The Card Apprentice - The Swordfish’s Reward

0Chen Mu was surprised and gathered up all his things. He looked all around to be sure that there wasn’t anything to attract someone’s attention before opening the door.
    

“May I ask if you are Mr. Chen Mu?” Outside the door was a heavily made-up and showily dressed-up pretty woman. Bright red short hair stood on her head like flames, and all her clothes were overstated. She was like all the models around Copper, casual beauties with spitfire dispositions.
    

She was a bit taller than him with a body full of curves, and she seemed to be deliberately pushing out her impressive breasts, standing in front of Chen Mu with a stunning presence.
    

But Chen Mu didn’t care about her body, as he struggled to keep his calm look to cover up the astonishment he felt. He had never mentioned his name from the start, and now that beautiful woman just opens her mouth and says his name. This could only mean one thing, that they had thoroughly checked into his background.
    

“I am.” Chen Mu nodded, and then acted natural as he looked her over, “And may I ask who you are?”
    

His calm behavior seemed to impress the beauty, as an enchanting and charming smile bloomed on her face. “I am Ning Yan, and I’ll be dedicated to communicating with you from now on.”
    

“I never would have thought that you actually made ‘Chance Encounter’ and ‘The Legend of Master Shi.’ You really don’t look like it.” Her expression showed some disbelief as the light made her luscious lips glisten, and made her look extremely sexy.
    

“I was only responsible to make the cards. My friend did the screenplay.” Chen Mu explained. Although Chen Mu had done more of the work, he had always thought that Copper’s screenplay was the core of both card plays.
    

“Is that Copper?” Ning Yan obviously have done a lot of work on Chen Mu.
    

“Yes.” Chen Mu nodded. Since she had already gotten every detail about him, telling everything wasn’t going to create any problems.
    

With a little regret, Ning Yan said, “Too bad, everyone really liked ‘Chance Encounter’ and ‘The Legend of Master Shi.’ I blame the Zuo family, since if it weren’t for them, everyone could see a lot more card plays!” She lifted her eyebrows to mean ‘oh well,’ looking sullen, with a pout on her powdered face which gave off a certain flirtatiousness.
    

It was a good thing that Chen Mu had always had a strong resistance to beautiful women, and he remained indifferent. On top of that, his low-key house arrest meant that he had to keep up his guard at every moment, not daring to relax. And he wouldn’t be in any mood to be interested in pretty women.
    

Ning Yan laughed to look at Chen Mu, “I’d thought the card master who made ‘Chance Encounter’ and ‘The Legend of Master Shi” would be brilliantly handsome, confident, and dashing. I never imagined that he would be a blockhead. That’s really boring. Ai, too bad someone else couldn’t do this job. No wonder brother Peng was laughing that way!” Then she took out a pile of cards to give to Chen Mu, “These are the cards you must repair, pick out the ones you can restore, and fix as may as you can. This is my communications card number. Just contact me when you’re finished.”
    

Chen Mu took the cards, and agreed, “OK.”
    

He’d finally gotten his first assignment, though it was a little late, and a little bit unexpected.
    

But then Chen Mu felt a little surprised that he’d taken them.
    

“But don’t bother me right now. Wait a little while. I’ve been very busy lately. As a matter of fact, it has something to do with you.”
    

“Something to do with me?” Chen Mu found that strange.
    

“The Zuo household. Ha ha, aren’t they your enemy? They sent someone to us, wanting to ransom you back. Of course, we refused, then afterward, oh my, the two sides went to war.” Ning Yan narrated very lightly, as though it were a perfectly ordinary matter.
    

A conflict has arisen between the Zuo and Ning households? The sudden news really surprised Chen Mu. He had practically never gone out during that time, and didn’t have any source for news. Still, he resumed his normal calm, since the envy between them had probably been going on for so long. They were looking for some excuse and he fit the bill as the fuse for the conflict between them.
    

Chen Mu’s assumption wasn’t very far from what was truly going on, though it was a lot more complicated, and there was a lot more money involved. The activities of the Star Academy could be said to have made a real impression. Among all the surrounding powers, the value of Eastern Shang-Wei City has shot way up, and they were drooling over it.
    

So, the most powerful family in Eastern Shang-Wei City – the Zuo household – was the first to feel the brunt.
    

The conflict between the two had quickly escalated, involving more and more powers, and the fighting had become more and more chaotic. The first exchange activity of the Star Academy had brought a lot of unrest to Eastern Shang-Wei City, and Chen Mu simply happened to show up at the right time.
    

Chen Mu didn’t think any more about it, being sure that it really didn’t have much to do with him. He was more worried about his own situation, and about increasing his strength.
    

After Ning Yan left, Chen Mu sat for a while, still digesting the news. He stood up again after about half an hour, looking very relaxed. The more intense the fighting among the powers, they less the Ning family would pay attention to him. For him, that was a really good thing.
    

He quickly put the matter to the back of his mind, since he still had an extremely important thing waiting for him to do just then. 
    

He emptied his mind, struggling to get himself into a kind of entranced state, which could greatly enhance his probability for success. But that state took a while to regulate and wouldn’t have much use in the midst of battle. In the heat of battle, there wouldn’t be any time to slowly regulate anything.
    

After about ten minutes, Chen Mu felt that his state had been well regulated. He opened his eyes, stood up, and tried a few light jumps, getting a sense of the strength coming from his feet. He was very satisfied.
    

Taking out the mysterious card, he inserted it into his apparatus.
    

He re-entered the simple water world, full of confidence. He had a feeling he was going to succeed that time.
    

Start the swordfish challenge!
    

When Chen Mu moved, his movements were extremely quick. Even while in the water, they had the feel of being as quick as lightning. His familiarity with the swordfish had developed to a pretty scary extent. Right from the start, without any probing, he plunged headlong into the school of swordfish cruising around.
    

It was like stirring up a hornet’s nest that time, with all of the swordfish aggressively charging at him.
    

The shuttle-shaped perceptual vortex was spinning at a high speed within him, with hundreds of thousands of perceptual tendrils extending out all around his body. That brought his perception of everything around him to a pretty scary place in an instant, with his ability to capture all the changes around himself elevated to the extreme.
    

He stuck his toes into the soft sand layer, and then he shot out like a bolt of lightning, with his whole body moving with the changes in the water flow, while continually regulating within a small space. These adjustments didn’t look like they were very quick, but they would frequently let the swordfish who were charging from all directions pass within a hair’s breadth in the moment.
    

The most inconceivable thing was that Chen Mu’s entire body was like an eyeball, with not one of swordfish that charged from behind him even touching his clothes.
    

If anyone were to have seen it, they would certainly be gape-mouthed with astonishment. Chen Mu’s body had become a phantom, combined with every ripple that arose in the simple water word into a dreamy blur which would be difficult to distinguish.
    

Missing every touch, moving away from every contact, without tiring any in his strength, and in the middle of all the fish, his body seemed like an imaginary figure moving like lightning.
    

“Congratulations, you have passed the swordfish challenge!”
    

The hoarse old voice that Chen Mu had been anticipating for so long finally appeared.
    

Right about when the voice fell, all the triangular swordfish disappeared at once, leaving only his chest heaving up and down. Chen Mu was gasping breath after breath. In that very short period just then, he had not only highly concentrated his energy, he had also maintained the high rotational speed of the shuttle-shaped perceptual vortex in his body, and adding to that his unrestrained force, the power of his body and mind had used up shocking amounts of exertion.
    

At that moment, the hoarse old voice was like a song from the heavens to Chen Mu’s ear, much more sweet sounding than any beautiful woman’s voice that he had ever heard.
    

A round screen suddenly popped out in front of him. This translucent round screen was about the same height as Chen Mu, and a light flow of water could be seen slowly rippling in it.
    

“Ways to use perception during close combat”
    

The row of words floating in front of Chen Mu made him feel that all of his exertion, and all of the suffering he’d endured for the swordfish challenge were worth it. It was lucky that he hadn’t taken any shortcuts, or the loss would have been huge.
    

He was greedily looking at the round screen.
    

Light gold words continually flowed by, and Chen Mu watched them mesmerized like a drunken idiot. Written there were extremely detailed introductions about how to use perception in close combat. This was extremely valuable to Chen Mu without any doubt.
    

Perception was the crucial factor in the swordfish challenge, and if it weren’t for his maintaining the high speed of his perceptual vortex, he couldn’t have maintained his six senses in such a heightened state, and it would have been impossible to pass the swordfish challenge.
    

Now in front of him were still more detailed techniques related to that.
    

Chen Mu didn’t know what kind of a saint created had created the card in the end, but all of it had required some research. That was undoubtedly some unique style of fighting. Never mind all the card artisans in all of the Heavenly Federation, even the style of fighting used by the demonic woman that Chen Mu had run into differed widely from it.
    

Many of the methods for using perception to enhance close fighting ability raised there greatly broadened his vision. While Chen Mu still had limits to his knowledge, he could still sense their value.
    

Not wanting any distraction, Chen Mu read the words over and over again, until they were all etched in his mind.
    

There wasn’t a lot written, and there weren’t many specific skills involved. Reading them was like reading about the general nature of things, bringing up many ways of thinking which didn’t necessarily have any corresponding techniques.
    

To Chen Mu, it seemed like something half-finished. The one who made the card had clearly not finished it. But it was those things that still shocked Chen Mu the most.
    

He didn’t want to miss a word, and he didn’t stand up until he was certain that he had memorized all of it.
    

Although he was tired, Chen Mu was in high spirits. The swordfish challenge had given him something so exciting, what would the next round be from that mysterious card?
    

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