The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu holed up for quite a few days this time. Xi ping and Bogner were both idle, and the card artisans also got a chance to breathe. The most unexpected was Sue Lochiro; the injured card artisans on the team had started to heal, and she had nothing left to do.

After he found out Sue Lochiro was a high-level medical card artisan, that Captain Dai under Xiao Liqian begged her to let Sue Lochiro come to his own home, hoping Sue Lochiro could heal his lingering illness. He’d missed the best time to treat the wound he had gotten in a previous battle, which left a hidden malady behind.

Sue Lochiro had become familiar with Xiao Liqian those past few days, and she didn’t hesitate to agree. It would be a small issue for her. Within half an hour, she had eradicated the hidden malady from Captain Dai.

Without the blocking of that hidden disease, Captain Dai’s perception immediately surged with stunning speed. Within a few short days, his power had risen ten percent. Such shocking results immediately rocked the base. In a short while, countless people were looking for Sue Lochiro.

Many of those who often went to the Outer Reaches often had wounds. In that out-of-the-way place where even birds wouldn’t poop, it would be a vain dream to think there could be medical card artisans.

But now, that team actually did have a medical card artisan! That alone was enough for everyone to sit up and take notice.

Sue Lochiro was somewhat dumbfounded to see so many people. If those card artisans hadn’t been afraid of the card artisans responsible for guarding, the scene would certainly have gotten chaotic. Unlike when she had been treating ordinary civilians in Pomelo, those card artisans were all extremely vicious rascals who would kill someone without even looking. Sue Lochiro was quickly overwhelmed.

At just the critical moment, Bogner came to save the day. He very solicitously asked her to enter into a room, asking Lucky Xi along the way to come with them.

“From now on, you can use this as your dedicated treatment room, where you only need to be responsible to treat people inside. Lucky Xi will be your assistant. Turn everything else over to us.” Bogner patted his chest, his face full of passion.

Sue Lochiro tilted her head to think about it and felt it would be quite an improvement, so she nodded.

Bogner called over Crow Feather and Happy Padding. “You two stay at the door, and if anyone doesn’t get it, you throw them out.”

“Yes, sir!” The two responded gruffly while the card artisans nearby changed color. It could be seen in their eyes how Crow Feather had scared them that day. Although Happy Padding was a full head shorter than Crow Feather, he was well-muscled and rather more ferocious than Crow Feather. Everyone abruptly cringed back some distance.

Bogner saw Xi Ping, who had come to see what was happening. His eyes lit up as he called him over with a wave. “Old Xi, Old Xi, get over here.”

Xi Ping walked over to Bogner without hurrying. “What’s up here?”

Bogner laughed and said something in Xi Ping’s ear. Xi Ping’s eyes lit up as he kept making affirmative grunts and nodding. Thereupon quite a few of those who had just returned to the base from the jungle arrived at a strange scene. There was a long line of troops in the middle of the huge base.

Bogner made a sign to one of them. “Oh, that lass Miss Sue is working so hard; how do you all plan to reward her?”

That jungle card artisan reluctantly took out a thing like a red ram’s horn from his breast and anxiously brought it in front of Xi Ping.

Wearing glasses, the refined and polite-looking Xi Ping appraised it and nodded, satisfied. “Not bad. The horn of a mature blood-horned sheep. Not bad quality… mmmm, you may enter.”

“You, go ahead.” Bogner waved his hand.

Although that jungle card artisan looked like he was in pain, he was still overjoyed as he rushed into the treatment room.

“Next,” Bogner called out.

The second jungle card artisan pulled out a black stone while shivering.

“This piece of rare cliff ore isn’t of good enough quality—too inferior.” Xi Ping returned the stone to the jungle card artisan with an impassive face.

Bogner patted the man on his shoulder, saying earnestly, “Brother! You won’t have these mere worldly possessions for life, and you can’t take them with you when you die. What good does it do to hang onto them? Your health is the most important! Think about it; if your health is good, then what won’t you be able to earn later? Yikes, you aren’t enlightened enough yet. Go off and reflect a little.”

Then, Happy Padding lifted him up with his fan-like, huge hand and put him back into the team.

“Next!” Bogner continued on in leisurely fashion.

* * *

Chen Mu had laid out all of his possessions in front of him.

Black and white chrysanthemum rock was used to make token cards. Dedicated token cards were seldom seen, and the rock in Chen Mu’s hands had been slow to be used. But, that time, he would put it to the most critical use.

The red oil refined from red-lined crow silk was a perfect match for the black and white chrysanthemum rock! It could greatly amplify the card’s utilization of energy. The black and white chrysanthemum rock was just right for setting the card’s computational ability, and a card made by matching the two materials would reach an efficiency never before accomplished.

He wasn’t going to use any fish-patterned grass that time. It was used to make a card as hard as iron, so it couldn’t be harmed. But, in general, whether it was a close-combat type of card or a remote attack style card, what it directly produced was energy, which couldn’t damage the card. So, the specific characteristics of the fish-patterned grass would be pretty worthless in the eyes of ordinary card masters.

However, Chen Mu didn’t consider it so, having his own way of thinking. He would look at the results of experimentation to see any specifics. But that was a different subject, not related to the card in front of him.

The twinned titanium stone was also an extremely rare material because the metal smelted from it had extremely good energy conductivity. It was also a type of naturally excellent card ink with outstanding compatibility. The energy activated through it would often have excellent plasticity.

Black and white chrysanthemum rock, red-lined crow silk, twinned titanium stone—those three types of materials just happened to correspond perfectly with the idea he had in his mind. When added to the materials he had just purchased from Xiao Liqian, Chen Mu had developed a detailed plan.

He made his plan so detailed lest he leave any little thing out. Those materials were all things you might come upon but couldn’t go looking for. Once a card failed, the next time you might want to gather the materials, it wouldn’t be so easy.

That was Chen Mu’s first time using so many precious materials, each of which would have a sky-high price on the market. He glanced at Ru Qiu, who had been completely conquered by Chen Mu’s voluminous card making plan. There were lots of terms and algorithms she didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. She would just take it slowly. The things she could understand had already profited her a lot.

The thing she admired most was Chen Mu’s professional attitude! Before then, she had never seen any card master who would be so diligent when making cards, just like she had never seen such a detailed card making plan. Was that card making? It simply seemed like it had been made into a huge engineering project.

She didn’t understand quite a few of Chen Mu’s step-by-step calculations, but that didn’t stop her worship of Chen Mu from skyrocketing! Why had he joined the ranks of grand masters at such a young age? That attitude explained a lot!

With just those plans, Chen Mu had personally computed them from beginning to end five times before finalizing them. There were countless notes beside each step. In those notes were not only all the considerations laid out, but things that might go wrong were ticked off one by one, not leaving out even the ways to resolve them.

Because he needed Ru Qiu’s help, Chen Mu made her memorize the plan, so nothing unexpected would happen with each process.

Chen Mu’s requirements were exactly what Ru Qiu had been looking for. Receiving the card making plan, she went right ahead and memorized it inside and out. She well knew the prices of those things. Of course, there were still quite a few things she didn’t understand. But so long as she remembered them, then some day, after constant enlightenment, she would be able to make sense of it all.

Once Ru Qiu had memorized everything, Chen Mu prepared to begin.

The equipment there was only ordinary, but it was sufficient for him. In front of him were laid out dozens of kinds of materials, and the smell they gave off when mixed together formed a kind of peculiar fragrance. Her face full of caution, Ru Qiu stood by Chen Mu’s side, her gaze scanning over those materials from time to time.

There were several of them she had never heard of, even though she’d looked through the encyclopedia of materials. But she’d already firmly memorized them; she now knew the materials Chen Mu pulled out of his pocket were utterly rare and precious.

Chen Mu looked serious, and Ru Qiu didn’t dare to breathe aloud beside him.

Drawing in a deep breath and closing his eyes to go through every detail again in his head, he opened his eyes only after he was sure he hadn’t left anything out.

“Start preparing the prismatic crystal, and pay attention to controlling the heat,” Chen Mu said in a low voice.

“Yes, sir.” Having been influenced by the card artisans on the team, Ru Qiu had responded like they would.

Under the high-temperature fire, the prismatic crystal started to turn red and gradually turned into a liquid like molten iron. Ru Qiu had a steady expression. Her ten fingers were as nimble as flight as all the materials on the table that had been prepared earlier were put into the red prismatic crystal liquid.

The prismatic crystal was one of the unknown materials Chen Mu had bought from Xiao Liqian. The surface of prismatic crystal would generally be covered with other kinds of rock. That was why people wouldn’t recognize it. Ru Qiu did recognize it, but if she were to have to identify it, she would need to use a special instrument to be certain.

She was curious about how Chen Mu could know there would be prismatic crystal inside a rock at a glance without using any instruments. That piece of prismatic crystal was the biggest she had ever seen, probably the size of two adult fists. If it were auctioned, it would require at least 50 million Oudi.

Chen Mu had used it as a melting agent without hesitating. To use prismatic crystal as a melting agent, and especially one in such superb condition, couldn’t begin to be described by the term luxury.

Ru Qiu didn’t dare distract herself. Her perception was completely caught up in that ball of prismatic crystal liquid, deeply exploring the degree of reaction among the internal materials.