The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu handed over the list in his hand.

Lan Feng’s heart rate started to race when she took the list and looked it over carefully. Trying to keep her excitement in check, she probed a little, “These are all high-grade materials! I’m afraid they can only be used by high-grade card masters. Is it possible that Mr. Chen is a high-grade card master?

Is it possible that this guy is really a fat cat?

No wonder Lan Feng was so agitated. The high-grade card masters in Eastern Shang-Wei City could be counted on one’s fingers. And what’s more, in the whole club, only the president had that designation. Even the director was only a mid-grade card master.

Chen Mu was rather astonished. The materials on the list were both rare and unpopular, and even the shopkeepers who specialized in the business of making materials weren’t able to recognize them all. And yet this woman recognizes them? Still her speculation that he was a high-grade card master was simply preposterous.

“No.” Chen Mu shook his head definitively, and then asked her right away, “Do you have these materials on sale here?”

Lan Feng became more enthusiastic, and hastily said, “First I’ll help you by asking around, so that you can avoid searching item by item.” By that time her heart’s flowers were blooming, and she was elated. No matter if Chen Mu was a high-grade card master or not, it was certain that he was a card master whose strength stood out.

She activated the communications card on her wrist, and a verdict came back a moment later. Chen Mu was watching Lan Feng, waiting for the result.

“I just inquired on your behalf, and we just happen to have all of the materials you require here in the club. Since you are a member of the advanced group, you have the right to buy them. But . . .” Lan Feng gave Chen Mu a look, and promptly said, “But if you want to buy all of the materials on the list, you need eight hundred points, and just now you have only four hundred and fifty-three points. Which is to say that you would still need three hundred and forty-seven points.”

Lan Feng was secretly praising the president for how awesome he was! Because the materials were rather precious, she specifically consulted with the president to get his opinion. After learning about the incident with Chen Mu, he had showed an unusual level of interest in him. The program in front of the president just then could really use a card master with outstanding ability.

Taking a carefully tactful and solicitous tone, Lan Feng opened her mouth, “Being still short by three hundred and forty-seven points, if you were to do one or two large programs . . .”

Without waiting for her to finish, Chen Mu cut her short, “Still short three hundred and forty-seven points? I can buy them if I have eight hundred points?”

“Yes!” Lan Feng said brightly, “If you get three hundred and forty-seven points, you can buy them at any time. Of course, that would be provided that no other club member would want to buy them today, in which case we wouldn’t be able to stop them.

Collecting three hundred and forty-seven points in one day was easier said than done! Not having quite thought it through, she wondered how much the president really needed the person’s help. Indeed, she had never seen the points for some responsibility ever exceed two hundred. And then as soon as he opened his mouth, the president was talking over three hundred points, and he didn’t seem like a generous person, no matter how she looked at it!

Still, she believed that the person she was facing would jump into this hole without any hesitation. Unless he were to participate in that kind of large-scale duty, how else would he be able to gather up over three hundred points in such a short time? And what’s more, she had already checked up that Chen Mu didn’t have any acquaintances in the group, and so if he were thinking of borrowing, he wouldn’t have any place to borrow from.

Unless her counterpart didn’t really want those materials!

In her eyes, she was one hundred percent certain that this young fellow was yearning for those kinds of materials.

“Oh.” Chen Mu grunted his response and turned around to leave.

That completely unexpected move by Chen Mu left Lan Feng stopped dead, with her brain yet to respond.

By the time she did respond, Chen Mu was already ten meters away.

“Mr. Chen, Mr. Chen!” She rushed to catch up, and nervously said, “Don’t you want these materials anymore?”

“Why wouldn’t I want them?” Chen Mu looked at Lan Feng full of incredulity.

Lan Feng felt her brain getting more confused, and said somewhat incoherently, “Then you . . . you, now are . . .?”

“Earning points!” Without turned back, Chen Mu shot off his ‘well of course’ response.

Chen Mu got to the large hall and sat down in front of one of the screens, where he looked at the long string of requests, and then finally exhaled, picked up the light-screen pen, and started browsing from the beginning.

The first . . . the second . . .

All that could be seen was Chen Mu sometimes frowning and sometimes writing furiously. He had already entered into a state without self-awareness and didn’t notice the expression of marvel on Yan Feng’s face behind him.

But still, the great hall was full of hubbub like a tea house at the time, and crowded with excited looking people. From time to time, someone would activate their communications card.

“Old Wang, come to the club quickly. Come quickly!”

“What’s going on here? That’s a surprise…” The person on the other end was clearly a little out of it.

“Ha ha, do you still remember that guy who swept up all the points that last time?” The one speaking smiled mysteriously.

“Swept the points? Oh, you’re talking about that weirdo who crazily swept up over four hundred points?” Old Wang came right back to his senses, and his voice got a lot louder.

“That’s the one! Wonder to behold, the guy is back again today! He’s in the great hall just now, aren’t you going to come, Old Wang? The question you posted last time about the circular composition was already resolved by that guy! Check this out, see if the results are right. A few of our buddies are waiting”

“What? I’ll be there right away!” Old Wang quickly ended the communication and climbed right into his shuttle and flew off to the club.

Two hours had passed, and Chen Mu had already succeeded in resolving twelve problems, which is to say that he had already gotten eighty-five points. But to look at him he didn’t have any intention of stopping.

Staring in concentration at the screen, his brain whirring, none of the problems were simple. It was a good thing that his theoretical knowledge was rather strong, and that he had all that rich experience making card plays. Moreover, he now realized that the crux was in making those twelve cards.

Eleven of those twelve cards were low-level fantasy cards, but the complexity and difficulty of those eleven cards could be called incredible.

Chen Mu didn’t know how much time he’d spent thinking and how many hard problems he’d had to overcome before he could make those twelve cards. But he was using all of that hard mental work now to be able to resolve all those other people’s requests for help.

‘Low-grade’ fantasy card refers to one or two-star fantasy cards, and although the degree of difficulty to make them was not high, the learning they embodied was still very deep. And the usage of low-level fantasy cards was ever expanding at that time, as was their refinement, moving the direction for development more and more toward specialized requirements. In that regard, high-level card masters were not even close to those low-level card masters.

Chen Mu’s behavior last time hadn’t attracted people’s attention. But they were astounded to discover afterwards that one person had surprisingly made a mad sweep of over four hundred points, having resolved several dozen requests for help. This kind of thing had never happened since the establishment of the club.

The first question on most people’s minds was what kind of person could be so formidable?

Unfortunately, this legendary point sweeper disappeared from the scene after that. No matter who the object of their attention was, if he weren’t an ace he was certainly a genius to have been able to sweep four hundred points in a day, which got him the respect of everyone in the club.

Chen Mu didn’t know that the person who had posted the third request that he was just then working on was in the club at the same time. This card master had just gotten Chen Mu’s proposed solution and was overjoyed to find out that the responder was that point sweeper called Chen Mu.

He was trembling with excitement just then, and after he had finally calmed himself down, he hurriedly spread the news. Unlike Chen Mu, he was a three-year old-timer, who know everyone in the club.

The news propagated in an instant, until it had filled the entire hall, and even quite a few who were at home dropped whatever they were doing to rush over.

And so, everyone was scanning the hall to find out which one was the point sweeper.

Very quickly, they targeted Chen Mu. For one thing, Chen Mu was unfamiliar, and there wasn’t anyone who knew his name. For another, Lan Feng stood behind him like his attendant, with an expression of astonishment on her face, which was enough for them to guess who Chen Mu was.

Some bold sorts gathered around, even though everyone felt that would be a little presumptuous.

Those who hadn’t gathered then started to itch unbearably, as though they were being scratched by hundreds of claws and they couldn’t help gathering there as well.

More and more people were gathering like that until there was a large crowd around Chen Mu. But they weren’t making any noise, with each of them holding their breath, staring in a trance at the screen in front of that youth.

At first Lan Feng took fright at the state of affairs, but then she smiled wryly to herself that the scene had already made the smug calculations of the president come to naught. From her statistical results, Chen Mu was quickly approaching two hundred points. If he kept up the trend, never mind three hundred points, even making four hundred wouldn’t cover it.

Seeing the fixed looks of so many card masters behind her, she had to step aside. She called the president’s communication card, and gave him a quick introduction to the situation, and after some sounds of assent, her expression returned to normal.

According to later calculations, that day listed the largest number of members ever recorded for any one day in the last two years. After a while, even a drop of water wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through those surrounding Chen Mu. Late arriving card masters were impatiently hopping up and down outside, while those who had posted requests for help were hurriedly running over to screens to see if their requests had been resolved.

A few other very intelligent card masters were rushing to take advantage of that chance to have some of their own long-held conundrums resolved. Right away, the number of requests for help shot up crazily, with no end in sight.

Those card masters whose questions had been answered were full of admiration and handed over their points without any hesitation.

Chen Mu was sweeping up points much faster than the last time. Since so many of his requesters were basically all on-scene, all he had to do was respond and then after the requester confirmed its correctness he would immediately pay over the points.

This naturally sped things up, but Chen Mu wasn’t paying any attention. What he was actually thinking had nothing to do with three or four hundred points. He was thinking that since the last time took him an entire day to reach four hundred points, he would have to spend a similar amount of time this time.

Based on that, he was paying no attention to his points, but only concentrating on his responses.

Lan Feng was dumbfounded by the watertight crowd, and could see that the skill she’d deployed to get out to make her report to the president wasn’t going to get her back in.

Just then someone called out behind her “Lan Feng . . . Lan Feng . . .”

Turning around to look, she saw An Xiaoyou running in her direction huffing and puffing.

Without waiting for Lan Feng to open her mouth, An Xiaoyou couldn’t wait to ask, “Miss Lan, hasn’t Chen Mu come today, where is he, where is he?”

Lan Feng murmured, “Um, over there.”

An Xiaoyou was taken aback by the watertight crowd, and mumbled, “how could this crowd be quicker than me?” after saying that, he showed a death defying look, and through gritted teeth said, “damn, that little master can put things together,” and squeezed into the crowd.

Seeing that, Lan Feng followed behind An Xiaoyou, and some people ahead of them made way. If she didn’t take such initiative, she wouldn’t be Lan Feng!

With the strength of nine oxen and two tigers – straining to their limit – and suffering countless glares and raised eyebrows, An Xiaoyou and Lan Feng finally got through.

Several hundred people formed a strangely quiet dense mass, where An Xiaoyou was reluctant to open his mouth. Goodness gracious, it would be a bad day for him if he were to annoy that gang of uncles!

But once he turned his gaze to the screen, he couldn’t take it away.

Lan Feng admired the look of concentration she saw on Chen Mu. Leaving aside his actual strength, very few people could keep up his level of concentration. But that time . . . to be able to maintain such concentration for several hours was using up energy and brain power in quantities she could only imagine.

“Would you like something to eat?” Lan Feng went over to Chen Mu and thoughtfully whispered.

“You also take care of food here?” Chen Mu asked unconsciously without taking his gaze off the screen.

Lan Feng suddenly didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, but just gave a hmmmm, while going on to ask, “would you like to eat a little something?” But don’t be too picky, since while the club’s kitchen has some high-grade stuff, there aren’t many kinds.

“Water, steamed buns” Chen Mu’s gaze had still not left the screen.

Without knowing why, when she heard Chen Mu’s response, Lan Feng was startled and turned up her nose, making a little sound, and retreated to An Xiaoyou’s side.

Lan Feng gave An Xiaoyou a little slap on the skull, startling him. About to shout out a curse, he quickly retracted it seeing that it was Lan Feng, and then said smilingly, “Does Lan Feng need something?”

Lan Feng faced outside and mumbled, “Go and bring back some steamed buns and water.”

An Xiaoyou puckered up his face looking at that dense crowd behind him, “No way, Lan Feng. Are you trying to get me killed? Boohoo, you would never see your little wanderer again. . .”

Lan Feng arched her eyebrows and opened her eyes wide, “Are you going or not?”

“Look, this . . . this . . .” Hating to let go of the screen he was watching, he couldn’t get anything out.

“If you do it, I’ll introduce you to Chen Mu, OK?” Lan Feng tossed out the bait.

An Xiaoyou’s eye’s lit up, “Really?” And then he proudly pushed out his not so impressive chest, “Don’t worry Lan Feng, never mind steamed buns, I’ll even marry them to dumplings and bring you back the offspring.” He then turned around and squeezed back through the crowd with unstoppable momentum and will.