Fang Xiang

This is both a work of science fiction and an exploration of the meaning of life, love, literature and art. Brainpower is no longer the main ingredient for being human in this far distant future world.  Spirituality, physical balance, and diligence all come together as integrity for Chen Mu, the Card Apprentice.  The cards which Chen Mu masters in his own scrappy way, distill all the powers of the cosmos –  human and nonhuman –  into something that is not a book, not technology, and neither art nor magic, but is these and more.  Learn about these strange cards, which can embody everything you might imagine for the future of technology, but also a future beyond technology which promotes the best, and sometimes the worst, from mankind’s past.

The Card Apprentice

Returning to his apartment with a large package of materials from the self-serve supermarket, Chen Mu immediately buried himself in the hard work.

There wasn't any essential difference between the composition of a three-star power card and that of a one-star power card, except that it was more complicated, and more refined.

Still, completion of a three-star card required the involvement of perception. That wasn't any complication for Chen Mu by that time.

His first leap in understanding was making those twelve cards from the simple water world, and his second was making the tailless shuttle card. It had cost him a lot of effort to make that three-star card which had such a high level of difficulty, using up all of his savings to that point. But the benefits he had gotten from it were equally huge, and they raised his sights far more than one level.

The Fame of the Raining Shuttles