The Card Apprentice

From the very first healthy gymnastics to the presentation on making one-star fantasy cards which came later, as far as he could tell, the two things didn’t have any relationship.

Chen Mu had never had such intense curiosity lodged in his mind. He wanted to figure out all the secrets of that enigmatic card; or at the very least, he would like to know the ultimate purpose of this card.

Now that he had the guidance of the course of study from the card, Chen Mu’s progress making fantasy cards went blazingly fast. The knowledge about cards presented by that course of study vastly widened the scope of Chen Mu’s vision. Aside from the time spent training and making power-cards, he spent much of the rest of his time immersed in the miraculous fantasy realm of that mysterious card.

He also spent a lot of that time examining the things around him. What the course of study taught was all theoretical knowledge, and one still needed a large amount of practical experience. The first step was observation. How could you make any of those so-called realistic illusions if you didn’t have any concept about connecting them to the appearance of real things. And to make them, what you precisely needed was painstaking observation.

That was what he must build up to make low-grade fantasy cards.

All of that had serious repercussions. For example, he couldn’t help staring at the bread in his hand for six or seven minutes while he was munching on it, so that when he returned to his senses, he would already be hungry to the point of stomach cramps.

When he was closely examining something, it was easy for him to slip into a long period of blankness, which could be called entrancement. Whenever there were times like that, his reactions became very delayed, as though his surroundings were cut off from him.

One time, he had gone to Copper’s place, and the two of them were chatting while making expressions of extreme appreciation while drinking the Sapphire Cloud Running Water. After drinking for a while, Chen Mu suddenly became silent. Copper called out to him for a long time, getting no response, just seeing him utterly blank and staring at the glass in his hand. Copper turned a deathly white, thinking that something had happened to Chen Mu.

It is a characteristic of the profession that one burns through a lot of money as a card master. Every time he learns a new card, the card master must go through huge amounts of practice. Chen Mu didn’t have much money on hand at all; not enough for him to burn, like those sons of wealthy families. He could only observe normal things, so that when his preparation was a little more complete, he could reduce what he used up while making fantasy cards.

Apart from the first time that he had touched the light blue card in the fantasy realm, Chen Mu hadn’t touched the so-called “token card” course of study. It would have been a joke, since the knowledge already laid out in front of him was enough to keep him occupied for a very long time.

Chen Mu had always restrained himself from biting off more than he could chew.

Chen Mu treasured every chance he had to make a fantasy card, and attached great importance to it, making dozens of revisions ahead of time to the plans he made. He didn’t omit a single detail. He wouldn’t start until everything had been thought through and was completely ready. If anyone saw him so prudent and careful, they would never imagine that he was only making a trifling one or two-star fantasy card.

But truth be told, Chen Mu’s methods were effective. He had been able to accomplish a remarkable degree of realism with the illusions emitted from the fantasy cards that he was making at that time. Although he wasn’t satisfied, and any hint of pride would disappear without a trace every time he thought about those illusions from that mysterious card; illusions which could almost be called terrifying.

Of course, as he knew, the illusions from one or two-star fantasy cards couldn’t be spoken about in the same category with the illusions from high-grade fantasy cards. Prior distinctions between the two categories were not limited to differences regarding coloring, contrast, or shape, but were rather a matter of the gap between the virtual and the real, which wasn’t within the scope of low-grade cards’ capability.

Since he had no way to make that his work, he focused his skills on the degree of realism.

He planned to make a fantasy card advertising-poster for Uncle Hua.

His heart sank as soon as he thought about Uncle Hua. He could see that Uncle Hua’s health was getting worse every day; his cough was becoming more and more violent. And his complexion each day was not as good as the last. Chen Mu had been going out to Uncle Hua’s little shop more frequently those days, sometimes minding the shop and chatting with Uncle Hua. But Chen Mu had always been awkward in his speech, and so it was mostly Uncle Hua talking, and Chen Mu listening.

One of the reasons that he was progressing with blazing speed during that time was that all along he had been wanting to make an advertising poster for Uncle Hua – a flawlessly perfect billboard – which he hadn’t started because he felt that his power was still insufficient.

His progress finally made him decide that it was time. There was also the deeply buried worry in his heart about Uncle Hua’s health. So, he made the decision. Another important reason was that he had recently finally made a breakthrough with motion-illusion fantasy card making. That difficult problem had perplexed him for a long time.

As compared with the still-illusion fantasy card, a circular composition is added to the fantasy card which can emit motion-illusions. But as every card master knows, the degree of difficulty to make the motion-illusion fantasy card is much higher as compared with the still-illusion fantasy card. The most directly observed manifestation of this was the price of the cards. The advertised price of the motion-illusion fantasy card was at least three times that of the still-illusion card.

A difficult problem, which really puts novices through an ordeal, was how to cause illusions to move; how to make them move smoothly and naturally.

For example, if the emitted image was a waterfall, many of the illusions put out by novices were like not-quite-cooked silver noodles. While if you really wanted to achieve something true to life, you would need many specifics, like the ripples and folds of water when it flowed, the splashes blooming everywhere, the fine mist which filled the air, and so forth. Only card masters having rich experience could pull this off, although in that regard, many high-level card masters were not up to the level of low-level card masters who specialized in motion-illusions.

There was a famous saying in the card world – details determine results.

It was painstaking work, not admitting the least bit of pretense.

But Chen Mu was very patient, which had something to do with similar encounters during his childhood. It wasn’t a simple matter if a street punk who wanted to get food wasn’t patient enough. Maintaining such patience would be enough to make others bristle, but not for an “adept” in the street punk world like him, who has been able to survive street punk life long-term.

Observation! Lengthy observation wasn’t dry at all for him.

His progress was fast; fast enough even to surprise himself. For the first time, he wondered if he might have natural talent for card making.

The eagle flies, while the rabbit walks, the wind blows while the water flows, the sun rises in the morning and sets at night . . .

There wasn’t one of the motion fantasy cards that he made which wasn’t exceptionally lively. But those weren’t his most realistic motion fantasy cards; those were of bustling and hasty pedestrians, or cats and dogs wandering in the night . . . those childhood scenes were deeply burned into his mind. He could make them appear almost without thinking. These became among his most treasured riches.

That day, he planned to make a fantasy card advertising-poster for Uncle Hua. But because it was his first time making a fantasy card billboard, and he didn’t have any experience, Chen Mu planned to stroll about on the street, to learn about what sort of style was used in other people’s fantasy card billboards.