The Card Apprentice

Chapter 75: During a Read

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

His perception was slowly spinning inside him, as though there were a tailless shuttle made of perception taking shape. But when he compared it to that crystalline clear tailless shuttle which was formed by the tailless shuttle card, it seemed more primitive, and coarser. Its surface was pockmarked and uneven, with differing thicknesses.

His perception had gathered itself autonomously into a shuttle form and didn’t need any push from him to keep slowly twirling. Chen Mu worried about whether that was good or bad, but he was very curious.

He tried triggering the tailless shuttle card by activating the apparatus on his wrist, and a crystalline clear tailless shuttle card very quickly appeared on his index finger, thrumming merrily away.

He carefully perceived every detail of the process.

He did finally discover what was different with his perception compared to previously. Before, his perception was like a gaseous formation; although simple to control, it wouldn’t have been considered very fast. There was a stark difference then. Whenever Chen Mu had some thought, threads of perception as fine as hair would shoot out from the perceptual ‘tailless shuttle’ at a very high speed!

And the connection between Chen Mu and his perception had become much more sensitive, with every thread-like perception that was emitted like a nerve fiber, which gave him the ability to sense very subtle changes.

Those fine hair-like perceptions would fluidly act as their own communications media, combining the power from a power card with the tailless shuttle card, until he could see the tailless shuttle in front of him.

It was so fast that Chen Mu had to restrain his ecstasy. He didn’t know how many times faster than before he could manipulate his perception and its speed, but it was extraordinarily natural to manipulate those filaments of perception.

Chen Mu was now able to fire the tailless shuttle card with twice the frequency as previously. With such unexpected gains how could he not be so unusually happy? And it was all thanks to those fine filaments of perception.

He kept trying out all sorts of bizarre ways to manipulate the threads of perception, and they always manifested smooth alacrity.

Having tired himself out, Chen Mu finally stopped his attempts, and gradually calmed himself from his elation.

He turned to contemplating what had happened during the day.

The composition of that power-body was extremely strange. Although he’d only gotten a glimpse of it, it had left a deep impression, and he still had some lingering fear from the perils that he had run into that day.

He had no power to fight back during the entire process, nor even any power to resist. His perception would certainly have collapsed if it weren’t for his fortunately quick-witted modulation of it.

For card artisans and card masters, that would be a devastating blow. Chen Mu would have become a broken man if his perception had really collapsed.

He had luckily benefitted from his misfortune that day. But who was it? And why was it only him, when no other people were impacted? Those were the problems.

He had been so engaged in constraining his own perception that he couldn’t take note of anything around him, so he naturally hadn’t seen the expressions on those who had been so compromised by the Star Lure trap that had been deployed by the bamboo-shoot boy.

By the time he had returned to normal, the others had also recovered. That had given rise to a misconception that it had all been directed against him.

Although Chen Mu had been wracking his brain, he still hadn’t found the slightest clue. But if Star Academy had discovered him, there would have been absolutely no need for such covert methods, and Chen Mu didn’t think they would be so scrupulous toward a nameless pawn like him.

He couldn’t come up with anything no matter how much he thought about it, and so he could only put the matter aside. If Star Academy had discovered him, he couldn’t just escape from Eastern Wei Academy anyhow. If it were between facing the demonic woman and facing Star Academy, he would choose the latter.

Those jerks sure were partying! The whole building was caught up in it, so he figured he would stay in the bathroom, where he would only faintly hear the noise from outside.

This gang of trash . . . Chen Mu smirked.

Bright and early the next day was Chen Mu’s first formal day of class. He sat in the noisy classroom, putting on a nondescript look. Given his reticence, Chen Mu looked like he didn’t belong there, out of tune with his surroundings.

Not everyone was a brat, and Chen Mu still saw a few students sitting quietly, waiting for the teacher to arrive. But he wondered if they were there because of Star Academy, like him.

There was still some time before class would begin, and Chen Mu was flipping through the textbook. The demonic woman had selected the card making department for him, which was also the field he was most familiar with. As compared with dodging and evading – or with killing people – it was both the arena he was most familiar with and the one he was the fondest of. Life was full of things one couldn’t do anything about, and one couldn’t always do what one was most fond of.

Chen Mu was fascinated by what he was reading. The textbook was much more clearly organized than the books that he had been buying. So, going to school had its good points after all.

He suddenly stuttered his gaze, feeling someone walking toward him, since even in his fascination he kept his guard up. Then looking as though he hadn’t noticed anything, his gaze remained fixed on his textbook.

A large hand slapped his open book with a bang. Chen Mu raised his eyes to find a very strong-looking male student. He was probably 185 centimeters tall, wearing only a sleeveless jersey, which was completely filled-out by his bulging muscles.

Chen Mu had even noted that some girl students were secretly taking hungry looks at that powerful masculine body. But what made him the most inwardly cautious was surely the deadly flashes which contained some note of intrigue from those sitting quietly in the corner.

It looked like those people weren’t so simple after all. His brain was reeling.

Some of the people in his class section weren’t at all what he’d expected. He just wasn’t sure which ones they were, and the sooner he found out the better. He didn’t want to be left in the dark by others, since he knew from his youth that those cold thugs who came out of the dark were the hardest to guard against.

Chen Mu looked scared silly to his classmates.

“I hear you bumped into Sister Phoenix, clodhopper.” The guy didn’t sound happy, and he was staring at Chen Mu with a pair of ominous triangular eyes. At the same time Sister Phoenix sat up in her seat, and smugly raised her head in a cold smirk, while Ya Ya to her side had helplessly averted her eyes from what might happen.

Chen Mu ignored that, his attention still being focused on those people. Two of them were the most suspicious. One of those was a guy wearing a flamboyant shirt, looking all the while as though he were smiling without actually smiling. The other one was sitting in the farthest corner of the room, with a dark look, his eyes half closed all along, with empty seats all around him where no-one would dare sit.

The boy sitting next to Chen Mu left his seat with a look of fear, and hastily took a different seat.

“A man is talking to you, little guy, are you deaf?” The muscular boy’s face was darkening, while his other hand was grabbing after Chen Mu.

That finally cut off Chen Mu’s thinking, and his response was immediate. He grabbed the muscular boys hand with his left hand.

The guy with the gaudy shirt showed some interest in that move by Chen Mu, while the dark boy in the corner who had his eyes half closed suddenly shot a gaze.

Seeing the reaction of those two, Chen Mu suddenly had an idea.

“Hey, the little twerp really wants to resist!” Showing a foul grin, and pushing with all his strength, his other hand came flying toward Chen Mu in a fist.

Chen Mu fixed his attention in a flash.

He dodged the fist by moving his head slightly, and by bending at the waist, feinted his whole body into the muscular man’s chest, while his knee flew up into his gut.

The classroom went silent, as everyone watched open-mouthed while the muscular guy bent over holding his gut with a look of pain, not being able to get a sound from his mouth, and then crashing moments later to the ground.

The classroom got chaotic then, with screams, excited cheers, and whistles sounding all at once. Quite a few of them had been looking for trouble.

Chen Mu had noted that while the expressions of those two hadn’t shown much change during what had just happened to him, he could tell from the looks in their eyes that they had seen what was behind his blow. Chen Mu sat down fully composed, as though what had just happened was nothing out of the ordinary. His goal of getting the attention of those two had been accomplished.

He had originally planned not to call any attention to himself, but he hadn’t expected to run into those two jerks. And when he thought about it, it was already the second muscle-bound guy he’d run into, so he turned his thinking around.

After his gaze moved off those two, he finally turned it to Sister Phoenix. He considered that what happened with those two muscular guys seemed to have something to do with running into that girl.

Although he’d revealed something of his objective that day, he couldn’t have a pile of such things happening every day.

He got up and walked toward Sister Phoenix.

The classroom immediately quieted down. Some of the hotshots looked excited, wanting to watch the drama unfold.

Sister Phoenix’s face turned pale, never having considered that Chen Mu would be such a fiery character. She realized that she had done something really stupid that day.

She started to tremble, watching Chen Mu walking toward her, since his expression was so calm that you couldn’t see any indication of what he’d just done. It was that calm expression which made Sister Phoenix feel so afraid.

Chen Mu walked up to where Sister Phoenix was seated and stared at her calmly.

Ya Ya’s face next to her had also turned a little pale, not wanting to see any harm come to Sister Phoenix, and then having turned cowardly, she couldn’t help saying loudly, “What are you going to do?”

Chen Mu opened his eyelids without opening them, while he was wondering what sort of a lesson to teach the girl.

“Ho Ho, this classmate shouldn’t be getting so riled up! You can forgive a pretty girl for making some little mistake once in a while! We men have more guts than that!” A cynical voice came from behind him.

The one speaking was the guy with the colorful shirt, and there was nothing but a smile on his face.

Seeing Chen Mu look at him, he introduced himself, “I’m called Lin Jiu.” And then he gave a word of praise, “The classmate’s moves are pretty good!” His admiring look hit just the right note to make a reticent person like Chen Mu feel comfortable.

“Yao Ke.” Chen Mu very succinctly introduced himself.

“How about we let this little loss of face stop right here?” Lin Jiu said gracefully, although that gaudy shirt really wrecked his image. Quite a few of the students showed looks of contempt. To talk of face on first meeting, this Lin Jiu must really think he’s something! They were just waiting for Chen Mu to swat the jerk.

“OK.” Chen Mu stated very dryly, upsetting everyone’s expectations.

Lin Jiu didn’t seem so surprised by that answer, and laughed lightly, “Many thanks to brother Yao! I wonder if you have anything going on tonight, and might like to grab a bite together?”

Chen Mu thought it over, and nodded, “OK.”

A storm cloud thus dispersed disappointed those students who had been looking forward to some commotion. But having seen Chen Mu so ruthless just then, no one was stupid enough to jump into it.

That muscular guy was still doubled over on the floor holding his stomach, and every once in a while, twitching. No one looking on could avoid realizing how hard the blow from Chen Mu had been.

What surprised Chen Mu was that for a half-hour no one had gone to check on him, nor had they said anything about sending him to the hospital. That gang of fancy-pants was cold, thinking nothing of a human life.

Only Sister Phoenix took a look at that muscular guy who had put himself out for her. Although she had recovered from her shock, she had some choice words for Lin Jiu.

The punks that Chen Mu used to see were both more tender hearted and more loyal than those people.

Chen Mu then minded his own business reading, since the book was a lot more attractive to him than those gorgeously decked-out women. What he was reading just then was about the one-star power card that he was so familiar with. It was required reading for every beginning card master.

He read it with pleasure. Although he could do everything that was in there, the book delved into knowledge regarding principles, including some that he hadn’t thought through so clearly.

Ever since the transformation of his perception the day before, he had gotten a lot more susceptible to knowledge related to the composition of power. The power released by a power card was the most basic form, without any definite shape, and too mild to cause harm.

Chen Mu wasn’t ignoring them because they were so basic; on the contrary, he had already decided to spend quite a bit of time on them. It was a rule that the more basic the form, the easier it was to get to the heart of the matter.

After another half hour, the teacher finally came shuffling in late. The teacher who came that day wasn’t that Fen Zi-ang that Chen Mu had seen the first day but was a middle-aged man of about forty. He was dressed in a suit, and spoke a little vaguely, making it hard for Chen Mu to hear clearly.

The school didn’t really care so much for the sponsored students.

During the whole process of starting class, the teacher didn’t pay any attention to that muscular guy on the floor, as though he weren’t there. It was clearly not the first time he had come across that sort of thing.

The teacher’s ability was actually pretty good, at least as far as Chen Mu could tell. Compared to that Gu Ming that he had run into previously, he was many times more brilliant. That day’s lecture was on one-star power cards. Having accumulated a lot of experience, Chen Mu had strong feelings about what the professor was talking about.

He had been very weak on basic principles before, and most of the modifications he had ever made to one-star power cards drew on the compositions of others. But now quite a few things that he hadn’t understood previously were suddenly revealed by the path the teacher was lecturing along.

It was a great feeling! Chen Mu was fascinated. He hadn’t noticed that there were several people quietly watching him.

The classroom was noisy and chaotic, those sleeping slept and those talking talked, and you could hear the sound of melon seeds being eaten. How could that gang of fancy-pants pay attention to the class, when they just came to goof off.

Toward the end of the class, the professor looked out over the classroom, and hesitated before speaking, “The school is holding a big low-grade fantasy card competition, with no limits on who can compete. The prize for this competition is unlike anything before!” When he spoke about a prize, there were seldom-seen looks of a little excitement, “First place will receive the famous “success” pen of Kuo Haofeng,

The students below kept twittering, making no response. Seeing that, the professor couldn’t help sneering and shaking his head, knowing that saying that sort of thing to that gang of trash was like playing the zither for cows. He casually distributed the flyers about the competition.

He couldn’t see the value of that gang. He picked up his lesson plan and left the classroom, shaking his head. The long impatient students immediately scattered in commotion.

Chen Mu felt a swell of emotion! Those people don’t know who Kuo Haofeng is. How could they not know!?

Kuo Haofeng was from a generation of famous pen-making masters who had died fifty years before. He was the most famous pen-making master of the last hundred years, and all his works had been collected. Being able to use one of Kuo Haofeng’s pen sets was the deadliest enticement for any card master!

Even the ever-calm Chen Mu couldn’t help being excited to hear the news.

The importance of card-pen making to a card master goes without saying, having the same importance that a battle card would to a battle-oriented card artisan. Chen Mu dared to conclude that the grand competition would certainly cause quite a stir in all of Eastern Wei Academy. None of the students in the card making department would be able to resist that kind of temptation.

It was a really big deal!

While Chen Mu was digesting this news, he was looking at the flyer to find the requirements for the competition.

As he read each of the stipulations, Chen Mu suddenly fell through the ice!