The Card Apprentice

The situation for the novices was really awful, and there were already quite a few injuries. Lu Xiaoru and the 20 card artisans had become life savers. When they saw someone wounded, they would immediately go to save them. Sue Lochiro became the busiest on the entire team as she shuttled quickly among the wounded. Her technique was stunningly nimble. Even Bogner, who had always been so demanding, couldn’t help but show a fair amount of appreciation.

For the team to have a high-level medical card artisan greatly reduced their losses due to injury. Without the distraction of such worries, the novices could finally muster their courage. The cadence of the attacks gradually fell into their hands. The wolf pack was suffering heavy casualties. Bogner stood coldly at the rear and didn’t inject himself into the front lines of the battle. As he saw it, that sort of small-scale battle didn’t require his involvement.

His gaze lingered the longest on Jiang Liang. Although the perception of that former military man had been hit hard, he was certainly a notch better than the rest in his tactical literacy. He was always steady and never flustered. He wasn’t selfish and would provide cover for his comrades.

He was a qualified soldier. Bogner wondered if Jiang Liang had been previously groomed by the military. It made Bogner truly grateful to have recruited such a talent.

Any commander would welcome a subaltern who was versed in tactics, and Bogner was no exception. When it came to the performance of the rest of the captains, they would only be considered middling. They didn’t seem to have forgotten their daily training, though. For a recruit to become a qualified soldier was an arduous process of transformation, accompanied by injury and death.

Silently observing the battlefield and the 400 card artisans in front of him, he knew if he were able to get 200 qualified soldiers in the end, that would be some pretty powerful battle strength!

“Arrgh!”

A mournful cry abruptly rattled to a stop. One of the recruits had his neck crushed in the jaws of a Bosnian wolf. That was their first casualty. That attack wave was simply too fierce, and Lu Xiaoru and the others couldn’t rescue him.

Their dead comrade reminded the recruits that although there were aces to rescue them, they were still in a very dangerous situation. Nothing was more frightening than death, so there was a wave of panic among the troops.

Jiang Liang was wide-eyed with rage as he screamed, “Get up your spirits, and don’t be distracted. Follow my pace!”

Even though the recruits had never faced blood, they followed Jiang Liang’s pace to mount methodical attacks, as though they suddenly had backbones again. When the other captains saw that, they followed his lead.

“Pay attention, and follow my pace, you in the second squad!”

“Follow me, third squad!”

“If you don’t want to die, fourth squad, then show me some spirit! Let’s kill off that livestock!”

“I’ll cut your wages if you don’t perform well, elite group!” The shouting of the elite group’s leader was the most menacing without a doubt, and those card artisans rose to the pitch of dragons and tigers whose ferocious firepower would cause anguish in anyone.

Their firepower didn’t slack off when they took on the wave of attacking wolves but became still more powerful. The more firepower they commanded, the deadlier they became. By that time, the wolf pack had come as close as five meters from them. That was an extremely dangerous distance, which would only be a jump for the Bosnian wolves with their outstanding explosive power.

Wave after wave of raining shuttles, like a harvester, cut down the wolves, one after the other. Over time, the card artisans gradually adapted to the battle. Their moves became more and more practiced, and the energy shuttles they fired off were improving in accuracy.

They approached a damage value of 1,000! That was nearly the damage value of a four-star card. Maybe one of their fighting units couldn’t contend with a high-level card artisan who could use a four-star card, but from the aspect of pure damage, there really wouldn’t be much of a difference. Their advantage was particularly evident in that kind of positional warfare.

Jiang Liang had the most excellent psychological qualities as he resisted the fiercest of the attacks. The most thrilling time was when three Bosnian wolves had already pounced on him, and the comrade behind him promptly rescued him, blowing up the three wolves in midair.

The balance of the battle started to tilt in favor of Chen Mu’s side.

Chen Mu hadn’t made a move, understanding what Bogner was doing. Although there were casualties in the battle, if the recruits didn’t see blood, then they would all be on a road to death where no one would have the will to change.

Chen Mu’s decisive mind was evidence of how quickly he had grown. In that world, everyone knew the truth that long-term pain wasn’t as good as short-term pain, but how many people would truly cut off the arm of a mighty warrior?

The battle had already fallen completely into the hands of the recruits, and there were only a few of the wolves left standing. The rest had fallen into pools of blood.

The battle had only lasted a few minutes, but the ferocious attacks were just endless hits with nothing fancy about them. The two sides were too close together, and the pack of wolves, known for its explosive attack strength, made it a genuine encounter.

Although Bogner hadn’t been pleased with the card artisans’ performance at the outset, what they demonstrated later had earned his praise.

All of the wolves were scattered in front of them with the dense smell of blood having become chokingly pungent. There were wolf corpses everywhere. After they finally won, the card artisans slumped right down onto the ground. They didn’t even want to budge a finger of their flaccid bodies.

Sue Lochiro had become still busier, with so many wounded card artisans. The causality stats quickly came out. Three had died on the field, six had died from their wounds, and 57 were wounded overall.

That was a rather high mortality rate, though fortunately only seven card artisans had died. The wounded would heal and could fight another battle. The psychology among the wounded about what they could take was a little stronger than that of the ordinary card artisans.

It was fortunate that Sue Lochiro was there. Otherwise, the conditions would have been many times worse. No matter where, a medical card artisan was a rare commodity. High-grade medical card artisans would only ever be used by a few large-scale card artisan firms.

Taking a glance at Chen Mu, Bogner thought to himself about how he was the type who brought things together, after all! Only someone as strong as the boss could carry a woman back in the middle of the night, and what a strong woman she was!

Was she considering cultivating the boss’s nightlife? An evil thought that he couldn’t contain came popping into Bogner’s mind, and the sneer on his face chilled the back of the necks of card artisans who happened to be walking by.

It was magical to watch such a superb medical card artisan as Sue Lochiro and the energy needles under her control. Bogner’s eyes wandered, and he couldn’t help his secret thoughts about whether he should consider letting the boss get to Sue Lochiro a little bit sooner. If they were to lose such a person to the outside, that would really be regrettable to the point of turning his intestines green.

The expressions on Lu Xiaoru and those 20 card artisans remained cool. They had experienced hundreds of battles, and that kind of scene wasn’t enough to shock them. The wolf pack would have been a minor issue if Bogner had let them make any moves before.

The Sound Beam that Lu Xiaoru had in her hands could emit an attack in the range of sound waves, which would be lethal against wolves with such acute hearing. Neither the boss nor the chief had given those orders, however, and they hadn’t directly participated in the battle.

Borna and his gang of construction card artisans had lost the color in their faces; they were throwing up and in awful condition. Xi Ping’s face was also pallid. He looked at Chen Mu watching him and forced himself to smile, saying, “Too bad those wolf pelts are too battered. If they were whole, they would bring a good price.”

The Bosnian wolves that had fallen to the ground were full of many bloody holes, and such pelts naturally had no value. Xi Ping had just been looking for something to say. Why would they be interested in wolf pelts at such a time?

Bogner walked among the new recruits and coldly tossed out his words. “Every small group should have a discussion summarizing what you gained and what you lost.” After that, he paid no more attention to the new recruits.

* * *

The 20 card artisans were shuttling rapidly through the jungle, their movements lively and easy. You could see how familiar they were with the jungle environment.

The one in the lead suddenly raised his hand, and the team abruptly stopped. Something was up!

He held still and listened. The team hadn’t heard any commotion, and they looked doubtfully at their captain.

The captain didn’t explain. He squatted down silently, his hands opening up the layer of humus on the ground and revealing the hard soil underneath. He put his ear to the ground, and after two seconds, his face shifted.

“There’s a large herd of beasts!” The captain’s expression turned serious. “There must be a pack of wolves in front of us whose position would coincide with our target team.”

Everyone looked at one another. One of the team said, “They don’t have such bad luck!”

A large wolf pack was quite scary, and they came on like the wind. They were good at running, with their sprinting surprise attacks the most awesome. They had cunning dispositions. While a lone wolf was all right, once they formed into a large-scale pack, it was an absolute nightmare.

The captain hesitated and said through gritted teeth, “We’ll take a look. They should have encountered the wolves.”

All the team members looked unhappy. Knowing there was a wolf pack in front of them and then still going there—wasn’t that the road to death? Bosnian wolves had acute senses of smell, and they were particularly sensitive to the smell of humans.

Looking at his team, the captain threw out a phrase. “Those upstairs have placed a lot of importance on this job; don’t you know?” Saying that, he was the first to run ahead.

Everyone just looked at one another, thinking they had better follow their captain. Suddenly, there was a strange whistling sound, like a storm coming on with no warning. It came from far up ahead.

The courage that had just been stirred was instantly extinguished by that strange whistling sound. They could tell from the sound where the whistling was coming from, which was just where their target team was located.

Seeing their faces so full of hesitation, the captain could only helplessly say, “All right, then. We’ll go after a while. I’m sure their tracks will be at the scene. Everyone stay on guard. It will cause a lot of trouble if that wolf pack comes our way.”

Although he was the captain, he still had to consider the team’s feelings. The strength of one individual in the jungle was limited; if he didn’t have the cooperation of the team, he couldn’t do a thing by himself. But he actually felt both offended and afraid. The stretch of jungle was vast, and their current route was still only on its edge.

Although they had all learned to track in the jungle, they ordinarily had few opportunities for work there. As a subordinate agency, the Federation Comprehensive Academy had only needed to take advantage of their strengths a pitifully few times. They couldn’t rise in their vocation with no opportunity. It was difficult to find a single job, and judging from what they were told, those above put a lot of importance on that job.

This was a great opportunity! He had already made up his mind that no matter how, he would complete this job rather well.

However, he hadn’t thought he would encounter such an unexpected situation. If they were to encounter a large-scale wolf pack and didn’t run fast enough, they’d be going down the road to death. They were only good at tracking in the Outer Reaches, and they had a lot less battle strength compared to card artisans who served in battles.

He had chosen to pause temporarily in consideration of safety. After about three hours, he could no longer hear any commotion and got up. “Let’s go. We need to catch up. There are a lot of them, and they can’t have gone far.”

The team members got up one by one, a lot less worried about whether they would encounter a wolf pack. They marched quickly ahead for their plunder. The tracks on the ground were clear, and they didn’t need to waste any effort to know where to go. They walked for about two hours.

The forward scout suddenly came running back in terror, looking like he was being chased by something.

“What happened?” the captain asked in a low voice.

Just then, a slight breeze blew past. A heavy smell of blood smacked them in the face, changing everyone’s expression.

“Ca-Captain… hurry over and take a look!” The team member’s teeth were chattering with terror. He must have seen something scary. The captain’s eyelids fluttered, and everyone quietly looked at one another before carefully moving ahead.

By the time they were close enough to see the scene clearly, there was the sudden sound of their ranked intake of cold breath.

“C-captain… th-they really did run into a pack of wolves!” The team member’s face was completely drained of blood as he stuttered some nonsense. By that time, however, no one wanted to laugh at him. They were all struck dumb by the devastating scene in front of them.

There were countless wolf corpses as far as the eye could see, all in pools of blood. Some of the wolves that hadn’t quite died would twitch from time to time. The heaviness of the smell of blood made people directly throw up. Everyone’s hearts tightened. They had thought the wolves had left, but they hadn’t thought…

Seeing the terrified eyes of the wolf corpses, the captain’s heart jumped. Could the whole pack have been wiped out? If it had been a rout, the remaining wolves might have returned after the enemy departed to howl after their dead comrades. But they didn’t see a single wolf still standing!

A rout and an annihilation were two entirely different concepts, and there was a lot of difference in the fighting strength they represented. The captain felt terrified as he started to carefully examine the tracks all around, being able to roughly guess what had actually happened. The more he looked, the more he became alarmed.

All the overturned turf and the signs of large-scale trampling must have been left by the wolves’ charge. Getting a sense of the distance, when the two sides confronted, they would have been about 300 meters apart.

For a wolf pack, 300 meters wasn’t more than a few leaps. They also hadn’t considered their enemy’s firepower to be so strong, and they had contained their attack. The power of a wolf pack would be reduced by a lot if it were too slow, which also gave their enemy more time.

But the battle had been concluded within a few minutes. Given the wolves’ cunning, if it hadn’t, they would have immediately scattered once they saw the situation wasn’t right.

If that was what happened, did that mean the wolves hadn’t even reacted before they were annihilated? That conjecture gave him chills all over his body. What kind of fire power was that?

He found quite a few holes in the tree trunks on the ground. The holes in the ground the size of a finger were too deep to see the bottoms of, and the small holes on the tree trunks were scars from complete penetration. Judging by the shape of the marks, they must have been made by shuttle-type energy bodies. The wounds on the wolves’ corpses were the same.

He didn’t see any other kind of scar, which gave him a really bad feeling. Could the ones they were chasing after be military? Except for the military, it was rare to see any power that would have such a uniform attack style.

Military! In the minds of ordinary card artisans, that was a mysterious and powerful term. He felt some regret; the job was proving more tricky than he had thought. If the adversary were truly military personnel, they were very dangerous.

Thinking about it, he immediately called over a team member. “Go back right away to send back this news: The adversary is quite possibly military, using a unified type of what must be a shuttle-type of card. The destructive value is more than 800. They number more than 500, and they have a guide who is familiar with the jungle. The rest of the situation is unknown. I’m recommending you dispatch higher-level reconnaissance personnel.”

Everyone looked amazed. They had only been guessing before, but their thinking wasn’t as clear as their captain’s. When they heard the captain say their adversary could be military, their faces all went dark. When they then heard him say with certainty that he judged the cards the adversary was using to have a damage value of more than 800, they were all struck dumb in an instant.

One of the team members was shouting hysterically. “The captain wasn’t exaggerating! Wouldn’t 800 be a four-star card? Good lord, could our adversary be several hundred high-level military card artisans? Are we looking to die?”

The rest of them felt hopeless as they looked jealously at the teammate who had been called out. He’d been sent back specifically to transmit the news, which meant he didn’t need to continue the tracking. To track a military team of high-level card artisans was basically suicide!

That teammate was ecstatic as he kept nodding. “I will certainly report the news up.” He took the fantasy card report the captain had just recorded. That sort of fantasy card report required the use of a specialized corresponding apparatus to be able read the information it contained.

“Get going.” The captain patted him on the shoulder. He was the youngest of the team.

“Mmmm.” After saying goodbye to his comrades, the teammate immediately ran back like the wind.

The rest of the team was looking hopelessly at their captain. “What are we going to do, Captain?”

The captain took a deep breath and said, “We’re still going to follow them!” Once he said that, everyone’s faces looked even worse. Their adversary was too powerful. If they were discovered, they wouldn’t have a chance to escape with their lives. Given the style of the military, they would certainly have some kind of expert in their own arena who would be a lot higher level than they were.

“We have to follow them; otherwise, we won’t be able to justify ourselves when we get back. You know the consequences for disobeying orders.” The captain first explained his reasons, and everyone remained silent, knowing what the captain said wasn’t wrong.

“Still…” The captain’s tone had changed, and everyone was taken aback as they raised their heads. “Our power is too far beneath our adversary’s; if we get too close, we will die without a doubt. I think those on top will understand that when they get our report. They will certainly send another ace ahead. Otherwise, we’ll bring back the news that we completed our mission. We only have to ensure it would be all right to follow them from a distance. On the one hand, we don’t want to lose track of them; on the other, we’ll be awaiting orders from above.”

What the captain said alleviated the tension on everyone’s face.

“So, the captain still has a way. We must just follow from a distance. What about the military? I don’t think they’ll discover us from so far away!” someone yelled out, as though he were cheering himself on.

The captain looked at the renewed excitement of the team. Without knowing why, he still had some lingering bad feeling in his mind. He suddenly remembered Old Huang and the others who had fallen. A frightening idea popped into his mind. Were Old Huang and the rest deliberately lured into the miasmic forest by their target? That idea made the expression on his ever-calm face shift.

“What happened, Captain?” A sharp teammate noticed his strange manner.

He forced himself to smile. “It’s nothing. Maybe it’s the powerful smell of blood here making me uncomfortable.” He didn’t dare tell his teammates about his conjecture. If he did, that little rise in morale would immediately collapse.

“Right. Let’s get out of here. The smell of blood is too heavy, and I’m afraid it will attract those fierce wild beasts,” one of the teammates reminded.

Everyone had long since wanted to leave that hellish place. They stood up and followed ahead along the tracks their target had left. That time, however, their speed was much slower since they didn’t want to bump into that scary gang.

* * *

Being in the jungle, Chen Mu didn’t know that just when that batch of recruits was completing their virgin battle, something happened in Pomelo to shock the entire federation.

In an unparalleled show of determination, Tang Hanpei pushed himself into the heart of the battle.