The Card Apprentice

Since getting back from the club, Chen Mu had been very excited. He experienced so very many astonishing and ingenious ideas which expanded his outlook. Before then he hadn’t had any exchanges with other card masters. He had always been shut up alone studying by himself, trying things by himself, and muddling along when he failed by himself. Even though he later had that mysterious card, there wasn’t ever really any change with his situation.

It was his first taste of the joys of communicating with others.

That first time having come face to face with the ideas of so many card masters kept Chen Mu in a state of excitement. He spent a whole day in the great hall as though he were intoxicated, grasping other peoples’ ideas and trying to answer other peoples’ questions.

By the end he didn’t remember clearly how many questions he had really tried to crack, but what discouraged him was that most of them ended in failure.

By the time he had gotten home, he was dying of exhaustion, but his state of excitement kept him from sleeping. Copper wasn’t home, and he didn’t know where he had gone off to play. Compared with Chen Mu’s squatting at home, Copper couldn’t really be considered well-behaved, and frequently stayed out all night.

Suddenly remembering that he hadn’t done his perceptual training that day, Chen Mu promptly got up. Having rested a little just then, he felt that his strength had been somewhat restored enough to enter the simple water world. Although it was perceptual training, in the simple water world he wouldn’t be able to do anything without strength.

The soft water enveloped him, and without knowing if it was because of the cool water, Chen Mu’s excited state gradually calmed down. He quickly entered a deep meditative state.

He perception spread out in the water around him like water flowing, and he could feel every little ripple within the scope of his perception.

Taking long breaths, he was calm in the middle of agitation.

When Chen Mu came back from his mental calm, he had a wry smile. His perceptual training had hit a bottleneck where four and a half meters was like a chasm in front of him with no way to get beyond.

Chen Mu became a little upset, as rarely happened.

He raised his head and looked around at the crystal clear simple water world, as beautiful and charming as a childhood fairy-tale world. The triangle swordfish cruised about in large schools, free and easy. The water grass not far away swayed slowly and regularly.

Chen Mu stood silently, and after a long while, suddenly laughed at himself, since what did he have to be dissatisfied about? Especially now that he had a lot better fortune than most people. After he’d worked it out, the furrow in his brow disappeared.

With a little smile and with peace in his heart, Chen Mu moved about freely in the simple water world.

Which is to say that having been busy all along with perceptual training, he had never really wandered around in that strange fairy-tale water world.

Chen Mu was already pretty used to the underwater currents, and his perception was spread all around his body by him, so that he could respond in time whenever there was a ripple. Step by step, although it wasn’t fast, it was steady.

Not far away the thicket of water grass was green and lovely, and Chen Mu couldn’t stop himself from walking toward it.

Having walked over in front of the thicket of water grass, and while Chen Mu was preparing to examine it closely, two strands of water grass suddenly curled around his ankles like a clever snake. Chen Mu only felt his calf tighten and his feet get unstable.

What happened? Chen Mu was taken aback, and given his null level of biological knowledge, he naturally couldn’t recognize what kind of water grass that was.

“Start of the unwinding game. The first level, water grass quantity two, low difficulty. Requirements: get free within three minutes, no reward for completion.”

Hearing that old voice suddenly by his ear froze Chen Mu, though his reaction passed quickly. Unwinding game? There are actually games in here? He quickly became interested.

But what he had heard most clearly was the final phrase, ‘no reward for completion.’

He felt a little bit as though the phrase had some dark truth in it which was worth scrutinizing.

‘no reward for completion . . . no reward for completion.’

His eyes suddenly lit up, as he broke through to something in his mind. If the game basically didn’t have any rewards, then it definitely wouldn’t have added-in that language. Since the phrase was there, there were then just two possibilities.

One was issues with the levels, where the level was too low to have any rewards. If that possibility was the right one, it would imply that he would have to raise the level of his play to be able to get a reward.

Another possibility was that the unwinding game was a game without rewards, and following that speculation, there should still be some kind of game with rewards there. Which is to say that there should be more than one type of game in the simple water world.

What could make Chen Mu more excited than to be saturated with explorations of the unknown? He looked at the clump of green water grass with bright eyes, looking like a hungry wolf staring at its prey.

* * *

A middle-aged man was sitting at his desk in the office of the low-grade fantasy card club, looking pensively at the screen in front of him with his chin in his hand.

Knock knock knock. Someone at the door. Without lifting his head, this middle-aged man said, “Come in.” and continued to stare at the screen in front of him.

A short haired woman holding a pile of materials in her hand pushed open the door and came in.

“Director, these are the materials you wanted. The statistical results haven’t come out yet, but we were able to make a rough estimation that he reviewed one hundred and three requests for help, and responded to thirty-nine. Among those, thirty have already been validated, while we are temporarily unable to get information about the other nine. That is to say that he earned at least four hundred and two points today. That meets the conditions for entering the high-grade group.” She gave her report competently.

“Scoop up over for hundred points in one day?” the middle-aged man looked awed. “Have you found out where he came from?”

“We know that his name is Chen Mu, from the profile. His age is probably in a range between sixteen and nineteen. We don’t have any other information.” The short haired girl thought about it, and added something more, “It just so happens that I admitted him today.”

“Oh.” The middle-aged man become suddenly interested, “tell me about your sense of this person.

After thinking for a bit, the short-haired woman said, “Very young, a little reserved, doesn’t like to talk, and it must be his first time coming, since he was very unfamiliar with this place. I felt that he must be a techno-addict card master.”

“That’s good! Very good! It’s been a long while since a card master with such deep accomplishments with one-star fantasy cards has shown up. I think we should pay attention to cultivating him.” The middle-aged man’s face showed a satisfied expression, and then after pondering a bit, said “Send him an invitation. Invite him to participate in the next two-way meeting of the advanced group. Afterward, you’ll be responsible to check him out.”

“Yes, sir!” the short-haired girl bowed in response.