The Card Apprentice

Chapter 173: A Stroke of Luck

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The sweat on Chen Mu’s forehead was about to gather into a river with his two eyes still pinned to the screen. Without realizing it, he had endured that same position for three hours already. What a strange pattern! After wracking his brain, he had discerned a composition only after a great deal of difficulty, still with no way to recognize what remained. It was the pattern he had figured out that had cost him so much mental effort.

Once he had teased out the application of the composition in that pattern, the pattern shining on the screen went dark. That was what had aroused Chen Mu from his pondering.

He looked around at something of a loss since a three-hour-long mental trial had made it rather difficult to return to his senses. After half a minute, an outline finally emerged. He suddenly realized how drenched in sweat he was, which was quite uncomfortable.

All of the patterns were bizarre and totally different from the card system of the Heavenly Federation. Still, it was a good thing the theory from the mysterious card wasn’t entirely disconnected from them. For Chen Mu to have been able to discern some of the patterns was entirely due to the theoretical system in the mysterious card.

It was quite a bit like the pattern of the token card, though there were certain differences. It was slightly superior to the token card knowledge in its elegance. That had made it possible for Chen Mu to discern a kind of pattern; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to conceive of it. As far as he was concerned, those complex patterns were still rather abstruse.

Stretching out his sore neck, he turned around to take a look at Alfonso; he was absorbed in staring at the screen in front of him, where there were some very complex compositions. Chen Mu knew himself and pulled back his gaze after a glance since they were so incomprehensible.

Surveying around, Chen Mu couldn’t help but smile bitterly about how he had been able to quickly become so engrossed for such a long time in that situation. No wonder he and Alfonso were laws unto themselves; the two crazies had never really been so different from one another.

His calm restored, Chen Mu started to carefully examine his surroundings.

It was pitch black all around with only the square screens set up in midair.

Chen Mu knew from experience that if he couldn’t find the proper method, there would be no way to get out of the powerful illusion being emitted. But, he had no way to find the right method just then. The situation was different from the first time he had entered into the mysterious card. He had emitted the illusion from the mysterious card, after all, which also meant his safety was assured. But, although he had also sparked the illusion in front of him now, he wasn’t the one who had emitted it.

It was doubtlessly more dangerous now.

Just then, the voice blurted out again, “The initial privileges have been determined!”

A screen popped out in front of Chen Mu, nearly scaring him out of his wits. The screen was packed with figures, which made Chen Mu’s eyes swim and his head become awash in fog.

The voice cleared away the puzzle by saying, “Since the system has been damaged, the most optimal thing now would be to automatically return the system to its default state. Your privileges are raised to the highest necessary contribution value facing the optimal event. The initial determination is that your honorable score is 15 points—the highest among those now being determined. Congratulations. You will have the highest privileges beyond the optimizing event.”

Chen Mu couldn’t quite get his head around what was being said. He seemed to understand, but not quite. “What is the highest privilege?”

“The highest privilege is the privilege to control the system. Since you have the highest points, in the case where you don’t violate the optimization, you will have the highest control privileges among those having any privileges.”

That sort of explanation made Chen Mu’s already foggy mind still more foggy, though he had clearly heard the phrase “highest control privileges.”

“That is to say I can control you?” Chen Mu probed cautiously.

“No.” His counterpart’s refusal was very straightforward.

“Oh,” Chen Mu answered, though he didn’t feel any loss of hope. If his counterpart had affirmed him, he would have been terrified.

“Who are you?” Chen Mu was asking the simplest of questions. So long as his counterpart was willing to communicate, then it was already an exciting breakthrough for Chen Mu.

“The system.”

Chen Mu rolled those words around in his head a few times and still felt awash in fog.

“Where are we?” Chen Mu continued to inquire.

“The city below.”

“The city below?” That strange designation had gotten Chen Mu’s attention.

“Yes.”

“How is everyone?” Chen Mu was thinking of his comrades and couldn’t help but ask.

“Apart from one who died from a malfunction, everyone else is fine.”

The system’s response made Chen Mu uptight. “Who died?”

A screen immediately sprung out in front of Chen Mu, on which Bo Wen’s figure appeared. Chen Mu had some complex feelings seeing Bo Wen already deprived of his life force. Although Bo Wen’s existence was a hazard to him, in the bottom of his mind Chen Mu admired Bo Wen’s abilities—if they could only get rid of the grudges. He had always considered Bo Wen to be the most awesome of the three of them; whether in regard to his shrewd strategies or his individual battle strength, Bo Wen was the strongest.

Chen Mu didn’t grieve very much over Bo Wen’s death. Though he admired him immensely, Bo Wen was the person he most needed to be on guard against. Chen Mu reckoned that if he’d had the opportunity, he would have moved to kill Bo Wen. In the same way, if Chen Mu had given him any opportunity, Bo Wen certainly wouldn’t have had any restraint. Their relative positions had determined their attitudes toward one another.

“And the rest? How were their scores?”

The first thing that popped up on the screen was the image of Wei-ah, and the cold voice of the system said blandly, “He had the highest score. In the category of a combatant, his battle score got as high as 65, which suggests he could advance to the specialized battle evaluation.”

Sixty-five points!

Thinking about his own pitiful 15 points, Chen Mu opened his mouth very sluggishly.

“With 65 points, Wei-ah is the highest. Why do I have the highest privileges?” Having reacted, Chen Mu couldn’t help but ask.

“His is a battle score, while yours is a maintenance score. Right now the most optimal thing is to restore the system, so your contribution number has been determined to be higher than his,” the system very simply explained.

“Maintenance score?” Chen Mu felt as though he might cry or laugh; the machine had initially made him into a master of maintenance.

He glanced at Alfonso, who was still absorbed. “How many points did he get?” Chen Mu asked while pointing.

“Nine points.” The system treated words like gold.

“And the others?”

The images of the others immediately appeared on the screen in front of Chen Mu. Their points were categorized below. The thing that brought Chen Mu closest to tears or laughter was that Cheng Ying’s points were actually written as logistics! Chen Mu really couldn’t get how the “system” had related a professional card artisan with logistics. As soon as he thought of Cheng Ying with an apron strapped on, a big metal spoon in her right hand, and a bucket of potatoes and beef stew in her left, it was really…

Apart from Wei-ah, no one had exceeded 15 points; this stirringly reaffirmed Wei-ah’s valiance to Chen Mu.

Chen Mu understood that in order to get out of the predicament, he needed sufficient information, so he kept communicating with the “system.” He very quickly understood how high his so-called “highest control privileges” were.

They were worthless. Since the contribution points were too low, he had pitiful privileges. A somewhat useful piece of information was that it would usually require 40 or 50 contribution points.

Chen Mu had still gotten some rather useful information.

At that time, he was positioned in an underground base, which had seven levels altogether. He was in the level closest to the bottom, which hadn’t been completely damaged. In truth, it was only 20 percent intact. Since the initial points determination had consumed a lot of energy, what was left would only last five more days. This left Chen Mu speechless.

But, there wasn’t any danger! That discovery allowed Chen Mu to finally heave a sigh of relief. From all of the information provided by the “system,” they were safe at least for the time being.

Chen Mu was surprised when he saw the layout of the first level.

The area of the underground base was stunningly large!

No wonder it was called the “city below.” In Chen Mu’s eyes, it was simply comparable to a small-scale village. Chen Mu also found out the first level had quite a few divided rooms—probably 1,600 of them—crowded close together like a beehive. The space in the first level was really huge; when he thought about it, it was 45 meters high.

It was hard to believe such an advanced and huge underground base was actually the remains of a distant, unstudied period. Chen Mu believed even the most outstanding underground base in the Heavenly Federation couldn’t have been better than that place.

Nearly everything there had been made of metal. How many mines would that have required them to extract metal ores from? How high were the metallurgical skills required? How much manpower and resources did it require?

The remains of the many empty rooms were undoubtedly providing him with a lot of information; a lot of people had been living in that base. Where did they go? Why did they abandon the base?

After a while, Chen Mu had plenty of doubts swirling around in his mind.

The “system” was very tight about any connotations with what it said. Up until then, Chen Mu hadn’t gotten any basic information about the base, such as when it was established, who established it, why it was such a huge base, and so forth.

Even though that was how it was, the tip of the iceberg that had been exposed about the underground base had already provided Chen Mu with sufficient shock.

They had had a stroke of luck!