The Card Apprentice

Not having anything else to distract his attention, Chen Mu’s full attention was focused on the swordfish battle challenge. But the situation with the swordfish battle challenge was not the same as what he’d run into before, since the challenge was quite dangerous. That could be seen from his first experience which had left seven or eight red welts, which hadn’t gone away yet, and which were slightly painful every time he pressed them.

Chen Mu wasn’t going to dare to go in and try it again willy-nilly. Even so, Chen Mu had no thoughts of beating the drums of retreat. No way! He could slowly exert himself. Where there was danger, he could choose the relatively safe way. Doing nothing was the most messed-up choice.

That mysterious card was really hard to make sense of. From the exercise gymnastics that he started with, through the low-grade fantasy card making, then the perceptual training, and again the unwinding game, the making and operation of the tailless shuttle card, and now the swordfish battle challenge.

The exercise gymnastics improved his health. Each of the low-grade card making, perceptual training, and tailless shuttle card making could return a lot of knowledge related to being a card master. And the operation of the tailless shuttle card was in the domain of the card artisan.

What the unwinding game trained was probably his burst strength and the skill to deploy power under water, but what use was that? And what domain did the swordfish battle challenge belong to?

It really cracked his brain!

And Chen Mu guessed that what would set off the next set of conditions should be to extend the scope of his perception to five meters, where his current record was four and nine tenths, falling short by a hair.

There was nothing he could do about his perception not budging. But in his mind, he had another conjecture, that perhaps those unwinding game, tailless shuttle card and swordfish battle challenges had some relationship with perceptual training.

That idea of his got its start with the unwinding game, where he discovered that while he was in the game, his perception got a good deal of training; his perception that hadn’t changed at all for so long got a distinct boost. The tailless shuttle later had the same results, which is what gave Chen Mu the idea.

Of course, this was just a guess on his part, which he had no way to confirm.

But how could he improve his dodging and evading ability? That made him feel that he didn’t know where to start.

It suddenly sounded like there was some commotion out the window. Chen Mu was startled awake from his frowning thoughts. There was the downside to having six acute senses; no matter how slight the commotion, it was easy to be startled.

Chen Mu stood in front of the window, opened it a crack, and gazed out.

A dull thud came from someplace not far from his house, where a man seemed to have gotten a blow that stopped him dead, and his back had struck the wall with a thud. Blood was coming out of the side of his mouth, and he had an expression of agony. While he was on the ground struggling, a screen shot up in front of him, on which were some characters. He had activated his communications card and was certainly going to call for help!

Pow – a snapping sound – a blue ray of light precisely hit the apparatus on this man’s wrist, which was blown apart in an instant. Two men wearing face guards came out from around the corner, and the body of one of them was surrounded by several beams of blue light. These looked like snakes, as they coiled back and forth.

Chen Mu’s heart immediately sank, and his face turned white. He recognized that man who’d been knocked down, who was the card artisan that had been protecting him under cover!

So, those people . . .

Too late to think, Chen Mu made the quick decision to get to the back of the room as fast as possible, without being able to take anything from the house.

He felt his heart beat speed up, peng, peng, peng, souding like the footsteps of those two, desperately chasing after him. While his throat had gone dry, he was actually strangely calm, knowing that any slightest carelessness could get him killed.

There was a window in the back of the room, and he had to jump out of it. At that time, Chen Mu was paying no attention to how stunningly quick his sprint speed was!

Getting to the window, he quickly scanned to find that no-one was there. Having to disregard the fact that it was on the second floor, he jumped headlong out the window. He landed in an instant, and flowed into a roll, to eliminate the powerful impact.

This vicinity was all residential, and he was very familiar with that part of it. He bolted madly along the foot of the wall as soon as he crawled up.

Card artisans! The one under cover protecting him had been a card artisan. Although he didn’t know what grade the one protecting him was, one thing he could be sure of was that he was quite a bit more formidable than he was himself. If even that card artisan could be killed at the hands of two people, would there be any way for him to survive?

Without knowing if it was because his life was endangered, the speed of his running that day was stunning fast. He’d already zig-zagged past quite a few alleyways in the blink of an eye, which allowed him to loosen up a little. Tracking him through the crowded residential district would not be an easy thing to accomplish.

But he was scared out of his wits when he turned around to look!

The two card artisans were flying in midair, scanning all around for Chen Mu’s form.

Damn! Card artisans can fly! How could he have forgotten that obstacle? Chen Mu quickly hugged the foot of the wall, shrinking in, trying to cover his form in that position.

A thought suddenly arose in his mind that if he were to use the tailless shuttle card, could he shoot those two jerks out of the sky? But he immediately pushed that idea to the back of his mind, since there were two adversaries, and he could only shoot down one of them, which would certainly give up his position. Once he revealed his position, the result was easy to imagine. His adversaries were professional card artisans, not comparable to the half-baked goods that he was. There were a hundred different ways that they could kill him if they wanted to.

From the air, the two card artisans were advancing methodically in stages, searching every spot, not rushed or nervous, and you could tell on sight that they were old hands. Veterans!

Chen Mu’s heart was still pounding violently. He had never in his whole life faced such a dangerous moment. To look at his fighting the hooligans when he was young from that perspective, it was simply a child playing house.

These two are certainly from the Zuo household! The Zuo household were no angels after all.

As Chen Mu was nervously watching the two press relentlessly near, he tried to shrink his body into a ball, to minimize the chance of being found. But staying put was not a great idea. There would be no escape once they were looking down at his current position from the sky.

No good! He couldn’t sit there waiting to be killed! Chen Mu’s gaze quickly scanned all around, while his mind was churning. His fiercely pounding heart wasn’t making him panic; his mind was as sober as ever.

His gaze suddenly landed on a place not far away, and a surge of exaltation rose in his heart.

About ten meters in front of him, there was a small drainpipe opening! He wanted to slap himself upside his skull. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

If they were flying in the sky, then we escape through the ground.

He believed that those adversaries would never be able to hold onto him if he were able to get into the drainpipe.

With a cat’s waist, Chen Mu followed the foot of the wall, and arrived at the opening to the drain-pipe with the speed of a civet.

Chen Mu easily opened the unwieldy cover. It was pitch dark inside, and a blast of foul-smelling air rushed out.

Chen Mu lightly and softly dropped down in without a frown, and replaced the drain hole cover behind him to its original position. He watched the sky through its grid.

After a few seconds, the two card artisans appeared in his field of vision. They were probably about fifty meters away from his face, and he could clearly see their bodies.

In the dark, there was a stark change to Chen Mu’s expression, and one could imagine how intense his mental struggles were just then. Very quickly his gaze firmed up. He quickly activated the apparatus on his wrist, having already decided that he would fight back!