugged. "Gods, Divine creatures, Evil Dolls and Demons, Dragons, Raw Concepts, Forbidden Entities, you name it, yeah. This dude however seems to be super weak, but shows up in a LOT of powerful decks… I don't think local people can even realize how influential Kuriboh can be."

Jessica looked at the spread list of divine beasts, demons, monsters of all types… "Which one is Kuriboh?" Cyborg dinosaur, some sort of dragon plant, what seemed to be an actual spaceship…

John grinned. "He has like a bazillion forms, but these are the most common ones."

Oh my god. "He is adorable."

Her brother laughed! "I know, right?" He tapped on one of the card images. "Unlike most monsters, he always has super low attack and defense… But most of the time he literally saves the day in the decks of Duelists who can handle the Soul costs to include him. While huge monsters get blown up left and right, this tiny dude pulls his own weight and yet no one online talks about him."

Still… "The fluffball doesn't seem THAT powerful though…"

John nodded. "Now look again while I slightly turn down your defenses."

Hmm? "Wait, where did he go!?"

Her bratty bro smirked and suddenly the images came back. "I was wondering why everyone didn't run a few of those guys, especially since the rules can get flexible a bit when a Duelist has a VERY powerful Soul when it comes to this one… And as you now know?"

John tapped the cheerful looking tiny dude. "If you don't have his approval, you can't even interact with the CONCEPT of him. Only a few cards act like that, and the OTHERS at least have legends online, or are documented in books and on stone tablets and stuff. I mean, he has some too, don't get me wrong… But no one can seem to focus on them or talk about it."

Damn. That was REALLY subtle mind games going on here. "How much did you lower my defenses just now?"

Her brother slumped. "A fraction of a fraction of a percent. You can see why I can't risk lowering them further without some precautions… This stuff could get out of hand quickly. Plus, it's going to be annoying too."

John pulled up video clips. "People with powerful Souls, like I said, attract others… But not just groupies of lower Souled followers. They also attract each other." Other images came up. "Stick two Duelists on opposite sides of a maze or trapped on an island and they will somehow meet up and fight a card game on top of a whale or inside a never discovered cave or something. It's a bit crazy."

Jessica watched clip after clip of people 'trespassing' into other territories or 'challenging' strangers who were just trying to buy some breakfast… "So we'd go through that sort of thing if you lowered our defenses? Be hassled by a bunch of strangers?"

[["Worse."]] [["Sister! We are not to talk, our Lord has grounded us for another 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 33 seconds!"]] [["Meh, Jessica needs to know this."]] [["You'll get us in MORE trouble! We'll never get ungrounded! Or worse, our Lord may choose another divine vessel and the cuddles will be lost!"]] [["WHAT!? NO! Master, you must stay small and squishable! If you do, I'll show you my {{Connection lost.}}]]

The two siblings stared at each other as the Pocket communication layer vanished into awkward silence.

Jessica gave John the Look.

He tried to appear innocent. And whistle.

She raised an eyebrow. "Worse? John?"

John coughed. "I'm like, 30% sure that most of the planet wouldn't bow before my presence… No, easily 44% positive! And the vast majority of the people in the area would eventually recover!"

Her expression didn't give him confidence, but he tried again. "We could hide on the moon for a few days? If we opened the packs within a few seconds and immediately hid, I doubt it would even hit the news! Come on, it won't be a big deal! Please?"

Sometimes, being responsible sucked. "No."

Damn it, don't look like a kicked baby penguin! Messing with an entire planet just to play a card game was unreasonable! Right?

Sigh. "Is your Soul THAT overly powerful?"

He pushed his cup around. "It's less about how strong my Soul is and more because of the backups."

Hang on. "Backups?"

John nodded. "I make backup Bodies, Minds, and Soul patterns of us all so nothing would be lost if one of us got hurt or whatever. And after each new one is made, I had to do SOMETHING with the older copies! The Bodies were trivial to recycle and the Minds easily merged together, but the Souls were another issue entirely… so I Pocketed them. They've built up a little bit."

Oh dear. "John, are there dozens of duplicated Souls of mine trapped inside your Pocket?"

He hesitated. "Technically no? I didn't want to just entomb them somewhere or force them to go into stasis, so I basically had my Pocket set up a network for each of us and our older backups to sort of be like a half hive Soul, half multitasking benefit thing."

John pulled up an image render of the Inventory, a section of which she had never seen before. "It makes it MUCH harder for outsiders to injure, affect, or alter us which I felt was a good thing… But it ALSO artificially empowers our 'resonance field' by a large margin if I were to expose our Souls to the local Realm."

Jessica's eyes grew larger as she reached out… And began to scroll the image.

Past row after row of cheerfully gowling Soul orbs.

Shelf after shelf.

Isle after Isle.

She stared at trillions of glowing blue Souls, all connected to each other in some strange sort of harmony. "Are those copies of our Souls?

John blinked. "Huh? Oh, no, not really. I take a LOT of backups, this is only one subsection of your collection. Mine and the girls are stored elsewhere."

Her fingers flickered as the image continued to scroll endlessly.

Holy crap. "John, how OFTEN do you make a copy of us?"

To her growing shock, he paused. "You know, I'm not sure? After I freed up more Pocket space from the Borg upgrades and updates, I just pushed that slider up a bit. It USED to be a dozen or so Backups per second, but I had less resources back then and now thankfully…"

Oh dear Lord.

She held up a finger. "New rule: One backup per day, maximum, per person."

John didn't even blink. "No."

Wait, what? "John?"

He then gave her his full attention, and it FELT different. "No one should be lost. Not if someone can remember them."

John tapped the image and ALL the Soul's pulsed… And she felt a Warmth and Safety within as he spoke up. "This is just another of my precious memories. Moments by moment, these can't be lost."

She got up and slid next to him, pulling him into a hug. "Shh, it's okay… I'm sorry for not understanding, John."

She didn't think he was even aware that he was crying.

A few minutes later, his tense body relaxed slightly. "...I can… I can cut down the emergency backup rate a little bit. Maybe. But not too much!"

She continued to hug him as the girls stayed quiet in the Pocket. "Maybe down to once an hour?"

John instantly huffed. "Maybe down to ten times a second."

Well, at the end of the day it was HIS Pocket… Even if the thought of trillions of duplicate Souls being bound to her in a Spiritual Network felt icky.

Best change the topic. "Now, how about you and the girls work together a bit and come up with a workaround so you can open a booster pack of cards without enslaving an entire Realm of people?"

Seeing his eyes light up, she quickly stomped on the breaks! "WITHOUT accidentally traumatizing or mutilating their Minds or Souls! Not even in the short term! Not even if you can fix them!"

John awkwardly chuckled. "I mean, I'm like 44% sure that…"

Jessica used THE LOOK! "John."

He slumped. "Fine, the slow way it is."