The Card Apprentice

Chapter 95: Cruel Reality

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

Carefully sticking the two thin camouflaging membranes on the surfaces of the mysterious card, it become nothing more than an ordinary three-star power card. To confuse people, Chen Mu also specifically put a number of three-star power cards into his card wallet. It would be hard to tell which was the real and which was the fake. Using himself as the precedent example, Chen Mu had been rather successful with faking. If you didn’t look very closely, it would be very difficult to pick out the mysterious card from among all the three-star power cards.

Having finished, Chen Mu breathed a little more easily. He didn’t go right away to get his commissions, but instead immediately conducted a close self-examination. For the last week, there hadn’t been another situation like the one on the shuttle train. That green filament as fine as a hair had disappeared without any trace, and his body looked completely normal.

Still, Chen Mu really wanted to cut open his arm and draw out that green thread. That was the only solution he could come up with, except that the green thread had suddenly hidden itself, and he was helpless without any sign of it.

He filled with anxiety. That sudden pain out of nowhere had nearly cut him down. He shuddered to think that it could return at any time.

Enough. Don’t think about it.

Chen Mu quickly straightened up his attitude, as he’d been wondering about that for a long time. And when he finally did have to face it, he had found that he wasn’t so frightened as he imagined he would be.

From many aspects, he had long grown used to a life full of things he couldn’t do anything about and facing things he didn’t know how to navigate.

He put those issues to the back of his mind, since if he couldn’t do anything about them, then what good would it do to think about them?

He put all his thought into how to get his freedom. He thought back on that time when Ning Dong had brought up the two hundred cards – with some kind of hidden implication to what he was saying – and he immediately understood that those two hundred cards weren’t going to be a simple matter.

He was very sober about his own strength; he could only restore three-star cards, and not many kinds of those. He was afraid that three-star would be considered low level with the kind of purchasing power the Ning family had.

It was lucky that he didn’t need contribution points to eat or live. Chen Mu felt fortunate that whatever happened he wouldn’t starve to death.

He only saw a few people around when he walked into the commissioning hall. Those were all over forty, and he even saw white haired grey old men. Still, those elders were ruddy with strong voices and imposing spirits, all looking very healthy. They all seemed familiar with one another, as they chatted in low voices in two or three groups.

For something called a great hall, it wasn’t very big, far smaller than the huge great hall in the low grade fantasy card club. It looked more like a small-scale coffee shop enclosed by glass walls, and with orange chairs neatly arranged, having self-serve beverages to the side.

Now that he thought about it, Chen Mu had never been to such a high-class place and he was really interested to look around. The old guys sitting around chatting gave Chen Mu a look and went back to talking among themselves.

According to those details that he’d read, Chen Mu had found the place where he would get his commissions. A pretty girl with short hair and big eyes received him with an enchanting smile. “Hello, may I ask what you require?”

“I’d like to get some commissions.” Chen Mu said.

“Could I please see your room card?” the pretty girl said very politely.

Chen Mu pulled out his room card, which was to be his voucher there. On the light-yellow card was the serial number 2008825. The pretty girl skillfully slid his room card into the apparatus in front of her.

A translucent screen popped up in front of her with a snap.

As she looked it over, an odd look came over the pretty girl’s face. She said to Chen Mu, “You have a special classification, and you won’t be participating in the professional rating evaluations. You can accept any level of commission, but . . .” She lifted he head to look at Chen Mu, and said sympathetically, “every time you accept a commission, if you don’t complete it, not only don’t you get any compensation, but half of the commission’s compensation will be deducted from your contribution points.”

It seemed as though it was the first time that the pretty girl had run into that kind of situation, as she looked surprised when Chen Mu caught her gaze.

Chen Mu was stunned, not having thought that he would enjoy such treatment. After his surprise subsided, he was as calm as always. In that kind of situation, most people would be angry or indignant, complaining about how unfair it was. But not Chen Mu. He was very clear from the beginning that there wasn’t any room for choice. Under those circumstances, so-called fairness was just laughable.

He nodded to show that he understood, and warmly said to the pretty miss, “What do you have in the way of repair commissions?”

She was taken aback by Chen Mu’s calm, and couldn’t respond in her daze, until she put her head down flustered, and fumbled with her apparatus.

Chen Mu’s gaze fell onto this apparatus, which must have been a kind of card appliance. It had rows of buttons on it, and the young woman was operating it by pressing on them. There was a row of slots next to the keys, with his room card in the middle one.

She quickly finished her manipulations, and gestured for him to take a look, motioning for him to follow along on the translucent screen that was floating in midair. She suddenly turned to face Chen Mu, who could clearly see all the commissions written there.

Chen Mu’s mind went blank looking over the commissions.

What kind of commissions are these! He’d already gone through a few dozen which all involved four star and above cards. That was quite a blow to Chen Mu, who had only repaired three-star fantasy cards. After looking for a while, he finally found some lower level commissions, among which were three-star card repairs.

Restoring ten three-star fantasy cards, he would only earn five contribution points, or half a point each. Chen Mu had an urge to vomit blood when he thought about the points needed for materials as specified on that detailed list.

What could he do with five contribution points?

It cost one contribution point for each day using the training arena. If you rent it in a package, five points would get you a week at a discount.

That was only for the use of the site. If you wanted to ask a high-level card artisan to give you some pointers, the fee would be out of sight, with one hour costing twenty points. Which is to say that Chen Mu would have to repair forty three-star cards to get an hour of instruction from a high grade card artisan. How long would it take to restore forty three-star cards? For a greenhorn like Chen Mu, it would probably take a month.

By comparison, the compensation for the repair of a four-star fantasy card shot straight up, averaging ten points per card. And for those cards whose composition was complicated or obscure, the compensation could get as high as a hundred contribution points.

For Chen Mu just then, that would be a completely astronomical figure.

Seeing how it was, it had become urgent to raise his ability level as quickly as possible.

He suddenly noticed one commission for the repair of a ‘hundred changes’ cloak card. He instantly remembered Madam Ning saying that the card he had repaired was a hundred changes cloak card. That gave a shot to his energy, as did the compensation which was seven contribution points.

With the compensation for an ordinary four-star fantasy card being only ten contribution points, this hundred changes cloak card rising as high as seven made its level of difficulty very clear.

Since Chen Mu had already restored one, this was an extremely suitable commission for him. He pointed to it and said, “I’ll take this commission.”

“OK.” The young woman immediately started to manipulate the apparatus, while that commission on the screen in front of Chen Mu went from a deselected to a selected state. Then the girl turned around to pick up a metallic case with a serial number on it, which was evidently not light-weight based on the girl’s expression as she lifted it.

There was a card slot on the top of it, and she slid Chen Mu’s room card into it.

Once the card was inserted, the case popped open, showing a single card placed in it. The girl removed the card and gave it to Chen Mu.

Chen Mu took a look at it, finding it the same as the one he’d restored for Madam Ning.

“May I ask if this is your first time here?” This young woman was asking very cautiously, since the classification of the room card of the person in front of her was very odd, not to be able to participate in the professional ranking evaluations and having to pay back for failed commissions. This was the first time she had run into such unreasonable demands.

Could he have been some kind of apprentice sent by the clan?

It was probably only the children of the clan who would have such stringent demands. The more she thought about it, the more likely that seemed.

Chen Mu responded, “It’s my first time.”

The young girl felt that she had guessed correctly, and her smile became still more enchanting, “If it’s your first time, there are a few places which will make your life a little easier. To the right out the door about twenty meters, there is a self-serve materials supermarket, where you can find quite a few ordinary materials for free. This could be rather important for you in the near future. In addition, between the fiftieth and fifty-fourth floors is a library. If you run into any issues, you can go there to look for a solution.” After a small pause, the girl continued, “Every Friday afternoon, many card masters freely gather here, and you might exchange some experiences with card making.”

“Thank you!” Chen Mu was truly grateful. What the girl had told him was a big help to him, enabling him to get lost less often.

“Don’t mention it!” She smiled very sweetly, showing two adorable dimples, “I am called Li Li. Take good care.”

When Chen Mu got to the self-service materials shop that Li Li had mentioned, he found all sorts of materials, among which were more than a few treasures, though enticing as they were, their high contribution points were out of reach for him.

Finally, Chen Mu could only gather up a large bundle of free materials and slink out the door in front of the derisive looks of the pretty shop attendants.