The Card Apprentice

A familiar yet strange feeling filled Chen Mu’s consciousness, and there was a stirring in his heart. Almost unconsciously, he made a simple movement—he opened his eyes.

The white ceiling and the eye-piercing hanging light…

A wave of ecstasy welled up in his heart, and he sat right up, unable to believe he could see his own hands. Good lord! He had awoken! There was rebirth of joy surging through every nerve of his body. That familiar yet somewhat strange feeling turned his nose inexplicably sour with emotion.

He was alive. How great!

“Boss!” Sue Lochiro’s indescribable scream nearly broke Chen Mu’s eardrums. Chen Mu turned around and saw the tears flowing down Sue Lochiro’s face, her right hand strongly covering her mouth, and her wet eyes full of the joy of disbelief.

There was a disordered clomping sound from outside the door. The door was then shoved open, and Bogner, Xi Ping, and Wei-ah all burst in.

“Boss!”

Seeing those skinny and haggard faces, Chen Mu’s heart was warmed.

Out of concern that the base might turn chaotic, they’d sealed off any news of Chen Mu’s coma. Now, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Without knowing it, Chen Mu had become the core of their team, its true heart and soul. He was irreplaceable, not by Bogner nor by Xi Ping.

“Inside your body, Boss…” Bogner said a little hesitantly.

Hearing that, Chen Mu knew they had found out about the green thread in his body. He was honest with them and simply nodded. “Mmmm, a weird green thread was planted by an ace before, and it gives me occasional seizures.”

Although they had long known, they still showed surprise. That weird thing had actually been planted by someone. They had never heard of such a bizarre move.

Chen Mu, on the other hand, looked calm and comforted them. “I’ve only had a few seizures. It’s mostly dormant, and I’m no different than ordinary people.”

“How can you get rid of it? Could that ace do it? Does the boss know him?” Xi Ping asked hurriedly.

Ever since she’d left, Chen Mu hadn’t heard any further news about the demonic woman. He rubbed his nose and wore a bitter smile. “I don’t know the jerk. She fought with another ace last time I saw her, and I don’t know where she is right now. Still, Miss Sue conjectures that the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus could be useful.”

“Then we’ll find some way to get the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus!” Bogner said resolutely. He then couldn’t help but complain to Chen Mu, “How could you not say a word to us about something so important? Although we might have limited ability, we could still come up with something.”

Chen Mu involuntarily rubbed his nose again, a little embarrassed. “I don’t think we have enough power. It would basically be impossible for us to get the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus, so I’m not holding out much hope. I’d thought Zu Ning had some on him, but he didn’t.”

Hearing that, Bogner rolled his eyes and said grumpily to Xi Ping, “With all we do, the boss still doesn’t have confidence in us.”

Xi Ping added, “And, we don’t have any confidence in ourselves.”

“That’s really embarrassing. How can we deserve such a boss?” Bogner smacked his own mouth and said nothing more.

Xi Ping went right to the point. “We’re not motivated.”

Silent up until then, Sue Lochiro suddenly interjected, “You’re not even men!”

That really hurt, and everyone’s expression turned a little strange. Meanwhile, in the midst of that bombing exchange, Chen Mu kept smiling bitterly. Still, he knew everyone meant well by him, so he wasn’t angry.

Chen Mu was a conflicted person. Most of the time, he would be a lot more hardworking than most people since no one knew the difficulty of existence better than he did. Added to that was how he always maintained his steady heart and calm intellect, and how he knew how to give and take. It was those good qualities that had gotten him that day’s achievement.

His experience had also made him realistic. In his eyes, social divides were always vast and out of reach. Those influential, old, aristocratic powerhouses were subconsciously still something he couldn’t touch, even though he’d had plenty of dealings with them. That hadn’t happened overnight but across years of his life. It had become an iron law etched into his mind.

So, even though he knew the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus could help him, the grand old houses that held it weren’t a source of hope for him. He was too realistic.

Seeing Chen Mu’s bitter smile, Bogner said positively, “I’m not joking, Boss. You probably don’t even know your own power! You are plenty powerful in the eyes of the rest of us!”

Surprisingly, what Bogner said got the unanimous endorsement of Xi Ping, Sue Lochiro, and the rest, apart from Wei-ah, who remained as expressionless as ever.

“You’re only 20, yet you have the card making skills of a grand master. You’ve broken the iron law that one can’t practice as a card master and a card artisan at the same time. You are also an outstanding card artisan! You are a genius in that regard. Moreover, look—you’ve laid the foundation right in front of you by yourself. There’s no need to doubt your power!” Bogner looked full of praise when he said that.

“You are the greatest genius I’ve ever seen, Boss!” Xi Ping added to the praise.

Chen Mu looked to be at a loss. It was clear that what Bogner and Xi Ping said hadn’t resonated with him. He felt he was about at the level of half a bucket with card making, and that was all due to the mysterious card and that magical Token Theory. As far as being a card artisan, no more needed to be said. He hadn’t even completed the most basic course of study for being a card artisan. In front of Wei-ah, he would be overjoyed to last even half a minute. Could that be called powerful?

Seeing Chen Mu’s expression, Bogner gave up trying to persuade him. As he saw it, Chen Mu was good at everything, but he lacked initiative, ambition, and aggression, which were all enough to be considered his weakness. But Bogner was just as clear that while his boss looked perfectly easygoing, he was very stubborn in the deepest recesses of his heart.

Xi Ping was the same kind of old fox. Everything Bogner could see, he could see as well. The two had a tacit understanding between them as they looked helplessly at each other and shrugged.

But the two of them also knew that in that world, nothing was ever perfect. If Chen Mu were truly ambitious and aggressive, they wouldn’t necessarily have wanted to go along with him. They had rolled with lots of types, had seen many things and people, and had worked under truly ambitious and ruthless types. They had never been better off than they were just then.

The apparatus on Xi Ping’s wrist suddenly sounded out. Xi Ping took a look and smiled. “Just when you’re falling asleep, someone sends you a pillow. Here. This is intelligence sent from the Snowflake Card Artisan Team regarding the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus. The intelligence says that apart from the Big Six, five organizations have the fungus, and seven might have it.”

“That many?” Chen Mu was clearly taken aback. At the outset, he had thought only those at the level of the Big Six would have it. He hadn’t expected all of the Big Six to have some and that there were still five more organizations, along with seven who might have it. Chen Mu ignored those seven.

“A lot?” Bogner smiled coldly and shook his head. “Would you call that a lot? That’s in the entire federation! Those most distant wouldn’t really be practical. We should only lock on to a target in the Heavenly Drum Village District. Oh. After taking a look, apart from Moon Frost Island, only one organization has it in the Heavenly Drum Village District, along with one that might have it.”

“We’ll first put aside the one that might have it. Since even Mobley and his team can’t be certain, I don’t imagine we’ll find anything out,” Xi Ping said.

Chen Mu’s gaze fell onto that name, and he read it in a light voice. “The Great Uncle of Dongrui.”

“It looks like we’ll have to set ourselves in the direction of this Great Uncle’s aristocratic household. If we were to want it from Moon Frost Island, the probability of getting it would be about nil. But who is this Great Uncle of Dongrui? Why haven’t I heard of him?” Bogner was rubbing his chin.

Xi Ping had never paid much attention to Bogner’s feelings, and he dropped the phrase, “What do you know besides women, anyhow?”

Bogner was plenty thick-skinned. He laughed and said with a calm expression, “Don’t you think that is actually good? My whole body itches when you say such things.”

Xi Ping rolled his eyes, but his gaze quickly fell onto that name. “Dongrui must refer to the Dongrui District. It’s a little far away from us—quite a bit farther than Thousand Lakes. ‘Great Uncle’ is a surname, and it looks like we’ll have to look into which organization it really is. If they actually do have such fine things as the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus, I imagine they must have quite a background.”

Seeing Xi Ping and Bogner both so worried about making plans for his well-being was heartwarming for Chen Mu. He thought about it and then said, “We can take our time with the investigation. Right! You still haven’t seen my newly designed card set. Let’s go take a look.”

Once he brought up the card set, Bogner suddenly got his spirits back and rushed to say, “Let’s go!” He was full of anticipation about the new card set; Chen Mu would bring them a pleasant surprise every time. Sue Lochiro wasn’t interested in the card demonstration and just went to rest. Those few days taking care of Chen Mu had utterly exhausted her. Xi Ping wasn’t so interested, either. He was more interested in that so-called Great Uncle of Dongrui, and he was itching to put an investigation into motion right away.

That time, Chen Mu didn’t make just a single type of card for the card set but instead made several. During the battle with the Downstream Alliance, he had discovered weaknesses in the card set tactics. The card set tactics were plenty powerful, but they were lacking change and mobility, making it easy for the enemy to restrain them. So, when he made the new card set, Chen Mu designed quite a few types in order to enrich the card set tactics.

There were three card artisans waiting in the training room who had gotten their orders earlier. They were card set card artisans who had survived and who were therefore familiar with the card set. Their perception had finally broken through the fourth level to enter the fifth ever since their persistent practice of the snow pit method. When the three of them found out they would be trying out the new card set that day, they were extremely excited.

Chen Mu first took out three from a light green set of cards. Bogner handled them with a great deal of curiosity. “What kind of card is this?”

As he was handing the three cards to the card artisans, Chen Mu was saying, “This is similar to the shuttle cards we previously used, though it has a lot better performance.”

The three card artisans fiddled with them for a while and quickly knew how to use them.

Boom! There was a dull sound like the thud of a hammer.

Bogner felt the shock in his heart, and it was unspeakably hard to take. The howling of that shuttle card was strangely low and completely different from before.

“A damage value of 3,000!” When he saw that number, the sense of it having been hard to take disappeared without a trace for Bogner. He opened his eyes wide, pointing with indescribable joy at the number displayed above the target and saying incoherently, “My god, 3,000… Am I hallucinating? My god! I’ll go nuts!”

A middle-aged man was seen dancing around in the training room, his face contorted and crazed.

The number also exceeded the three card artisans’ expectations, and they looked at the cards in their hands fanatically. No card artisan wouldn’t be thrilled by a card with a high lethality! A damage value of 3,000 was enough to make it worthy to be called a truly sharp and powerful weapon of attack. Any four-star energy cloak would be as fragile as paper facing its attack. Even an ordinary five-star energy cloak would be feeble in front of it.

“I was able to accomplish some optimization of the composition of the energy shuttles it emits. The new energy bodies are slightly pointed in front and have spiral grooves along their surface, so they will spin during flight to increase their stability. That also increases their speed to three times faster than the previous shuttle card. I also carried out some optimization of the scanning card among the two accompanying cards in the set. Where it was previously locking in by triangulation, I’ve increased it to a duplex triangulation to increase the accuracy. Within a range of 10,000 meters, it can carry out highly accurate long-range attacks.” Chen Mu was chattering away. When talking about cards, his expression would always be full of self-confidence. But he was a little apologetic when he said, “Still, because I was in pursuit of power, I couldn’t increase its firing frequency. It actually went down quite a bit, limiting its scope somewhat.”

Bogner keenly realized how to deploy that card in the first instant. That kind of card would be most suited for sniper attacks against aces in the enemy camp, when it could accurately lock on with its super high-powered attack. Wasn’t that what it was made for? He could imagine during the chaos of battle how a shuttle would come suddenly flying, easily penetrating the energy cloak, and how the adversary’s aces would fall headlong from the sky.

Ho, ho! That was just too wonderful!

As for the slower firing frequency, there was nothing they could do about that. Otherwise, no one else would have a way to survive! As Bogner saw things, its extremely long range made up for its weakness with firing frequency to a certain degree. Besides, its long range would mean they could choose the best point of ambush within a wide scope.

His excitement unabated, Chen Mu brought out two more cards that were covered in a fiery red pattern.

A two-card set? Bogner was suddenly caught up in his curiosity. Up until then, what Chen Mu made had all been at the scale of three-card sets. That was his first time seeing a card set containing only two cards.