The Card Apprentice - Misfortune
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Misfortune
A wonderful scene unfolded!
The sky became suddenly dark, and everyone seemed to be plunged into night. That abrupt misfortune took everyone aback. Xi Weide and the rest looked as though they were facing a powerful adversary, never having seen such a weird phenomenon. Bo Wen and Cheng Ying directly activated their energy cloaks, one of them white, the other emerald green—both very eye-catching in the dark.
Chen Mu wasn’t flustered since he knew it hadn’t been some change in the sky, but rather they were in a kind of illusion. He had entered into the mysterious card innumerable times and had encountered such a large-scale fantasy before. He could recognize it at a glance. And, even though the simple water world that he’d made later on was rather crude, it still gave him a deeper understanding of illusions.
But, he didn’t relax because of that. Although those illusions were certainly fake, that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. On the contrary, they had a huge degree of danger; if the one entering them were the least bit inattentive, they could present mortal danger. The peculiarity of an illusion was that while the real was real and the false was false, there was fake to the real and real to the fake, making it difficult to tell them apart.
Just then, something unusual happened.
Countless fist-sized glowing balls shot up, making it snow-bright all around. The glow from those balls didn’t hurt the eyes, but rather gave everything a strange chill. The glowing balls rose to about chest level where they stopped still, floating calmly in midair.
There was a glowing ball in front of Chen Mu’s chest, and after a pause, he tried extending his finger intending to lightly touch it.
Once his finger touched the glowing ball, a voice sounded up from the sky. “The system has been activated with zero privileges. Commencing determination of initial privileges.”
Everyone was stunned by the voice, which appeared without warning. Without waiting for them to understand, the ground went out from under them. Bo Wen and Cheng Ying had the quickest reactions. In combat readiness all along, Bo Wen triggered the jet stream card in the first instant, wanting to flee. Wei-ah, to the contrary, was approaching Chen Mu.
Then, the glowing balls around everyone suddenly transformed into a canopy of glowing rain, which surrounded the crowd. A light beam penetrated Bo Wen’s energy cloak, leaving a burn on him. Bo Wen was scared out of his wits. If the power of those light beams could actually penetrate his energy cloak so easily, that would be too scary!
“Warning. Leaving your position will judge you the target of attack.”
Wei-ah’s retreat was faster than his advance, making a blur in front of everyone as though he had never moved.
In the situation of not being able to resist, everyone fell down one after the other. But, the process of falling was strangely slow. There was no ray of light in the darkness all around.
Chen Mu was the coolest among everyone without a doubt. He knew the illusion was about the same kind as in the mysterious card. It seemed orderly; as long as you didn’t violate the rules, there wouldn’t be any danger. Besides, he was very curious about who could make such a mysterious illusion. Chen Mu had never heard of any card master from that time who could do so.
This was his second time encountering an illusion where the real and the false couldn’t be distinguished. He thought of his mysterious card, whose time period was also long ago. Could it be that the card masters in the ancient times all had such high ability? Didn’t the books say the contemporary level of card making was more advanced than the ancients? But, the reality in front of Chen Mu just then seemed to be giving him an entirely opposite response.
The drop suddenly slowed, and Chen Mu felt as though he were being held back by some kind of power.
It was really miraculous! Chen Mu couldn’t help gasping again in admiration. If the illusion could get to such a point, it was really freakish and brilliant to describe. It was still pitch black; he couldn’t see anyone. He had fallen so fast that if he were to open his mouth at all, it would fill with wind, making it impossible to make a sound.
“Where is everyone?” Chen Mu had no way to determine anyone else’s position in the dark, so he shouted out.
Alfonso’s voice came from not far away. “Here I am, teacher.” His voice had a note of terror, as well as a little excitement.
Apart form Alfonso, no one else responded. Chen Mu’s brow furrowed, and he blurted out, “Is anyone else there?”
No one responded.
Peng. He felt something solid under his feet, finally having landed. Chen Mu breathed a sigh of relief.
“What happened?” Alfonso asked in some terror. Alfonso’s response rather satisfied Chen Mu since it looked as though he had been emboldened quite a bit by the danger he had experienced.
“I’m still not too clear about the situation.” Chen Mu’s voice seemed to have the power to calm, and Alfonso immediately calmed down.
He said with a smile, “Have we just won a prize?”
“Very possibly.” Chen Mu showed some rare humor.
The rays of light slowly brightened, and the two of them could clearly see the scene around them. There were screens set up all around, each of them about five or six square meters. They were all strung together to make a circle. Chen Mu and Alfonso were placed right in the middle of it.
Chen Mu squinted to see the images on the screens.
His gaze first fell onto the one in front of him, which showed the design on a card. Alfonso was obsessed with a different screen on which was an elaborate schematic of some apparatus.
A production problem? Chen Mu seemed to have found some clue, and he couldn’t help but smile. He liked that work.
Bo Wen and Wei-ah were off by themselves. The trial for them was completely different from Chen Mu’s.
Theirs was a complicated terrain of countless mountains and rocks stretching out for dozens of kilometers. Wei-ah and Bo Wen were in the middle of the rocky mountains, and on top of them were floating several hundred strangely shaped objects, which would continually emit all sorts of deadly light beams. The beams were extremely accurate and had stunning power.
Wei-ah was like a bouncing ball, endlessly ricocheting among the rocks without stopping. The light beams were scattering all the rocks, but none of them were hitting that scary man.
Bo Wen was a lot more miserable! He had no way to copy Wei-ah’s battle technique, all along depending on his energy cloak to protect him in front of those shooting beams. It was as weak as paper. Several dozen wounds had already appeared on his body. The only thing to be glad about was that those light beams hadn’t targeted his vital regions. Otherwise, he would have been long dead.
A remote card artisan couldn’t compare with a close-combat card artisan when it came to dodging fire. If Chen Mu were there, he absolutely would not have cut such a sorry figure. That wasn’t to say Bo Wen’s battle strength wasn’t as good as Chen Mu’s, but it was determined by the fighting style. Every style of fighting had its strong points, but it would certainly also have its weak points. Remote card artisans far exceeded close-combat card artisans with their output of firepower and their range.
What calmed Bo Wen was that those light beams didn’t seem to be after his life and must have been conducting some sort of test. While that test looked perfectly dangerous, he surmised that once it was completed, there would surely be some sort of restorative therapeutic content.
But, he was still struggling to dodge and evade, although his dodging didn’t have much use. Still, his determination was stunning. If he were to speculate about that test, he thought the more outstanding he was, there would have to be some benefit.
Folded into a “V” shape and floating like a snake, three short lines accelerated.
Although a light beam fell onto his body from time to time, Bo Wen steeled himself and steadfastly persevered, tenaciously dodging to his limit, just doggedly taking on those he couldn’t dodge. For him to have endured until then depended entirely on his willpower.
The light beams grew more and more dense, and Bo Wen suddenly noticed a piece of rock sticking up not far away. This made him happy since it formed a natural barrier. By coincidence, his distance from it was sufficient to complete a folded “V” maneuver.
Bo Wen gritted his teeth, increased his speed, and flew over toward the mountain rock.
The dense light beams were like the teeth of an open-mouthed boa, grabbing on and not letting go. Meanwhile, those beams were getting a little bit closer. If he were hit by such dense beams, then that trial would doubtlessly have hit its target. He calculated that once he had flown behind the rocks, the firing would have just reached its peak. Having endured for so long, he had started to form a certain understanding of the pattern of the firing. After the peak of the light beam firing, its rate would be greatly reduced.
The rocks were looming large in front of him, which pleased him because his calculation hadn’t been mistaken!
Then, a hand unexpectedly shot out from behind the rocks!
Caught off guard, Bo Wen paled in fright. He considered what move could avoid the hand, not thinking the wrist would suddenly flick, shooting a small stone toward his eyes.
Bo Wen unconsciously ducked first, wanting to dodge the stone. Since he was in the middle of flight, that sudden unforeseen event had made a mess of his perception. Bo Wen lost control of his high-speed flight.
The stone scraped his cheek as it flew past, while the teeth of the light beam boa that was after him had enveloped him in a rain of rays.
In that instant, Bo Wen was shot through like a sieve with countless light beams having pierced his body.
That sudden misfortune immediately ended the trial, and those strange flying devices disappeared. The endless, rocky mountains also disappeared without a trace, leaving Bo Wen lying on the ground, blood gurgling out of his body. His wide-open eyes were watching Wei-ah in front of him, and the blood kept pouring out of his mouth as he asked incoherently, “Wh…why?”
Cold and detached, Wei-ah watched as the radiance gradually darkened in his eyes.
“As he was dying, Elder Kitt ordered that I should kill you if I see you.” Wei-ah was speaking as he walked over to Bo Wen, closely examining the wounds on his body; the most fatal place was where a light beam had penetrated through to his heart.
Wei-ah ended his speech. With a bland expression, he lightly hit Bo Wen with his fist to the side of the wound over his heart. Bo Wen’s body went stiff as his eyes bugged out, never to budge again.
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