The Card Apprentice

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

About 70 card artisans had entered the forest, and there was a depressed atmosphere among the troops. Each of the card artisans looked bewildered and wary. They treaded carefully, afraid to take heavy footsteps. The card artisans responsible for detection were behaving as though they were facing a big enemy.

"He's in the vicinity!" A small card artisan unconsciously swallowed. He had studied the perception of smell, and there were quite a few card artisans like that in the troop. They had stained the enemy with a green-ish palm juice, which made it so they wouldn't lose their adversary's trail. However, since they had studied it along with a different subject, their attainments with the perception of smell weren't very deep. They could only roughly determine whether he had been in the vicinity and couldn't determine his accurate position.

Dong! A sound like dull thunder came from behind them, and all of the card artisans' faces shifted!

Pa! A card artisan's energy cloak and his head suddenly blew apart! Some of the surrounding card artisans couldn't help but scream, and everyone shrunk unconsciously to the side.

Bao Le and Jeremy looked at each other with steely faces, each discovering the anger in the other's eyes and the terror underneath!

"That's number 28! If it goes on like this, we're all going to die! We're all going to die, Bao Le!" Jeremy was screaming hysterically, the flesh on his face quaking and a deep hopelessness in his gaze.

The veins on Bao Le's bald head were throbbing as he suddenly grabbed Jeremy's clothes and growled, "Enough! Calm down, Jeremy. That damned jerk is going to drive us crazy! Right. What you said is true; we'll die for sure like this. If we go back, Wen isn't going to let us go, either. We'll die for sure! But dammit! I'd rather die at this jerk's hands than at Wen's!"

Those under them saw the two captains arguing, and none of them dared to come forward.

Bao Le let go with his hand. Jeremy's legs went soft, and he plopped down onto the ground. He had a look of hopelessness, and his gaze was lifeless as he murmured, "What you say is true, Bao Le. Wen won't let us go…"

The faces of the card artisans were ashen. All of them had the god-like Wen in mind, along with the equally famous power of his harsh and cruel moves.

Bao Le drew in a breath of air and crouched down to say in a low voice, "Let's get out of here, Jeremy! There's only one of this damned jerk, and he won't be able to go after us. We'll both be dead anyway. As long as we get out of the forest, we'll at least have a chance! Hmph. We can look for protection at Moon Frost Island and can work for them. The intelligence we have would be enough for our safety!"

"Escape? Are you nuts, Bao Le? Wen would kill us!" Jeremy unconsciously blurted out. His eyes were full of terror.

"That's right; Wen would kill us. But do you think Wen is going to let us off now?" Bao Le spoke sarcastically. Jeremy kept sitting where he was, his face drained of blood.

"Don't be a fool, Jeremy. We'll die for sure this time. Wen has never cared about whether these captains live or die. He doesn't care about anyone except Yuchi Bai. We have to escape! We'll be able to live once we get out of here!" Bao Le clenched his fists and said through gritted teeth, "We have no future at Constellation, Jeremy. Wen only trusts Yuchi, and we don't have as much power as Mo Ta and Jin Yin. He trusts An Sa among the rest of the captains. You know Gan Lin and An Sa are a team. What are we? We're just cannon fodder. Let's go, Jeremy. Let's get out of here, so we can survive. Then, we can get what we want!"

Jeremy's expression was fluctuating, and he was obviously struggling intensely in his mind. Bao Le wasn't urging him but was calmly awaiting Jeremy's decision off to the side.

After five or six minutes, Jeremy let out a long breath of air and said with a nod, "What you say is right, Bao Le. Let's get out of here!"

Bao Le finally showed something of a smile on his face. "You won't regret this decision, Jeremy!"

At the same time, several card artisans plunged out from among the trees, shaking their heads at Bao Le. Just like before, they hadn't found any trace of their adversary.

Bao Le had long expected that result. Their adversary was oddly slippery, and he had the Snake Lens in his hands. If they wanted to find him, it would basically be impossible. The guy was like some kind of ghost, attacking and vanishing the way gods and devils came and went. Every time they would hear that weird dong, one of the card artisans on their side would fall.

Bao Le really wondered if their adversary was a card artisan assassin! The power of the energy shuttle he had emitted terrified them. Even a four-star energy cloak didn't give them any sense of security. The gloom of the forest meant you would never know where the next energy shuttle would be shot from—or whom it would be shooting at. The panic and stress made the troops start to show signs of collapse.

Since there was no ace like Jin Yin among that gang of card artisans, Chen Mu could boldly use the Patterned Shuttle. Instead of using perception to lock someone in, he was trying to simply use his gaze to do so. The fight with Jin Yin had made him understand that locking in with perception was really a joke against those card artisans who had such acute perception.

He wouldn't have to worry about raising his adversary's alarm if he used his gaze to lock in. However, it was who-knew-how-many times more difficult to use his gaze instead of his perception. Its accuracy also couldn't be guaranteed.

That poor gang of card artisans had become Chen Mu's objects for the testing and training of his new style of warfare. The Patterned Shuttle, with its terrifying power in that sort of sniper attack, had performed brilliantly. Up until then, there still hadn't been an energy cloak that could withstand it. Because it had so much power, some target areas that hadn't ever been lethal before had become dangerously exposed. For example, when a card artisan was hit in the left shoulder, half of his body was smashed to pieces by the terrible blow of the Patterned Shuttle.

With what the Snake Lens captured, he could very clearly see any detail of the team. He shook his head about how the team was already on the brink of collapse and had no fighting spirit left. Seeing them run off in such a hurry, Chen Mu hesitated and decided not to pursue them.

He had been maintaining contact with the outside world for those few days. Speculation from Bogner and Xi Ping had grabbed his attention. The Snowflake Card Artisan Team's moves gave Chen Mu a slight sense of urgency.

There was still another issue; Wei-ah was waiting for him in Zargan.

Wei-ah's safety was absolutely not something he needed to worry about. He was more worried about the safety of the other people.

He knew he had better hurry up and rendezvous with Wei-ah. After so many days of repeated sniper kills, the burst of anger Chen Mu had felt had dissipated significantly. The green flower tattoo on his arm had deepened quite a bit in color compared to before, which rather concerned him.

Thinking it through, Chen Mu turned around with no second thoughts and disappeared into the forest.

After going through seven consecutive days of high-speed flight, Chen Mu finally arrived in Zargan. Along the way, he had run into seven waves of all sorts of different wild beasts, and each battle had been extremely arduous. That came out to an average of one hard battle every day. The most thrilling had been running into a snow ape that could shoot off energy balls.

The nearly man-sized snow ape was as fast as lightning and remarkably sharp, and the energy balls it shot off had explosive qualities. When they had hit Chen Mu during the battle, it had made him curse relentlessly. Chen Mu had battled fiercely with the snow ape for nearly five hours, during which time he'd swapped out seven energy cards before finally killing it.

Getting wounded had become commonplace. Fortunately, he had a shocking ability to recover and understood a few means of treatment, so he hadn't died from the loss of blood. The wild beasts' blood also contained rich energy. Chen Mu had used some crude means to prepare some medicines and had gotten excellent results.

Having been tempered by that period of concentrated battle, Chen Mu's temperament had already gone through an earth-shaking transformation, even though he looked wrecked.

In light of that bitter battle with Jin Yin on top of so many days of trials through the forests and so many close-quarter battles with wild beasts, his clothes had long since been shredded. Even the battle suit on his body that had cost 15 million Oudi hadn't survived. Before Chen Mu had left, Xi Ping had specifically bought it for him at a high price. But that battle suit was now in tatters.

Chen Mu was carrying a pack on his back about as tall as he was, and it was bundled together with strips of rattan. With his clothes in tatters and his whole body covered in mud and bloodstains, there was no way to hide his sharp gaze, which exuded a faint murderousness. That sharp manner made him look like a coldly glinting sword, although its sheath was pretty worn-out.

When Chen Mu showed up in the outskirts of Zargan, his appearance was rather eye-catching. The card artisans who flew past him all looked askance. When they met Chen Mu's gaze, though, they immediately retracted their gazes in shock. Anyone's heart would go cold upon contacting his chilly, murderous gaze.

The greedy gazes of some of the card artisans were also cast onto that bundle of things on Chen Mu's back. He paid no attention to those card artisans, though. After going through so many difficult battles, his attitude had entirely changed. He puffed out his chest and flew toward the market district of Zargan, calm and unafraid.

It made sense not to show off his wealth. Chen Mu didn't know how much the things bundled on his back were really worth, only having felt that their strength was incredible when he had battled with those wild beasts. He thought the things on him would be rather valuable, so he'd taken the booty with him to see if he could sell them for a price in Zargan. Some of them could be used to make cards, and he had carefully retained those.

There was a gang of card artisans flying toward the Outer Reaches from Zargan, and the eyes of one of them suddenly lit up.

"Look, big brother!" He spoke discreetly to the card artisan beside him, his voice exuding excitement and greed.

The lead card artisan couldn't help but turn his head when he heard that. When his gaze fell onto the bundle on Chen Mu's back, he involuntarily drew in a breath of cold air.

"That's the pelt of a southern snow ape, big brother! A really valuable thing! Showing through a corner on top, if I'm not mistaken, should be the horn of the thin-horned spotted deer."

Once he said that, all of the card artisans sucked in their breath.

"How much is that worth?" one of the card artisans mumbled.

"That guy is really something! For one person to hunt down so many good things, he is certainly an ace!" another card artisan said in admiration.

Hearing that, the lead card artisan was taken aback and immediately looked ecstatic. "Go stop him!"