The Card Apprentice

The starry sky rotated slowly. It was rotating so slowly that the movement would have been undetectable if it hadn’t just been in a static state for those ten seconds.

The glowing silver spots, the winding silver lines, and the silver surfaces of all sorts gradually converged in front of Chen Mu. They were moving slowly, but their trajectories were still clearly discernible. It was as though they were under the influence of some kind of gravitational pull in the vast, complex starry sky, moving toward some point of convergence in front of Chen Mu.

Everything around Chen Mu was silvery and as fantastic as a dream. That huge starry sky had been compressed into a small region around him, where the concentration of countless silver spots was like an ocean of stars. Those strangely shaped surfaces were like icebergs floating on top of the sea of stars, all moving under some kind of unknown influence while countless winding silver lines were wandering among them like snakes.

The transformation of that sea of stars was different from its normal changes and filled Chen Mu with anticipation as he carefully controlled his perception. Part of his perception continued to maintain the principal shape of the card, while another part of his perception paid close attention to every transformation of the Child.

The movement of the sea of stars was slow, but Chen Mu keenly discovered that the speed of its motion was increasing at an astonishing rate. After five minutes, a qualitative change finally appeared in the sea of stars!

A three-dimensional, grid-shaped structure made up of countless silver dots and wavy lines and surfaces was suspended in front of Chen Mu.

That composition…

Chen Mu opened his eyes wide, unable to believe the three-dimensional structure that had just taken shape in front of his eyes. Wasn’t that the main part of the composition he had just simulated with his perception? The three-dimensional composition in front of his eyes looked identical to the one in his mind, including the parts he still hadn’t thought through clearly.

The three-dimensional structure looked like a strange silver cage. Its skeleton could be clearly distinguished, like an utterly perfect metallic casting. If he didn’t look closely, there would basically be no way to discover that the skeleton was composed of countless dots, lines, and surfaces coming together.

The parts he hadn’t thought through were enshrouded by the sea of stars. It created an illusion as though the three-dimensional composition was half-concealed and only faintly discernible in the sea of stars. But Chen Mu realized that the parts enshrouded in the sea of stars were completely empty.

The transformations didn’t actually finish. The silver dots, curving lines, and surfaces in the sea of stars were like a school of fish scavenging for food. They were concentrating all around those parts of the composition that hadn’t yet been completed.

Chen Mu then saw a shocking scene.

A half-concave surface appeared at an unfinished place. Like the first fish in a school of fish, it immediately caused an upheaval in the sea of stars. Countless glowing dots, curving lines, and curving surfaces went flocking toward those parts like crazy, constantly forming all kinds of compositions. But in the instant they finished, they would then disperse in an even shorter amount of time. All the other “fish” that had long been stalking around then immediately filled the void, reconstituting some new composition…

Each position that was enshrouded in the sea of stars was being incessantly set up, dispersed, and set up once again…

That endless cycling was going faster and faster until they finally reached the terrifying speed of 100 cycles per second! Each time they dispersed, there would be a burst of a ball of glowing silver. The naked eye could never keep up with that speed, and Chen Mu could only see the magnificent yet painfully eye-piercing eruptions from those regions enshrouded by the sea of stars.

But even Chen Mu’s perception could just barely keep up with such speed. Each composition that was set up was completely different, as though some group of designers kept sketching out a new design. Whenever they were dissatisfied, they would erase it, draw a new one, and endlessly repeat.

The silver glow never stopped flashing, and the movements of the sea of stars reached a terrifying speed. By then, Chen Mu couldn’t even keep up with its speed by using his perception. The silver flashes quickly exceeded the ability for anyone to detect that they were actually flashing.

After ten minutes and after going through who knew how many cycles of dispersal and reconstruction, there was finally a place where the sea of stars had scattered, revealing the new composition inside.

At Chen Mu’s first glimpse of the newly formed composition, he couldn’t take his gaze off it. It was a double recursive composition that was as small as it could be, but it was a lot more delicate than any double recursive compositions Chen Mu had ever seen! No! It would more accurately be described as perfect! In the eyes of card masters concerned with aesthetics, such a composition would probably have no sense of beauty. In Chen Mu’s eyes, however, the double recursive composition that was used in that spot was quite perfect!

His brain was spinning, but he finally had to admit it; if he were the one to have thought it through, he would never have been able to perfect it like that! The best solution he could have come up with would have been 15 percent less efficient than that double recursive composition.

For that 15 percent to be spread over the entire large composition, it probably wouldn’t have influenced the entire card by more than one percent—perhaps not even one percent, but only a few thousandths. But Chen Mu still couldn’t underestimate the effects of that fraction of a percent.

How many energy compositions would be involved in a single four-star card with such a small composition as that one? There would be at least thousands, and some more complex cards might even go as high as tens of thousands! When upward of thousands or tens of thousands were combined together, the effect on the card’s performance would reach a rather amazing place.

As new compositions were constantly taking shape, Chen Mu found that the places where compositions had been completed and not yet dispersed would cause him to gasp in surprise without exception.

As they went up in star value, the energy compositions involved in a card would become more and more complex. Above four or five stars, the energy compositions involved in a card would be astonishingly complex. Among them might be included countless numbers of basic recursive compositions. For a card artisan to be able to complete a flawless design from patterns he required would be difficult to accomplish in itself—even for awesome card masters who might have some unique understanding of the principal designs of the energy composition.

But no card master could optimize all of the compositions involved in a card that was four stars or above. Regarding local compositions, the difficulty of optimization wasn’t very high, but it would entail a huge amount of computation. In the life of a single poor card master, he wouldn’t necessarily be able to complete the optimization of even a single kind of card.

No card masters could do that kind of work. Most of them didn’t put that much of their energy into computation, and it would require a deeper understanding of the energy composition of the main design. But Chen Mu had done it by virtue of the Child.

With the originally bare grid-shaped composition, it was like dead vines growing new branches in the spring to light up one’s eyes. After 20 minutes, there was a huge and completed silver energy composition floating in front of Chen Mu.

Chen Mu had already forgotten about his wild joy, obsessed as he was with a detailed examination of every aspect of the energy composition in front of him. The final result of the Child’s calculation—and the most optimized result—was an energy composition that made him completely forget himself. To tell the truth, the design thinking that had gone into that card was still rather inferior to Chen Mu’s Golden Word Shackle, Bipolar Card, the Hundred Changes, or even Xiaobo’s Wheel. But it had taken the given framework to its limit!

Its every detail exuded deeply fascinating calculation. He couldn’t take his eyes off it and deeply imprinted that energy composition, which was so perfect it took his breath away, in his brain.

Seven floors above where Chen Mu’s card making studio was, there was another card making studio. It was the dedicated card making studio of the head card master of that materials store, Bernie Topster. As the chief card master, Bernie Topster normally had a lot of leisure. Apart from occasionally having to take one or two card making orders from the boss or occasionally helping the staff in the acquisitions department to identify some obscure precious materials, the rest of his time was spent making his own cards.

“Is something wrong, Janet?” Topster put down what he had been doing, and his gaze fell onto Janet. Janet was the shop’s sales manager, though she seldom came up looking for him. Janet was actually the counter girl who had waited on Chen Mu.

“If I might be so bold as to bother you, Mr. Topster…” Janet first expressed her apologies and then explained why she had come. “There is a client who rented a five-star card making studio and also bought some materials. This is the list of his materials. I’d like to take advantage of your wisdom about what sort of card this list of materials would be suited to make.”

“Oh. Let me take a look.” Topster took the one-star fantasy card Janet had given him and inserted it into the card player.

He quickly scanned the entire list of materials and then said with a laugh, “The world of card making is rich and vast, and a lot of materials on this list could make a lot of different kinds of cards. It would be really hard to tell. But if he were to use all of the materials, I personally believe it could be for making a four-star Bomb.”

“Bomb…” It was hard for Janet to hide her discouragement. The Bomb was a common four-star card that would only be considered mainstream goods. It was a bit inconceivable to her that he would have rented the most expensive card making studio to make such a mainstream item.

Probably knowing what Janet was thinking, Topster said with a slight smile, “Perhaps he only wants to increase his success rate. After all, the better a card making studio is, the higher the success rate.”

“Success rate…” Janet muttered. She suddenly turned around to ask, “If it were you, what would your likely success rate be to make the Bomb?”

“Probably 50 or 60 percent,” Topster said, rather unimpressed. “For a card master at my level, a four-star card isn’t so hard, so my success rate would be pretty high.”

Janet looked as though she found something weird about it. “But he only bought one set.”

“He only bought one portion?” Topster was stunned. Could that card master be so sure his success rate would reach 100 percent? That would be impossible! In general, card masters would buy several setups to make a card just to assure success. The preparation of materials was extremely time-consuming. Since he had wanted to rent a five-star card making studio, he could tell it was someone who was willing to spend money. It would be more reasonable for such a person to buy several portions of materials.

Just at that time, the apparatus on Janet’s wrist sounded out. She took a look and saw that it was the manager of the testing department, which stunned her. The testing department was responsible for the testing and evaluation of cards, and the shop had a dedicated room that would provide clients with the ability to test their cards. What was he doing looking for her at that time?

Once she opened it, the manager of the testing department appeared on the screen. Janet, who was good at reading expressions, discovered that his expression was quite strange. He looked stunned to see Janet and said, “Hurry to testing room 21, Janet!” Taken aback upon seeing Topster beside her, he rushed to say, “Mr. Topster, if you have the time, I hope you’ll also be able to come.”

Janet and Topster looked at one another. What had happened?