The Card Apprentice - The Fame of the Raining Shuttles
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The Fame of the Raining Shuttles
There wasn’t any essential difference between the composition of a three-star power card and that of a one-star power card, except that it was more complicated, and more refined.
Still, completion of a three-star card required the involvement of perception. That wasn’t any complication for Chen Mu by that time.
His first leap in understanding was making those twelve cards from the simple water world, and his second was making the tailless shuttle card. It had cost him a lot of effort to make that three-star card which had such a high level of difficulty, using up all of his savings to that point. But the benefits he had gotten from it were equally huge, and they raised his sights far more than one level.
Even up until where he was by then, he had never come across any three-star card as complex as the tailless shuttle card, including many four-star cards which were a long way from being comparable to it. You could say that Chen Mu had become pretty familiar with the three-star fantasy card, though still, if he wanted to design a three-star fantasy card himself, he wouldn’t have any way to ascertain if it was really at the three-star level, with the corresponding level of power.
He began to arrange the materials.
The luminous leaf came from the luminous tree. The luminous tree was an extremely beautiful large tree which had broad and thick leaves, some as big as a person’s open hand. During the daytime, there wasn’t anything remarkable about them, but once nighttime fell, its leaves would give off a moon-white fluorescence.
The whole tree was brilliant with shimmering buds of white, as beautiful as a fantasy. Many wealthy families liked to transplant the luminous tree.
Just as famous as its beauty was another peculiarity, which was its delicacy. Up until then, the rate of successful transplantation was extremely low, and the rate of successful human cultivation was even lower. If a landscape architect had the experience of transplanting three luminous trees, it would increase his worth many times over.
The luminous leaf wasn’t the leaf that you could just pick from the luminous tree, but referred to the leaves that had naturally fallen after three years of growth. Compared with leaves that hadn’t fallen and were just picked from the tree, their affinity with energy was much higher.
That was also an important reason for why the price of three-star power cards couldn’t be decreased. Fortunately, the luminous tree wasn’t rare in the outer reaches. If that weren’t he case the price for the three-star energy cards would be a lot higher.
The luminous leaf was an excellent agent for joining with energy, and Chen Mu understood its properties quite well. Three luminous leaves ground in a high-quality grinder created a very fine light-green powder.
Opening the lid of the grinder, Chen Mu smelled a very light and distinctive fragrance, form which he immediately determined that those leaves were of extremely high quality. Among the knowledge introduced in that mysterious card about three-star cards, the explanations about the properties of materials were especially useful and detailed to a scary extent. Sometimes some slight variation in weight would require a specialized instrument to measure.
By comparison, the coarseness of the materials used by ordinary card masters made them simply spoiled goods to Chen Mu.
That precise and rigorous approach to dosage control had a big impact on Chen Mu, and no matter what card he was making, he was always very meticulous about his control of proportions with raw materials.
There was a precious pile of white powder in another container, in which was mixed some very fine sky-blue colored crystals. Those glimmering fine crystals were the main ingredient to make power cards; “billowing sand.”
Billowing sand was a high-energy substance, quite enriched with energy. Most of it was in the form of mineral veins, with each billowing sand vein being priceless.
Apart from the billowing sand, there were also some other materials, such as water-jade stones, or moon rocks, which could all substitute for billowing sand for making power cards.
Chen Mu put the luminous leaf powder into the white powder, and slowly and carefully stirred it until it was evenly blended. The appearance of this billowing sand was quite good, with each grain being very pure. If he hadn’t taken the commission, he would have had to pay out contribution points to get the billowing sand.
It was very difficult to buy that grade of billowing sand outside. Its quality had an important impact on the amount of energy that could be emitted from the three-star power cards made from it.
The colorless liquid which he carefully dripped into the excellent mixture had been extracted from a kind of microbe. It was rich with enzymes, and Chen Mu knew how strictly the quantity had to be controlled. Otherwise the resulting card ink would be significantly deficient.
One hundred and twenty-two drops. Chen Mu’s hand was steady and precise, and didn’t tremble in the slightest, so there was no deviation during the whole dripping process.
Everything went beautifully to that point. Chen Mu lifted his head in satisfaction, with fifteen minutes still remaining before he could get the ink for the three-star power cards.
After fifteen minutes, Chen Mu opened the container. The liquid in the container had turned jade green, fresh and translucent, giving people an irresistible urge to drink it. In reality, the solution had a certain poisonous quality which would be quite serious if it accidentally got into the mouth.
Chen Mu sat up very straight, with all the kinds of pens he would need having been arranged earlier in front of him, along with all the blank cards spread out.
* * *
“Nice work.”
Ah Shen had his eyes fixed in awe listening to his superior’s admonitions. He had just completed a small-scale conflict, where he had single-handedly ambushed three opposing card artisans. He had not only retrieved some valuable things from the three card artisan’s bodies, he had also just gotten a fat reward.
When he left from his superior, he was greeted by envious gazes from all around. Even though his adversaries were all high-grade card artisans, he had surprisingly killed them alone. That kind of success would be stunning no matter where it was found. And on top of these three high-grade card artisans that time, his kills had already grown to twelve people.
Ah Shen’s eyes were squinting as always, and he didn’t show any complacency in his expression. He knew that his victory had included some element of luck. If he hadn’t bought that ‘raining shuttles’ card in the last few days, he was afraid the one killed would have been himself.
Before arriving, he had been practicing hard every day with the raining shuttles card, finally getting his firing frequency up to six shuttles a second. He had been depending on his adversaries being unprepared for the super high rate of his shooting.
He had to say that his luck wasn’t bad. Not one among these twelve was a defensive-style card artisan. If he had run into a defensive-style card artisan who had an energy cloak, then the one in danger would have been himself. The raining shuttles card only had three stars, and the energy of the shuttles that it shot wasn’t sufficient to penetrate the energy cloak emitted by three-star level card.
“Are you selling that ‘raining shuttles’ card, Ah Shen? How about six hundred contribution points?” People along the way would occasionally ask similar things.
Nearly everyone knew that Ah Shen had a ‘raining shuttles’ card in his hands that could achieve six shuttles per second. Of course, they were all after the high contribution points at the front lines, but no matter how many points they earned, they would need a life to enjoy them.
Six hundred contribution points was already four times as much as Ah Shen had paid when he bought it, which would be enough to buy a few four-star cards which had outstanding capabilities. But Ah Shen always firmly refused, being very clear that the raining shuttles card in his hands wasn’t only connected to his military success, but was connected to his life.
* * *
Ning Peng was staring at the requests coming back from the front lines, and tipped his head with a confused look to ask Ning Yan, “Have you heard anything about some kind of ‘raining shuttles’ card?”
“Raining shuttles card? What the hell is that?” Ning Yan shook her head, as she came over.
“I don’t know either.” Ning Peng was rubbing his shiny bald head, pointing to the screen in front of him. “A report has just come out from the front line, requisitioning a large quantity of raining shuttles cards, the more the better.”
Ning Yan was propped on the edge of the desk with her two hands, looking at the report on the screen, “One person killed twelve enemy card artisans. Wow, when did Ah Shen become so awesome?” She had been in that building all along, and naturally knew who Ah Shen was. In her mind, although Ah Shen had some power, it certainly couldn’t have developed to such a frightening extent.
“Ah Shen was using the kind of raining shuttles card brought up in the report to kill twelve enemies. Oh? This raining shuttles card was bought here in this building. Who made it?” Ning Yan seemed lost in thought.
Ning Yan frowned, and quickly stood up, “I’ll look into it right away.”
Neither of them dared to be careless about requests from the front line, and they immediately commenced an investigation in the building. They very quickly found Algoradicci, the one who had sold the card to Ah Shen. But he wasn’t very clear either about who the card master was who had made this card.
They then quickly arrived at the consignment market to look at the original records.
* * *
After three continuous days of work, Chen Mu was looking at the pile of three-star power cards in front of him, feeling full of accomplishment. Within three days, he had made sixty-two three-star power cards. Even he was astonished at that achievement.
When did he become so awesome? He looked at his two inconceivable hands, and he suddenly realized that without knowing it, he had become an entirely different person.
After smiling woodenly for a while, he started to gather up the things on the desk.
There was a simple piece of test equipment in the apartment, and he casually pulled out a three-star power card and inserted it.
The numbers quickly started to jump around the screen, and directly jumped to 12,156 before stopping. That result rather pleased him, since he hadn’t spoiled any of the materials.
The composition of the three-star power card was already pretty intricate, and because of problems with the quality of raw materials, and differences in the abilities of card masters, the three-star power cards which got produced were also similarly variable.
While the standard amount of energy contained by a three-star power card was ten thousand, as a matter of fact, if the energy contained was above nine thousand, it would be considered standard for a three-star power card. The one that Chen Mu had made at over twelve thousand would already be considered high grade goods.
That extra two thousand could very likely decide whether a card artisan lived or died.
As Chen Mu was just getting ready to remove the power card, there was some pounding on the door.
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