The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu’s heart skipped a beat. He deftly pulled out a one-star power-card from the bunch and brought it up to his face to examine it more closely.

Judging from the pattern on the surface, there was nothing unusual about it. It utilized the currently most common and widespread “box” pattern. Still, Chen Mu sensed something slightly different with that card.

The weight . . . he compared the card with normal one-stars to see if it might be a bit heavier. Having made several tens of thousands of one-star power-cards, Chen Mu had become well-versed early on in their weight, never mind how their composition determined their usage. As long as it was a one-star power-card, its card weight would never go beyond a certain specific range.

That card’s weight was clearly not within that range.

Closing his eyes, Chen Mu very lightly and carefully felt the imprint on the surface of the card with his thumb and forefinger, which was slightly raised.

The pattern was exceedingly light and very superficial. That feeling . . . it felt like . . . Chen Mu scowled to remember the familiar-seeming feeling.

He got it! Chen Mu’s eyes suddenly lit up. It seemed to be the result of being imprinted on the back of some sort of comparatively light-textured material.

But that couldn’t be right. Chen Mu had an even bigger misgiving came. From what he could tell by feel, the material that this one-star power-card was made of was quite hard. It felt thick and heavy in his hand. According to ordinary principles, the composition of the surface imprint should really feel stronger.

How could it feel the way it did? How strange!

Examining the power-card in his hand once more, Chen Mu still couldn’t discover what could actually cause that strange phenomenon. There was nothing wrong with the composition; judging from the elegance and fluidity of the strokes, it was certainly to the standard of grand master grade. Given the skill he had across three years making one-star power-cards, there was no way he could draw out such fine contours as that.

That puzzled Chen Mu even more. To talk about a grand master grade one-star power-card was very strange in itself. What sort of grand master card maker would even be likely to make a one-star power-card? It would be more normal if the card in his hand were a five-star power-card.

Thinking it over, Chen Mu then put the rather strange card together with the one-star power-card he’d found which had a new composition.

Chen Mu finally heaved a sigh of relief at completing his work.

He felt a little beat from the bout of rapt concentration.

“I’ll take these two cards with me,” Chen Mu waved the two one-star power-cards at Darky.

“No problem. No problem,” Darky said happily. His reward for the day was not at all small. Chen Mu had helped him find five power cards that day that hadn’t been used up. He gave a quick smile, cocked up one side.

In Darky’s mind, that knucklehead Chen Mu was quite odd. You could tell at a glance from what he wore that he was from a poor family. A poor kid like that would surely never let any chance to economize pass him by. Those not-quite used up power-cards in his hand meant a good bit of money in Darky’s eyes! Yet Chen Mu strangely showed no interest in those not-exhausted power-cards but was instead quite interested in one-star power-cards, even though they were all used up.

That was naturally only something he wondered about, and not something he made too much of. If Chen Mu were more ordinary, then those power-cards Darky had would never have fallen into his hands. It was all money!

He was smilingly sending off Chen Mu while congratulating himself on his own foresight,

By the time Chen Mu got home, it was already ten at night. Gulping something down, he was anxious to take out the two power-cards he’d gotten that day, to study them.

The first one-star power-card lit up Chen Mu’s eyes.

It was a composition he’d never seen before; a complex set of tracings made up of light blue lines covering the entire surface of the card. That one-star power-card was the size of a playing card, while having a slightly more limber feel, and a glossy surface. But if you were to rub it gently, you could feel a slight raised quality to the imprint.

Most people would go bleary-eyed looking at that sort of complicated design, not knowing where to start.

Chen Mu, however, was looking with bright eyes. Across three years, he would gaze every day at that type of design. Although the compositions weren’t like what he was looking at just then, the degree of complexity was about the same. He had built up quite a bit of experience from those twelve kinds of innovative compositions that he had found in Darky’s store.

To scrutinize the pattern of a card’s composition and more easily understand it, you would have to find where the pen first touched, and what its first stroke was, and then follow the tracings ever more deeply.

While a one-star power-card was certainly complex, it was actually the simplest of all the cards. Despite that, it still took three hours before Chen Mu really made sense of each pen stroke’s usage. But if he wanted to make a one-star power-card like that one, he would still need a ton of practice. That wasn’t his intention, though. A ton of practice would consume a ton of material. Although he had some savings, it still wasn’t enough by that time to allow him such extravagance.

The most important thing was that he’d already calculated that making that kind of innovative power-card would increase his costs a little, compared to the cost of the cards he was then making. It wasn’t his style to spend a lot of money to practice on some meaningless innovation. Still, that power-card had some things he could borrow from. Maybe he could incorporate the compressed circular structure into his own power-card compositions.

While Chen Mu pondered, his fingers had slid over to another one-star power-card, and his gaze fell onto the second power-card that he’d just gotten.

There was nothing remarkable about the style of that one-star power-card. It was the most common and wide-spread standard style used in one-star power-cards just then. Still, the stokes on this card’s surface caught Chen Mu’s attention. The lines were elegant and fluid, showing extremely skillful penmanship. Every arc turned smoothly and fully, with the penmanship of a grand master.

This card looked rather old-fashioned. One could tell that it had a certain vintage, seeming to be the early work of some grand master. But what had first caught his attention wasn’t those two things, but rather its heft and thickness.

This old-fashioned one-star power-card was one tenth again as heavy as the normal power-card. The basic weight of a one-star power-card was extremely light, such that one tenth would be hard to feel. But Chen Mu had so much experience making one-star power-cards that he felt the difference as soon as he picked it up. Same with the thickness, which was a little greater than an ordinary one-star power-card.

That was the main reason the card had caught Chen Mu’s interest. The one-star power-card was the earliest card to appear, as well as the most commonly used. The specified standards were drawn up right at the outset. There hadn’t been any variation from those initially stipulated standards for composition and materials right up until that time.

How could a one-star power-card produced by a grand master show that kind of variation?

Could it be . . .

Chen Mu naturally connected that to the way the material felt. Could that unknown grand master have found a new material for the one-star power-card? To make his living, Chen Mu had always focused on how to reduce his costs. That one-star power-card really got his attention.

Pulling the power-card out from the apparatus, the room went immediately dark.

After some hesitation, Chen Mu gritted his teeth and took that strange one-star power-card in his hand and stuck it into the apparatus.

Hey! No light. The room was still dark, without a bit of light.

Chen Mu stared. How could there be no light?

Impossible! That was the first thought that came to Chen Mu’s mind. The card showed no signs of use, and what’s more Chen Mu could tell at a glance when a card had used up its energy. He could guarantee that although the power-card was old-fashioned, it was still an unused power-card.

And the composition of the card was flawless. There weren’t any errors. Even compared to the one-star power-cards Chen Mu would make himself, it stood out quite a bit. There was absolutely no basis to assume that the card had been damaged.

But the actual case just then was that it wouldn’t supply the slightest bit of power whatsoever.

Putting back his own power-card into the power apparatus, the room lit up again. There was nothing wrong with the power apparatus, so he immediately external that external variable.

So where did the problem come from?

Chen Mu carefully examined the power-card under the light.

Smoothing the card, a conjecture suddenly emerged to Chen Mu’s mind. Could it be that this it had been disabled?

A grand master making a disabled one-star power-card? There’s no great probability for that sort of thing, Chen Mu muttered to himself.

Carefully eliminating all the variables one by one, the composition and drawing technique were correct, there was no trace of its having been used, and no indication of the wear and tear of power. But it still wouldn’t supply any power.

What about the materials? Chen Mu’s mind flashed, and he suddenly thought of the rather thick feel of it. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that it could be something related to the materials.

Chen Mu put the edge of the card under the light. Looking carefully, he finally found what was strange about it. The not-quite millimeter thick card’s edge had two extremely light-colored dividing lines. The card had surprisingly been composed from three types of material that had been fused together. Because the materials were so close in color, it would have been very difficult to discern if he hadn’t examined it closely.

A failed experiment? That would seem the most likely possibility. Some years ago, some grand master was trying to make an improvement to the one-star-power-card, and failed. But it was unclear how the failed experiment could survive, to be discovered so unexpectedly by Chen Mu.

It still seemed the most likely guess.

Chen Mu felt a little discouraged. If that was really the case, then the disabled card didn’t have the slightest value.

His fingers then felt something odd as he unconsciously rubbed the edge of the card lightly,

Chen Mu quickly put the card in front of his eyes again. He didn’t know if it was because of its age, but the card’s edge had started to delaminate. Chen Mu suddenly got a little bit curious about the disabled card in which he had just lost interest. If it really conformed to his speculation, and that grand master had determined that fusing three materials could advance the one-star power-card, then Chen Mu would have to soberly reconsider his own level. He was afraid his level wasn’t even up to that of ordinary novices. He had never gotten any formal training in card-making.

But he did still believe in himself a little, and he was sure that it was a one-star power-card. He had studied the one-star power-card right from the beginning and was as familiar as anyone could get with it. After the last time he’d done some fine tuning, there hadn’t been any breakthroughs until then. Now that card that day had given him another revelation. Since he’d had no breakthroughs with the composition, why not experiment with the materials?

With that thought, Chen Mu renewed his interest in the experimental card’s material. Although the experimental card was disabled, without a doubt it had come from a grand master’s pen. So, of course, he wouldn’t be equal to every aspect of knowledge that went into it. But because he had such a propensity to borrow, Chen Mu planned to carefully research the three-layer laminated material.

Very carefully opening that outermost laminate that had already started to peel off, Chen Mu couldn’t help feeling some regret. No matter how sturdy the material was, it would have been hard to maintain its original luster given the erosion of time.

But after Chen Mu had completely removed the outer membrane, he was utterly astonished. His eyes locked onto the card as if struck by lightning, dumb as wood and clay.

On the midnight-black face of the card, he counted hundreds and thousands of silver threads as fine as hair, which covered the face of the card like spider webs. They looked utterly chaotic. But a minute section stood out where there appeared a gracefully turned arc in a tightly knit structure, which was complex to an unfathomable depth.

Since the strands of silver were as fine as hair, it took some effort to make them out with the naked eye. They seemed more like the capillaries in a human body, generating the illusion of a kind of flowing silver.

What is this? A card? Chen Mu unconsciously muttered to himself, with his brain dormant.

As much as ten minutes went by before he recovered from his muddled state and rubbed his eyes hard, to convince himself that he wasn’t seeing things.

His speculation then went off in an entirely different direction. Whatever kind of failed experiment it had been, it was plainly a card that had gone through some camouflaging process. From Chen Mu’s limited experience, he naturally couldn’t tell what kind of card it was. To tell the truth, the card’s degree of complexity far exceeded Chen Mu’s understanding. He had never even conceived of such meticulous inscription or such superlative craft, much less had he seen it.

At the card buy-back shop he had seen plenty of high-grade cards among which – despite having been discarded – he had never seen a card so complex and fine as this one.

What kind of card was it after all? Chen Mu’s curiosity surged beyond anything he had ever known.