The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu had run into trouble. The mid-grade second level of perceptual sensitivity training was going to be far more difficult than he had imagined. Across seven straight days, except for resting, he had been immersed in it to the point of even dropping the exercise gymnastics. He could already tell those were obviously providing less and less improvement.

He didn’t find the training boring, even as tortuous as it always was. It was a lot more interesting than making one-star power cards. When he had been making those, especially at the beginning, the scale of the resistance he would encounter was something hard to believe. He was only 11 at the time, and that card master was someone in dire straits about to starve to death. He only had seven days of study.

It was almost impossible to succeed in getting an 11-year-old child with no foundation to be able to learn to make one-star power cars within seven days. But that dying card master had thought up the method, which was the only thing he had as a thank-you gift for Chen Mu. In order to teach him, the card master had racked his brains to detail every step. He then explained every step very patiently.

The first time Chen Mu made contact with all those things, there were too many he didn’t understand. But, as young as he then was, he still keenly realized their potential to change his fate. So, he was very diligent; although he didn’t understand, he started by memorizing them. When the card master died, Chen Mu still hadn’t understood, but he had already memorized all of the steps and every detail.

Once he had hope, Chen Mu looked everywhere for short-term work. That lasted a year.

Within that year, he had finally figured out what the dead card master had taught him. Even if it was the way to make the simplest and most ordinary one-star power card, it was hope for him. Hope did exist. He would “dip his hand into the water” every night, learning the composition of the one-star power card section by section. Since he was afraid of forgetting, he would take the time every day to recite to himself every detail he needed to pay attention to. From start to finish, he never left out a single detail.

By the time he started to make one-star power cards, the pressure still hadn’t let up. The funds he had on hand were pitiful; every time he failed, his losses were huge. He wasn’t qualified to fail!

He then cultivated his painstaking habits of concentration, which was the only way he could try to reduce the number of times he failed in making cards.

Among card masters, Chen Mu’s success rate was stunning. Ordinary card masters would have a failure rate of about 30 percent when making cards they were familiar with. But Chen Mu’s failure rate was far below that number, like that day when Pearson was watching him gape-mouthed.

Chen Mu had already become accustomed to a boring, monotonous life. For him, it was nothing more than the most common and ordinary part of life. It was nothing worth making a fuss about. He had probably never thought he would finally accomplish what he had because of that attitude.

Those with superior lives always felt life should be colorful, varied, and full of the taste of cigars and red wine.

But that wasn’t how it was to Chen Mu. No matter how hard life was—like walking on thin ice—it would always have all sorts of troubles and distress beyond what he’d ever imagined.

He had already become used to that.

He’d given up on hope, even if his hope wasn’t anything more than a measly one-star power card. That was the way it was, so he would just grit his teeth and bear the inhuman suffering when he was practicing the extreme training methods in the mysterious card.

That was only part of life for him, and a common and ordinary part at that. It was no big deal.

It was the same just now. The perceptual sensitivity training tortured his nerves time and again. He didn’t even know how many times he had failed, but it was so many he couldn’t count them. He had only barely completed the first story of the model in front of him. That had been the pitifully small result of those seven days.

Chen Mu’s spirits were as ever. His attention never wavered because of the endless failures, and he wasn’t discouraged. He concentrated all along on controlling his perception. For others, concentration was rather enervating, but it was Chen Mu’s daily bread. Making one-star power cards had taught him how to concentrate, and he had used that habit in every aspect of his life.

He had already discovered a few tricks, which was to say his perceptual acuity seemed to have made a little progress.

The rapidly spinning turntable didn’t interfere with him anymore, and he could now effortlessly find the energy block he needed and lock onto it.

That was also the only thing he’d accomplished during those seven days.

But when he wanted to take the block, that was still difficult. He probably had to attempt it 150 times before he could successfully take a piece. It really placed high demands on his perceptual control.

That rate would drive a person crazy, but Chen Mu wasn’t the least bit discouraged. Compared to how dark his eyes went when he first touched a card—when there wasn’t anyone to guide him, and he had to depend on teaching himself—the difficulty in front of him was a problem he was well-familiar with, even though it was a little more difficult.

But his body had always had the capacity to hold out to the limit. The depletion rate on his physical and mental powers from his concentration was shocking. When he exited the mysterious card after three hours, he had removed two energy blocks. He had approached 500 failures.

The difficulty of removing those two energy blocks was quite a bit higher than for ordinary energy blocks. That was what created such desperate proportions.

* * *

Wei-ah was sitting in front of the fantasy card receiver, watching its programs with relish. He was holding the brown, fleshy dog in his lap and teasing him idly with his other hand. The dog was fat and heavy. Every time Wei-ah picked him up, obvious waves of flesh rolled. It had a great capacity for food and a lazy temperament, sleeping through the whole day.

The strange thing was that Wei-ah, who had never been concerned about anything, seemed to really like that fleshy dog. Chen Mu marveled at that.

Just then, the apparatus on Chen Mu’s wrist sounded. It was Sue Lochiro.

“How are you, Mr. Cao?” Sue Lochiro’s absolutely beautiful face appeared on the screen.

“How are you, Miss Sue?” Chen Mu nodded to her.

Sue Lochiro smiled gently and asked with some concern, “How has your health been lately, Mr. Cao? Has there been any condition?”

That warmed Chen Mu, and his tone naturally slowed. “Everything has been fine recently, thanks to Miss Sue.” The relationship between him and Sue Lochiro was one-sided. Not only had she diagnosed his illness without charge, but to be so concerned with his condition really moved Chen Mu.

Gathering the bangs in front of her forehead, Sue Lochiro’s beautiful white face produced a rush of excitement as she said with a slight smile, “You are so polite, Mr. Cao. I am a medical card artisan, and this is my job.” Her tone then became more proper. “I looked for Mr. Cao this time because there have been some preliminary diagnostic results.”

“Oh? Please continue.” Chen Mu’s attention had become immediately more focused.

“To tell the truth, the professor and I have never seen such a situation before. We couldn’t find any record of that thread-like thing inside of Mr. Cao.” She paused as she glowed with the radiance of knowledge. Her delicate cherry lips then tossed out a heavy bombshell. “However, based on the analysis of the data the professor and I had already conducted, that blue thread-like thing is likely a living thing!”

“A living thing?” Chen Mu’s heart skipped a beat.

His mind flashed back like lightning, remembering the scene when the demonic woman had used the green thread. It had so easily killed several card artisans. He suddenly remembered the demonic woman finally retrieving the green thread when it had changed back into a card!

Right! It was a card! He still remembered how shocked he had been. He had never seen such a strange card, which was to say he had never seen such a peculiar transformation.

At the core of the cards in the Heavenly Federation were energy and composition. All cards revolved around those two points without exception. At the same time, the Heavenly Federation cards’ transformations were all transformations of energy and composition.

Before he had ever seen the demonic woman, that had been Chen Mu’s understanding of cards. But that card in the hands of the demonic woman had completely destroyed Chen Mu’s understanding of cards. There was still a card system in the world that was entirely different from that in the Heavenly Federation!

Without knowing why, when Chen Mu heard Sue Lochiro say the green thread was a living thing, the first thing that came to his mind was the green silk card!

“Indeed. From the analysis of its every feature, it should be a living thing. But neither the teacher or I have ever seen such a peculiar creature.” Sue Lochiro’s expression turned solemn. Once she started talking about professional issues, the softness in her face disappeared and was replaced by a sharp feeling.

Chen Mu waited for what would follow.

Sue Lochiro paused and looked at Chen Mu apologetically, saying, “But, up until now, the teacher and I haven’t found any practical solution. It is too deeply entrenched and distributed throughout your body. If we were to directly remove it, we would have to cut apart your whole body’s fleshy structure. Our current technology is far from that point!”

A faint disappointment arose from Chen Mu’s heart, although that result hadn’t been unexpected. He’d had a bad feeling the last time he was examined.

What Sue Lochiro went on to say shook his spirits. “But it isn’t as though we didn’t discover anything.” Sue Lochiro pursed her lips in a smile. “The teacher and I have studied together for a long time, and he is also very interested in your condition. We finally came to two conjectures, which might be of some assistance to you.”

“What did you speculate?” Chen Mu couldn’t help but blurt out.

“There are two conjectures. First, we speculate that the strength of your perception can reduce the number of episodes; the stronger your perception is, the less possible an episode becomes. The pain and duration of each episode would also be shorter. But the other issue is that the stronger your perception is, the more oppressed that thing is. Such a living thing is the strangest the teacher and I have ever seen. Its vitality is powerful, though the energy it requires is limited. You don’t ordinarily have to worry that it would absorb the nutrients in your body.

“However, it is very sensitive to oppression. That is why it drilled into the deeper layers of your flesh when you were preparing to pull it out. The pressure that came along with the strengthening of your perception could have stimulated its further growth. This is one strange creature; the more the pressure, the more intense its tendency to grow. By now, it could even be absorbing nutrients from your body, and we can’t be certain what kind of residual effects might ensue.

“The other conjecture is something I discovered by accident. I was using its every parameter to make a standard data table of characteristic symptoms in order to find a similar creature. I wanted to see if I could find its close relative and in that way perhaps find something new. It was a pity I didn’t find any relatives, but I accidentally discovered a kind of creature that was completely opposite in every bit of data!”

Chen Mu perked up his ears to listen carefully, afraid to lose a single word.

“In the study of medicine, there is a peculiar phenomenon called the Popovich Phenomenon. It was discovered 100 years ago by a medical card artisan named Popovich. He found that if there are two living things whose characteristic data charts are completely opposite, they often exhibit the phenomenon of mutual solution. The most classic type among them is the three-handed grass and the brown ground fern. Both of those plants are toxic, and their characteristic symptoms’ standard data charts were complete opposites. Amazingly, however, the three-handed grass could resolve the brown ground fern’s toxin, and the brown ground fern could resolve the three-handed grass’s toxin in the same manner!”

As her eyes whirled, she got a glimpse of Chen Mu. Sue Lochiro continued on to say, “But to have such a coincidence in the natural world would be really rare. Up until now, we’ve only found five pairs of completely opposite samples. This kind of mutual resolution phenomenon doesn’t have any theoretical basis, and there is a lot of argument about it in the world of medical card artisans. But I consider it to be a breakthrough myself. The thing that is completely opposite to the table-standard data on characteristic symptoms for the silk-like creature in your body is the gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus.”

“Gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus?” Chen Mu asked back, never having heard of such a living thing.

Sue Lochiro said with a bitter smile, “To tell the truth, I haven’t seen the real thing either. It is an extremely rare kind of fungus with a soft texture, like the jelly on meat, with gold-colored mottling growing on its surface.” As she described it, Sue Lochiro impressively popped out a small screen on which was the picture of a gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus. Sue Lochiro continuously adjusted the angle of the fungus in the screen to make it convenient for Chen Mu to see it clearly.

“The gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus is extremely rare and expensive. It has an important use to prolong people’s lives. The federation doesn’t produce it, but it is produced in the House of a Hundred Depths, where it is said to be just as rare.” Having said that, Sue Lochiro seemed to feel the hope had been spread too thin. Full of apology, she said, “This speculation really doesn’t have any value, though I told you about it anyway. I hope you don’t lose hope. The gold-mottled liquid-soft fungus doesn’t matter. I can look around to see if I can find its close relative, which could be useful.”

Chen Mu was transfixed.

Seeing his appearance, Sue Lochiro’s beautiful eyes saddened, and she sighed to herself that she didn’t know how to console him. She felt guiltier and could only disconnect after a few words of comfort.

What she didn’t know was that Chen Mu’s being transfixed wasn’t because of her or the fungus. It was because of her bringing up the House of a Hundred Depths! When he heard that name, it was as though his brain were struck by lightning. The demonic woman had come from the mysterious House of a Hundred Depths!

The ghost-faced flower seed, the wall-climbing lotus, the elastic grass shoes, and the battle style of moving in the dark had made him speculate many times.

By now, he was 90 percent certain the demonic woman had come from the House of a Hundred Depths. But, although Chen Mu didn’t know much about that place, he at least had some general understanding.

The House of a Hundred Depths had established relations with the federation for about 270 years, but it was still quite mysterious in the minds of the people. Moreover, although there were bilateral relations, there was little exchange. Originally, there were frequent comings and goings, but that was up until about 100 years ago. A card artisan firm numbering in the tens of thousands once entered the House of a Hundred Depths, which brought about a nasty reputation.

Exchanges between the two sides were strictly controlled after that event. By now, the exchanges were nearly zero. If it weren’t for the demonic woman being so different, Chen Mu would have had some difficulty even thinking about that mysterious place.

Chen Mu suddenly remembered that the first time he encountered the demonic woman was in the Outer Reaches outside of Eastern Shang Wei City. But the exchange transit window between the House of a Hundred Depths and the federation wasn’t in the Eastern Reaches! How did the demonic woman get to the Outer Reaches outside of Eastern Shang Wei City? Even though the demonic woman was extremely tough, Chen Mu didn’t believe she could single-handedly get through the Outer Reaches across half the Heavenly Federation. Moreover, given the stiffness the demonic woman demonstrated, she hadn’t had any dealings with residents of the federation before she had seen him.

Chen Mu then thought about the matter of the Star Academy coming to Eastern Shang Wei City. There were many speculative versions of that event, but no matter which, everyone believed the Star Academy certainly had some definite motive. Otherwise, why would the illustrious Star Academy come to such an unknown little place?

The demonic woman… the Star Academy…

Could there have been some connection between those two?

An irrepressible, bold guess emerged from Chen Mu’s mind.