The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu had been improving the metallic separator he had constructed for those few days. The level of the industrial metallurgical machinery that had been purchased was far deficient from what Alfonso had in his lab. He’d had to wrack his brain to just barely build a separator.

Chen Mu felt strangely ashamed looking at the ugly machine. If Alfonso were to see it, chances were he’d laugh at him. Still, he seemed to have something of a glorious tradition in that regard, having made the Blue Moon Gun, which was famous for being so ugly in its first rendition.

Unfortunately, the metallurgic arts there were far from comparable to the Moqi Clan. Otherwise, he would have considered making the Blue Moon Gun. That was the sort of card appliance an ordinary person could use. Who knew how many times more ordinary people there were in the world than card artisans?

He still didn’t know that the equipment he was looking down on like that had actually cost 1.5 billion. If he had known the bill of goods he’d sent to Xi Ping would rack up that much, he would certainly have put the idea right out of his mind.

The process of optimization had gone rather smoothly. He got a lot done during that period, having put back into order a few places that were clunky. Having gone through that optimization, not only did the machine look a lot better, but its efficiency had increased considerably.

Just then, he heard Xi Ping calling out.

“Boss! Boss!” Xi Ping’s familiar face on the screen had turned red. As soon as he saw Chen Mu, he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “The purple fluorescent ore, Boss, the purple fluorescent ore!”

Chen Mu didn’t get it. “What about the purple fluorescent ore?”

“Oh my god, the purple fluorescent ore! We’re rich, Boss! We’re rich!” Xi Ping kept saying the same thing over and over incoherently.

Chen Mu had guessed approximately what had happened. “Slow down, Old Xi.”

Xi Ping’s words came out like machine gun fire. “I sent someone to look into it, Boss. I found out the price of the material extracted from the purple fluorescent ore is extremely high. The metallic purple extract of fluorescent purple is the least expensive, though each gram costs 80,000 Oudi. There were 150 grams in that bottle, which converts to 12 million Oudi! Every gram of the blue extract is 120,000 Oudi, and every gram of the green extract is 160,000 Oudi… The red extract of fluorescent purple is the most expensive. Each gram is 2,050,000 Oudi! We really hit it rich this time, Boss!”

Chen Mu was stunned himself, but he had clearly remained a lot calmer than Xi Ping. He responded, “So, let’s immediately increase our purple fluorescent ore mining, so we can have sufficient funding.”

“Don’t worry, Boss!” Xi Ping had quickly calmed down. “We won’t make a great fanfare about it. First, have Bogner bring back a bunch of people. We’ll have some trouble when word gets out. It won’t only be the Downstream Alliance; I’m guessing even the House of Qiao will turn red-eyed with desire. This stuff is just too much of a windfall! We’ll have to increase our manpower at the same time we secretly increase our mining. Once the manpower is sufficient and our defenses strong enough, we can establish a foothold going forward.”

Old spice was more seasoned, after all, and Xi Ping’s thinking was comprehensive. Chen Mu nodded. “Mmmm, do as you see fit. Have Bogner send back 100 people. And, have him start recruiting.”

“Yes, sir!”

Having finished making all those arrangements, Chen Mu started to prepare for mining the purple fluorescent ore. Suddenly thinking of something, he called Brenton over.

“We’re going to start mining the ore, Brenton. So the news doesn’t get out, I can’t let you go right now. You have two choices: The first is to join us. We’ll give you a long-term contract. Don’t hesitate to state your conditions. The second is that if you don’t wish to join us, you’ll have to remain in the ravine for the time being. You’ll be able to leave when the time is right. As for compensation, we’ll give you ample guest accommodation. What do you think?” Chen Mu spoke frankly to Brenton.

With a look of shock, Brenton said, “You’re planning to mine the purple fluorescent ore? Do you mean you have the technology to refine it?”

“We do. We can already refine the purple fluorescent ore.” Chen Mu wasn’t hiding anything.

“I’ll join you.” Brenton nodded without the slightest hesitation. They had to be joking! To be able to use the refining technology at the same time as occupying a mountain of purple fluorescent ore, along with having a powerful force there—nobody could block their rise with that combination of advantages unless their boss was really incompetent! But that young boss was one awesome man! Brenton had to believe his own eyes. Chen Mu also had quite a few capable people under him: Xi Ping, Bogner, Jiang Liang… None of them was simple.

Chen Mu was completely happy with Brenton’s choice. Credit for finding the purple fluorescent ore was basically thanks to Brenton. Chen Mu felt that Brenton wasn’t a bad fellow, and he didn’t want to make things unpleasant for him just to keep a secret. But letting him go would be unrealistic just the same.

“If you have any requirements, you may bring them up directly.” Chen Mu already had in mind some notion of how to compensate Brenton when he said that.

Brenton just shook his head. “I don’t have any particular requirements, Boss. The ordinary standards are fine with me.”

Chen Mu said thoughtfully, “First, go find Jiang Liang, and have him teach you the snow pit method. See what kind of results you get. If they’re good, train with them.”

“Thank you, Boss!” Brenton was thrilled. Having been in the ravine for so long, he had pretty good relations with the rest of the people, so of course he knew a little something about the snow pit method. Any method for training perception, especially any of the good methods, were unpublished secrets anywhere. The perceptual training methods he had studied were perfectly ordinary. To be able to get to where he was corresponded directly with his training so diligently for so many years.

Chen Mu felt a lot better after he finished arranging Brenton’s affairs. He immediately made a schedule for starting the mining operations. Since it was in the ravine, it would be very convenient to mine. Chen Mu specially made some cards that could emit egg-shaped energy bodies, which would collide a bit before exploding. Nothing was more suited to mining.

Bogner sent back 150 card artisans, keeping only 45 with him, precisely composed of 15 combat units. But he did transfer ten of the card artisans from among the 22 with Lu Xiaoru.

Those 22 card artisans had a lot of battle experience, and their tactical literacy was quite advanced, matching their tacit mutual understanding. They had solid foundations, on top of which was the recent training with the snow pit method, which had caused their perception to surge rapidly.

Bogner breathed a sigh of relief now that the boss had solved the money problems. But he couldn’t help but feel frustrated as one of the boss’s two big managers. He had made no contribution to the issue of funding, which made the proud Bogner pretty upset.

When Xi Ping subsequently turned over 200 million Oudi to him from the books to increase their manpower, Bogner inwardly determined that he would certainly do a bang-up job. It hadn’t occurred to Bogner that the boss would be ushered in just then.

“Why did you come, Boss?” Bogner was looking at Chen Mu in astonishment.

“Mmmm, I came to look around Chilei and maybe to buy a few things,” Chen Mu explained. Jiang Liang was overseeing things in the ravine, so he was quite relieved. The separator was simple to use, and all kinds of other matters had also been arranged. So, he brought Lu Xiaoru, Crow Feather, and the bar-browed man with him to Chilei.

Sue Lochiro was really busy, and Ru Qiu had even become her full-time assistant. Seeing that Sue Lochiro didn’t even have time to rest every day, Chen Mu felt very sorry. But he didn’t do anything to stop her; compared to when she had looked so full of sorrow before, she seemed to be in a lot better mood when she was busy.

As Chen Mu was about to leave, he asked Sue Lochiro if he could bring back any presents for her. She just charged him to recruit a few more medical card artisans, and if there weren’t any, then nurses would do. In addition, she needed to have a few more therapeutic instruments available.

Ru Qiu wanted a card pen set, which Chen Mu readily promised. Ru Qiu was rapidly becoming the all-purpose handyperson. She would go wherever anyone needed her help.

Chilei was the biggest city in the area, with its long-term population having reached 7.5 million. Since it was in a pretty remote area, its hustle and bustle couldn’t compare with some commercial centers. It was still busy enough to expand Chen Mu’s horizons, however.

The 100-story ice buildings glimmered under the sunshine as though they were carved of crystal. When seemingly thousands of such crystalline buildings were lined up together, their grand manner was beautiful beyond imagining. Countless card artisans were flying out from the city, covered in all colors of energy cloaks as they whistled past like shooting stars, creating yet another aspect of the scenery.

The city had no wall, but it had countless ice bridges crisscrossing everywhere, as dense as a spiderweb. The most peculiar were those between the buildings, where several ice bridges would often be interconnected. Those myriad differently shaped bridges linked the entire city together.

But the most spectacular place was the shuttle car terminal. It was a flat area that had been opened right up among the mountains, where hundreds of thousands of shuttle cars were moored. It was also the center from which all the goods were distributed. The shuttle car terminal had been the busiest part of the city for just about forever. The flow of goods and people never stopped.

Seeing that Bogner had something to say, Chen Mu waved him off. “You do what you have to do, and pay me no mind. I’ll just be looking around.”

Hearing that, Bogner rushed off to do his own work. That day, he was going to snag some card artisans. Never having seen that, Chen Mu simply followed him to expand his horizons a little. Seeing that the boss was interested, Bogner hurriedly brought enough people along for the sake of safety, just in case something might happen.

“Where are we?” Chen Mu lifted his head, marveling. That ice building was a lot more magnificent than the ones around it. From Chen Mu’s angle, it looked more like a base than an ice building. It wasn’t like the brilliantly colored ice buildings everywhere else. The entire building was an unusual black color, which made it stick out quite a bit.

After entering, Chen Mu found that it was obviously a lot bigger inside than he had imagined. There were countless glowing screens floating freely in midair with quite a few people gathered in front of each of them. More than 100 round service desks were distributed inside the great hall, each one having ten staffers. There was also a screen above the service desks. Although there were a lot of people there, it was actually quite orderly; there weren’t a lot of loud people or too much hubbub in that base.

Bogner randomly walked over to one of the screens.