The Card Apprentice - Black and White Chrysanthemum Rock

1The conflict between the Ning and Zuo households had reached its climax just when Chen Mu began playing with the Big Mud Fish. Chen Mu himself couldn’t remember just how many raining shuttles card .II’s he had made. But he had made an average of twenty every three days without interruption. The trend in his contribution points was also heading up to crazy heights during the same period.
    

Completely devoted to learning to use the jet stream card, Chen Mu didn’t much care except that every three days after he had finished twenty raining shuttle cards .II, He would excitedly race over to the flight training space. He had to pay two points for every hour’s use of the flight training space, which was like a drop in the bucket for him by that point.
    

At the same time, Ning Peng certainly knew how many he had on hand. From the first time that Chen Mu had made the raining shuttles card up until then had been precisely one month and three days, during which time he had made twenty raining shuttles cards and two hundred raining shuttles card .II’s. 
    

Two hundred raining shuttles card .II’s already composed a powerful enough battle force!
    

The base at the front lines had tight discipline. There were seven or eight orderly forts in the battle grounds around the base. In the air above were card artisans acting as scouts, who were using their probe cards to continuously sweep the surroundings.
    

Inside the base two hundred men were ranked in orderly phalanxes, not making a sound. Standing in front of them was a middle-aged man whose half-opened eyes oozed a deadly menace.
    

“This is the day that will determine the outcome.”
    

The middle-aged man looked over those two hundred card artisans, who were all the elite among the offspring of the Ning household. Every one of them looked completely calm, and they calmed him with their look of determination. They were all excellent, of accomplished character, with each of them having passed through multiple rounds of selection before finally being accepted to the troop.
    

With everything that needed to be said and done having been said and done, leaving nothing left to be arranged, he didn’t have much to say. He looked deeply into the eyes of the leader, and barked out, “Return triumphant!”
    

“Yes sir!” The leader responded loudly.
    

The middle-aged man softened his serious expression, “Bring everyone back safely!”
    

‘Yes sir!” The leader hadn’t ever thought that such a strong and powerful man would speak that way, and he was stirred. And those card artisans who were looking at him in awe were also stirred.
    

The middle-aged man was lost in thought as he watched them depart. There was probably no-one who knew that the turning point of the conflict had come from a single report he had written. He hadn’t placed much hope in it when he submitted that report, never thinking that Ning Peng could give him so many raining shuttles cards, much less the even more powerful raining shuttles card .II.
    

Ever since getting the first batch of raining shuttles cards, he had begun to organize training in that type of card for the card artisans under him. The power of the raining shuttles card .II far exceeded what he had imagined, leading him to consider how to take advantage of the trump card.
    

During that period, he hadn’t sent out a single card artisan, including even Ah Shen. They were all restricted from the battle. And during that month, the two hundred card artisans had been training on deployment at scale.
    

He had held back so as not to give the adversary any opportunity for response. He wanted to determine the outcome in a single battle, and the final time had come.
    

After the fighting up until that point, only the Ning and Zuo households still had any combat effectiveness, but he was very clear that today’s protagonist would be the Ning family.
    

With its ability to penetrate a three-star energy cloak, the raining shuttles card .II rivaled a four-star fantasy card. When those two hundred crack card artisans used it in unison, and when you added its penetration to its stunning firing speed, the ferocity of the firepower would be terrifying even to him.
    

The card artisans who had been deployed for a while in the battle grounds outside the base had started one by one to begin their actions.
    

The first to fly out were the defensive card artisans. They had formed themselves into small platoons of seven or eight, with a few even acting alone. Their responsibility was to scout for card artisans in hiding. They didn’t participate in the long battles, since they lagged far behind those well-trained Ning family offspring when it came to coordinated actions. But in man-to-man combat, they had considerable strength, and they were all well-seasoned, with nearly each one of them having some specialty. They were well-deployed for that kind of responsibility.
    

Everyone realized that the battle would be entirely different from any previous battle, and with the war being imminent, not a few of the card artisans among them showed their excitement.
    

One after the other the card artisans flew into the sky. The entire base encampment had become noisy. All mixed up together were the sounds of running, and of orders being given, as well as the sounds of things breaking, with the atmosphere having become frenetic.
    

Those card artisans with responsibility for communication were incessantly forwarding wave after wave of orders into everyone’s ears.
    

A large war was unfolding.
    

* * *
    

By the time that Chen Mu got the news of the Ning family victory, he had already become pretty good at flying. It would have to be said that he seemed to have some talent in that regard, and it might have had something to do with his being so happy with the diversion.
    

He really enjoyed the feeling of flying. He had already easily passed through the middle and above levels of difficulty in the training, even sometimes able to do the high-level flight exercises.
    

Ning Yan had told him about the victory, which she quickly followed with another huge commission for two hundred raining shuttles card .II’s. The price hadn’t changed at five hundred contribution points per card, or a hundred thousand points altogether. If he were to exchange them for Oudi, that was about the output of a medium sized firm for a year.
    

Chen Mu had over a hundred thousand points on hand by that time, which could be considered wealthy. And even better, Ning Yan and the rest had greatly relaxed the time-frame for the commission, allowing three months for this job.
    

He didn’t see any trace of Ning Yan after she left off the commission. Even though there were amazing benefits for being on the winning side, the Ning family had paid a heavy price for that victory,
    

There wasn’t room for any carelessness after the war. They had to appease the remnants of the Eastern Shang-Wei City forces, and they had to take over the Zuo family wealth, which was directly related to their income issues. Ning Yan and Ning Peng had both been sent to Eastern Shang-Wei City, and almost the entire Ning family was swamped.
    

On the other hand, the recently cheerless base had become lively.
    

Far fewer card artisans returned than the number which went out, and it was a moment to enjoy for those card artisans who had survived. They could finally relax their nerves which had been tense for so long. Beyond that, those who had returned all had a large number of points, plus the spoils which they brought back.
    

The busiest at that time were probably traders like Algoradicci. 
    

Lots of strange things appeared in the consignment area, most of which were spoils seized on the battlefield by card artisans. The consignment office quickly adjusted, changing their weekly issue of the detailed fantasy card listing to a daily issue.
    

But when it came to points, even a shrewd trader like Algoradicci didn’t have as many as Chen Mu had on hand.
    

Chen Mu had gotten rich from the war in many ways. He could use materials for free, and he had a huge number of contribution points on hand, so he could go shopping for those things that the card artisans had.
    

He was perusing the screen from the detailed fantasy card listings, where all the detailed listings for all kinds of goods had their pictures and information. Chen Mu didn’t envy the card master in the consignment office. With so many goods, it wasn’t an easy thing to make such a detailed fantasy card. And it made for quite a heavy work load, changing every day,
    

His gaze suddenly fell onto a piece of blackish stone. It was about the size of a fist, and dark without any shine. But on the face of the stone where some white markings which looked like chrysanthemums, each about the size of a thumb, and very evenly distributed. The details about the stone were very simple, ‘unknown material. Price: one thousand contribution points.’
    

Among the goods listed in the fantasy card, one thousand points was a shocking amount. Chen Mu decided to buy it without much thought.
    

He activated his communications card and connected with the consignment office. Since his status was so different from before, a person very quickly sent the item. Chen Mu very readily handed over the thousand points, which filled the workers face with admiration as he left Chen Mu’s apartment very respectfully. 
    

Picking up the black stone, Chen Mu touched it very carefully, feeling lots of pockmarks, which reinforced what he had in mind by buying it.
    

This piece of black rock was called the black and white chrysanthemum rock. Chen Mu was able to recognize it entirely because of that mysterious card. While he was studying token theory there, several kinds of materials especially used for making token cards were introduced, one of which was the black and white chrysanthemum rock.
    

Its composition was rather soft, and it felt very light to handle.
    

The core of the token is computation, and token cards made of that kind of material had outstanding computational capabilities.
    

Chen Mu hadn’t found the black and white chrysanthemum rock in the encyclopedia of card materials. If it wasn’t because it was rare then it was because it had a unique application, and had no other use than apart from making token cards.
    

You could tell from the information on the detailed list of goods that the seller didn’t understand it. Chen Mu didn’t know if that card artisan had originally intended to test it, but he didn’t know the rock either, only that he had taken if from the body of a very powerful card artisan. He was the only one had remained from the small troop which had been required to kill him.
    

There wasn’t anything taken from that body which wasn’t something good, and the dark rook which didn’t look like much was impressively among those. To find a black rock among a pile of precious materials, the card artisan felt that it couldn’t be ordinary stuff, so he went right ahead and gave it a high price to try out on the consignment market. He never thought that someone would buy it as soon as he put it out.
    

It was already too late by the time that he saw that the damned thing was something good, and that his price was certainly low!
    

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