The Card Apprentice

Pomelo was silent and desolate after the war. The whole city had turned into one of ruins and death. The corpses everywhere were covered with flies, which filled the air with the heavy stench of rotting flesh. There wasn’t a sound, and there were no living people. When some card artisan reporters finally broke out through the jungle to enter Pomelo, what they saw was only a lifeless city.

The only thing that remained of the former bustle were the ruins and the corpses all over the place. It was a true hell such as had never existed in the entire history of the federation!

Once the scene had been transmitted to the whole federation, the people were shocked! Both in the flourishing districts and in the ordinary residential districts, they were all horrified by the disastrous scene after the battle.

There were only 10,000 people left alive in the huge city of Pomelo, and the one who started the tragedy—the Federation Comprehensive Academy—immediately became the target of a mass crusade. The public’s fury sent the prestige of the Federation Comprehensive Academy to an historic low.

* * *

At the Federation Comprehensive Academy, Pavchek was staring at Tang Hanpei with a hideous expression. That disciple who had brought him so much pride and glory—the one he had been most pleased with his whole life—was getting further and further away from him.

“What did you think you were doing?” Pavchek asked in a deep voice, suppressing the rage he felt.

Tang Hanpei’s expression remained calm, and he didn’t say a thing. After a full three minutes of that, Pavchek’s eyes grew even colder.

“What about the Central Island Firm? Ren Wenzhou?”

That time, Tang Hanpei opened his mouth and calmly said, “Ren Wenzhou was killed by Qiao Yuan.”

“Which means you didn’t get the Central Island Firm’s technology?” Pavchek’s tone was getting still colder.

“That’s right,” Tang Hanpei straight-up confessed.

“Argh. Get some rest, then.”

With stunning efficiency, the upper ranks of the Federation Comprehensive Academy administration passed a resolution. Tang Hanpei was exempted from all duties and strictly permitted to be active only inside the academy.

However, before they could even react to what had happened, counterattacks had already been launched by the Central Repository of the Classics and Faya. There had been another victim in that battle in addition to the Central Repository of the Classics. That would be Faya. The extent of their losses was unknown, but judging from their backlash, they seemed to have taken some serious injuries.

Within a brief three days, the Federation Comprehensive Academy’s 15 garrisons were all fiercely attacked, leaving heavy casualties. Both the Star Academy and the Bitter Solitude Temple remained silent about it. Tang Hanpei’s conduct had enraged the two of them just as much as the others, but they didn’t do anything because Tang Hanpei had guaranteed the safety of personnel from both academies.

The battling between Moon Frost Island and Desert Camp kept escalating. The two of them were putting everything into it, with both sides continually increasing the level of their card artisans as well as their numbers. The whole disposition of the war was gradually expanding. The strategic materiel in the Heavenly Drum Village District was surging in price like crazy under that influence, which drew endless complaints from quite a few card artisans.

With Qiao Yuan and Mi Xiaqing having been killed, the attacks on the Central Repository of the Classics became foundational. There was no other ace at the level of Qiao Yuan, apart from the lord of the academy. He was already elderly at 72, so he really couldn’t join the war in person. The Central Repository of the Classics was fresh out at the level of an ace.

Just as everyone assumed the Central Repository of the Classics was going to fall down in the race, a sudden piece of news got everyone’s attention. The House of a Hundred Depths had sent a diplomatic mission to visit the Central Repository of the Classics, and the two sides engaged in confidential talks. That was the first time ever that a mission from a different region had met with a local power without first having consulted with the Heavenly Federation government.

Could the mysterious region of the House of a Hundred Depths want to participate in that already chaotic and messy competition? That put everyone on their guard. If one were to say Tang Hanpei’s conduct made the Federation Comprehensive Academy fall into a quagmire, then the Central Repository of the Classics was doubtlessly about to be pushed into a pit of fire.

After a few days, the Central Repository of the Classics announced the news that they and the House of a Hundred Depths were engaging in a deeper collaboration.

There was an uproar once that news got out. In addition to the Federation Comprehensive Academy, the other four of the Big Six clearly expressed their warning to the Central Repository of the Classics not to complicate the situation. The Federation Comprehensive Academy was extremely fierce in their own media attacks about what had happened.

Still, the Central Repository of the Classics had already lost so much that they weren’t afraid of losing anything else. They kept openly emphasizing that their collaboration with the House of a Hundred Depths was limited to business. Nobody was believing that nonsense, however.

The vicious media attacks from the Federation Comprehensive Academy didn’t improve the situation, and the bystanders remained bystanders. The new collaboration didn’t pull the Star Academy and the Bitter Solitude Temple into the battle. General Wei Yueqing, the military representative to the Federation Comprehensive Academy and the leader of the First Army, remained silent and smug.

The smug attitude of the military flustered the top leadership of the Federation Comprehensive Academy. Shortly thereafter, Tang Hanpei’s young protégé, Song Chengyan, refused to go to war, adding hail on top of snow to make matters worse.

That incurred the wrath of the higher levels of the academy administration. They had no way to get Tang Hanpei, but would it still be impossible to get themselves Song Chengyan, who had no background? Having been trying to understand how to strengthen themselves, the highest levels of the administration suddenly turned directly to the card artisans of the First Army and methodically turned over the encampment of the First Army to Song Chengyan.

By that time, the upper administration wouldn’t dare lose face with Wei Yueqing, but they were helpless. The administration immediately convened a meeting of the top brass to appoint Di Bo as the commander.

Di Bo rushed to the front lines and quickly stabilized the situation. He knew he was there to defend and didn’t have the authority to attack. But he was best at attack, so he simply used an attack as defense. He concentrated most of his power in a single breath, with significant results.

That allowed the upper administration to breathe a sigh of relief. Among the huge numbers of factions in the upper administration, Pavchek’s was the most powerful. Following Tang Hanpei’s house arrest, however, the power of Pavchek’s faction was greatly reduced.

Previously, everyone had been trembling in fear because of how critical the situation was. But after Di Bo kept winning at the front, some of them were getting restless, so the power of the faction that included Di Bo especially surged.

The undercurrents inside the Federation Comprehensive Academy were bubbling up, and they had no place better to go.

* * *

At the Star Academy, Qing Qing had always maintained a quiet, sunny disposition. The one sitting in front of her was the president of the Star Academy. He had a full head of white hair and looked like any ordinary old man. He was looking at Qing Qing, full of kindness. Next to the middle-aged man stood Yu Long, who was the director of instruction.

The old man spoke slowly. “I have something for you to look at.”

Yu Long then presented a fantasy card. Qing Qing took it and slid it into her apparatus. Her face, which was as placid as an ancient well, finally showed some shock.

Seeing Qing Qing finally having changed her expression, he seemed happy. “Ha ha, you’re surprised. Now that I think about it, this matter came up because of you. Bian Yun has been studying this ‘Legend of Master Shi’ fantasy card set with his teacher these past two years, and he finally found something. Of course, he’s very grateful to you. If it weren’t for you that year, he might have written off this card play.”

Qing Qing smiled with some bitterness, gathering the bangs on her forehead. “I never would have thought this card play was still such a big deal.” Under her calm exterior, she was quite shocked! Who knew anything would have come of her coming across that card play two years before? If it hadn’t been for the president bringing it up, she would never have remembered how much attention she had paid to it.

“Ha ha. Wrong! It’s the technique used to make the card play that is such a big deal.” The old man cheerfully corrected her, his laughter being a lot more frequent that day than normal. That also made Yu Long’s eyes light up happily to the side of him.

Qing Qing became entranced for a while. She had forgotten all about her experience at Eastern Wei Academy two years before. It was after her time there that she had gotten her two years to fully recuperate. That was also when it had first hit her that she had just become the first to come out of the inner academy. But two years of recuperation hadn’t caused her strength to regress. On the contrary, her power had progressed from before, and her mental attitude was lot more mature.

That terrifying female flexster! Every time Qing Qing thought of the demonic woman, some ripples would be blown up in her calm mind. She had never thought that just as she first emerged from her recuperation, she would learn such an explosive piece of news. Her strong psychological qualities still didn’t stop her from sucking in a breath of cold air. If that news were to get out, what kind of bloodbath would ensue?

Just at that time, Yu Long opened his mouth. “This conclusion has been confirmed by the most senior professors in the inner academy. We’ve also consulted with the scholars in charge of the library. Afterward, we finally discovered a few traces in one of the journals of the first president, Heiner Van Sant. That made us very excited. We immediately dispatched a lot of personnel to investigate the true identity of Wood-Cop, who made the ‘Legend of Master Shi’ card play. Their identities were revealed, but those two themselves were nowhere to be seen. According to the investigation, the two had a clear division of labor. Chen Mu made the cards, and Copper was the playwright.”

Seeing Qing Qing so absorbed in listening, Yu Long continued. “We’ve been focusing on Chen Mu. According to the investigations, Chen Mu was a street punk when he was a child, up until he was 12.”

Qing Qing was taken aback.

“Afterward, he ran into someone who can no longer be checked out. But what has been precisely determined is that he started making one-star power cards. Starting when he was 12, he made one-star power cards for a living.”

“He made a living from making one-star power cards?” Qing Qing looked excited.

“Yes. We previously found that inconceivable, but we finally calculated that a single one-star power card costed about 98 Oudi to make. The cards he made were purchased by a small shop, but the owner of that shop has already passed away. We expended rather a lot of power to find only a few clues. We found some relatives of the shop owner. There, we found his books. We then made a new discovery.”

“What did you discover?” Qing Qing couldn’t help but be drawn in by Yu Long’s account.