The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu was by himself in the huge warehouse of the Valley Nest, surrounded by mountains of parts. There were several half-finished items in front of him that he had been trying out those last few days. But up until then, there hadn’t been a single successful work. His ability with metallic machinery could be considered only ordinary, and that was only thanks to Alfonso.

If Alfonso were there, he would certainly have been able to make use of all those things. Chen Mu couldn’t help a bitter smile as he looked at those ugly, half-finished works in front of him.

Casually reclining among the parts, he became strangely relaxed in that moment. He was really enjoying that period of his life. He liked nothing more than the sort of research and improvement work he was doing just then.

A slight grin curved up from the corner of Chen Mu’s mouth as he remembered that bright period when he was making card plays with Copper. That was a really lovely time! He didn’t know how Copper was doing. Such arbitrary thoughts fluttering past left him without ambition and reminded him how nice it would be if he could retrieve the simple life he once had. His own ideal was to be nothing more than a card master.

Something bright suddenly flashed through his mind, which made him feel that he had vaguely grasped something crucial! He sat right up. Under his disheveled hair, his eyes were like the milky way, shining with a strange brightness.

Card master! How could he forget he was a master of card making? The parts in front of him were nothing more than dead things, looking like they had no way to go together. It was only that he had yet to grasp the right way to do it. What was the ghost in a card appliance? It was the card inside it!

Why not design a card according to the characteristics of the parts?

After thinking that through, everything opened wide for Chen Mu. He had been steeping in that pile of parts for the last few days and had long since impressed their characteristics into his mind. Within the blink of an eye, he had formed the outline of a plan in his mind.

* * *

Every move Faya made touched countless people’s minds. The battle shuttle car had quite a few shortcomings, such as how cumbersome it was. It was far from the nimbleness of a card artisan. If a single battle shuttle car were to encounter a mid-level card artisan, the card artisan would have more than an 80 percent chance of winning. However, the battle shuttle car could be mass-produced and could be driven by an ordinary person. Those two qualities gave them the absolute upper hand. There was also no way to compare the two from the aspect of the investment required.

Apart from the Big Six, the other powers were less scrupulous, and the orders swarmed in like snowflakes. Faya did as it said it would and kept delivering them to all the other powers.

That really caused the Big Six to panic! They all developed curricula around battle shuttle cars, but no one succeeded. The hardest part was the production of the fantasy cards; up until then, only one-star power cards could be mass-produced. Although there wasn’t much power in the energy bodies shot off from the battle shuttle cars, they were certainly three-star fantasy cards. The most shocking thing behind the affair was that Faya had the ability to mass-produce three-star fantasy cards.

That meant the price of three-star cards plummeted on the market, and it also meant many card artisans were about to lose their jobs. If they were able to mass-produce three-star power cards, then what about four-star fantasy cards? What about five-star fantasy cards?

No one could know how things might develop in the future, but what was happening right in front of everyone would certainly turn the world and all its structure upside down. It was a new epoch.

***

There was a perfectly strange card appliance sitting in front of Chen Mu. It was his latest work.

It was a metallic disk about 20 centimeters across and made entirely of silvery-white metal. When Chen Mu first looked at it, it made him think of the spinulosa wheels thrown by the brilliant apes. Because it was too light, however, Chen Mu discarded any notion of making it into a weapon.

The advantage of its light weight was that it could fly without using much energy, so Chen Mu had the bright idea to turn it into a probe craft. Inside its body was a jet stream card, a simple scanning card, and a simplified communications card. The three were connected by parallel compositions.

The communications card enabled the probe craft to connect with a specialized communications card in Chen Mu’s apparatus. In that way, he could see images transmitted from the probe craft on the screen emitted from his apparatus. He could also have some rudimentary control by means of the apparatus.

That was the first work Chen Mu completed during those last few days. Looking at the probe craft sitting there, Chen Mu thought about it and decided to call it the Spinulosa Disk.

He still hadn’t tried flying it and didn’t know what specific effects it might have. It had finally become time to experiment with what he had been doing for those few days, and Chen Mu was pretty excited. That was about the most fun he could ever have.

Activating his apparatus, Chen Mu carefully used perception to control the communications card within it. The Spinulosa Disk fluttered up and hovered in midair. A look of joy flashed through Chen Mu’s eyes, and he made a move with his perception without hesitating. The Spinulosa Disk whooshed through the window and flew up into the sky. The images from the screen in front of Chen Mu kept changing. It went higher and higher until it flew over the ravine and into the clouds, wandering freely among them.

Seeing the snowy mountains and icy plains open out like a painting in front of him made him feel unspeakably carefree and relaxed. The Spinulosa Disk was light and fast—even more so than a shuttle car or a card artisan.

After flying for nearly half an hour, Chen Mu wanted to find out how large the range was within which he could control it. He suddenly saw what looked like a lot of black dots on the screen. He was taken aback and hurriedly guided the Spinulosa Disk into circling and slightly lowering. The images on the screen became a lot clearer.

It was a troop of card artisans! Yikes! They were advancing in the direction of the ravine! Chen Mu was surprised, but he knew what was going on when he saw Wen Zuofu.

He paid no more attention to the Spinulosa Disk and charged out of the room, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Jiang Liang!”

His voice was so loud it could be heard clearly throughout the whole ravine. All of the team members put down what they were doing almost unconsciously and looked at the boss, stunned. They had never heard him shout for someone like that; that was Bogner’s classic style.

“Boss!” Jiang Liang had sprinted over.

Chen Mu said immediately, “Wen Zuofu is leading troops in our direction!”

Jiang Liang’s expression showed his fear, but he said unflustered, “Do you have any specific intelligence, Boss? How far away are they? How many of them are there?”

Chen Mu then remembered the Spinulosa Disk and rushed to open his screen. He breathed a sigh of relief that it had remained hovering without his direction. The images that appeared from the screen were clear, and a look of curiosity flashed past Jiang Liang’s eyes. But he also knew how urgent the situation was and hurriedly concentrated his observation.

“There should be 1,500 card artisans, including about 200 aces. According to the speed of their advance, they are still about two hours away. Yikes, what are those shuttle cars?” Jiang Liang had seen a large number of shuttle cars among the troops at a glance, and he couldn’t help but ask, puzzled.

During ordinary battles, shuttle cars didn’t really work; they were a burden and were too clumsy. There had to be some mystery about why Wen Zuofu was bringing so many shuttle cars with him that time.

Just then, Jiang Liang’s apparatus sounded.

“It’s Manager Xi.” Jiang Liang was a little surprised; Xi Ping would always call the boss directly or would talk with Bogner. Why was he calling him?

“Hurry to take it. How is Old Xi doing over there?” Chen Mu’s gaze turned gloomy. Xi Ping only had Xiaobo to protect him. If anything were to happen, then…

Jiang Liang immediately took the call. He connected to a frightened Xi Ping, who said straight-out, “What about the boss, Jiang Liang? I can’t get through to his communications card! Something has happened. Hurry up and call the boss over!”

Chen Mu then remembered that he had pulled out the communications card he normally used since he was now using the Spinulosa Disk communications card. He went in front of the screen. “Is everything ok there, Old Xi?”

Xi Ping breathed a sigh of relief seeing Chen Mu. “Everything’s fine, Boss.” But his expression then turned excited. “Something big has happened, Boss! Faya has just come out with an awesome new weapon. Ai, I can’t describe it clearly. Take a look, both of you, and you’ll get it.”

Xi Ping immediately transmitted an image. It was a battle shuttle car in the middle of fierce firepower while they were smashing a troop of card artisans from the Federation Comprehensive Academy. The image had been spreading like wildfire those last few days.

Chen Mu and Jiang Liang were shocked! A troop formed of 50,000 battle shuttle cars was like a torrent of steel. The firepower that covered the heavens and earth was so dense it froze the heart and nearly took their breaths away!

“Faya threw out some more news, Boss. They say anyone can purchase that kind of card appliance from them,” Xi Ping continued.

By that time, Chen Mu had already calmed down. “We don’t care about Faya. Protect yourself, Old Xi. You and Xiaobo should go into hiding. The Downstream Alliance is about to arrive at the ravine, and they are bringing 1,500 card artisans along with several hundred of that kind of shuttle car.”

Xi Ping’s face turned immediately white.

“Protect yourselves there.” After those orders, Chen Mu had Jiang Liang close his communications apparatus.

“What will you do?” Chen Mu’s expression had returned to normal, and his gaze was fixed on Jiang Liang. Bogner wasn’t there, and Jiang Liang was the only one he could trust in that regard.

Jiang Liang was standing ramrod-straight, his eyes as sharp as a sword. He said in a deep voice, “We still have some power, Boss. We have the one advantage of lying in wait. We know about them, but they don’t know about us; they don’t know we’ve already detected them. That is our second advantage.” He was haltingly figuring it out as he continued on. “That kind of battle shuttle car needs to achieve a certain scale before it can become powerful. Several hundred is too few. We are in the better position, and we can depend on the Starfish Fortress. Please report the situation to Qiao Fei right away, Boss. That way, once we clamp down on their troops, they’ll be done for. Qiao Fei will certainly be happy to run a knife through Wen Zuofu this time.”

Jiang Liang spoke coldly and in a deep voice, which made Chen Mu realize something. Professionals and non-professionals were quite different, after all. He decided on the spot and said, “You are the commander. Everyone, including Wei-ah and me, takes orders from you.”

Jiang Liang’s expression didn’t change as he snapped his salute. “I won’t betray the boss’s faith.”

The entire ravine was mobilized at shocking speed. The atmosphere transformed into swords drawn and bows bent, full of murderous rage.