The Card Apprentice

The Eastern Wei Base was thoroughly secured. Its biggest meeting room was full of people. If anyone was to notice, they would be shocked to find out that aside from Chen Mu, almost all of the base’s high-level personnel were present.

Bogner arrived just moments ago and sat at the uppermost position. This was his second time leaving the Big Crack Base in two years.

The meeting room was silent after everyone had found their respective seats. Their expressions were dense even though some of them did not know what was happening. However, they came to realise that the matter was indeed serious since Bogner was present.

Bogner and Xi Ping were seated together at the top row. Since Chen Mu wasn’t present, they were the base’s highest decision-makers.

Below the two of them, Li Duhong, Jiang Liang and Alfonso sat on the right whilst Sue Lochiro, Copper and his wife sat on the left. Li Duhong was the leader of Moqi Clan, while Jiang Liang was second-in-line, and also the head of the military’s General Staff Unit which was introduced recently. Alfonso was the person-in-charge for the Department of Card Appliance and Sue Lochiro takes charge of the Medical Department. Copper was the head for the Department of Foreign Affairs, while Lan Feng takes the lead for the Intelligence Department. Aside from them, the captain of each Wood Battalion and the Hunters’s teams were also present in the meeting. Although Snow Worm Card Artisan Team had been reinforced into the Hunters, their original system was kept untouched.

The atmosphere of the meeting room was solemn.

This was the second time where a meeting like this was held in two years. The first time was the emergency meeting which was convened after the Cold Crystal Storm.

“Shall we begin?”

Bogner and Xi Ping took a glance at each other and they nodded in agreement simultaneously. Bogner then announced that meeting started.

“I believe that there are still people who are unaware of the situation. Can we please have Madam Lan to guide us with a simple introduction of the situation?” Xi Ping requested.

“It’ll be my pleasure.” Lan Feng rose from her seat and bowed to the crowd. She thought for a moment and began her structured explanation, “Our intelligence have found something new recently. First of all, hidden enemies were found lurking their way around in our base. Through our intelligence from each of the business associations, we have confirmed that they’re looking for the source of where our rare and precious materials come from. There were up to 62 reported cases and among them, 17 of them were cleared. The hidden enemies mostly belong to the Comprehensive Federation Academy in the Heavenly Federation and Desert Camp. Judging from our findings, we can conclude that a threat is coming our way.”

“To pose it more boldly, we assume that the fact of us owning transit windows might have been leaked.”

The meeting room’s silence was broken. Everyone was discussing wildly with each other when they heard about Lan Feng’s assumption.

“Silence,” Bogner ordered. Although his voice wasn’t loud, the meeting room fell silent in an instant. Bogner hadn’t been in the Eastern Wei Base for two years but his prestige was still alive throughout.

He turned around to face Lan Feng and welcomed her to continue her speech. “Please continue.”

“Yes, Sir.” Lan Feng bowed to Bogner and glanced around the meeting room before she continued, “We had since adjusted our search after making such a daring assumption. With the help of Elemental Fantasy Platform, we had conducted a search on the six greatest group’s market share of goods circulation and the result was not much of a surprise. The prices for Comprehensive Federation Academy in the Heavenly Federation’s power-card in the market is 30% higher than the previous month, while those in Northern Reaches District and Heavenly Drum Village District of Desert Camp have also increased by 41.6%. We are assuming a huge move by the two parties based on what we have gotten. At the same time, the reports from flourishing districts showed that a large amount of unknown men with high combat ability have entered their areas. The influx of these card artisans have posed a serious threat to the cities.”

The people of the meeting room were surprised by the revelation.

Lan Feng took a deep breath and raised her voice, “Based on all these information, I believe that the people of Comprehensive Federation Academy in the Heavenly Federation and Desert Camp are plotting an attack on us.” She added another remark right after her previous statement, “There is no one who can resist the temptation of owning transit windows.”

Lan Feng took her seat.

The meeting room was silent again because the new information was too shocking. The base had been expanding rapidly for the past two years but they were in no place to compete with any one of the Big Six, moreover to fight two together if the assumed situation was to happen.

Bogner who was up there suddenly thought of Chen Mu.

If only boss is here…

Among the high-level personnels, Chen Mu wasn’t the most prominent one. Bogner would be better in leading a war whilst Xi Ping would be better in planning and preparation. As for individual combat abilities, Wei-ah was the stronger one, while in terms of medical, Sue Lochiro was the better one. Copper was the master in the art of negotiation and Lan Feng was the prime for intelligence collection.

However, all of them were willing to listen to Chen Mu’s orders like he was a piece of magnet who was attracting their attention.

I wonder how Chen Mu is now? Many had assumed that he was in trouble but Bogner had a gut feeling that he was still alive.

Because of his gut feeling, he rejected the idea to restructure the base’s high-level board. He held himself onto the Big Crack Base, sending troops after troops of searchers in the past two years to look for Chen Mu from the ash stratum. The search had not stopped even for a second and they had even built more than 10 supplementary base to support the process. They had searched for a huge area but still couldn’t find any trace of Chen Mu.

The departments’ heads of the base seemed to be in sync about this matter as they were safeguarding the current system without any objection.

His attention wandered…

When he calmed his thoughts, he found that the eyes of the participants were all fixed on him simultaneously. He saw anticipation, excitement and even worry from their eyes.

“Jiang Liang, please talk us through the plan made by the General Staff Unit.”

Jiang Liang straightened his uniform after rising from his seat and greeted the crowd with a military salute. He was the military’s role model, as his character fulfilled the image of a soldier and the expectations of the base’s residents. In fact, he even became the idol of the base, with teenage girls showing the most interest in him.

He spoke in a slow but firm pace that could calm people’s fearful hearts.

“Our department had anticipated a situation like this to happen after discovering the transit windows. With that, we made a counter-attack proposal.”

People let out their hold-up breaths unknowingly as they were relieved to hear his announcement.

“We have set up 37 branches on selected areas in the past two years. The areas selected are all located at the borders with flourishing districts and the reason we have done so is to prevent a situation like this to happen.”

“As all of us know, the history for common residential districts were far shorter than those of flourishing districts and the differential factor of the two districts was on commuting. The two districts were connected by long shuttle car passage. If someone would like to enter common residential district, he could only do so through the long shuttle car. Otherwise, the second option would be through the forest. Among those passages, 17 of them are our focus and the first step of our plan is to blow these passages up!”

Li Chuan City was a busy and thriving city. It was an important city because it connected both the Asai District and Heavenly Drum Village District. Over the past two years, Heavenly Drum Village District had fallen rapidly in the hands of Su Heiming who was a barbarous ruler and that was why the district’s residents often flee their home and enter Li Chuan City. However, as the situation in Heavenly Drum Village District had been stabilized, the fleeing phenomenon had decreased.

As the population climbed, a lopsided economic prosper was observed in Li Chuan City while its public order had declined tremendously. Li Chuan City wasn’t able to control card artisans who fled from Heavenly Drum Village District therefore no control was induced on them. The locals had in turn utilized their familiarity and knowledge to carry out investments which would profit them enormously. Black market was running wild and strong. The city was an utter mess.

As the sky turned dark, the music from the bar near the stop of the long shuttle bus sounded like the cries of dying women. Everything seemed like a dream in this troubled time, no one could be certain whether they would be able to live through the night. The paralysed pleasure invoked by alcohol was able to provide temporary neglection about what was happening.

The whole world was shaking all of a sudden!

The hanging light on the ceiling was about to fall, lime powder started falling at the same time.

There was total silence in the bar!

The pleasure seekers halted their moves and became motionless.

A woman’s terrified scream broke the silence in the bar and it turned chaotic immediately with everyone screaming their lungs out. Red wine which was red like blood spilled everywhere, panic-stricken guests were escaping from the hotel.

Those who ran out from the inside were shocked to witness what was in front of them.

“What… What is… What is happening?”

In the dark, the long shuttle bus stop was covered in dust which obscured the sky like a monster which was flexing its terrifying claws. Stones of different sizes were sitting next to people’s feet.

Li Chuan Station turned into history tonight.

The meeting in the Eastern Wei Base was still going on.

The voice of Jiang Liang was hovering over the meeting room but it was enthusiastically stimulating.

“We’ve been planning for this since two years ago, from setting up branches to planting explosives. About nine months ago, we’ve completed the arrangements in all of the long shuttle bus passages which connect flourishing districts and common residential districts. They’re ready to go anytime and I would like to express my gratitude to Mr Alfonso and his crew from the Department of Card Appliance for their support throughout our mission.”

The apparatus on his hand lit up suddenly and after he took a glance at it, he spoke with a calm expression, “Good news, everyone. We’ve completed the mission, the selected passages are all blown up as planned.”

Everyone was in daze but a round of applause broke out afterwards. The fear on their faces disappeared and were replaced with joy and anticipation!

“From now on, no matter who they are, if they want to enter the common residential district, they can only crawl their way through the forest. The forest will be a complicated territory without a guide and in order to prevent the enemies from finding one, we have recruited veteran card artisan to ourselves through different missions. As for those who are reluctant to do so, we have initiated coercive procedure on them. In other words, if any one of our enemies is to utilize the forest, it will be extremely hard for them to find a guide who is familiar with the place.”

Admirations were seen on the people’s faces. They were in awe of how strict and detailed the work of the Department of General Staff was, their work was out of their expectations. They started to pay full attention, not wanting to miss even a single word.