The Card Apprentice

Clenching his teeth with his eyes wide open, Chen Mu’s normally clear eyes were all red. Chen Mu was using up the last of his energy to mobilize the last trace of perception, while still keeping the motion of his hand as gentle as could be, like the brushing of a light breeze.

A light hook, and then the pen nib brought out a wonderful and very fine arc. There was a shimmering glow which would be difficult to perceive with the naked eye. Then a turn of the wrist, suddenly forceful, but restrained by overwhelming power. The last trace of Chen Mu’s perception was that same overwhelming power pressing down into the card.

The whole card surface suddenly exploded with radiance – where before there was only a slight flash from the glimmering surface of the card – and then returned to normal, becoming a fantasy card which didn’t look like there was anything special about it. Only the afterimage of that last explosive flash remained on Chen Mu’s irises.

And then Chen Mu was paralyzed leaning back in the chair, his whole body soaked, breathing roughly, and with a flash of joy in his eyes.

Success! He had succeeded!

Although the process had been hair raising, he had succeeded!

This was the most complicated fantasy card he had ever made, using up his perception far beyond what he had expected, but he had still succeeded. A kind of joy that would be impossible to describe filled up his chest.

He picked up the card with his somewhat limp hand, and although he had memorized the card design early on, he still felt the mystery and power that the card represented.

For the whole day, Chen Mu was in a state of extreme excitement. He couldn’t stop putting the card into the apparatus again and again to watch, not getting tired of it after a hundred times.

But by the next day, when he had calmed down, Chen Mu couldn’t help reflecting on the situation he had gotten into the day before. He knew that luck was an extremely important factor in his success. If he were called back to do it today, he would have only a fifty percent chance of grasping that success again.

A probability of fifty percent was really too low, since it implied extremely scary losses. And just then, he and Copper had no way to bear such losses.

All of a sudden, he remembered that fiery dragon fantasy card that he had made, which had come out to a degree of exquisiteness far surpassing that fantasy card, and it was far less stressful to make. Why was that? In general, the level of difficulty with that fiery dragon fantasy card was higher, but his experience was exactly the opposite. He remembered very clearly that although there were some small difficulties while he was making the fiery dragon fantasy card, it was pretty calm overall.

He broke through after careful analysis. For the card just then, although the demands on illusory fidelity were simple, the demands on dynamic fidelity were extremely high, which was why it had been so excruciating for him to make.

Dynamic state . . . dynamic state . . .

Chen Mu sank into deep thought, tapping his index finger on the table.

Very abruptly, Chen Mu remembered the other card that had been demonstrated while inside that mysterious fantasy card – the token card. He had only skimmed through the knowledge related to the token card, stopping after he got some sense of it, since his energy was all focused on fantasy cards. But one of the phrases used inside left him with a deep impression – that the so called ‘token’ was dynamic computation.

The phrase flashed through his mind like a bolt of electricity. He had a vague sense that the sort of token card that he had never heard of could solve this problem.

The sudden realization gave him a jolt, and without any hesitation he immediately reentered the card’s fantasy realm.

His time inside that time was two days and one night, so that when he came out from the mysterious card’s fantasy realm, his eyes were sunken, his lips were chapped, and his body was so limp that he couldn’t summon a trace of energy. Two days and a night without a drop of water, yet there was not even the slightest wilting of his spirit. The radiance bursting from his eyes was as though he had just picked up some sort of rare treasure.

He was so excited and had so much energy that he wished he could get to work immediately. But the messed-up condition of his body made him have to eat and rest first.

Although he was resting, his brain hadn’t stopped. His brain was swirling with his desperate attempts to digest what he had brought back from those days in the card, while his mouth was gobbling down a roll below his awareness.

No one could understand Chen Mu’s elation then, a joy much stronger than when he’d learned how to make power-cards. He had been young then, with limits to his knowledge and experience, and he didn’t know what kind of impact knowing how to make power cards was going to have on his life. Whereas he now knew perfectly clearly how that type of card – designated as a “token card”– was going to turn his future upside down.

For the next three days, Chen Mu threw himself into his work. He didn’t pay any attention to the outside world, and if Copper showed up, he’d get thrown out.

There was only one thing in his eyes, and that was his own new conception.

* * *

Hong Tao looked at the classmates at his side, and then he looked at those few Star Academy students, and couldn’t help thinking that school really was a great school! While the Eastern Wei Academy students were basically all on foot, the Star Academy students were floating freely in midair.

Although Hong Tao could also fly, he asked himself if it could be as effortless as it was for those Star Academy students. Flying required a jet stream card; as did the shuttle cars that could be purchased on the market, whose most basic core was the jet stream card. The body of a shuttle car made it easy for them to take off and fly, while a person’s body shape was not so suitable for flight. So, if you wanted to fly by means of the jet stream card alone, you would need extremely advanced skills at manipulating it. The higher the level of the jet stream card, the more powerful its jet stream, and the more demanding were the corresponding manipulative skills. Not only that, but you would still need terrific balance.

What the Eastern Wei Academy students generally used was the lightweight card. The lightweight card was a simplified jet stream card, which could emit a specific downward flow, to lighten the load on the legs. It was very convenient and simple to use, and could greatly increase walking speed, while saving energy for the person using it.

But an ace didn’t generally stoop to using that kind of card. A high-grade jet stream card was extremely powerful, and their flight speed could exceed that of a shuttle, while still being much nimbler.

Hong Tao could tell at a glance that the jet stream cards being used by the Star Academy students were above three stars at the least. He could use a three-star jet stream card at his ability level, though he wasn’t sufficiently adept at it. While the Eastern Wei Academy students were watching the Star Academy students with envy, the scene on the ground was giving the supervising teachers a bad taste.

A young person’s temperament inevitably has some real strengths, so that even though they knew that their counterparts were much better than they were, they still mustered their strength and moved on. The group quickly increased their forward speed, and when they saw what was happening the teachers leading them didn’t stop it.

They were about to enter the dangerous realm. At that time, the supervising teachers ordered everyone to stop and rest, and to gather up their strength. Most of those within the Eastern Wei Academy team were panting, having used up quite a bit of their strength in their recent charge. Card artisans don’t really have much advantage when it comes to physical strength.

On the other hand, the Star Academy students all looked relaxed, and were breathing calmly.

Even though they felt a little embarrassed by the loss of face, the supervising teachers were very clear about the dangers they were facing, and no matter what, they had to guarantee the safety of those scholars.

There was a certain glasses-wearing student among the Star Academy students who suddenly turned around, and lifted his right hand with all five fingers extended.

A fist-sized moon-white wavy blade appeared floating above his palm, bowed like the moon. Then the student lightly sent if forward with his hand as an icy needle flashed from behind his glasses.

The speed with which that moon-curved rippled blade disappeared was like an arrow shot from a bow. It tore through the air whistling, and shot into a thicket about three hundred meters distant.