The Card Apprentice - Wei-ah’s Dedication
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Wei-ah’s Dedication
For the offspring of grand or nearly-grand houses like Bo Wen, the study of family was part of the prescribed curriculum. Bo Wen was basically familiar with all the surnames of the Heavenly Federation, even to the extent of knowing about the old names that had once been glorious. But he had never heard of such a strange surname as Moqi.
There were probably 100,000 people in the village, which could be considered not such a small-scale tribe. What Chen Mu had recently found so surprising was how advanced the technology was there. While they had certainly fallen behind with cards, in other aspects, such as metallurgy, they had a lot more advanced processes than the Heavenly Federation.
The Heavenly Federation had never placed much importance on metal processing, since its defensive capabilities were limited, which also limited its military effectiveness. On the other hand, because of its low cost, it had more widespread use among civilians for things like construction.
As far as Chen Mu could tell, the metallurgy in the village had gotten to a simply fantastic place. They were able to make extremely sophisticated equipment to such refinement that it far exceeded the quality of what could be produced by the Heavenly Federation. That could be seen from their production of apparatuses, where Alfonso would only employ the finest and lightest alloys to make them. He would use only a couple of days to easily make an apparatus of outstanding quality.
Too bad that neither Bo Wen nor Cheng Ying had realized that. As far as they could see, how could any precision metal instruments compare with a precise probe card?
Meanwhile, although he wasn’t anything more than a teenage youth, Chen Mu could see the broad prospects which were latent in them. Compared with cards, the cost of metal was a lot lower. Plain metal had limited usefulness, but if high quality metallurgy were to be combined with the card system, the power of that combination would be quite high. And Chen Mu had learned from Alfonso that there were quite a few ore veins in the vicinity of the village. Chen Mu really couldn’t help feeling that that was why the ancestors of Alfonso and the others had looked for such a superb place with such geography.
The card appliances in the village were fairly primitive in Chen Mu’s eyes, and he had found something strange about them; it was incredible to Chen Mu that although Alfonso could make card appliances, he didn’t know anything at all about the card system. He only found out when he later asked Alfonso that the technology for making those things they called “card matters” had been handed down from their ancestors, and that there was already nothing left of that, so that he could only make a few types.
Alfonso was very vague about their ancestors’ accomplishments, and so Chen Mu didn’t ask any more about it.
Alfonso made the most rapid progress of any of them, having the experience of making card appliances; compared with the others, it was easier for him to understand card knowledge. And among the other youths, there were three whose progress was obviously faster than the rest, Chen Mu not realizing that Li Duhong was among them. The only thing which Chen Mu found regrettable was that Alfonso could not increase his perception due to his age, and was the slowest among them. Perception was the most basic skill that a card master would need to have, and it would greatly limit Alfonso’s room for growth later.
Including Li Duhong, the speed of the three youths’ progress could be described as lighting fast. Chen Mu wouldn’t have had anything on them at the same age, especially Li Duhong, who was the youngest of the three, who made the fastest progress. Chen Mu didn’t keep anything back, even giving the three youths the perceptual training methods from the mysterious card.
Those guys’ tough nerves surprised him. He would have been tormented to death by such extreme training at the same age, while those children all seemed indifferent to it.
Chen Mu had very quickly come to enjoy life in the village, which was so quiet and free. It wasn’t necessary for him to do anything there, just basically to teach something to Alfonso, while the rest of the children would let Alfonso teach them. Having such rich materials, it was even more prosperous than the base! That also greatly stimulated his enthusiasm for research. The only thing that made him a little upset was that the materials there were all raw materials, and he had to process them one by one.
When had he ever learned how to process materials? He could only grope along slowly. It was a good thing that the process was a lot of fun, in addition to which the children were really attentive. In many cases, he only had to distribute the experimental charts, and they would all experiment strictly according to what was on them, which greatly reduced his time in the lab.
The House of Chen Lab had expanded three-fold over the two months, as had the number of people under him, which approached eighty. All the knowledge that those children got from Chen Mu was meticulously recorded and left with Kitt for archiving.
The cards which Chen Mu made were starting to have some effect on the village, such as the power card. The utilization rate for power from a power card was a lot higher as compared with the energy-extraction devices they had used previously, and they were a lot smaller. The most welcome were the heating and illumination cards, both of which were nothing more than ordinary cards, but they had been welcomed by nearly everyone in the village. As far as those who had to enter the jungle were concerned, the illumination and heating cards could greatly decrease the weight of what they had to take with them.
Chen Mu only made such cards as one-star cards, which were the simplest cards. Although they had limited capabilities, they didn’t require anything of the users. He had also pushed those two types of cards out of consideration to himself. Although they were simple, both cards had practical value, and were both good for the beginners to practice with.
A one-star power card, a one-star lighting card, a one-star heating card; they were all one-star, but for those villagers who had never touched a card, they were still shocking.
Compared to the card matters that they commonly used, the apparatus’ weight and size was negligible, and it was a lot more convenient to carry with them on their body. Having experienced the good points of the apparatus, when the villagers heard that higher grade cards would require specialized training, the stream of people going to Bo Wen and Cheng Ying immediately surged.
That was fine with Chen Mu who had the attention of the clan elder. As long as he didn’t remain deliberately silent, the clan elder wouldn’t dare gather at that something-or-other-lab-place.
The thing that the villagers couldn’t make sense of was what good relations Mr. Chen had with Wei-ah.
In the village, Wei-ah would only listen to the clan elder. He wasn’t from there but had been found by the clan elder in the jungle a few years before, in a coma. The clan elder then rescued him and brought him back. Wei-ah had amnesia after he revived, basically not being able to remember who he was. Even his current name ‘Wei-ah’ was something the clan elder helped him to come up with.
Ever since then, he would shadow the clan elder. He was quite tall, without any counterpart in the village, which made many of the competitive youth of the village unhappy. No one dared to look for trouble with such an evident powerhouse. Wei-ah’s disposition was cold, indifferent, and taciturn, not listening to anyone other than the clan elder.
“Your physical condition is the best I’ve seen.” Wei-ah said coldly, making his fortieth effort.
“Oh.” Chen Mu didn’t make anything of it, being busy with his research all along. It was his first time to be so freely able to follow his own desires and take his own time without any pressure. He didn’t have to worry about money, since truthfully money had no use there. And all the villagers were very respectful and good toward him, and the clan elder didn’t make any hard demands. He did whatever he wanted and didn’t have to worry about materials, with such fine and rich materials as would be hard to find anywhere else.
Wasn’t that just the life he wanted?
Chen Mu no longer wanted to leave the village, assuming that he couldn’t do any better if he were to leave.
Wei-ah had become interested after seeing Chen Mu practice his exercise gymnastics. He just objectively said that he was interested in Chen Mu’s physical condition. He considered Chen Mu’s body to be of excellent quality, and that Chen Mu could learn a few skills from him. To use his way of speaking, there was only Chen Mu in the entire village whose conditions could meet his standard.
“There aren’t many skills that I still remember, but there are enough to teach you.” Wei-ah’s expression was still that of an icy mountain which had never changed for thousands of years.
Chen Mu had already forgotten how many times he had refused, “Wei-ah, I really don’t have the time. Look how busy I am.” He pointed to all the busy assistants in the lab, “I still have a lot more experiments to conduct. I need to determine the properties of these materials again, otherwise, they are only a pile of grass.”
Wei-ah remained unmoved, “You are very suited to study my skills.”
Wei-ah’s persistence was giving Chen Mu a headache, and he helplessly sighed, “Wei-ah, I’m really very sorry. I’ve already studied quite a few skills, and if I were to take on still more, things would get more complicated. You also know that too much complexity always means that nothing gets done. What I need now is not to learn more skills, but rather to continue to hone the ones I have.”
Chen Mu hadn’t yet discovered that because of the change in environment, and because of having to engage with different people like Alfonso and the other assistants, and Colin and so forth, he had been speaking more than before. And moreover, after the deadly pressure had disappeared, Chen Mu had started gradually to recover his youthful mentality.
“I won’t take much of your time.” As always, Wei-ah had no intention of letting it go.
Just then, Colin burst into the lab, and said with a stern look, “Mr. Chen, the clan elder requests your presence.”
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