The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu flitted about the training room like a ghost. He was fleeting just like a fish with his weirdly twisting body and his feet not touching the ground. Every move was imbued with some unspeakable weirdness. He was so fast he was like a phantom, such that someone with weak eyes would only see a burst of wind flitting by.

His gaze never left the wooden beam standing in the corner of the training room as he bent down and hugged the ground like a cobra, as quick and erratic as always, jerking left and right, which made him hard to discern. Then, about two meters from the beam, he suddenly shot up from the ground like the cobra suddenly raising its head. At the same time, he had already closed with the beam where a red line could be clearly seen.

Chen Mu’s right hand shot out like lightning and accurately and gently wiped the place where the red line was. With a flash and a slight hissing sound, a very fine mark as thick as an arm appeared where the red line was on the beam.

“How was that?” Chen Mu asked with coarse breath. After a while, he walked over in front of the beam and lightly picked it up. The beam was cut at the mark in a smooth cross-section.

He had already been doing that training, which had an extremely high level of difficulty, for a rather long time by then, though his success rate wasn’t very high. That set of exercises had been formulated according to his own conditions. For example, for the dodging and evading he had refined his jet stream card flight skills, as well as skills like the close-range dodging and evading that the demonic woman had passed on to him.

That sort of dodging and evading had become swifter and even more difficult to predict. At other times it would depend purely on the strength of the body, while sometimes he would take advantage of the jet stream card to complete a few unfathomable actions. Chen Mu’s close-range dodging and evading training had originally been his strong suit, but now it was like the tiger had grown wings. As compared with card artisans, and especially close-combat card artisans, Chen Mu could use his physical strength to establish his position. That would also allow him to move while dodging and evading and still take advantage of his explosive power.

But, within extremely short distances, explosive physical strength and reactions were doubtlessly more reliable than the jet stream card.

That could be compared to Chen Mu and Wei-ah being in the same room dueling with their dodging and evading blows, where Chen Mu would die ten times, and Wei-ah might never die. But, if they were in the jungle, then the gap between them would shrink since the jet stream card could make up for his insufficiencies.

If they were in an open field, Chen Mu’s rate of success might be able to stay nearly even with Wei-ah’s. Of course, that was only conjecture; Chen Mu didn’t have much confidence in it.

Chen Mu using his body would seem like playing house from the vantage of a specialist in physical battle like Wei-ah, although he would certainly be at an advantage with card artisans.

The hardest part of that skill was the smooth transition from using physical strength to the jet stream card. The smoother the transition was between the two, the more deceptive the move would become. In order to achieve that, Chen Mu thought through everything; after completing a great amount of practice he could finally grasp the essence of it. But, there was still a lot of difference from the smoothness he would like to nail.

Another hard part about the training was the final blow. While Chen Mu’s strength wouldn’t be considered great, he also didn’t understand more than a few simple ways to kill bare-handed. If he had to depend on his bare-handed skills alone, then the power of the blows would be rather small. In order to make up for that, Chen Mu tried combining the card artisan battle style with the bare-handed killing techniques. That final blow with the wooden beam was him using the wavy blade card lodged in his hand, taking advantage of the sharpness of the wavy blade to be able to easily complete the final blow. He could even send out the wavy blade in his hand at such a close distance, basically giving the other person no chance to dodge or evade.

That was something he’d learned from the stones in the Ning Family prison. It was said that the Ning card artisans would all spend a lot of time cutting rocks in order to train their ability to control perception. Chen Mu’s perception was already far beyond those days, and his sensitivity had also gone way up. Such difficult skills were easy to achieve for him now.

Those battle tactics had gotten Wei-ah’s guidance—especially the critical aspect of transition, where Wei-ah had helped Chen Mu to simplify his moves and procedures quite a bit and increase his power.

Wei-ah had a lot of power and basically didn’t need to use any other tricks. The skills he knew were untold times more powerful when he used them, which made Chen Mu dumbstruck. That was also enough to prove again how far they were from one another in their understanding of battle.

That set of tactical maneuvers was borrowed from card artisan-style battle in quite a few places. To say it as Chen Mu would, they were a big stew of different ingredients. But, their results far exceeded his expectations, and Chen Mu could feel it when he was battling with Wei-ah. Although it always ended in his defeat, the current situation was a lot better than the previous sorry state of affairs. At the very least he was proving to be a little meddlesome to Wei-ah.

Chen Mu was already quite pleased with such results. He had never had the wildest hope to defeat Wei-ah.

“Not bad.” Although Wei-ah wasn’t indicating “not bad” by his look, Chen Mu was still happy. For Wei-ah to give such an evaluation wasn’t something easy to get. Wei-ah suddenly said, “Let’s get in touch with the village.” There was a flash of concern that flitted past his eyes that was too slight to notice.

Chen Mu couldn’t help but feel that even though Wei-ah was not ordinarily loose with his talk or laughing, he still seemed to have pretty deep feelings toward the village.

It had certainly been a long time since they’d had any contact with Alfonso as he thought it over, so Chen Mu nodded and said, “Ok.”

He lightly pressed on the six-petal flower on the top of the silvery metal box. It whizzed as though a magic trick had been performed and then changed into a communications array. At the same time, Chen Mu activated the thousand-kilometer card in his hand.

“Mr. Teacher! Mr. Teacher! It was Li Duhong that time, and the little guy was quite excited to see Chen Mu. “Are you ok, Mr. Teacher? Are you having fun? How is it really on the outside? When are you and Wei-ah going to come back…?”

Li Duhong looked a lot more developed than before and was a lot taller. Chen Mu’s feelings were rather complicated toward the little guy. In the beginning, Li Duhong had lured in the brilliant apes, and starting from then Chen Mu had felt the kid only seemed innocent while he was really full of scheming. So, he didn’t like him. But, gradually, Chen Mu found that the although the little devil held an exalted position for such a young one, he still had a tough disposition. So, when he came to be his student, Chen Mu didn’t object. After they encountered the gummy cloud layer, Li Duhong demonstrated stability and maturity far beyond his age, which gave Chen Mu a whole new level of respect for him.

“We’re ok.” Chen Mu didn’t quite know what to say to the little devil, though he suddenly thought of a question. “How is the base recently? Have any issues arisen?” That was the matter he was most concerned about—whether the so-called “underground city” would be somewhat dangerous in the end. That was something no one could make any assurances about. With several thousand people living in it, most of them children, if something were to happen it would create a big problem.

“Mr. Teacher needn’t worry. We’ve been fine.” Li Duhong spoke laughingly, now showing his naughty child aspect. “Aren’t you bored there all alone, Mr. Teacher? Shouldn’t I come and join you? Uncle Wei-ah is made of stone and basically doesn’t know what fun is…”

Wei-ah suddenly appeared in front of the communications apparatus like a ghost, coldly saying, “Have you completed the day’s training?”

Li Duhong was startled, and his little face blanched as he said haltingly, “Uncle…”

“Go.” Wei-ah wasn’t having any happy talk as he spat out the syllable.

Hearing that, Li Duhong turned into a scared rabbit and ran off quickly.

With some unexpected surprise, Chen Mu said, “Does that little devil really fear you so much? I seem to remember you used to act like you really couldn’t stand him.”

Without raising his eyelids, Wei-ah said, “After rearranging him a few times, he got honest.”

Hearing that, Chen Mu broke out in a sweat. But, he also knew that although Wei-ah had always taken care of Li Duhong, it had probably been because of the position of the little devil’s grandfather.

Alfonso appeared laughing in front of the communications apparatus, first shouting out some adulation, “Mr. Teacher.” He then turned around and said to Wei-ah with a laugh, “Wei-ah looks a lot better than before. To look at you, you haven’t been doing so badly recently!” Since their positions in the village were rather similar, they were able to speak a lot more casually.

But, Wei-ah clearly didn’t have any intention of responding, so it was a good thing Alfonso knew his temperament and wouldn’t make anything of it.

Alfonso turned to Chen Mu and said respectfully, “Have you been all right recently, Sir? Everyone really misses you. Do you have any instructions?”

“I’ve been ok lately. How is the base? Has anything come up recently?” Chen Mu felt a little helpless with Alfonso becoming more and more respectful toward him. Among all those in the base, apart from Chen Mu, Alfonso was the most familiar with it. Actually, many of the things Chen Mu had been able to accomplish had been accomplished by the two of them together.

“Things have been fine at the base. Apart from still having to go out to mine the ore for our energy supply, everything else is normal.” Alfonso smiled bitterly. “But, I have limited ability and can only resolve a few issues. I have no way to earn anymore contribution points.” When Alfonso said that, his spirits flagged a little. He was approaching middle-age, and it took a lot of energy to learn new things. He was one of those having the highest positions in the entire Moqi line, so the weight on his shoulders was naturally quite a bit heavier than before.

Disaster always readily seasons a person no matter how old he is.

Chen Mu didn’t know how to comfort him and could only change the subject. “How is Cheng Ying doing?” Cheng Ying’s decision to remain at the base had stunned Chen Mu. When he thought about it, he still couldn’t quite understand it.

“She’s fine. The kids all love her.” Alfonso spoke with a smile, and then he suddenly became hesitant. “A few of the young people in the clan are after Cheng Ying. I don’t know whether…” Alfonso was watching Chen Mu’s expression while he was speaking.

“That’s a good thing. What’s the problem?” Watching Alfonso, Chen Mu was finding it strange.

Alfonso probed, “You mean you agree?”

Chen Mu raised his eyebrows. “That’s Cheng Ying’s business, and it’s up to her to decide.” He looked up at Alfonso, saying calmly, “It’s all about respecting her wishes. If something happens that shouldn’t…”

Chen Mu maintained his very even tone without any audible fluctuations, while Alfonso rushed to assure him. “Don’t worry; there won’t be anything to offend Cheng Ying’s femininity, and if anyone were to dare such a thing, of course Alfonso wouldn’t permit it.” Getting to that last part, Alfonso’s tone had already chilled.

“That’s fine then.” Chen Mu nodded, keeping his calm expression. Without realizing it, however, his intimidating aspect was naturally revealed.

Wei-ah suddenly had something to say. “Is Xi Weide there?”

Hearing that, Alfonso urgently turned to yell in a gruff voice, and Xi Weide quickly appeared on the screen. Xi Weide was still as well-built as ever, looking like a small mountain. That straightforward stalwart with his simple expression of tender concern had made a deep impression on Chen Mu.

Xi Weide was also very happy to see Chen Mu and Wei-ah, though he would still first salute his respect to Chen Mu. “Teacher Chen.”

Chen Mu smiled; the expression Xi Weide wore was a lot better than when they’d left, making it look like their life during that period hadn’t been bad at all. Xi Weide didn’t seem surprised to have been called over.

Wei-ah asked, “How is the little devil’s training going?”

“He is quite diligent and serious, and his recent progress has been great.” Xi Weide had an expression of reassurance on his face seeing that the future clan elder of the Moqi line would be so diligent. He seemed to be expressing the hope for the future of the clan. Wei-ah’s expression lagged.

Xi Weide continued to say, “The progress of some of the other children is also very rapid, and after a few years they will certainly become more powerful soldiers than even Colin.” His face was excited as the one in the base responsible to guide the training of those youths. The basis of their training was still the methods Wei-ah had passed along, not those that had been previously used in the village. He’d finally discovered how much better the results of Wei-ah’s training methods were.

“Oh,” Wei-ah responded very impassively.

Chen Mu sighed to himself, having just considered Wei-ah to have rather deep feelings toward the village, which he seemed to have mistaken. Wei-ah was really only interested in Li Duhong. Though, as he thought about it, Chen Mu realized that wasn’t out of the ordinary. The one who’d rescued Wei-ah was Li Duhong’s grandfather, and that was a very normal result given Wei-ah’s temperament.

He couldn’t control any of that. When he thought about the folding Yanbo card he still couldn’t use and looked again at Xi Weide and Alfonso on the screen, Chen Mu suddenly had an excellent idea.

Just then, in the lab of the Central Island Firm, someone burst into Qian Mingyi’s office.

“Mingyi, we’ve captured that signal!” Farley stumbled as he broke in.