The Card Apprentice Chapter 115

Chapter 115: Deep Variations
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It could be seen from the pen strokes on the card that the card master had extremely rich experience making cards. One could only form such fine and precise lines after becoming thoroughly tempered.
The pen strokes in a composition would sometimes show the card master’s style. For instance, the first feeling that this card gave Chen Mu was of precision, with nothing being the slightest bit off, like dialed-in precision. In comparison, the mysterious card gave Chen Mu a kind of vast and broad feeling.
Each card master was different from the others, and the cards that they make are naturally different as well.
Will’s control of perception was too weak to bring all that card’s power into play. Even though it was only a three-star card, it’s real power went far beyond what he had demonstrated.
Chen Mu inserted the bipolar thunderball card into his apparatus and activated it. He shut his eyes, feeling carefully for the energy changes in the apparatus.
Two fist-sized glowing balls appeared, twirling around Chen Mu’s body, merrily chasing one another. But they weren’t the same as the thunderballs Will had formed. The ones that Chen Mu had formed had light-blue colored sparking on their surface, and the arcing sound had almost disappeared.
Chen Mu had never known what his perceptual ability level really was, never having undergone the specialized assessment.
He was very quickly immersed in probing the bipolar thunderball card.
As compared to before, his perception was a lot more fine and sensitive. He carefully experienced the energy flow in the apparatus, where there were twelve energy beams converging from all directions, passing through different structures. They seemed like streams of liquid metal, passing through tubes having differing capabilities, finally forged into metals having different characteristics.
Manipulating the two thunderballs didn’t take any energy and he could very easily control them any way he liked. But after Chen Mu had experimented a bit, the farthest that they could be from him was five meters. Any farther, and he would lose control of them.
He could see two light-blue thunderballs sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing, sometimes going clockwise, and sometimes counterclockwise.
He suddenly remembered the light-shield that Will had demonstrated, and Chen Mu tried to get the two thunderballs to come close to one another and move in a circle in front of him.
Like mischievous elves, the two thunderballs chased one another with exhilaration. But Chen Mu never saw any sign of the energy shield that he wanted.
What was going on? Chen Mu was felt a little stupid remembering that he hadn’t asked Will anything about how to use the card, which made him sneer at himself.
But he didn’t become discouraged, having seen such a situation many times before. Failure was his daily bread. And exploration had always been a kind of joy.
By controlling his perception, he could keep them going continuously at their highest speed at which time his perception was in its most sensitive state.
Chen Mu concentrated all his attention on the two thunderballs, and then he discovered something. They didn’t look much different from any energy balls, but under Chen Mu’s perceptual scanning, their peculiarities revealed themselves.
Having been formed from countless small beams of energy, those then formed into a peculiar sort of gridwork. But those grids were extremely fine, and in a sense the thunderballs were like a honeycomb, or like a sphere woven from rattan.
There were a lot of little holes on the surface of the thunderballs, some small and some large.
Their size was precisely ordered, with two of the largest size. Next was a slightly smaller hole of which there were four. Chen Mu called them the secondary holes. There were eight of the next smaller size, and these were about as fine as Chen Mu’s finest perceptual tendrils. He called those the third-level holes.
The third-level holes were at the limit of what Chen Mu could probe.
From large to small, being arranged in two, four, and eight, one could see that they were extremely orderly. Chen Mu quickly determined that the key to manipulating the two thunderballs was those fine little holes.
Now that his objective was locked in, Chen Mu began to experiment.
He very carefully separated out two perceptual tendrils, extending one of them into one of the two largest holes in each of the two thunderballs.
Then something wonderful happened!
The two thunderballs suddenly started to quickly chase after one another, at such a high speed that in an instant an energy shield took shape in front of Chen Mu. But it wasn’t very similar to Will’s, being light blue on its surface, with the occasional sparking on its surface coming in flashes.
Chen Mu’s spirit was stunned, and as he continually adjusted the strength of the perceptual tendrils inside the thunderballs, he saw the form of the energy shield in front of him also continually transforming.
A mirror, a convex surface, a heart shape, a diamond shape . . .
Then the energy shield in front of him looked like a disc of soft rubber, as it took any shape that he desired. It finally changed into the most classic and common individual shield, slightly thicker in the middle, arching out to both sides, and able to protect the whole person inside it.
Chen Mu got it and retracted the two perceptual tendrils which were inside the thunderballs. There was a slight popping sound, as the light-blue energy shield turned into two glowing balls.
Chen Mu immediately extended a perceptual tendril into one of the thunderball’s holes, and another into the other thunderball, but this time he chose two different holes.
He saw two glowing balls fly in front of him, one behind the other, and then suddenly a long-shaped energy body appeared in front of Chen Mu.
What was that? Chen Mu was a little stunned. It looked like a long bread stick, except for the light blue glow still being emitted.
He very quickly reacted, realizing that the energy shield had just changed shape by itself. He tried changing the power of those two perceptual tendrils of his.
The result was that the “blue colored bread stick” in front of him immediately transformed.
After going through endless adjustments, Chen Mu finally succeeded in molding it into the shape of an energy sword, except that that energy sword was a little bit ugly, with a sharp tip and broad back-side, like a flat triangle, without any sharp edge, and without any handle. To be precise, it looked like the front half of a sword.
Still, Chen Mu was quite pleased, since what was wrong with a “half-sword?”
He tried controlling those two perceptual tendrils, when hsiu! a light blue ghost flitted into midair in a blur in front of Chen Mu. The “half-sword” seemed to have appeared out of nowhere five meters away!
So fast!
Chen Mu was a little startled, having no way to see it clearly with his eyesight. He believed that if that bipolar thunderball card were to be used in a surprise attack, he could certainly never evade it.
The bipolar thunderball card had a very short activation time, and if his actions were more practiced, he believed that he could probably do it in half a second, which was a speed hard to defend against. Fortunately, its distance requirements were strict, or that card could really be a slaughtering machine.
The stronger the perception, the stronger the “half-sword” that was formed, and the more precisely the perception was controlled, the shorter the time required.
Chen Mu tried it a few more times and found that the two largest holes could only form these two kinds of energy bodies.
Chen Mu’s gaze then fell onto the somewhat smaller holes, of which there were four on each of the thunderballs. He used the same method to extend a perceptual tendril into the secondary holes, with one going into one each of the secondary holes.
Yi! Why no response?
The thunderballs remained thunderballs, not transforming at all. He tried it another two times, and there was still no response from the two balls.
It was a good thing that Chen Mu had never lacked patience, as he went ahead without any urgency to start experimenting one step at a time. After a few trials there was still no response. But moreover, the number of holes had now doubled, with each of the two thunderballs now having eight holes altogether, so how many combinations were there?
Chen Mu’s expression was still as calm as water, without any restlessness. He counted to himself how many combinations he had tried, as he very methodically controlled the perceptual tendrils, testing one by one.
Hard work pays off, and after half an hour, Chen Mu finally discovered something new.
When he used four perceptual tendrils at the same time to enter four secondary holes in one of the thunderballs, while using one perceptual tendril to enter one of the other thunderball’s secondary holes, the two would finally undergo a transformation!
There was a light crackling sound.
The two thunderballs suddenly divided into five smaller thunderballs, with each one joined to one of Chen Mu’s perceptual tendrils.
But the thing which Chen Mu found strange was that although his perceptual tendrils were linked to each of the five small thunderballs, he had no way to control them. He could perceive them and could know very clearly what they would do next, but he had no control over where they would show up next.
The five little thunderballs were like five naughty children, who completely ignored any orders. They were extremely lively as they slowed and sped so smartly in their frolics all around Chen Mu. And unlike the two thunderballs, these five little guys flitted around without any order to speak of, though what set one’s mind a little bit at ease was that their activity was always within a small scope.
The thing that most surprised Chen Mu was that he had no way to retract his perceptual tendrils from these five thunderballs, with all five of them firmly held by the five little thunderballs.
It was this first time he had ever come across such a situation, with no way to retract his perceptual tendrils, and no way to control the movements of the five little thunderballs. That was a really messed up situation.
He was struck by that as he sneered to himself. He never thought that this experiment of his would cause such a situation to appear, which was so far beyond human understanding.
He tried shutting off his apparatus, wanting to cut off any power supply to those five small thunderballs. What struck him dumb was that after the apparatus was off, the five small thunderballs seemed not to be influenced at all, merrily frolicking all around his body.
Chen Mu was puzzled watching them. Although up until then, he hadn’t noticed any effect on his body. He wondered if he would have to take these five little thunderballs out with him every day.
What about eating? What about washing? Or study?