The Card Apprentice - I’m Ugly, and I’m not Gentle

1Twenty-five different kinds of parts had been placed in front of Chen Mu, flashing with the metallic gleam of just having been processed, each one shiny. Chen Mu picked each one up to inspect it, until he had set down the last part, when his face showed a satisfied expression.
    

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. After working so hard to make those parts, if they didn’t meet the master’s demands, that would have been enough to frustrate those impetuous youths to the point of spitting blood. Most of them wouldn’t be considered very good with metal work, that basically being a time to let the rookies strut their stuff. It was a good thing that the instruments had a lot of intelligence. That, together with Alfonso’s on-site teaching, meant that they had been just barely able to make them. The most tired for the past couple of days included Alfonso, who had gotten a size skinnier.
    

Chen Mu didn’t immediately move to assemble the parts, but rather started to make cards right on-site. The lab already had all the materials he would need, since he had taken that factor into account at the outset of his design. No matter whether it was time or manpower, they were all precious at that time, and there wouldn’t be any time for him to search out new materials.
    

This was Chen Mu’s first time to make anything other than a one-star power card in front of those youths.
    

He settled his sprits and was rather pleased with his physical conditioning. He took the materials which had already been prepared, and then took out the “weak water” pen set. Chen Mu then started to make the card while everyone watched.
    

The tip of the pen was gentle and smooth, and Chen Mu’s movements were natural like moving clouds and flowing water calligraphy, so smooth that the youths almost forgot to breathe. The fine pen nib was like a superb dancer, as it flew up to dance, spreading a light glow from the lines as they followed the pen nib which spread its transformations over the face of the card. 
    

The scene looked so miraculous! In that instant the youth’s minds were all overcome by the magic. They would never be able to forget that mental image which had been branded into their minds for the rest of their lives.
    

Chen Mu’s final stoke was perfectly placed, and the slight glowing design suddenly started to breath like a person, dark for a while and then light for a while. That drew a whispered exclamation from the youths in unison. The light and dark went through three oscillations, when the card scattered all its glow to lie quietly on the table.
    

He had made a three-star card; a very uniquely alternative three-star card. More precisely, it was a wavy blade card in an incomplete state.
    

If Chen Mu were to give the card to any card artisan, the only fate for the card would be for the card artisan to dismiss it and throw it into the trash-can like a piece of garbage. There wasn’t any card artisan who could use the card, though Chen Mu hadn’t made it for the use of a card artisan.
    

The wavy blades that could be formed from that card had all their flexibility removed by Chen Mu. Which was to say that the power composition of the wavy blades emitted by the card was entirely fixed, and there was no way to adjust the power composition by means of perception. Truly, the card had no sensitivity to perception to speak of at all. Cards that couldn’t be manipulated by perception wouldn’t be used by any card artisan.
    

Still, Chen Mu had made such a card.
    

The card had gotten different characteristics that other cards didn’t have, at the expense of flexibility. It had a simpler composition, and so long as there was energy, it would be able to form a fixed composition wavy blade that it would emit. Thus, it was like a fixed sequence, so inflexible that it would remain steady even in complete shambles. Its power had been fixed from the point of creation and wouldn’t fluctuate at all. All the wavy blades that were formed were completely identical.
    

Chen Mu had expended a lot of effort to increase its power. Under the circumstance where perception would be no help, its power was directly related to its rate of energy use, which required some calculation to optimize.
    

What could be more useful under those conditions than the token composition?
    

The token composition seemed to have been created for just such a situation. Chen Mu felt vaguely as though a window had appeared in front of him, and all he had to do was open it. But whenever he would have that thought, he wouldn’t be able to grasp the thread of light. In his current situation, to calm his mind and contemplate the disaster in front of him was entirely inappropriate and would be a luxury he didn’t have. It was a good thing that our classmate Chen Mu didn’t’ have the habit of luxury.
    

In that instant, all the irrelevant thoughts were deemed distracting by him, and he ruthlessly shook them off. 
    

Under the gaze of the adoring students all around, Chen Mu started to do the assembly. All of the metallic parts were exquisite, though naturally that thought was limited to Chen Mu. In Alfonso’s eyes, the level of precision in the fitment of the metal would be classified at the roughest level. And it was a good thing that it was rough, since if the precision were any higher, he wouldn’t have been able to train so many rookies in such a short amount of time.
    

From that, the difference in metallurgy between the village and the Heavenly Federation was evident.
    

Chen Mu was moving very slowly, sometimes having to stop and think for a bit. The crowd had stopped breathing, as they were transfixed by Chen Mu’s every move, afraid to make the slightest sound. Only the sound of metal clanking could be heard in the great room in the huge lab.
    

Chen Mu put the card in a metal accessory which looked like a small square box. The crowd then realized that the shallow groove in the metal accessory was for placing the card. There was a light clicking sound, as the little metallic box locked up. Chen Mu lowered his head and picked up all the parts that he needed from the table.
    

Everyone finally realized after a while why they hadn’t been able to succeed in putting them together, since those parts basically didn’t belong to any weapon, or even to a couple or even a few weapons. That caused a lot of distress to Alfonso, who had made so many attempts to put them together.
    

Chen Mu finally had the first finished product completed in his hands!
    

Seeing the finally completed thing, the crowd all looked at one another, with some already unable to help laughing. That weapon, oh good lord! If it were to be called a weapon, it really was an ugly one!
    

The first impression was made by a strange thing that was composed of what looked like two pieces of metal plate pieced together, and a flat metal plate about a meter long placed horizontally, which was about ten centimeters wide. Its tail end was attached to a square metal box about thirty centimeters on each side. The two joined at a right angle, at whose inner bend a short metal rod was sticking out.
    

“What, what is this?” Alfonso stammered to ask. He hadn’t thought that the Chen Mu who he admired so much would ever make such an ugly thing. The powerful impact that strangely formed thing gave him had even made him stammer while he spoke.
    

“A weapon.” Chen Mu glanced at Alfonso as though he were strange, asking such a rhetorical question. What would he make at that time if not a weapon?
    

Everyone had gone silent.
    

Chen Mu didn’t pay any attention to them, having finally come up with the first weapon he’d designed by himself. That thing was really heavy! But thinking about it like a villager full of brute force, he discarded any notion of improving it.
    

There wasn’t anyplace to test weapons in the lab, so Chen Mu could only go to the fields beyond it.
    

The crowd in the building all looked at one another, and then fell silent. Then they went out with Chen Mu, though it took a lot of courage. Alfonso was the first to leave the lab, with a face generously full of tragic death. In response, everyone else could only grit their teeth and harden themselves to follow him.
    

That thing was really too ugly. What a loss of face!
    

“Aiyo, what are so many people about to do?” The villagers couldn’t help asking, since it was their first time seeing the crowd in the lab come out all at once.
    

Alfonso and the rest had brave black lines straight across their brows, remaining collectively silent.
    

Chen Mu hadn’t paid any attention to the strange expressions of Alfonso and the others behind him, as he arrived in front of a large tree, which was over three meters in diameter, having a lush canopy sprinkling shade under it. He stopped about fifteen meters from the tree.
    

Only then did the villagers pay attention to what Chen Mu was holding up in both hands, when all at once everyone’s expression turned strange, and then they were quickly surrounded by an eerie silence.
    

Alfonso and the rest of them were wishing they could find some kind of hole in the ground to crawl into. Really too embarrassing! Such a loss of face! Alfonso was inwardly teary, being such a power in the village, who had never lost a person so big.
    

Just then, Chen Mu lightly pulled on that short metal rod.
    

Xiu xiu xiu xiu xiu!
    

There was suddenly a stunning glow from the front of the ugly flat metal box, as blade after deep blue wavy blade came spewing like crazy from the front of the flat metal plate. They looked like a dense chain of deep blue wavy blades!
    

Alfonso and the youths were staring gape-mouthed at Chen Mu and that string of dark blue wavy blades, whose glow wasn’t dimmed even in the broad daylight! The weirded-out expressions of the villagers instantly turned to panic, with such a sudden transformation making their expressions even more weirded-out.
    

Pa pa pa pa pa!
    

All of the wavy blades hit the same spot on the tree, sending sawdust everywhere! The level-flying sawdust even hit some villagers and students in the face. The fine wood chips were full of power and hurt when they hit the face. Still, none of them were covering their soft spots with their hands, since they weren’t moving, as though they were carved in rock.
    

Apart from the popping sound of the wavy blades hitting the tree trunk and busting out all the sawdust, there was also the whooshing sound of the wavy blades going through the air, when the field became as quiet as death.
    

Everyone was stunned!
    

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