From the initial Body-Strengthening Exercise to the later demonstration of one-star Illusion Card creation, he could see no connection between the two.
An unprecedented, intense curiosity lingered in Chen Mu's heart. He wanted to understand-to uncover every secret of this card shrouded in mystery. At the very least, he wanted to know its ultimate purpose.
With guidance from the tutorials in the card, Chen Mu made rapid progress in creating Illusion Cards. The knowledge of cards presented in the tutorials opened his eyes to a whole new world. Apart from the time spent training and making Energy Cards, he immersed himself in the mysterious card's wondrous illusory realm.
The rest of his time went into observing the things around him. Tutorials only ever taught theory; improvement also required extensive practical experience. Observation was the first step. To make something seem both real and illusory, how could he succeed if he had no conception of what the real thing looked like? Achieving that effect required a great deal of meticulous observation.
This was the groundwork he had to accumulate to make low-level Illusion Cards.
It also brought some serious side effects. When eating bread, for instance, he would involuntarily stare at the bread in his hand for six or seven minutes. By the time he came to his senses, his stomach was nearly cramping with hunger.
Once he began studying something closely, he was liable to lapse into a prolonged stupor-the state people called being utterly absorbed. Whenever this happened, his reactions became extremely sluggish, as though everything around him had been cut off.
Once, when he visited Lei Zi, the two chatted while sipping Clear Water Flowing Clouds, treasuring every mouthful. Partway through, Chen Mu suddenly fell silent. Lei Zi called to him repeatedly, but he did not respond. He simply stared at the cup in his hand, lost in a daze. Thinking something had happened to Chen Mu, Lei Zi was frightened until his little face turned deathly pale.
Card crafting was a profession that burned through money. That was simply its nature, because learning to make any new kind of card required extensive practice. Chen Mu had little money on hand and could not afford to burn through it like the children of wealthy families. All he could do was observe more in his daily life and prepare thoroughly, reducing waste when he made Illusion Cards. Apart from touching the blue card in the illusory realm that first time, Chen Mu never accessed the tutorial for making those so-called "calculation cards" again. What a joke-the knowledge already before him would take him ages to digest.
Bite off too much, and you could not chew it all. Chen Mu had always exercised restraint.
Chen Mu treasured every opportunity to actually make an Illusion Card and treated each one seriously. Every plan he prepared beforehand went through dozens of revisions. He let no detail slip past him. Only after thinking everything through did he begin. If anyone had witnessed such painstaking caution, they would never have imagined that he was making nothing more than a mere one- or two-star Illusion Card.
The results, however, proved that Chen Mu's method worked. The illusions produced by his Illusion Cards were now extraordinarily lifelike. Yet he remained dissatisfied. Whenever he recalled the illusions within the mysterious card, which could almost be called terrifying, the faint pride in his heart immediately took wing and vanished.
Of course, the illusions from one- and two-star Illusion Cards could not compare with those of high-level Illusion Cards. He knew that. The difference between them was not one of color, light, shade, or form, but the difference between an insubstantial image and a physical entity. That lay beyond his capabilities.
Still, since he could do nothing about that aspect, he would put his effort into making them more lifelike.
He intended to make an Illusion Card Advertisement for Uncle Hua.
Whenever he thought of Uncle Hua, his heart grew heavy. Uncle Hua's health was visibly deteriorating, his coughing grew worse, and his complexion looked poorer by the day. Lately, Chen Mu had been visiting Uncle Hua's little shop more frequently. Sometimes he helped Uncle Hua tend the shop and chatted with him. But Chen Mu had never been good with words, so most of the time Uncle Hua talked and he listened.
Chen Mu had always wanted to give Uncle Hua an Illusion Card Advertisement, a perfect one without a single flaw. He had never begun because he felt his skills were not yet good enough. This was also one of the reasons he had progressed so rapidly lately.
His recent progress, however, made him feel the time had come. Another worry lay buried deep in his heart: Uncle Hua's health. That was why he had made this decision. Another important reason was that he had finally achieved a breakthrough in making Illusion Cards with moving images. That problem had troubled him for quite some time.
Compared with static Illusion Cards, cards that projected moving illusions had only one additional loop structure. Yet every Card Crafter knew that dynamic Illusion Cards were far harder to make than static ones. The clearest reflection of this was their price: a dynamic Illusion Card Advertisement sold for more than three times the price of a static one.
How to make an illusion move-and move smoothly and naturally-was a problem that severely tested beginners.
For instance, if an Illusion Card projected a waterfall, the illusions many beginners produced looked like undercooked strands of fine silver noodles. To make it truly lifelike required a multitude of details: the ripples and folds in the flowing water, the spray splashing through the air, the fine mist lingering all around, and so on. Only experienced Card Crafters could handle all of this properly. In this respect, many high-level Card Crafters were inferior to low-level Card Crafters who specialized in dynamic Illusion Cards.
There was a famous saying in the card world-details determined the outcome.
This was work that wore stone smooth with water, allowing not the slightest shortcut or sham.
But Chen Mu was very patient, a quality closely tied to his childhood experiences. For a street child without enough patience, obtaining food was no easy task. And a "master" of the vagrant world like him, who had survived years of life on the streets, possessed patience in almost outrageous abundance.
Observation, even prolonged observation, never bored him.
He progressed quickly-so quickly that even he was a little startled. For the first time, he wondered whether he might actually have considerable talent for card crafting.
Eagles soaring, rabbits darting, wind stirring, water flowing, morning sunlight, evening dusk...
Every dynamic Illusion Card he made was exceptionally vivid. Yet his most lifelike moving illusions were not these, but busy pedestrians hurrying along, cats and dogs roaming at night... Those scenes from his childhood were branded deep into his mind. He could depict them almost without thinking, and they too had become part of his precious wealth.
Today, he intended to make the Illusion Card Advertisement for Uncle Hua. But since this was his first attempt and he had no experience, Chen Mu planned to stroll through the streets and see what other people's Illusion Card Advertisements looked like.
(End of chapter)