The Card Apprentice

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The first time Sue Lochiro had seen Chen Mu, he and Lu Xiaoru were rescuing that little girl. She watched the entire process of Chen Mu's rescue. It was hard to imagine there could be someone with the strength to lift such a heavy metal beam under his own power alone. She had been very surprised. It would be hard to find anyone whose strength had developed to that point. She was a medical card artisan and would be naturally more concerned about such things.

For a bystander like Chen Mu to rescue the wounded made that kind-hearted medical card artisan well disposed toward him.

She was really surprised Chen Mu and Lu Xiaoru would come looking for her. When she'd asked Chen Mu for contact information that day, he had declined at first. That let her know roughly what kind of person he was. That was the first time she'd been declined when asking for contact information.

Then, when Chen Mu had said he had something wrong with his health, that further deepened her impression. She was curious about what kind of health issue he could have. She had rich medical experience, and her perceptual acuity was without equal. She had always been able to tell what kind of disease someone had just by looking. But, during that chat with Chen Mu just then, she hadn't been able to find anything wrong.

She was surprised to find her perception was blocked as soon as she got close to Chen Mu. That was very rare for her. Her perception wouldn't make her an outstanding card artisan, but in the world of medicine, she was quite well known. In that regard, the perception emanating from her had a peculiar quality, which was that it was mild—so mild it would never elicit anyone's blocking.

Card artisans were highly sensitive toward perception, whether their own or someone else's. So, it could be a rather troublesome matter when a card artisan was wounded. The more outstanding the card artisan, the more trouble it was. They would always unwittingly reject the perception emitted by the medical card artisan. That also increased the difficulty of treatment. It was a good thing true aces could freely constrain their own perception.

Sue Lochiro's mild perception was a great help with her work. It was for that reason she would seldom restrain her own perception. That was why the situation that day had occurred.

Realizing her perception had been excluded by Chen Mu's, she was surprised. She didn't want to cause any misunderstanding and immediately restrained her perception, but she remained secretly curious.

His perception had some really special quality!

Looking at Chen Mu lying on the bed, Sue Lochiro's mouth formed a sly smile. She would now be able to openly do a full examination of Chen Mu's body without any scruples.

The data on the screens kept refreshing, and her expression looked a little stunned. She was staring at the screens that had popped out of the devices.

Is this… is this a human body?

It looked like a normal human body, but those were some really weird data! She didn't quite know how powerful he was, but his muscles and sinews were 4.2 times stronger than normal, which was about the strength of steel wire!

Not only that, but his breathing and heartbeat were like his muscles, and his cellular activity…

Sue Lochiro had been by her teachers' sides since she was 6, and by 8 she had already started to study basic theory. When she was 12, she was prepared for bedside experience. She had examined thousands of people already and had never seen such a freakishly perfect body!

She only then understood why he had been able to pick up such a heavy metal beam without any tools.

That body was just too perfect. She couldn't help but feel as though she had discovered a new continent as the analytical data from each instrument kept moving in front of her. Whenever there was a new discovery, her eyes lit up.

A doubt took shape more and more powerfully in her heart in the midst of her marveling. Judging from her current assessment, not only didn't his body have the slightest issue, but he was beyond healthy. However, she knew he was certainly not a person to speak without thinking. And, he had already demonstrated last time that he certainly wasn't someone who would do anything fancy just to get close to her.

Focusing on the operation of the instruments and looking at the dense data, a puzzled look flashed through her eyes.

She walked over to Chen Mu with the final report and looked at him closely for a moment. She then said with an expression as though something were strange, "There's nothing wrong with you, Mr. Cao. You are extremely healthy!"

A look of disappointment flashed through Chen Mu's eyes. It looked like the capabilities there were insufficient after all. It wouldn't be easy to discover things from the demonic woman, and he'd been mentally prepared for that.

The meticulous Sue Lochiro immediately detected his look of disappointment, and she felt some hesitancy. Could he really have some issue?

She suddenly brightened, saying, "Maybe we can try a different method."

"What is that?" Chen Mu also got a little excited.

The two of them sat opposite each other on armchairs that were very close to one another. Their legs were almost touching. If anyone else were to come in, they would certainly be surprised at their intimacy. Sue Lochiro had a great record in the Pomelo medical card artisan association, where her mild nature had earned everyone's love. When you added to that her beauty and outstanding temperament, there were naturally people chasing after her like carp crossing the river.

Although she would always smile, she kept those types as far away as she could.

"Restrain your perception; I need to use perception to explore the situation in your body," she notified him.

Hearing that, Chen Mu compressed his perception to its limit after some hesitancy. He was already used to allowing his perception to spread to a small area around him to improve his sensitivity to his surroundings. He had a lot more perceptual strength than before, and it was strong and powerful. After being compressed, it became still more sensitive, giving the feeling of a faint stirring.

He detected Sue Lochiro's perception and became quickly excited. He had never experienced such mild-tempered perception. It was harmless and had no edge to it. When it entered his body, it was like a slight wind blowing into his heart with no discomfort. He marveled at the vastness of the world with no end of wonders.

He didn't know to what extent Sue Lochiro's surprise had progressed by then!

The separation between her and Chen Mu was tight to the point where she could clearly comprehend every aspect of Chen Mu's body as though it were transparent. There was a special medical term for that called "near-field perception." While it looked easy, it actually had steep requirements. On the one hand, it required the medical card artisan to have a high degree of perceptual strength; on the other, it required the sick person to exercise powerful restraint with his own perception. Not every medical card artisan had the mildness to her perception that she did.

Perception was extremely sensitive, and medical card artisans required that it be even more sensitive. In that way, not only would they be able to get more accurate information about the sick person, but it would also enable them to complete more difficult procedures. Within the entire Pomelo medical card artisan association, Sue Lochiro was number one with her perceptual sensitivity.

What powerful perception! Even though Chen Mu had deliberately restrained his perception, Sue Lochiro could still detect how powerful and sensitive it was. She was amazed to face a youth who didn't look more than 20 who had perceptual strength at nearly the fourth level!

She wasn't any ignorant woman. Maybe a perceptual strength level of four didn't mean much, but at that age, it was enough to surprise anyone! That demonstrated how much potential he had and how limitless his future was.

She closed her eyes and kept her natural expression. She had actually been prudent from the start and didn't dare to be the least bit careless.

The circumstances were special. Chen Mu's body was like a battlefield, and the perception in his body was like the guards. Sue Lochiro's perception was like the other army. All of the defenders had retracted and given over the entire field to the other army.

Their perceptions could detect the finest fluctuations between them. Sue Lochiro could feel the restless stirring of Chen Mu's perception without any difficulty. In the same way, Chen Mu had discovered in the first instant how careful Sue Lochiro was being with her perception.

Neither of them dared to be careless, with the one forcefully restraining his perception and the other carefully using her own perception to examine his body without causing any resistance from him.

The response of perception was often quicker and more direct than any mental response, which was also why they were both so cautious.

Her face suddenly turned red.

At such close range, and given the strength of her perception together with Chen Mu's deliberate cooperation, she could have the most detailed understanding of Chen Mu's body.

It was as though anything Chen Mu wore was worn utterly in vain.

That was her first time to encounter such a situation, and her breath, which had been easy, became flustered. The disorder wasn't serious, though there were some autonomous fluctuations to her perception.

At about the same time, Chen Mu's actively restrained perception immediately felt the fluctuations. He was a little surprised, not knowing what had happened to her, concentrating as he was on restraining the restless perception in his body! His perception had been trained in the water, which was so full of pressure, so he was unusually sensitive to all kinds of pressure.

His perceptual spring coil had been compressed to its limit, and all of his perceptual tendrils had been retracted to within the coil, which led to it becoming very coarse.

It was the spring's characteristic that the more pressure there was, the greater its recoil would be. Given his control, to compress the perceptual spring coils to such an extent was already rather difficult. Now, with those fluctuations, it made the compressed perceptual spring coil show some faint signs of recoiling.

Chen Mu felt a bout of incredible head swelling.