The Card Apprentice

Jin Yin’s gaze was as gloomy as a storm cloud as he stared at the corpse by his feet. Mo Ta’s head was separated from his body, his neck severed straight off. Although Jin Yin and Mo Ta hadn’t exactly been on the same path, he couldn’t help but remain silent seeing Mo Ta dead.

“Where was the snow shuttle vessel that An Sa brought back going?” Jin Yin suddenly asked. His voice was sharp, like a chill, howling wind, which made a person feel gloomy just hearing it.

“Zargan,” one of his subordinates answered in a hurry.

“Let’s search in the direction of Zargan.” Jin Yin casually shot a glance at the team member who had just spoken and said coldly, “Take two others with you, and go back to report this news to Chief Wen or to Captain Yuchi.”

“Yes, sir!”

* * *

Wen always wore a mask on his face. The silvery mask was engraved with fine patterns, and right in the middle of the forehead was inlaid a faceted, dark red jewel, rather like a demonic eye.

The five captains stood in front of him with their heads lowered. Among the five, the one who had been with Wen the longest was the captain of the first small team, Yuchi Bai. Ever since the first time Yuchi Bai had seen him, Wen had been wearing that mask. No one knew what sort of face was underneath.

“Has Jin Yin gone after him?” Wen’s voice was perfectly light and feminine, mixed in with a kind of strange tremolo, as though it had some magic. His long hair fell naturally to his shoulders, shiny and black, lustrous enough to stir the heart.

“Yes, sir!” Yuchi Bai stepped forward to answer respectfully. He wasn’t tall at only 1.7 meters. He had a square face with thick eyebrows and a simple appearance. Standing there, though, he had a steady, upright presence.

“Mo Ta and the entire third team have been annihilated.” Yuchi Bai continued his report, showing no emotion as always.

“Oh.” The voice that came from under the mask had a rare note of surprise, followed by a light laugh. “Heh heh. To be able to defeat Old Number Three, it looks like this little rat must be quite interesting. Still, he shouldn’t have been able to wipe out an entire small team on just his own power.”

The other team captains’ expressions didn’t look so comfortable. Among the captains, Mo Ta stood right after Wen and Yuchi Bai as number three. Not only did he lead the third small team, but he was also the one with the third-most power, so everyone liked to call him Old Number Three.

Apart from Yuchi Bai, the other captains didn’t consider their strength up to Mo Ta’s. So, when they now heard Mo Ta’s entire team was wiped out, they were naturally quite shocked. Among them, the most surprised was An Sa. He had always thought Mo Ta would hunt down that ace. It should have been a cinch. He certainly didn’t think it would actually get Mo Ta killed.

Yuchi Bai narrated in a systematic way. “According to the report sent back by Jin Yin, our adversary lured in a large number of fierce wild beasts, among which were the mille-feuilles flying locust, dingbirds, and swarms of snow wasps. Judging from the corpses of the team, they were all killed by those beasts. Only Mo Ta was attacked with an energy body to his neck, where he was hit by a type of shuttle. In addition, everything of value was taken from their bodies, most likely by our adversary.”

Wen’s slender fingers were as white as jade as he lightly rubbed his smooth chin, squinting like a cat whose eyes were blinded by the sun.

“Ai. It looks like someone else is more professional than we are. Maybe he’s from the Black-Line Star Listing. Who on that list is good at dealing with wild beasts?”

“Only Zong Da and Quincy. Zong Da’s Mermaid Call controls beasts superbly by its sound. He’s listed as No. 71. Quincy’s Thousand Segments can simulate brain waves to control consciousness, and he’s listed as No. 44.” The one answering was a small, skinny man—as skinny as a rail—whose gaze was weirdly mobile.

The captain of the sixth small team, Gan Lin, was good a ferreting out information. He immediately added, “It’s probably not either of them. Right now, one is on the ice fields helping to catch beasts, while the other just showed up two days ago at the Northern Peaks conclave.”

“Interesting! It looks like somebody new has popped up. It’s too bad for him that he had to stir up trouble and fall into our hands.” Wen was examining his flawless right hand, his gaze full of regret. After a moment, he retracted his gaze and said languidly, “So, go rub him out.”

“It’s too bad about that card of Ah Xin’s,” a meaty-faced stalwart said glumly. He was the captain of the fourth small team, Bao Le. The probe card in Ah Xin’s hands had been coveted for a long time. But, because of Mo Ta’s strength, they wouldn’t dare to be obvious about it. Now that Mo Ta had died, of course they weren’t going to be so scrupulous.

A hint of chill flashed past An Sa’s gaze. He had never really gotten along with Bao Le.

“Ha ha! According to practice, the booty goes to the winner.” With his magical-sounding voice, Wen made Bao Le’s gaze turn abruptly heated.

“Bao Le requests this attack!” Bao Le bowed his head to make his respectful plea, hiding his wink at another of the captains.

Sure enough, that captain stood out from the group and said with a respectful bow, “Jeremy would like to lead the second team along with them, Leader.”

“Then go.” Wen lightly waved his feminine right hand, his voice showing a hint of huskiness.

The two of them looked at one another with joy.

* * *

Although Chen Mu didn’t know what sort of people they would send after him, he understood very well that they would certainly not let the matter go. He didn’t flee right away but found someplace to hide instead. He was researching that probe card, which continued to give him such a headache. He would be in bad shape if his adversary still had such a card.

A wavy, dark brown composition filled the surface of the card, its fine lines unspeakably sharp and simple. On first glance, Chen Mu could tell the one who made it was utterly profound.

There was a line of text on the lower right corner that said “Snake Lens.”

A five-star probe card! Chen Mu’s heartrate surged, and he swallowed hard. No wonder his adversary could detect his existence! Five-star cards were always scarce. Aside from the Big Six, five-star cards were utterly rare items anywhere else. Still more, it was some obscure probe card!

Chen Mu could immediately tell the value of the card. Checking out the energy output of the card with his perception, he then input power to the Snake Lens. A fine surge of energy waves with him at its center suddenly emanated outward. At the same time, countless faceted mirrors, like shiny energy bodies, appeared within the world of his perception. Those faceted bodies went on forever and connected to one another with no gaps, looking like a wall.

Suddenly, on every one of the energy mirrors, there started to appear some vague pictures. Chen Mu immediately sped up his energy input, and the pictures on the energy mirrors became quickly sharper.

So, that’s how it was!

Chen Mu felt joyous. Every energy mirror’s picture showed different content. Without his needing to consider it, what the pictures depicted floated into his mind at about the same time.

Too fantastic!

It wasn’t that Chen Mu had never seen a probe card, but he had never seen one as incredible as that one. He closed his eyes to closely experience the card’s wonder. The energy waves emitted by the probe card had left a deep impression on him. If it weren’t for those ghostly energy waves, there would have been no way for him to have been discovered.

The core of that card was in the energy waves it disseminated. Their strength was low; if someone didn’t have acute perception, they would never notice them. Its most terrifying peculiarity was that it was powerfully inductive toward perception.

Card artisans were always in the habit of emitting perception at any time to gain insight into their surroundings. The Snake Lens took advantage of that. Once the energy waves emitted by the Snake Lens made contact with the card artisans’ perception, they could induce it to make fine changes. Perhaps the card artisan being detected couldn’t even feel such fine changes, but the Snake Lens could accurately capture the changes and fix on the adversary’s position.

The one who designed the Snake Lens was a genius! Chen Mu couldn’t help his feeling of praise. The energy waves emitted by the Snake Lens were similar to the ones he’d encountered at the Eastern Wei Academy assembly hall, but the Snake Lens was doubtlessly a lot more advanced.

Now that he had the Snake Lens, Chen Mu was like a tiger that had sprouted wings. Although he still couldn’t play out all its power, the appearance of the Snake Lens could greatly enhance his tactical shortcomings.

He then turned his attention to the card he had gotten from Mo Ta’s body. The golden-yellow card seemed to be made of gold. The composition on its surface was a luxuriant reddish-purple and felt rather heavy in the hand, with a lot of texture.

It was the Golden Word Shackle, a five-star card!

Chen Mu was surprised when he used the card to emit a golden energy chain. The composition of the energy chain emitted by the Golden Word Shackle was highly complex. At first glance, it was nothing more than a chain formed by small ring compositions condensed from energy. Actually, however, the composition of every link in the energy chain was completely different.

The energy chain was composed of 81 hoops. Hanging from its front end were three sharp, triangular golden energy bodies, and at its tail was a golden energy sphere.

The composition of every one of the energy links was extremely fine and complex. Given Chen Mu’s current card making ability, he couldn’t help but admire it. But the dark-faced stalwart had clearly never gotten the legacy.

The passage of time was relentless, and the Golden Word Shackle’s legacy had probably long since disappeared in the ruthless years.

If he wasn’t guessing wrong, the Golden Word Shackle’s core should have been that “word” was in its name. Chen Mu’s gaze took on a look of intense concentration.