The Card Apprentice

They needed 300 three-star power cards and 42 four-star power cards! The three-star cards were 15,000 Oudi each, making 300 of them 4.5 million Oudi altogether. The four-star cards were a lot more expensive. They contained 80,000 units of energy, with the price going as high as 150,000, which averaged about two Oudi per unit. Forty-two four-star power cards would cost upwards of 6,300,000 Oudi! In other words, Chen Mu needed to prepare 10,800,000 Oudi worth of power cards, although buying them from the fatty would naturally be a little bit cheaper. But, no matter how he calculated, he would need 7 or 8 million.

He had the 7 or 8 million, but the critical issue was that it was only one week’s overhead. Heaven’s Wings didn’t have any way for him to earn 7 or 8 million Oudi.

More people certainly meant more power, and it was certainly safer. Once there were more people, however, the spending would surge. If Chen Mu wanted to maintain that kind of power, he would need to be constantly making money like crazy. He started to understand why only those large firms would be able to cultivate their own forces.

To cultivate power meant you needed to scrape together endless money. With him having only 20—or 21 with Lu Xiaoru—their daily overhead would be a few million per week, or certainly 20 or 30 million per month. Within a year, it would be 300 million!

If he hadn’t made the numbered series of cards in partnership with the fatty, Chen Mu doubted he would have ever seen such a huge pile of money in his whole life. That was only the daily overhead. The recruiting costs would entail the same kind of astronomical numbers.

Thinking about those other firms, which had hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of cards artisans, that would really be a lot of money!

No matter what, he wasn’t all that ambitious; those people could already protect his safety. But Chen Mu still powerfully felt how strapped he was. If he didn’t find some way to earn money, he would quickly be facing an unsustainable situation.

In that world, it wasn’t easy no matter where you were going. Chen Mu couldn’t help but feel strongly about it. But he wasn’t planning to spend all his time haggling with Bogner. Since he was the expert, Chen Mu would give him all the authority.

“Put everything you need into a list for me, and I’ll make a trip to the auction house,” Chen Mu said to Bogner.

Bogner neatly listed everything and gave it to Chen Mu, proposing, “You’d better bring a few people along.” He then opened his apparatus and gave an order. “Crow Feather, Happy Padding and Lucky Xi, come on over.” After about ten seconds, three people arrived in front of Chen Mu.

Crow Feather was as tall as a pagoda tree, and his two-meter frame was like a small mountain. He stood there giving out an oppressive feeling. Although his body was big and tall, he wasn’t the least bit clumsy. He looked pretty simple and straightforward. All of his joints were two sizes larger than ordinary, and even his apparatus was huge.

Happy Padding was shorter than Crow Feather, with a muscular body that filled his battle suit to the point of bursting. When you added to that his fierce-looking face, his hot, ruthless aura was completely revealed. One look told you he wasn’t a guy to mess with.

Lucky Xi was the most unusual among the three. He was refined and was wearing thin-framed glasses, which made him look exactly like those office workers who had no fighting power at all.

“With the three of them to protect you, plus your three personal bodyguards, you shouldn’t have much trouble,” Bogner said ponderously.

Chen Mu shook his head and pointed to Wei-ah, who was in the middle of watching the card receiver. “I can just go with him.”

“Him?” Bogner looked stunned. He’d seen Wei-ah when he came the last time and had thought he was some ordinary person.

“Let’s go, Wei-ah,” Chen Mu shouted to him.

“Oh.” Wei-ah stood and shut down the receiver card. He patted the brown fleshy dog a couple of times before walking over to Chen Mu.

Bogner said with a furrowed brow, “Boss, with that conflict that just happened, it’s a little dangerous outside. Please take along a few more people. Since you’ve hired me, I need to be responsible for your safety.”

Seeing Bogner’s sincere expression, Chen Mu felt something of a headache.

Although the six card artisans in front of him hadn’t said anything, the expressions on their faces showed they were obviously unconvinced. Their gazes toward Wei-ah were full of doubt and disdain. They hadn’t felt the slightest perceptual fluctuations from that man.

Chen Mu couldn’t help but frown. Since each of those card artisans was outstanding, it was normal for them to have a little pride. But, if he didn’t completely convince them, there would always be trouble.

Chen Mu’s expression went cold as he ordered in a low voice, “Attack them, Wei-ah!”

Everyone felt only a shadow flash by in surprise. Before they could react, they went numb from the neck down.

Bogner was gape-mouthed. Bewildered and afraid, he stayed fixated on the faces of the six. Their whole bodies had gone stiff, and they all suddenly fell face-up to the ground with a crash. Bogner could tell they had already been knocked out.

Bogner’s gaze fell onto Wei-ah as though he were looking at a monster.

“They’ll come around after ten minutes.” Chen Mu didn’t know how many times he’d seen that move with his own eyes, but he could tell at a glance how long they’d be out. After he spoke, he abandoned the dull-faced Bogner and left with Wei-ah.

Once out the door, Chen Mu contacted Yang An. When the two arrived at the Yang Clan Auction House, Xi Ping had been waiting for them for a while. Since the fatty had things to do just then and couldn’t tear himself away, Xi Ping would have to entertain them.

Since the auction of the numbered series of cards had already ended, and the auction of 012 to 022 still hadn’t begun, it was an empty time. Pitifully few people were in the auction house.

Xi Ping spoke respectfully to Chen Mu. “I’ve prepared the things you need. The boss says these things aren’t worth much, and he thought he’d do you a little favor.”

Chen Mu shook his head. “I’ll be buying these things for a while, so just maybe give me a discount.” He wasn’t about to take such valuable things for no real reason.

To have gotten as far as he did, Xi Ping naturally knew how to be flexible. He nodded. “Yes, sir. And you came this time…?” He wasn’t so foolish as to think Chen Mu had made a special trip to get power cards.

“I came to look at what materials you have,” Chen Mu said.

Xi Ping showed a troubled look on his face. “The auction hasn’t started, and the materials from last time have all been used up. We’ll have to wait for a few days after the auction for the next batch of materials to be delivered.”

Chen Mu smiled. “What I need this time are some ordinary materials. It would be fine if you could lead me to where the ordinary materials are.”

“If that’s all, please come along with me.” Xi Ping rushed to lead the way.

Xi Ping took Chen Mu to a room that could hold more than ten people. The most eye-catching things were the nearly wall-sized screens. There was an easy chair placed in front of them. The floor was covered with a soft carpet that was perfectly comfortable to walk on. Probably because some fragrance had been applied, the room gave off a delicate scent. In the kitchen-style cabinets were every kind of utensil one might need. More unexpectedly, there was a bed behind the easy chair.

Xi Ping opened the cupboard and took out a set of glasses. He then opened his apparatus and gave a few orders. Before half a minute was up, someone had sent in quite a few beverages and snacks. The workers who personally served the high officers knew this was some kind of VIP, and they served him attentively.

Xi Ping signaled for Chen Mu to sit in the easy chair. He pointed to the control console to its side, saying, “You can see the listings of all the materials from here. I’ve already set up the permissions for you, and so long as we’ve registered our acquisitions, you can see them.”

According to Chen Mu’s manipulations, row after row of material names appeared on the screen. Above was a detailed image of the materials, as well as the evaluations of expert workers along with their specifications and that sort of detailed information.

The work of selecting materials was very interesting in Chen Mu’s eyes, but it was only so-so in the eyes of the other two. Xi Ping displayed plenty of patience and wasn’t irritable in the least. Wei-ah was looking over all the different kinds of things to eat on the table. The food and drinks Xi Ping had brought out to entertain Chen Mu were naturally all very fine, and Wei-ah had never seen such exquisite snacks and drinks. He was enjoying himself to the fullest.

Wei-ah’s sweep was shockingly rapid. It brought out a cold sweat on Xi Ping, who was looking on, afraid Wei-ah would get sick. Before half an hour was up, Xi Ping had already ordered those under him to send things in five more times, averaging about six minutes per time. What terrified Xi Ping was that they sent enough for three people to eat every time.

Could that guy be a bottomless pit?

Chen Mu looked quite absorbed with his attention focused completely on the unknown materials. There were some kinds of materials even the experts from the auction house didn’t have a way to identify, and those would be put into the unidentified materials area. Although most of the things weren’t of much interest to anyone, one or two valuable things would sometimes pop up. Sometimes a sky-high price would even show up. When people found out they had something unidentified on hand, they would generally put them in that place, hoping to have the lucky strike of a high price.

Chen Mu had found three kinds of materials: red-lined crow silk, fish patterned grass, and twinned titanium stone.

No matter which of those three kinds of materials had shown up, it would be enough to keep him excited for quite a while. He never thought he would actually be able to encounter such materials there. Those three materials were all recorded in the mysterious card, just like the white chrysanthemum stone. It looked like he would be coming here often after that!

The red-lined crow silk was a kind of blue-black stone with some black, hair-like lines on its face. Those lines were arranged in an orderly fashion. If the stone were cut open, inside there would appear a red line. The stone’s value was all in that red line. Taking a special approach to extract the red line, you would be able to get a kind of red oil, which was extremely precious. When it was mixed into card ink, it could greatly increase the card’s efficiency in the use of energy. Efficient energy utilization was an important parameter to determine a card’s star level.

The fish patterned grass was just as rare. It looked like a different kind of high-grade material call sub-fish grass. In fact, the two were the same. The sub-fish grass would produce strange mutations in certain special environments and would grow into the fish patterned grass. The only difference between the fish patterned grass and the sub-fish grass was in their fruits. The fruit of the sub-fish grass was a milky white, while the fish patterned grass’s fruit was black. The fish patterned grass’s value was in its black fruit, inside of which was a kind of highly toxic material called twin hoop pulp.

However, when it was mixed into card ink and fitted by perception, there would be a wonderful reaction. It could make the pattern on the card extremely hard, so even cutting it with a knife wouldn’t ruin the card’s compositional pattern. When mixed into the card, one would basically not have to worry about any repair issues.

The twinned titanium stone was another kind of wonderful raw material. Its appearance was quite interesting. It looked as though two pieces of flat, strip-shaped bars of stone had grown together, connected along their middles like Siamese twins. The twinned titanium could be refined into an extremely unique titanium alloy with excellent energy conductivity, making it an excellent natural card ink. It could be used to make most fantasy cards, but the demands on the card master were quite high. The time it would remain melted was brief, and the card master would have to complete making the card within only a few minutes. Otherwise, after it congealed, it wouldn’t be so wonderfully useful after melting it again.

That piece of twinned titanium stone had a black luster and a fine metallic glow. It was big, though Chen Mu doubted whether it could make two cards!

His original intention that day had been to find some ordinary materials to get some more practice and reduce his losses the next time he made cards. He’d had seven unsuccessful cards last time, wasting a lot of materials. That had pained him for a long time. Having always been poor, he would never have dared to think about so many precious materials previously—especially that he would waste so many of them.

Only by practicing more every day could he take a step toward reducing the waste. He didn’t know his success rate was already shockingly high.

Being so terrified of the daily consumption also gave him a desperate need for money. To reduce one instance of waste would mean another successful card, and one more successful card would then mean another chunk of income. How could that not make him excited?

Chen Mu also picked out quite a few ordinary materials since the materials there were extremely complete, having nearly everything he wanted.

“Ok,” Chen Mu said to Xi Ping.

Xi Ping quickly manipulated the interface before getting up and saying, “We’ll send these materials to where you live later. Is there anything else you would like to choose?”

Chen Mu shook his head. “No need.” Those materials were already enough for him to use. After settling up all the fees, including the power cards he needed, it was 11 million.

What a painful number! Chen Mu felt that inwardly, but he swiped his card without any hesitation. After doing so, his pain was actually reduced quite a bit. Most of what was left in his heart was anticipation!