The Card Apprentice

An eye-piercing, stout, white light beam came booming from Hugo’s encircled arms toward Qiao Yuan.

That wasn’t Chen Mu’s first time seeing the power of Hugo’s Aurora Beam, never being able to help but praise it to himself. That device had a limited scope, but it was truly beyond powerful. Fortunately, he’d been able to make his own move to stop Hugo last time. Otherwise, he couldn’t really be certain what kind of scene such a terrifying light beam would have made by booming into his base.

Chen Mu hadn’t quite realized how far he’d advanced with that endless praise toward the Aurora Beam when compared to his shock and awe the first time he saw it. He’d already unwittingly traversed several more levels. By that time, although he would still marvel, there was no longer any fear in his heart; he could calmly and coolly analyze its advantages and drawbacks.

But most of his attention was placed on the 013 card he’d made himself.

Card 013 wouldn’t be spoken of as his peak achievement, though he’d spent a lot of thought on it. That card, which had taken its basic form from the folding Yanbo card, contained a wide variety of his own creative thinking.

If he didn’t have the folding Yanbo card or wasn’t familiar with the wavy blade category of cards, he might not have let that card go. But what kind of a card master would leave a card he was proud of in his own hands?

No one understood that card’s strengths and weaknesses better than he did. However, Butchie’s control of 013 was perfectly apt, and Chen Mu believed he wouldn’t have been any better himself.

But Chen Mu could already tell who would win and who would lose in what he was watching. Although Butchie was pretty fancy, no matter how fancy she got, it wasn’t going to make her attacks any more threatening. That was related to her fighting mode.

The true usage of 013, or at least as Chen Mu saw it, was as a close-combat card. It could form chains of wavy blades, fire in bursts, and was an out-and-out lethal weapon when intuitively manipulated. Not only would it be easier to control up close, but its burst attacks would be more sudden and harder for the adversary to prepare for.

Butchie didn’t know close combat and could only do remote battle. She hadn’t thought to use 013 for close combat at all. As she saw it, 013 was an improved variation on the theme of the Tadpole she’d previously used.

If it were used in remote combat, the explosive and attack power of 013 wouldn’t be adequately embodied. That was the shortcoming Chen Mu recognized in the card.

But how could Butchie be as much of a novice as Chen Mu? As she saw it, cards that could be subtly manipulated generally had some insufficiency in attack and explosive power. That was common knowledge.

If such a card were subtly manipulated, its power would be beyond compare. It would have to be five-star or above and wasn’t something she would be able to use. What use would a card be that she couldn’t use, no matter what its advantages might be?

Anyhow, was the power of Card 013 really deficient? She didn’t think so. The power of 013 would already be in the top half among four-star cards. On top of that, its transformations and advantages were more than anyone could expect from a four-star card.

Chen Mu had seen the folding Yanbo card earlier, which was even more powerful than his tailless shuttle card. Given that, he immediately felt the power of 013 was clearly insufficient by contrast. He had been brooding about that issue. There was finally no way the cards he designed by himself would achieve the heights of the folding Yanbo card, which was something that left him rather depressed.

Beyond that, he knew the folding Yanbo card wasn’t even the greatest among the cards in the mysterious card. He believed if he could someday train his perceptual acuity to the point where he could build the five kinds of model energy compositions in the mysterious card, he would certainly be able to build five still more awesome cards.

The problem was that those would still belong to the mysterious card and wouldn’t be something he’d realized himself. The mysterious card was like a vast ocean, which from time to time reminded Chen Mu how insignificant he was.

Chen Mu was paying attention to Qiao Yuan, wanting to see how a different ace might face such a situation. If it had been him, he would have expended all his effort to avoid being surrounded. If he had been surrounded by so many wavy blades, he couldn’t conceive of any way out. He had never combatted hand-to-hand with Qiao Yuan, but to be able to force Wei-ah into such a miserable position, Qiao Yuan’s power could only be described as terrifying.

What was more, the energy fluctuations he’d just emitted were really terrifying!

Thinking about he and Wei-ah just having snuck up on such a freak, Chen Mu couldn’t help but feel afraid in retrospect. The ignorant were fearless, after all. If he’d learned earlier about Qiao Yuan’s terrifying energy fluctuations, Chen Mu reckoned he never would have focused on him.

Wei-ah had also lifted his head to look at Qiao Yuan in the sky.

The devastating energy beam had turned everything snow-bright, so eye-piercing no one could open their eyes. The Central Repository of the Classics card artisans were a lot better off. They had much more power than those Hugo brought. Although quite a few of them were somewhat awed, they weren’t as drained of color as the other card artisans.

The Aurora Beam was a rather awesome card, though it wouldn’t be considered alternative. Most of the card artisans had a certain understanding of it. For the Aurora Beam to be used to emit a powerful attack like that one was sufficient to clarify how extraordinarily proficient Hugo was with it.

No matter which side’s card artisans, once one of them demonstrated sufficient power, it would always win everyone over; even their enemies would praise them.

That eye-piercing flow gradually dimmed, and everyone’s eyes returned to normal. When their gazes returned to sky, they shockingly found that Qiao Yuan wasn’t harmed at all. Not even the clothes on his body had the least sign of damage.

Not far from him, Butchie’s and Hugo’s faces looked drained of color, and their eyes filled with disbelief.

The result exceeded anyone’s expectations. In their minds, the combined attacks of Hugo and Butchie were incredibly fierce. Even if Qiao Yuan could have withstood them, it would surely have taken him some effort.

But it looked as though Qiao Yuan hadn’t even expended any breath. Was the round of attacks not even a threat to him? Could that bronzed, middle-aged man really be so powerful?

The card artisans watched the three in the air in a daze. The Central Repository of the Classics card artisans were all stirred, and their morale soared.

“It’s a good card, but you don’t have enough skill.” Qiao Yuan shook his head as though he were sorry about something. His voice wasn’t loud, but it could clearly be heard from near and far.

Down below, Chen Mu had seen with his own eyes how Qiao Yuan had pulled that off. Speed and accuracy! It was those two words Chen Mu felt the most. In the blink of an eye, Qiao Yuan had emitted 25 thistle shuttles, each of which accurately hit one of the blue wavy blades. That was how he brazenly opened a gap in the wavy blades so dense that air couldn’t pass them, and he then drilled out through that gap and easily evaded Hugo’s glowing beam.

To so easily use thistle shuttles to hit 25 blue wavy blades flying at high speed in such a short amount of time without missing one of them, Qiao Yuan had brilliantly played out the meaning of those two words.

Butchie’s face turned even uglier as she looked at Qiao Yuan in hatred. Hugo was collapsing to her side since his attack had exhausted all of his perception. That glowing beam had also exhausted all the energy of the power card in his apparatus.

Biting her lips until they turned white, Butchie wore a stubborn expression, returning to normal after struggling for a moment. Her expression then turned serious as a bout of energy fluctuation slowly spread all around.

It wasn’t like Qiao Yuan’s, so full of terrifying might, and it wasn’t like Hugo’s, violent as never before. It was a kind of perception that spread slowly and firmly.

Qiao Yuan looked serious.

Nearly whooshing along on the ground, the Central Repository of the Classics card artisans were frightened and rushed to open up some distance from Butchie. The card artisans from the manor below were still more appalled as they scattered.

Hugo changed color as he said nervously, “Butchie!”

By that time, Butchie was already not listening, and her eyes looked as though they were blank. The fluctuations spreading from her body were getting stronger and stronger. Hugo was the one closest to Butchie. With that recent blow already having wiped him out, the energy fluctuations spreading from Butchie’s body were something he couldn’t take in his current condition.

A look of grief flashed through Hugo’s eyes. He looked deeply at Butchie while retreating farther away.

Qiao Yuan had a serious expression as he coldly watched Butchie, who clearly had something wrong with her. As the senior disciple of the lord of the Central Repository of the Classics, how would Qiao Yuan not understand what state Butchie was in?

Its technical name was the Ultimate Method for Concentration of Ability, which referred to card artisans cultivating the regulation of their own perception. That caused them to enter a wonderful state in which the strength of the perception emitted by a card artisan would be 1.5 times higher than normal.

Only some of the larger-scale academies would include that kind of method, and they would also prohibit ordinary scholars from witnessing or studying it. In fact, it used perception to stimulate perception, thereby causing a transformation that increased power in a short period of time. The reason ordinary students were prevented from studying it was that its aftermath was extremely serious. Card artisans could quickly die from it.

But there were always those who studied it, especially some card artisan communities that used broadly prohibited methods, such as killers and assassins.

Qiao Yuan wouldn’t have thought such a delicate and pretty girl as Butchie would actually know such a scary, taboo method.

The following blow would certainly be extremely frightening.

From below, Chen Mu was stunned to see Butchie in the sky, and a vague sense of familiarity suddenly arose in him.