The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu’s heart skipped a beat, as he deftly picked up the card with his fingers and inserted it into the slot of the device on his wrist.

“Crap!” The readout on the face of the card was still the same as before.

So, what kind of transformation did this card undergo? Chen Mu’s curious mind abruptly became fierce beyond measure. He hated not being able impulsively to go out right away and buy a three-star power-card.

Impulses are the devil! Impulses are the devil! Chen Mu was muttering to himself, reminding himself that this was not a small figure. After a lot of effort, he finally restrained himself with great difficulty. An ordinary person would likely be unable to restrain himself and would have gone out to buy a three-star power-card. But Chen Mu had steely resolve and had never slipped up in his restraint.

After he had slowly chilled off, he got his clarity back. The most important responsibility in front of him at that time was to learn how to make the fantasy card. That would be a qualitative leap for him. Although it basically wasn’t any kind of wish that he couldn’t achieve, Chen Mu had been fumbling along all by himself so assiduously and for so long, that he had already looked forward to that day for a long, long time.

At that moment, he couldn’t let himself be distracted by anything else. That hope was the reason he hadn’t been willing to touch his savings. He didn’t really know how much longer he would fumble about, or how much material he would use up, so he bitterly held back, and didn’t buy a three-star power-card.

Although that card was mysterious, making a fantasy card had been Chen Mu’s dream for a few years. Ever since he was a little street punk, when he would see those ever-shifting bright-colored fantasy card advertisements outside the shops, they would frequently hold him in their thrall. At such times he would always be able to forget his own tattered clothes which couldn’t even keep out the cold.

As far as keeping warm was concerned, he was already completely able to satisfy his needs. If it weren’t for that dream, he wouldn’t be studying card-theory so conscientiously. It was only the power-card which had enabled him to persist in his current existence, and to tell the truth, he was very satisfied with his current existence.

He wasn’t a very ambitious person. His childhood dreams were mostly simple and ordinary – to be able to eat his fill, dress warmly, have a place to live – and he had already achieved all of those. The only remaining thing that was still lodged in his memory was the multicolored fantasy card advertisements twinkling in the winter nights.

Hu! Chen Mu forcefully exhaled all the air from his chest, and lightly put the mysterious card into the drawer. Until he had learned how to make a fantasy card, he would absolutely not try to decipher the riddle of that mysterious card.

Looking at the pile of wasted cards on the table, Chen Mu sat back down without a word. He had long since gotten used to failure. He had been fumbling along by himself all along. Failure was his daily bread. If he were to become discouraged by defeat, he would never have gotten so far.

Try harder! Chen Mu inwardly clenched his fist.

Seven days went by.

Chen Mu couldn’t hide the exhaustion in his face. His eyes were completely bloodshot. In front of him were piled up innumerable cards, without one having a completed composition on its face. They were all rejects. He had been attempting to make fantasy cards without stopping for seven days, without a single success.

He somehow couldn’t let his perception control the pen in his hand. He could very clearly sense the intense nature embodied within the card-ink flowing from the pen nib, but he certainly had no way to use perception to control those liquids; to make them and the card get along together. The pen nib, filled to overflowing with liquid, was like a wild horse, which wouldn’t listen to commands.

Chen Mu’s perception was always low, and when it would sometimes torment him, he had no choice but to rest and wait for his perception to recover. For seven days, every day and every night, he would draft fantasy cards, without succeeding with any of them. The blow to his confidence made him much more tired than the weariness of his body and spirit.

What was he doing wrong, after all?

Chen Mu clawed at his unkempt hair with frustration.

He sat dejected in his chair, lost in thought as he stared at the piles of rejected cards. For these few days, what had gotten used up wasn’t only Chen Mu’s energy, but also a great quantity of money. The most important part of that was the expense for materials. Even though it was a one-star fantasy card, he had already wasted almost ten-thousand Oudi.

His flimsy pathetic savings wouldn’t bear that sort of torment any more. Chen Mu smiled bitterly to himself.

Standing up, and opening the window, the beautiful bright sun shone on his face. The warmth on his face made him squint contentedly. No matter what, take a rest!

Walking along the sunshine suffused street, Chen Mu, who was in an utterly miserable frame of mind because he had failed to make a fantasy card, unwittingly loosened up. Cloudless sunny weather was also among the favorites of the street punk, because you didn’t have to worry about the cold. You didn’t have to worry about quietly losing your life amid the cold wind.

Humming a little folk-tune, with his hands clasped behind the back of his head, Chen Mu strolled along according to his whim.

Without meaning to, he had walked to the area of the main gate to Eastern Wei Academy.

He himself had never entered Eastern Wei Academy to look around. Already cheered up, Chen Mu unwittingly walked right over toward Eastern Wei Academy.

Eastern Wei Academy didn’t have any restriction at all on the entry of non-Academy personnel. Because of the beauty of the scenery, and since there were so many historic sites, there were quite a few people who went there to amuse themselves. Every year, Eastern Wei Academy profited to no small figure from those sightseers. So, every time the school’s board met, they would always vigorously tidy up the Academy’s environs, which became one of the Eastern Wei Academy’s distinguishing features. Although Eastern Wei Academy didn’t have the actual strength to move forward in the rankings above the hundred or so federation academies ahead of it, it was selected among the top ten “most beautiful academies of the federation” every year. That also made the people of Eastern Shang-Wei City proud.

As he walked into Eastern Wei Academy, he saw several groups of tourists. Students and scholars could easily be told apart; the scholars always wore neat and tidy school uniforms. But no matter where Chen Mu went, he always stood out like a sore thumb.

With disheveled and bushy hair, wrinkled and filthy clothes, shuffling along in a pair of sandals, topped off by a face that hadn’t been washed in a few days, he looked very much like a beggar.

Mixed up and despite the looks of the people around him, Chen Mu calmly lay down on the grass. During childhood as a street punk, he had grown accustomed to the warmth and cold of the world. He had also grown immune early on to those looks of disgust and disdain. Sitting on the ground and then lying down came naturally for him. The surrounding people all detoured around him one after the other, even more certain that he was a beggar

Chen Mu didn’t pay attention to any of that. He lay on the grass, squinting his eyes and basking in the sun. The sun shining on his body made him lazy. It was really so comfortable that he didn’t want to move at all.

Just then someone’s voice penetrated his ear.