The Card Apprentice

After reading through the “One Breath Perception Training Method”, Chen Mu’s eyes fell upon several other things and touched upon them one by one.

The book was called High Level Card Making Method, and he was overjoyed at its discovery. As its name implied, recorded in the book was probably the method for making high level cards, which was something he had dreamed of.

He had always felt that it was very strange that among mystery cards there was only a method for making three-star fantasy cards, and the methods for making four-star cards was something that he had learned from other four-star cards. However, this was only limited to four-star cards. Up till now he had still not made a five-star card. Wheel and Bomb were four-star cards, although some of their functions were quite close to those of ordinary five-star cards.

He did not have many five-star cards, only Sectional Succession, Snake Lens, and Golden Word Shackle. These three cards gave him a very limited reference. And although The Eternal Night was a six-star card, he didn’t even have time to look at it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make a five-star card, it was just that doing so was too difficult and beyond his ability. Otherwise, just like Xiaobo he would have traded all his cards out for five-star cards. The method for making five-star cards had only ever been mastered by a handful of card masters and academies, and it was difficult to learn through other means.

But the triggering conditions of High Level Card Making Method clearly showed the Chen Mu’s current perception strength was not enough. He was not too discouraged, if you could make a five-star card you had reached the level of a card master, and there were only a few card masters who could create five-star cards in the whole Heavenly Federation, and each one of them had deep perceptions. Generally speaking, card masters who could make five-star cards were all over forty years old.

And Chen Mu was only twenty.

The pocket-sized model was A Demonstration of the Behavior of the Seven Energy Structures, which revealed in great detail the dynamic evolution of the seven categories of energy structure from simple to complex. It was incredibly detailed, and incredibly bizarre. They were much rougher than the energy models that Chen Mu had done before. The seven categories of energy structure covered almost 70% of the energy structures at the present. For any card master, being able to witness such a detailed energy structure would let them greatly enhance their understanding of that energy structure in an extremely short time.

Not to mention, A Demonstration of the Behavior of the Seven Energy Structures could work according to the user’s will and perform a simple demonstration. To some extent it had a certain deductive function.

But what really had a powerful function was the silver ball, Energy Structure Deduction Model! In other words, it could create an energy structure model that you envisioned and try to deduce what properties it would have.

This truly was a peerless tool!

Creative card masters could create all kinds of fantastic models with this, and it could determine if these energy structures were feasible and what properties they would have.

This was what every card master dreamed of! Making a new card was not really that hard, but inventing a new energy structure was exceedingly difficult. Over the years, some card masters who had won awards from various associations had proposed new energy structures in order to do so.

This was an extremely difficult process. Creativity was indispensable, but the most difficult thing was how to verify if the energy structure would be successful. All the simple energy structures had already been invented, and complex energy structures needed to be made real in order to determine if they would work or not. New energy structures meant new patterns, new card-making materials etc. This was extremely cumbersome. Over the years, there had been a pitiful amount of new energy structures proposed because card masters who could reach this step were few and far between.

However, Chen Mu couldn’t trigger this deduction model either because his perception was not strong enough. What surprised him was that he needed his perception to be at the eighth level! Of course he was only guessing, since it was obvious that his perception strength was far from enough. The perception strength in mystery cards was not in accordance with the existing ranking system, so he could only estimate it roughly.

Chen Mu’s current perception strength was not far from the seventh level, but the gap to the eighth level was still quite far! This left him speechless. He estimated that only those card artisans with the title of master could reach eighth level perception.

Chen Mu was very used to throwing things that were too far away from him aside.

What were useful to him now were the “One Breath Perception Training Method” and High Level Card Making Method. He intended to focus on “One Breath Perception Training Method.” In his current situation the crisis was hidden, and he could encounter combat at any time.

Thinking of this made him a bit uncomfortable. Tan Yumin’s light word’s had pushed him to where the wind and waves were highest.

It was like the two of them had never celebrated a festival together! Or maybe it was that she hated Caesar?

Maybe I can ask Jie Yanbai, thought Chen Mu.

He calmed his mind, and started to train his perception in accordance with the “One Breath Perception Training Method”. His perception was a structure consisting of two helixes winding around each other. He simply merged these two lines of perception into one and experiment with it.

At the beginning of his experiment, Chen Mu discovered that the “One Breath Perception Training Method” was a bit too abnormal. It seemed simple, but the process of pulling the lines of perception needed to be broken down into twenty-six steps, and the process of relaxing his lines of perception needed seventeen delicate steps. Between breaths he needed to complete forty three steps. One can imagine how difficult this was.

Failure! Failure! And another failure!

Chen Mu tried repeatedly. Although his strength had increased, this had not made him squeamish as he was still used to failure. Speaking of which, over the years other than Wei-ah and Caesar teaching him in great detail, he had always fumbled about on his own, and it did not need to be said how difficult this had been.

Up until dinnertime he still had not found the main thread of the affair. He had to complete forty-three steps in one breath without any mistakes. This was extremely difficult. Even though Chen Mu was someone with high sensitivity, it was still hard work. He suddenly realized why the triggering conditions of the “One Breath Perception Training Method” required such a high level of sensitivity.

Tension alternating with relaxation was the right way to do things. Chen Mu had realized this principle over the years.

He walked out of the room and everyone was preparing for dinner.

Due to everyone’s different schedules, dinnertime was at different times as well. For example, Wei-ah and Little Bu Mo were still training. The amount of physical exercise that Little Bu Mo did was astonishing. In order to meet his energy consumption, and considering that he was still growing, Wei-ah had arranged for him to eat a meal every three hours.

The chef had looked at Little Bu Mo with a little fear more than once. He was skeptical that this creature that looked like a child was not in fact a monster! He had told everyone that he needed to give it all he had to meet his requirements.

In contrast, everyone else was much more normal.

Xiaobo, Sang Hanshui, Jie Yanbai and Qiu Shanyu were eating. When he saw Chen Mu coming over the chef quickly sent over his dinner. He targeted each person’s tastes differently, and so the meals that he prepared for them were different.

“How much do you know about Tan Yumin?” Chen Mu sat beside Jie Yanbai, thinking about his problem.

Jie Yanbai paused and looked like he was thinking. “I don’t know much about her, and most of what I do know are things that my teacher mentioned incidentally. She is the daughter of my teacher’s rival. Her mother was on good relations with Caesar. At that time, Miss Tan Yumin did not have the reputation she does now. When I heard Caesar’s name I thought of this.”

“She’s a little bit strange.” After saying this, Chen Mu lowered his head and began to eat his dinner.

When Jie Yanbai heard this he frowned slightly. “I also kind of feel that way. I used to think Miss Tan was a very nice girl. Now with that business with the Yuzi Military Force, I don’t know if she was forced to do it or if there were other reasons. Also, she revealed your identity in public, that was a bit strange. I couldn’t figure it out before, if she recognized the White Commander, why contact you secretly but reveal you in public?”

Qiu Shanyu, who had been quiet up till then, sneered at this. “I know a little bit about Tan Yumin. Don’t think too much about her.”

“You know about her?” Jie Yanbai gave her a puzzled look. He had always thought this girl was involved with Chen Mu, now it sounded like she came from somewhere else entirely.

“Tan Yumin’s mother, Tan Xiaoyi, had a lot of connections. She is the daughter of the master of the Western Temple at Bitter Solitude Temple,” said Qiu Shanyu.

Chen Mu and Jie Yanbai were shocked.

Bitter Solitude Temple!

The two of them couldn’t help but glance at each other. That night, Jie Yanbai had wondered how Chen Mu had provoked the people of Bitter Solitude Temple. Xiaobo also paused. The skinny card artisan that he had fought that night had left a deep impression on him.

“So it was her.” Jie Yanbai said something that everyone could understand.

Qiu Shanyu’s look became even more mocking. “Her father is Meiji, and this is not a rumor. At that time, Tan Xiaoyi, Shui Qingyan, and Meiji accompanied each other and met with Caesar. For some reason they entered the jungle. Later, Shui Qingyan was the first to withdraw. Meiji followed not long after. Only Tan Xiaoyi and Caesar insisted on penetrating the depths of the jungle.”

This time, not only Chen Mu and Jie Yanbai stopped, Xiao Bo and Sang Hanshui also perked up their ears. These behind the scenes stories were not something that could be heard at any time.

Jie Yanbai’s shock was plain on his face. He had not expected that this would have something to do with his teacher.

Could it be that Caesar’s reinterpretation of Rouged Finger came from that time?

“Tan Xiaoyi was the weakest of the three, but her talent was unmistakable, broadly speaking she was the best of that generation of Bitter Solitude Temple. She was proficient in card making, but she was different from other card master. Her knowledge of card artisanry was also very deep. However, what she was best at was Aurora Beam!”

Qiu Shanyu’s look suddenly became a tiny bit admiring.