The Card Apprentice

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

At first sight, Chen Mu was drawn to her two lovely eyes and the mildness that flowed from them so naturally. Once he caught her gaze, his heart suddenly calmed.

"How are you?" She politely brought Chen Mu back to his senses, smiling lightly. "I was honored to see your recent performance. It was really wonderful! You have a lot of strength. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, it would have been very difficult to believe."

Without knowing if he'd been infected, Chen Mu smiled back. But, his smile looked quite stiff. His voice was a lot calmer than the stiff expression on his face. "Thank you for your praise." By then, his attention had wandered to her face. He couldn't be sure if it was the prettiest face he'd ever seen, but if it were up to him to judge, he would have given her the prize without any hesitation.

He didn't feel he had the words to say how beautiful she was. Chen Mu felt very comfortable in front of her. Her temperament was so calming; there was nothing aggressive about her. That was something especially precious for Chen Mu among the card artisans he was used to seeing.

"You are a high-grade medical card artisan!" Lu Xiaoru suddenly spoke out as she stared at her counterpart's chest.

Chen Mu followed Lu Xiaoru's gaze to her chest, where she was wearing a badge on which was written, "High-Grade Medical Card Artisan Sue Lochiro."

Sue Lochiro was a rather peculiar name, but she was surprisingly a high-grade medical card artisan. That exceeded anything Chen Mu had expected. High-grade medical card artisans had very high standing among medical card artisans. They were often the highest representatives of a hospital. Medical card artisans higher than that would rarely even be employed in a hospital.

Seeing how old she was—which wasn't more than about 20—for her to already be a high-level medical card artisan surprised even Chen Mu. The road to promotion among beginning, middle and high-level medical card artisans was a lot more difficult than for ordinary card artisans. That was because not only did they require exceptional talent with perception, but there was still a higher requirement within the medical system. In general, those who became mid-level medical card artisans were mostly about 30 years old. A lot of people could never achieve the high level for their whole lives.

Although you couldn't say it had never happened, it was as rare as a phoenix feather or a unicorn's horn to be able to become a high-grade medical card artisan at 20 or so.

Sue Lochiro smiled and shrugged. "Yep, if you get sick, you can come looking for me. People like you who have a good heart are those I'd really like to serve."

Wei-ah suddenly showed up carrying a young boy. The boy was unconscious and without any color. His appearance was a lot worse than the little girl's; his entire left arm was cut off and dripping blood.

Everyone was taken aback, and Sue Lochiro came forward with a very serious look on her face.

"Please place him flat on the ground," she said urgently.

Wei-ah didn't move but turned his gaze to Chen Mu, only putting the boy down after Chen Mu nodded.

"What happened?" Chen Mu asked in a low voice.

Wei-ah said, "When things started happening, he was caught between two walls, and his left arm was already necrotic. So, I cut it off." Wei-ah spoke very naturally while Lu Xiaoru was having difficulty swallowing off to his side. That cold and ruthless man was really some kind of grim freak.

Sue Lochiro concentrated on manipulating all sorts of cards. Her movements were quite a bit faster than before. She also used more cards, which greatly expanded Chen Mu's horizons.

The first time Wei-ah ever saw a medical card artisan, their moves were full of magic in his eyes. It could be seen from his unwavering stare how interested he was in those sorts of techniques.

Sue Lochiro took some medicines from the medicine case she carried with her, injecting some of them into the boy's body. She then fed him some while rubbing others onto his wounds.

"He has serious problems, and we have to send him to the hospital right away." There wasn't any more mildness to her voice, which had become fast and direct. All of the mild smiling her face always wore was gone as she became serious and solemn.

She then activated her communications card and called for backup. After about half a minute, a shuttle car came down from the sky, landing in front of them. Once it landed, several more medical personnel rushed down carrying a stretcher. Sue Lochiro directed them methodically about how to transport the wounded boy onto the shuttle car.

The shuttle car was quite a bit larger than ordinary shuttle cars and could hold more of the wounded. An eye-catching logo was painted on the body of the shuttle.

Sue Lochiro then gave one of the medical personnel a fantasy card. "There is a preliminary symptom assessment there. Take it back for the hospital records." He took the fantasy card with a look of reverence and went back to the shuttle car, which rose up into the air and flew off toward the hospital.

"If you want to keep your eye on these injured people, you'll have to record your names and means of communication. That way, once their condition improves, we can contact you." Probably from having just completed something nerve-wracking, the seriousness on Sue Lochiro's face dispersed. She was once again blossoming with her usual mild, smiling face.

Lu Xiaoru was about to open her mouth, but she quickly realized it wasn't something she could decide. Her gaze fell onto Chen Mu.

Chen Mu shook his head. "That won't be necessary." He had to be careful about any activity that might reveal anything about him.

"You really don't need to?" Sue Lochiro seemed to be paying attention to the look in Lu Xiaoru's eyes, which made it seem as though she had wanted to. Sue Lochiro was a little bit surprised. That group gave her a really strange feeling. It was a surprise to her that the youngest was their leader.

"Thanks, but that won't be necessary." Chen Mu's response was very firm. Lu Xiaoru looked discouraged.

Seeing how firm Chen Mu's response was, Sue Lochiro didn't ask again but lightly smiled. "Mmmm, that's fine. No matter what, I really want to thank the three of you. You've saved a lot of lives! Thank you!" Her voice was very sincere.

She suddenly changed the topic. "I wonder if I could know your communications cards. For personal reasons."

Chen Mu was about to refuse when he suddenly thought about the serenity he'd caught in her gaze, and the refusal on the tip of his tongue became a little hard to get out. He thought about the green thread that was still in his body. Since she was a high-level medical card artisan, perhaps she would have some way… Thinking of that, Chen Mu exchanged his communications card number with Sue Lochiro. She also exchanged numbers with Lu Xiaoru. Wei-ah didn't have a communications card, so that was dropped.

The number of card artisans coming from afar kept increasing, as did the crowds. Having finished, the three of them parted from Sue Lochiro. She didn't linger, throwing herself once again into her work.

Once the three left the line of Sue Lochiro's vision, they immediately sped up. They didn't want to run into anyone they shouldn't, such as people from the Central Island Firm.

"Where do we go now?" Wei-ah asked.

The question took Chen Mu for a loop. The Heaven's Wings building was nearly half peeled open. While the bottom part was nearly intact, to enter it at that time wouldn't be a very good choice.

Hesitating for a bit, Lu Xiaoru then opened her mouth. "I have a set of rooms to the west of the city that no one knows about. We can go there for a while."

Chen Mu didn't have any other choice just then. There was also Wei-ah's "pain killer" drug, so he wasn't afraid of Lu Xiaoru trying anything fancy. The two advanced toward the west of the city under Lu Xiaoru's direction.

It was an ordinary family house with three floors. It wouldn't be considered to have a lot of space, but it wasn't small either. Looking from the outside, it was unremarkable. Once they entered, they could sense how much better the interior decoration was than the outside. If people who were in the know had been there, they would know what had been spent to decorate the estate could buy at least three such estates. Every piece of furniture had been carefully selected, down to the smallest teaspoon. You could see how tasteful and discerning its owner was.

Unfortunately, in Chen Mu's or Wei-ah's mind, there really wasn't any vocabulary for taste or discernment. The two of them assessed the house and immediately started to get to work. Wei-ah started putting traps and alarms in the all the entrances and exits, while Chen Mu also put a few toys in the frequently traveled places. He reminded Lu Xiaoru not to touch them.

Their professionalism was utterly comparable to professional assassins, which rather scared Lu Xiaoru. She felt as though she had suddenly turned timid in front of them, as though they could easily scare her. She didn't know if that was because she'd become timid or if they were just too freakish.

Chen Mu was setting out some small card appliances. They were mostly inspired by Alfonso. They didn't actually have much power, but because their energy fluctuations were so small, apart from genuine aces, card artisans of his level really had no way to detect them. The card appliances used a variety of tricks with some of them even being suited to concerted attacks. Chen Mu had learned the key role parallel structures could play from Spanner. That would allow those card appliances to be able to emit either solitary attacks or to combine and become richer.

Speaking of making traps, any of the children in the village were more familiar with them than he was, and they were much more creative. That little devil Li Duhong was typical of them while seeming to stand out from the crowd for his talent in that regard. The ideas for those card appliance traps had come mainly from him. So, how would you say he was Chen Mu's student?