The Card Apprentice Chapter 133

Chapter 133: The Best Breath Control (V)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After only five seconds, Chen Mu entered the buffer zone of Amay City. The wild beasts had long since been cleared out from there, and most of what was there were bases for the cultivation of vegetation. But those cultivation bases only had some low-grade fast-growing plants. When an occasional wild beast got in, they weren’t likely to suffer much loss.
Because of the market’s great demand for large quantities of raw materials, the study of botany had been gradually flourishing those past few years and had already begun to provide a constant stream of artificially cultivated man-made low-grade vegetative materials.
Quite a few large firms had started their own cultivation labs. Shockingly, eighty percent of the materials for three-star and above cards had to be gotten from the outer reaches. And among those, mineral and vegetable raw materials constituted thirty percent each, while materials gotten from animals constituted about twenty percent. That was why so many firms had thrown endless amounts of money into plant cultivation, which wouldn’t show any returns in the short-term.
For example, if the large-scale cultivation of the luminous tree were to succeed, that would mean massive profits. There was value in any kind of plant which could be cultivated for raw material, and the first to succeed in the cultivation would be the first to take hold of its market trend. The profit from that was enough to turn endless people’s eyes red with greed.
It was said that some of the more powerful firms had already started to invest in research about the production of raw materials from animals, not being satisfied with only plant cultivation. Those investments were an order of magnitude greater than what was required for plant cultivation. Still, they would yield higher profits.
Those simple and crude rapid-growth plant bases were all serene in the night, with the fluorescent grass emitting a light glow from its velvety surface. There wasn’t any wind that night, and cluster after cluster of that velvety fluorescent grass floated and moved gently with the breeze. That glistening sea of velvety fluorescent grass transformed everything to look blurred and dreamy.
It was a pity that Chen Mu took no interest in enjoying the view under his state of breath control. He stuck close to the ground as he swished through the glowing grass.
He was like a shark cutting through the sea who left a V-shaped wake behind him, where the velvety glowing grass had been affected by the jet stream which caused it immediately to transform into a surreal surge! The calm and tranquil sea of glowing grass was stirred by Chen Mu cutting through it.
Xiu Xiu! There were impressions in front and behind him, with the sea of dazzling dreamy glowing velvet grass which had suddenly overheated looking as though he had leapt into the age of noisy glitz.
Chen Mu could sense that his energy remained constant, as most of the wounds on his body had already started to clot by themselves, although there were three which were too deep and still had blood flowing. But that wasn’t as critical as time was!
Only twelve seconds remained!
The vast dark jungle far away appeared in Chen Mu’s field of view, and Chen Mu felt something for the first time! His heart started to pound as he suddenly felt something strange and complicated.
The feeling was like a very fine mist under the hot sun, not yet having formed into dark clouds, and then disappearing without a trace. Chen Mu’s heart was restored again as though the sky had returned to its pure and clear blue.
Bo Wen and Cheng Ying had been left far behind by him, and if he looked he would see only two small specks. Chen Mu was wracking his brains to calculate every little bit of time and then piecing them back together to formulate whether it was enough to leave them behind.
Without any misgivings at all he pushed his speed to the very top! Like a shooting star he went wildly into the forest!
The tree branches stung his face, and the peaceful expression on Chen Mu’s face had become strange because of it.
Even though he was in the state of breath control, he would still only control the jet stream card to miss the larger tree trunks, and he couldn’t avoid all the branches. Breath control wasn’t invincible after all and was still limited by Chen Mu’s own ability. If that were higher, then he could bring even more power into play when he entered the state of breath control.
The denser the forest became the more he drilled into it, ignoring the small thorny vines which were tracing so many fine bloody tracks on his body.
There were only five seconds left.
He had to get the most from those five seconds. Chen Mu didn’t decrease his speed as the forest grew denser, as he kept going toward the deepest part of the forest.
Five, four, three, two, one!
Chen Mu’s speed plummeted, but he had already lost control of his body. Like a sandbag he plopped right into the mud, splashing it all over. Chen Mu nearly lost consciousness during the fall, with the only reason he remained alert being that the plunge was so fast that it tore open all the cuts on his body, which then woke him right up.
Before he could climb out he was clutching his stomach and starting to vomit right into the muddy pool. He really looked awful by then, with his entire body looking like a mud man. The blood and the mud were mixed together to cover his body which was still covered in tatters. His face, his arms and his back were all striped with blood and mostly covered in mud.
Chen Mu’s face was contorted as he squatted over in the pain of dry retching.
The vomiting lasted for three full minutes.
After three minutes, Chen Mu was about to lose all his strength, and his eyes started to go slack, as his strength was drawn down to the brink of nothing. He struggled to stand, knowing it wasn’t yet the time to rest. He needed to find a place to hide himself right away, and if he didn’t take care of his wounds fast, he would be gone for loss of blood.
Coming out from the state of breath control he was no longer standing beside himself, objectively handling what his body was feeling. He was almost inundated by the pain which came on like a tide. He used all of his power to clench his teeth, as the muscles on his face spasmed from time to time making him look like a desperate beast in his hideous horror.
Weakly dragging himself along, he moved toward the nearest tree with great difficulty. When he had been dragged into the forest by the demonic woman for a while, he had seen with his own eyes how she had chosen where she would sleep. Such a pitifully small bit of experience had become extremely valuable and would save his life that time.
Bo Wen hadn’t followed Chen Mu closely into the forest but had paused waiting for Cheng Ying to land next to him.
“We’ll partner up.” Bo Wen was staring into Cheng Ying’s eyes as he spoke with a strong note that he wouldn’t countenance any misgivings.
Cheng Ying’s expression changed as she held back for an instant before nodding, “OK.” By that time, she had no choice. Whether because Bo Wen was so strong or because of his position, he wasn’t going to let her refuse.
With the two as partners, they walked very cautiously toward the jungle. They weren’t Chen Mu and of course understood how scary the jungle in the outer reaches was. No one would ever fly there, and Bo Wen was no exception. There were a great number of wild beasts there, and card artisans who flew through the air made great targets. Not only would they have to master the sky against the siege of those ferocious flying wild beasts, but they would also have to defend against surprise attacks from the beasts on the ground.
For example, there was a kind of creature called the crouching frog which was about one and six or seven tenths of a meter having a long mouth like a gun barrel, which was about three quarters again the length of their bodies. They were good at preying on birds in the sky, with the skill of their long mouth the same as a gun barrel, being able to shoot a kind of green colored egg-shaped glowing bomb with a high degree of accuracy. The power of one of those wasn’t great, but what terrified people was that the crouching frog was a social animal. One might imagine that hundreds of crouching frogs would quietly lurk at the bottom of the dense jungle, then suddenly spray out those glowing bombs simultaneously. Most flying beasts had no way to escape that kind of “bomb array.” That was why the crouching frog was sometimes called the cannon frog.
Another problem was that their pitifully low intelligence couldn’t discriminate card artisans flying in midair from birds. And looking down from the sky into the forest the dense foliage hid all the dangers there.
Card artisans with any common sense wouldn’t fly in the forest, where only an impetuous young talent like Chen Mu would go like he did without any misgivings. If they had known the way that Chen Mu had flown through the woods, they would have felt that he was crazy.
The jungle was very dangerous at night. They really had no way to see anything around them, but Bo Wen had a lot of tactical accomplishment from his standard card artisan education, and he knew what to do under those conditions. He hadn’t recklessly used an illumination card, but rather squinted his eyes hard to adjust to the light rays all around. At the same time, he pulled out a probe card from the specially made pouch at his waist. That probe card would help him to probe around him for any threats to a radius of five meters.
Cheng Ying flashed a look of admiration for the way Bo Wen met the emergency. It would have been thought a joke on her for the two of them to have become battle partners. Who would have thought that she would ever have such a bold partner, and in such a dangerous place?
Rookies always liked to use illumination cards in the dark to be able to see the situation around them clearly. Little did they know that that was the stupidest move. That was like giving the enemy the chance to create a sneak attack. But those weren’t the only dangers in the forest.
There were a lot of insects in the forest who were attracted to light, and among them were a few that were very dangerous. As soon as you used the illumination card, you would discover that without knowing it that you had already been surrounded by some extremely dangerous insects who would leave only bones behind in the end, which made a scene for nightmares.
“Look!” Cheng Ying had discovered something.