The Card Apprentice

The previous card set was no longer suited for that newly recruited batch of card artisans to use. Their average perceptual strength was above level five. That was a lot higher than those previously under Chen Mu; their average perceptual level was at a standard of level four. If he was going to use a card set, the card artisans he had now could use a much more powerful one of a higher level.

The reason he had chosen the tactic of using a set of cards was to remedy the issue of the card artisans’ insufficient level, which led to inadequate lethality. The shuttle cards had brought a tremendous lethality into play in the midst of the battle with the Downstream Alliance. However, thinking about it after things calmed down, there was a direct relationship between the somewhat low average level of the Downstream Alliance card artisans and the excellent performance of the tactical shuttle cards.

The fighting strength of any truly large team wasn’t something a local power like the Downstream Alliance could compare with. For example, the card artisans with Mobley in the Snowflake Card Artisan Team basically had nothing lower than level-six perception, with some at a level even he couldn’t tell. Chen Mu didn’t doubt they possibly had aces at the seventh level, among whom Mobley would be included.

Looking at those on his own side, the one with the highest perceptual strength was Xiaobo, who was still a notch away from level six. The rest of them, including Chen Mu, hadn’t yet reached level six. At that level, they weren’t even up to the level of the ordinary card artisans of the Snowflake Card Artisan Team.

Of course, perceptual strength was only one aspect of fighting strength. Whether it was Xiaobo or Chen Mu, perceptual strength wasn’t what they were good at. Xiaobo was good at the fine control of perception. Chen Mu was good at a variety of things, like close combat, remote combat, and the cardless sects, all rolled up together into a stew.

If it were one-on-one, the ordinary members of the Snowflake Card Artisan Team certainly wouldn’t be equal to two opponents. But if two were to face off against the aces with a perceptual strength of seven, it would be difficult for them to win. The only one on Chen Mu’s side who would be able to go up against a card artisan at level seven would be Wei-ah.

The essence of the tactical card set was in its ability to combine lower-level power and then shift the advantage in overall battle power on the strength of numbers. A single card artisan with level-seven perceptual strength would cost more than 50 card artisans with a perceptual strength at level six. In the same way, you could hire 20 level-five card artisans for the cost of a single level-six card artisan.

Level-seven card artisans could never be found on the market, and level-six card artisans were rare. Card artisans at level five were abundant.

No one was more familiar with the principles of the card set than Chen Mu, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing during the process of designing it. As far as the newly recruited batch of level-five card artisans were concerned, four-star cards would be more suitable. But Chen Mu didn’t have such a high success rate making four-star cards.

It wasn’t that his knowledge was insufficient but was rather a matter of his proficiency over time. Up until then, he could count on his fingers the number of four-star cards he had made, so he had no proficiency to speak of. He’d made countless three-star cards, where he had an outrageously high success rate.

Another issue was giving him a headache during the process of making them. Four-star cards involved an extremely large amount of power, and the demands on perception were similarly high. That wasn’t only for using them; making them was no exception.

In theory, Chen Mu had no major issues. The scope of his vision toward mid-level cards was huge. The puzzles he previously accumulated in his mind had all been unraveled. He could conduct a lot more optimization in the cards’ compositions, and he had a much more profound understanding of the composition of energy.

When the most recent battle was added to that, he had exposed a series of issues with the shuttle cards in battle, which he was targeting in his design plans.

The plan was already complete, but the biggest headache lay in the making. The card artisans now in training camp numbered more than 2,200. Even if only half of them were to last, that would still leave 1,000. But 1,000 men meant 1,000 cards!

Moreover, only he had the ability to make them just then. Since what he was making that time were four-star cards, Ru Qiu’s perceptual level wasn’t high enough. She would have no way to make them. Regardless, Chen Mu wasn’t ready to ask someone else to make them. The card set would always be at the core of his fighting strength, and he couldn’t let it be leaked!

Even if he were talking about one-star power cards, 1,000 cards would be a lot of work. How much more so with four-star cards? If it were three-star cards, Chen Mu would be able to make them a lot faster, but the battle power of three-star cards wouldn’t satisfy him.

Chen Mu couldn’t come up with anything no matter how hard he wracked his brain, so he just gritted his teeth and went to work. He would make as many as he could make!

Ru Qiu’s handsome face had turned gloomy with rage. If Jiao Si were to see her, he would be screaming at Chen Mu. She was spinning like a gyroscope as she shuttled through the lab, not daring to stop for a minute and always mumbling something to herself.

“Heat more acidic esters to 129 degrees…”

“Crush the black shale powder into a very fine dust… and then…”

“After the purple extract of the purple fluorescent ore cools for ten minutes, then add…”

* * *

She was putting bottle after bottle of card ink in front of Chen Mu as fast as she could.

Seeing the card ink in front of him, which nearly filled the tabletop, Chen Mu couldn’t help but smile bitterly! But he quickly controlled his emotions and started production.

The first day’s results were appalling. After 42 bottles of ink, he’d only succeeded in making two cards. That rate of success didn’t even reach one in 20.

Chen Mu was lying on his back with his perception depleted to the point where he was like a puddle of mud. He didn’t even have enough energy to look at the ceiling. He was really tired! The exhaustion wasn’t like when he was doing resistance training with Wei-ah; it was a feeling of weakness that came from his deepest core. There were also after-effects from over-using his perception. His head felt like it would split open, as though a small knife were twisting in his brain.

Chen Mu didn’t know how much time had passed before he went to sleep in a daze. There wasn’t a drop of perception left in his body. It had been a long time since he’d gotten to that point.

Ru Qiu couldn’t go anywhere, and a day’s worth of card ink had nearly driven her crazy. In order to provide Chen Mu with enough card ink, not only did she have to perfectly complete the making of the ink, but she still needed to compress the time to make it.

It was easy to imagine how tired she would be after going through a day of such high-intensity work. After she could no longer bear to look at it, she just fell asleep, breathing heavily. While sleeping, she couldn’t pay attention to the nearly imperceptible fluctuations emanating from Chen Mu’s body. The fluctuations were very fine, and their frequency was extremely slow—so slow they would be hard to detect.

The extreme method—that was the name Chen Mu had given to the set of perceptual training methods in the mysterious card.

Chen Mu’s state just then was precisely that kind of extreme state. The perception in his body was still only one notch from level six, which was still nothing to be underestimated. Ordinarily, it would be rare to encounter perception that had been so thoroughly depleted.

The extreme method had already become a kind of bodily instinct with his persistent and relentless long-term practice.

Inside his body, there was a fine tendril of perception that had started to grow at a very, very slow rate. Like a newborn insect, it struggled to grow. But if Chen Mu had been able to see it, he would have discovered that its growth was getting quicker!

The perceptual tendril looked like a spiral-shaped piece of seaweed, incessantly growing at each end. One after another of those perceptual tendrils kept appearing and growing ever longer!

Chen Mu didn’t realize in his sleep that there was a huge transformation happening in his body.

* * *

“Can I refuse?” Xiaobo was looking at Wei-ah pitifully and begging bitterly.

Wei-ah didn’t show a bit of feeling on his stony face, not even bothering to say anything. He only pointed to the snow pit at his feet—a ten-meter-deep snow pit. When looking down into it from the ground, it was so dark and gloomy that it was hard to make out the bottom. Ten meters! Just thinking about being buried in a ten-meter-deep snow pit made his scalp go numb!

Xiaobo swallowed with great difficulty as his heart started to race. He was brave enough to fight off all kinds of wild beasts, but that clearly didn’t include his being buried alive in a ten-meter-deep snow pit.

Without seeing Wei-ah make any reaction, Xiaobo could only retreat and beg again. “Three meters. Look! They are all three meters! Why is it ten when it comes to me?” Xiaobo’s expression was animated as though he was suffering some great injustice.

Wei-ah then showed a look of impatience, and he raised his right foot and gave Xiaobo a kick into the snow pit.

“Aah!” The sound of Xiaobo screaming bloody murder came floating up from the snow pit.

Expressionless, Wei-ah looked at the card artisans beside him, and they rushed to push the pile of snow next to the pit into it. In the blink of an eye, there was no sign of Xiaobo.

Those card artisans were feeling inwardly glad that at least they were only training in three-meter pits. By that time, they were already bowing down to their boss. Now, the guy had Wei-ah come to supervise Xiaobo using the deadly snow pit method. Whether or not he agreed to that fate, he still got amazing results as far as they were concerned.

Wei-ah lingered for a bit before saying, “Pull him out after ten minutes.” He then strode off, regardless of what might happen, leaving the card artisans looking at one another.

After ten minutes, Xiaobo was lying on the snow and looking pale, his whole body shivering, desperately and greedily gulping for breath. The card artisans around him were full of admiration. Xiaobo was second only to the boss and Wei-ah in being worthy of their admiration. He had remained buried in the snow pit for ten minutes without losing consciousness.

That was powerful! He even still had a little vitality! When they thought about how Xiaobo had been alone in the deepest jungles for half a year, everyone admired him still more.

Xiaobo’s shaking body finally calmed, and his face also started to be restored to normal! He had a stunned expression. His eyes suddenly burst with light, and a bout of stunning grandeur arose from within his body. The surrounding card artisans were aghast.

No one was paying attention to the flash of ecstasy that passed through Xiaobo’s eyes.