The Card Apprentice Chapter 12

However, making that one card just for the sake of a set of exercise, is not the conclusion that he will say, since it is simply too absurd!

Thinking about those images that darken when he successfully completed a movement, Chen Mu also remembered his speculation at that time. Are those movements just the first step?

Right! The first step! Now that he thought of it, at that time that hoary old voice said: “The first step, please complete the following 18 movements!” It seems that there is a new mystery.

He was really intimidated by this card, so much that such a simple problem can cause him to be baffled and muddleheaded. Chen Mu ridiculed himself in his mind. Only just now his thought process has finally become clear.

Chen Mu has found his objectives again. One is to analyse and explain the secret of this card, the other is to improve his own magic card craftsmanship. This mysterious card completely goes beyond Chen Mu’s comprehension, and the illusion greatly provoked him. To try to make a three-starred magic card is not possible in the near future, but he can still improve his current magic card to become more realistic, just like the illusion constructed by that mysterious card.

However, during these times the amount of one-star energy cards that he produced every day is reduced, and thus caused him a not so small deficit.

While chewing on the hard bread, Chen Mu planned in detail what will he do in the future.

*Pa*

Posting the new schedule on the wall, Chen Mu nodded his head satisfied.

There’s not many changes in Chen Mu’s life after that. The only thing he was pleasantly surprised is that his efficiency in making one-starred energy card compared to the past is increased by almost a half. Yet he doesn’t know if the reason is because he learned how to use perception or not, but he currently can manufacture one-star energy card with an unusually high proficiency. This also gave him more time to put into his projects in addition to his two jobs.

However, the progress of those two businesses is really slow. Out of those 18 movements, Chen Mu can only do half of it. These 18 movements demanded a quite considerable level of strength, flexibility, and reaction speed, but these daily practices also increase his constitution greatly, which can be considered an accidental windfall.

On the side of magic card, the progress is small. To successfully distinguish the real from the fake is not an easy matter. He can only ceaselessly observe, observing everything around him. Regarding this aspect, Chen Mu is not worried. He knows that this is a slow accumulating process and it is useless to worry about it too much.

Pocketing the one-star energy cards, Chen Mu arrived at Uncle Hua’s store.

Uncle Hua’s complexion is not good, but he is still very happy to see Chen Mu: “A’Mu, long time no see. What are you busy with lately?”, and then burst out in a coughing fit soon after speaking.

“Uncle Hua, are you alright?” Chen Mu’s is concerned. Uncle Hua is one of the few people that genuinely cares about him.

Uncle Hua gasped, with a strained smile: “Rest assured, I might just catch a cold. Your Uncle Hua might be old, but still vigorous. How about you lately? You haven’t delivered any one-star energy cards lately, I was worried something has happened to you.”

Seeing Uncle Hua’s pale complexion, Chen Mu felt pain in his heart, and with a forced smile replied: “What Can I do? Recently I learned how to make magic cards, so I am delayed for a while.”

“O… You learnt it?” Uncle Hua has become interested.

Chen Mu nods his head: “M-hm, but I only learnt how to make one and two-starred magic cards.”

Following Uncle Hua out from the store, Chen Mu’s mood is somewhat heavy.

“Blockhead! 《木头》” Chen Mu suddenly heard someone calling him. Turning his head around, he saw a man dressed excessively running towards him.

That man is Lei Zi. Before, together with Chen Mu, lives as a street urchin. However, a while after, he was adopted. His relationship with Chen Mu is pretty good, even can be considered as one of Chen Mu’s small number of friends. His adoptive parent’s financial condition is also quite good, so they also occasionally took care of Chen Mu, until his parent passed away recently. He had no choice but to suspend his studies, return into a semi-vagrant state. Chen Mu natural disposition is cold and plainspoken 《木讷》, and because of the Mu 《暮》 character in his name, Lei Zi simply just called him “Blockhead”

Lei Zi wore a brightly coloured shirt. The shirt is too big, it looks baggy. His hair is very messy, dangling from his ears is a pair of huge metal rings, and he wore a pair of filthy slippers. His set of outfit scared Chen Mu out of his skin.

He stopped walking, waiting for Lei Zi to catch up.

“Hey, I can unexpectedly run into you in the street, really dazzled me. Has the time changed?” Lei Zi says with an exaggerated expression.

“I came to sell energy cards.” The two of them is very familiar with each other, so Chen Mu did not speak any nonsense.

Lei Zi understandingly nods his head. He understood Chen Mu. “I say, do you want to take a walk until sundown?”

“Oh, that’s right! I recently have found a job.” Lei Zi says, with a mysterious expression in his face.

“What job?” Chen Mu asked with interest. Lei Zi’s foster parent is extremely good to him, they provided him to go to school. That is something Chen Mu always dreamt of. However, an unexpected calamity dropped from the Heaven, Lei Zi’s foster parent died in a traffic accident. Since the family’s financial source was cut off, he was forced to drop out from school. Originally, Chen Mu had an idea to finance Lei Zi’s studies, but was refused. This fellow was extraordinarily firm in this respect. Chen Mu knows, people like them, their pride is much stronger than others. He himself, he reckons, would do the same as Lei Zi.

Lei Zi has been trying to find work for a while. These days, Chen Mu was deeply immersed in making magic cards and analysing the world inside the mysterious card, he didn’t have any time to spare to care of other things.

“I found a job in a small Movie Card production company, mainly doing some odd jobs for the screenwriter department.”

“Movie Card?” Chen Mu knows what a Movie Card is. The so-called Movie Card, precisely as the name says, is a card that used the phantom it generated to show a movie. A Card Movie, depending on the length of the content, determined the number of magic cards used. Generally speaking a Card Movie requires about 20 to 50 magic cards. The characters and animals in the Card Movie have mostly been very exaggerated, making them appear very lovable, liked by the people.

Card Movie appeared 30 years ago, but it only rose 10 years ago into a new and developing industry.

Chapter end