The Card Apprentice

Wei-ah was still hovering in midair, but not for long. In just a blink of an eye, he reached

the ground.

Bang! He stomped the ground heavily with both of his feet, and the ground around his

legs cracked immediately. After that, the fragments of the ground bounced into the air at

an astonishing speed.

Facing the Bronze Masked Man, Wei-ah slightly bent his legs and dropped into a half-

crouch, opening his arms as wide as the wings of an eagle. Staring at him in cold gaze,

his arms flitted through the fragments. Nobody could really observe the movement of his

arms as it was too fast.

When he opened his palms again, there is one fragment between each of his fingers.

Eight fragments were now ready for disposal.

He flung his arms explosively to release the fragments, and expectedly, the eights

fragments shot toward the Bronze Masked Man! Immediately after the fragments were

released, Wei-ah’s body leaned slightly forward, and jumped up explosively, just like a

released artillery shell!

Apparently, the Bronze Masked Man could no longer hold his composure. Sure, he

could mask himself, but never his movements. Wei-ah’s movements were as fast as

lightning, and left him no room to counter. How powerful exactly were the fragments?

He believed if one of them got in contact with him, it would surely pierce through his

body.

But still, it is the Bronze Masked Man we are talking about! He never gives up even in a

disadvantaged situation.

The room is too small for him to evade the fragments. The situation clearly benefits the

opponent, and puts him at a detriment. But it would be ridiculous for anyone to judge the

outcome of the battle from this factor alone.

The eyes hidden behind the Bronze Mask were gazing both the incoming fragments and

Wei-ah.

Ring! The ringtone ringed again!

“Plumbago Blaze!”

All plumbagos turned into a bright light as if they were burned! Imagine how bright it

would be for 8,000 petals of plumbagos to burn at the same time — even the Bronze

Masked Man was forced to shut his eyes!

The powerful fragments disappeared right after entering the light zone.

Wei-ah’s pupils contracted all of a sudden!

At this moment, the glaring light zone exploded!

Chen Mu had absolute confidence in Wei-ah. As such, he did not feel the need to attend

the battle between him and the Bronze Masked Man. His entire focus was put on the

other card artisans in front of him. If not mistaken, the opponent’s melee card artisans

were all destroyed.

And he was right. What the four bodyguards beside Lady Faya had on hand were two

ranged card artisans, two melee card artisans, 20 card artisans, and 10 ranged card

artisans respectively.

The opponent’s confidence was greatly affected by Go Cage of Thousand Cuts, which

was much stronger than he himself thought. The opponent’s low morale gave him an

edge, but if he could not finish the battle after they recovered, he would be done. If the

10 ranged card artisans attacked fiercely without concerning about their allies, his

chance of survival would be hopelessly low.

The power of Go Cage of Thousand Cuts in State Zero was beyond his expectation,

and so was the exhaustion of his perception. In fact, he did not have enough perception

to stay in State Zero for long.

His only chance lied in finishing the battle here and now!

In the black-and-white world, the lines were constantly changing, and he felt that he

could capture each change. But the truth was, he could not — he was misconceiving

everything. He did not have enough experience in State Zero, and as such, he still could

not observe the subtle changes other more experienced card artisans could.

10 persons, locations, directions…

Lady Faya behind the 10 persons did not look good either — she was affected by the

waves caused by the battle between Wei-ah and the Bronze Masked Man. And she was

Chen Mu’s real target!

He calculated his perception, and an idea popped up. Shortly after that, a great sense of

inspiration followed.

He could feel that there was a high chance the idea would work!

Chen Mu moved again! Exploiting the explosive power of his legs, he leaped toward the

right side of the card artisans.

He wanted to move past them! All card artisans around realized that Qiao Yuan wanted

to bypass them and attack the lady directly. Almost subconsciously, they released their

attacks! But as soon as they found that their allies were around, they stopped attacking.

At a distance this close, misfire could easily happen!

But still, their response was quick — the few card artisans nearest to Chen Mu released

their power shields to protect themselves.

And at the same time, the other card artisans attacked. Now, they did not have to worry

about misfiring their allies. The few power-shield-holding artisans moved toward Chen

Mu aggressively, and the other card artisans released their attacks without holding

back!

Chen Mu has had all of the card artisans’ attention, and none of them noticed the slow-

moving black-and-white energy beads.

They are good! Chen Mu complimented them in his heart. There was no room for

distraction, as four card artisans were holding the power shields, and six others were

targeting Chen Mu.

He would die immediately if he moved slightly slower than necessary.

The card artisans finally found a solution, but all of a sudden, all of them could no longer

hold their composure!

The power shields have greatly narrowed their movement. But in such small space,

Qiao Yuan was able to evade all attacks like a ghost!

How could it be? All card artisans did not look well as their eyes were filled with

disbelief.

Like an omniscient prophet, his movement was just enough to evade the attacks. In the

card artisans’ eyes, he was just lucky… for a goddamn long time!

Sometimes one centimeter would do, sometimes even half…

As he evaded the attacks again and again, the people around soon felt discouraged.

But such discouragement lasted only a while — seeing the sweat raining down from

Qiao Yuan’s face and his movements becoming slower and slower, they were motivated

again!

He is not a monster after all! This was the first thought that popped up from the

bodyguards’ mind. Phiew… Some card artisans had sighs of relief. Of course, they did

not slow down their pace. Quite the contrary, as they were greatly motivated, their

attacks became much more frequent.

Chen Mu’s status had become worse. To save some perception and improve the control

over the Bipolar Card, he moved entirely using his own body strength, and this was the

first time he had to do this.

Sprint, sudden stop, switch direction…

By doing these again and again, he was quickly exhausting his stamina. In terms of

stamina, he could not compete with Wei-ah at all. It was State Zero that allowed him to

evade the incoming attacks again and again. However, even so, there seemed to be

cuts in his cloth now!

Argh!

Chen Mu’s cloth was cut again and again. His face was full of sweat, and so was his

body. He could feel his chest and throat burning, as if each breath could turn him to

ashes.

“Hey, brothers! Keep it going! He couldn’t hold for long!” A card artisan screamed.

Seeing Qiao Yuan kill half of their allies, these card artisans hated him to the bone.

And at this very moment, Chen Mu lifted his head. He was still sweating and gasping,

but he closed his eyes all of a sudden.

There was no need to run anymore!

Chen Mu firmed his stance, and the chess array was fully formed again! He lifted his

right hand, left it hovering in midair, and moved his fingers in an agile manner.

Now, the situation had completely changed! The black-and-white energy beads were

moving toward them at an astonishing speed.

Sizz!

Faya’s bodyguards were surprised to find that each and every one of them was covered

by a ball-shaped “shield”! The round-shaped shields formed by the black-and-white

energy beads were just like the energy shields.

What… what are these things?

Almost subconsciously, the frightened card artisans did one thing together — releasing

the energy form in their hands!

The energy forms hit the shields and turned into electric radiance flowing around the

black-and-white energy beads! Because of this, the energy beads on the ball-shaped

shields turned slightly bigger.

Energy absorption!

Each and every card artisan in the shield was so shocked that their face turned pale.

“Super 007…” A card artisan mumbled, as he recalled a similar scene in a video he

once watched.

Finally, Chen Mu felt some relief. This spell had already exhausted all his perception!

And the card artisan was almost right — this spell was improved from Super 007’s

energy shield. The only difference was that, the structure of this shield and the 007’s

shield was completely reversed — it does not defend against external attacks, but those

from within!

An energy shield, you say? It is more of an energy prison!

However, this spell demanded too much perception — only the first three seconds did

not require any perception, and to maintain the effect after that would exhaust a

terrifying amount of perception. Chen Mu’s perception has always been his weakness.

In fact, he did not have much chance to use this spell after creating it.

Looking at these “bubbles”, he giggled softly. They reminded him of a fantasy card

game from a low-grade fantasy card club — Crazy Arcade!

In that game, everybody could release some bubbles. The effect of those bubbles was

similar to a Card Appliance mechanism — explosion after two seconds. The characters

affected by the explosion would be locked inside a bubble, and as they could not move,

they would be killed unless their allies came to their rescue.

The 10 persons locked inside the ball-shaped shields were just like the 10 bubbles. The

only difference was that the “bubbles” formed by the energy beads could not wave like

the bubbles in the game. Otherwise, it would be quite a scene.

He did not name the spell when he first created it. But seeing the 10 bubbles, Chen Mu

decided to name it as “Crazy Arcade”!

However, the spell is still not complete. Super 007’s energy shields could reflect the

attacks after absorbing them! And he did try to incorporate this feature to “Crazy

Arcade”. Unfortunately, after some calculation, he came to the conclusion that the

perception exhaustion was way beyond his reach.

Though feeling weak and exhausted, Chen Mu did not hold back at all. He pushed

himself to the limit and pounced toward Lady Faya! He has exhausted both his

perception and stamina. And now, he could not even hold his head up, left alone

maintaining State Zero. There was only one thing in his mind — catch her!

Chen Mu was very slow, but the card artisans locked in the “bubbles” could only see

him approach Lady Faya little by little!

They were anxious and kept on attacking the “bubbles”. But besides the enlarging

energy beads, nothing changed! Very soon, all of them felt hopeless.

Gotcha! Chen Mu finally reached her! Though his mind was slightly relaxed, he could

only remember one thing — hold her as tight as possible!

A bright light appeared from behind and exploded. Something was approaching him at

lightning speed! As he was almost devoured by the light, Wei-ah appeared behind him

all of a sudden and carried him away… They disappeared!

And Chen Mu’s arms were still holding another person!