Chapter 531
We walk through the room and I take in the scenes around me.
Many more bars and restaurants catch my eye, serving all kinds of food and drinks.
There are tables where people are sitting down playing cards, each player trying to hit numbers closest to 21 without going over while still beating the dealer.
I even pass a station where a man with long black curly hair sells circular rocks from three different bins.
Two hunters are sitting in front of him, trying to split open the hard stones with metal devices provided, but nothing but more grey stone is inside as I walk past.
It catches my interest, but even while using my all-seeing eye, I can't tell the difference between the rocks.
It isn't until we round another bend and the booth is almost completely out of sight that one of the hunters cracking open stones finds a bright crystal inside one and celebrates as the man behind the counter gives them a token in exchange.
Everything in this room seems to really be based entirely on luck, just like the woman at the bar we left said.
I see hunters getting drunk, some collapsing on the ground and being taken away to one of the back rooms by waiters that patrol the room, and others celebrating their winnings and buying exit cards to leave through one of the two exit doors in the back.
All we need is one more token each, but that doesn't mean I want to risk anything unnecessarily.
As we continue to walk through, one of the booths at the far side of the room is making the most noise and has the most people surrounding it.
It's a large open table that lit up with lights behind us when we were first ordering our meals, the roulette table I passed right when I entered this room.
There are over half a dozen hunters surrounding the table as we approach, and one hunter is talking to the thin table manager behind the counter.
Two hunters in high-grade gear stand at the back of the table silently looking down at the others. It's clear they're a cut above the rest. Both of them are over level 700. One has short spiky blond hair with an extreme lightning summoning skill just like mine.
The other is very muscular, has his head shaved bald, staring ahead with his sharp blue eyes, and I read his status to find he has an extreme grade water summoning skill.
Both of these hunters have mana control levels far higher than a level 800 or even a level 900 monster.
I get a quick look at their wristbands and see they're both from the Apex region. The lightning user's name is Trax, and the water wielder is Callum.
Trax points to one of the lower-level hunters sitting at the table and says something to him, and the hunter nods with a scared look in his eyes, turning to the table manager and coming to an agreement with him quickly. He takes one of three balls that are held out in the table manager's open palm and moves toward the game area of the table.
The hunter's hands are shaking as he steps up to the roulette wheel, and the man behind the counter spins it.
On the wrist of the shaking hunter's hand, I see that he's also from the Apex region, just like the two strong hunters standing over him, but his mana control is nowhere near theirs, it doesn't even surpass my own perceived level 600 control.
This makes me very curious.
Moments ago the wheel was all gray without any markings on it at all, but now that it's begun spinning, half of the wheel is red and the other half is green. On its surface, there are small ridges that are just wide enough for the ball to land in.
I count 18 green ridges and 19 red ones.
My best guess is green is good and red is bad, but I'm still not sure what is on the line. All I can do is watch and find out.
The manager speaks.
"Please, make your spin."
The hunter takes a deep breath in and out, then spins the small ball around the upper ring of the spinning device in the opposite direction that the red and green wheel is spinning.
It rotates around the wooden wheel a few times, slowly with each rotation, and the manager speaks up as a small hole in the center of the table appears.
"Your bet has been placed on the high-risk roll, please insert your right arm up to the shoulder in the machine."
The man's arm is shaking even more now than it was when he spun the wheel, but he closes his eyes and shoves it inside anyway.
There's a clicking sound that locks his arm in place, and the whole table silently watches the small white ball spin around and around on the wheel.
The tension increases every rotation.
A woman, who happens to be another hunter from the Apex region with long white hair and worried green eyes, sits next to the man that just placed his bet.
Everyone's watching the ball spin and spin, and all other distractions from around the room fade away as the ball curves down and hits the green slot right on the edge of where the colors collide on the table.
Everyone's breath is held, but gasps fill the air as the ball bounces out and falls into the red area just a single slot away.
It rolls around inside the red slot, losing momentum as it tries to roll out, but within seconds it settles completely and everyone stares at the wheel as it continues to spin around the table in a hypnotic fashion.
I feel a surge of mana come from beneath the table and a metallic sound of gears turning, then the hunter's arm that's beneath the table jolts and he lets out a scream.
The lock holding him in place releases and he pulls out a stump where his arm used to be.
My eyes widen, but everyone else at the table just looks saddened like they knew that would happen.
The woman with white hair turns to him and immediately begins using her single skill on the affected area.
[Soft Heal][Legendary Grade]
I watch both her and the injured hunter drink multiple C-Grade mana potions taken from a pouch on their sides, and the missing limb starts to slowly grow back.
The lightning user points down at another hunter at the table to take his place while he heals and speaks in a commanding tone.
"You're next. He's all out of bets."
He jingles three black tokens around in his hand, pointing to his partner next to him.
"I have enough for me, but now we need a room for Callum. We're the stars of the show here, we need to be fully rested for tomorrow."
Without question, the next hunter places a bet and goes through the same process as the other hunter just did.
He chooses from three balls in the manager's hand labeled 1, 2, and 3. Every time he picks the 3, and the same split green and red table appears.
This hunter is far luckier than the last.
His first two spins land on green, and there's a light show to celebrate when he wins.
He's allowed to take out his arm from the contraption each time, and he wins a black token, but doesn't keep them for himself. Every time he wins he hands the tokens over to the lightning user.
He plays one more time. However, his last round doesn't go as well as the others.
Just like the hunter before him, the ball lands in a red slot on the wheel, and he loses his arm because of it.
Mana surges and gears shift. The hunter yells out in agony, but Trax shrugs while looking down at the tokens in his hand.
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He turns to the white-haired woman that is almost done healing the first man.
"Heal him up too. Five is enough for us, at least we can get a suite. The lounge may be a bit too risky to test our own luck at any of these games. You'll be able to make enough to pass this round by healing other suckers."
He smirks, then places the five tokens down on the table, speaking to the manager while ignoring the second bleeding hunter as he covers his wound.
"An exit card for a designer suite please. That will be all."
The thin man behind the table just smiles and accepts the coins, shuffling beneath the table, then handing the man a silver rectangular card.
They walk off from the table together without saying another word.
The woman lets the first hunter rest up. After a few minutes, it looks like he's completely healed up, in a physical sense. The arm that was lost is completely back, but he can barely open his eyes. He looks fatigued beyond belief and exhausted too.
I'm unsure exactly why, but my best guess is that the healing skill being used isn't as efficient as Abby's so it has side effects. Or, the hunter receiving the heal isn't able to handle the use of so much mana in such a short period of time.
Whatever the reason may be, it doesn't matter much to me, I just want to figure out how this game is played.
She starts healing the second injured hunter while I approach the table to get a closer look at the plays.
A random hunter from the Silca Region steps up to bet next, and they pick ball number 1.
He whispers to himself.
"I only need one more... My luck has gotten me this far, I just need to land one more win and I'm out of here."
He jingles two black coins in his hand that apparently he's won from other games today.
This man is in exactly the same position as me, but I still wouldn't risk betting on this table.
Even if I do have a skill that can grow a limb back like it's nothing, that still isn't a skill I want to advertise having to everyone around me. I doubt Ray Anderson, hunter from the Bedrock region, ever had the ability to grow back an arm in an instant.
I have to watch how this game is played and figure out a way to win while also not blowing my cover.
The manager begins the game.
When the wheel spins, there are only three slots that glow red, and six slots that glow green exactly opposite on the other side.
In between these red and green, there are still 28 greyed-out slots with no markings.
When he spins the wheel, the hole he has to place his arm into is only small enough to place a single finger.
After the ball stops spinning, it lands on a grey slot.
There are no ringing bells, and no punishments. Nothing happens, so the hunter plays again.
The second spin, the same result occurs, after a few spins, and a single small bounce, the ball lands in a grey slot and no prize is given nor are any punishments received.
On his third run, the hunter chooses the ball with a 2 on it.
When the wheel lights up, nine slots are red, and ten are green. The remaining 18 are greyed out.
The hole in the table fits his hand up to his wrist.
He gulps and spins the ball around the wooden machine.
After a tense 20 seconds, the ball bounces once in the grey right next to the line of green slots.
Before the ball even settles, I can see a bit of anger rising up on his face, and feel the activation of wind magic swelling inside of him.
With his free hand, a small concentrated gust is summoned, and the ball rolls up and out of the grey slot and into the green one.
It was such a minuscule amount of magic, and only my fine-tuned senses were able to detect it. I highly doubt the man behind the counter saw it.
The hunter believes this is the case too when he doesn't react, so he jumps up in the air with a smile on his face celebrating his win.
However, the lights don't flash and the moment he jumps out of his seat there's a burst of mana under the table, and a yell of pain follows.
The manager speaks up.
"Our system detected magic that directly affected the results of the game. Cheating is not permitted. This is an automatic loss."
His eyes widen and he looks around the room, but doesn't know what to do other than stop the bleeding with his shirt.
He swears under his breath and his face turns red.
The woman that was helping the other two hunters before looks pretty tired herself, but the two men she helped from her own region are both fast asleep slumped on chairs next to her in far worse shape.
She rolls her eyes and speaks up to the hunter.
"It was a good try. I'll heal you for a token, you're going to need that hand of yours later. What do you say, deal?"
He nervously looks around, holding two tokens in his good hand and gritting his teeth.
"Fine. You're right. It's worth it...Deal."
He tosses her a token and places the other in his pocket while giving her the stump of a wrist to start healing.
While he does, others start walking up to the table and playing with the ball labeled 1, but many walk away when they see the bloody result of losing.
Ember turns to me, disinterested in what's going on around us.
"Not a very good game. This one's going to be hard to hack. You'll be playing with real luck here."
I stare at the spinning wheel as another person plays deep in thought for a few minutes, then an idea hits me.
"You know what... I think it might not be impossible to beat."
I walk up to the table next and look the manager in the eyes.
"Ball number 1. That's what I'd like to pick."
He lets me take it from his palm and he spins the wheel.
I hold the ball in my hand, and try to focus using my mythic grade swordsmanship skill on the ball, focusing on only the green slots as a target, but it doesn't activate as I assumed it would.
The manager speaks up as I think deeply to myself.
"Please, make your spin."
The six green slots glow as I watch them spin around the wheel. However, the three red slots rotate and glow into my vision on the other side of the wheel too.
I take a deep breath in and out and try to concentrate, pretending this ball is my sword again, and the faint thread leading toward the green slots on the spinning wheel flickers, but it doesn't stay solid in my mind's eye.
"I guess I'll need a little more than that."
I bite my bottom lip, and reach into a fake item box on my waist to reach into my item storage and touch my sword with my opposite hand.
The instant I do, mythic grade dual wielding activates, and I'm able to see the same thin thread with far more precision in my mind's eye than before. Using an actual sword accustomed to this skill in one hand make's it far easier to visualize this ball as a weapon and the green slots as the enemy I'm trying to hit.
A swirling line of probability shows me exactly how fast and hard I need to push this ball to make it land where I want it to.
I'm not imbuing the ball with mana, and not directly affecting the game itself. It's just an advanced perception boost. Technically, it's a legal spin.
If using mana to increase my accuracy is against the rules, then it's worth losing a finger to test things out.
I take another deep breath in and out, then release the ball to spin around the wooden table at exactly the rate at which the thread from my mythic grade skill predicts a perfect shot on my target.
Once I stand back up, I pull my hand from my item box and place the finger I'm betting with into the table.
Even now, there's silence as the ball rotates around the table.
As the ball curves down, it bounces once, and lands directly into the center of the green slots.
Nothing happens for a moment, so I prepare to have a finger taken off, but to my surprise, the lights ring out and the manager behind the table smiles while presenting me a token as my hand is released.
"Congratulations on your win, sir."
I accept the coin, then speak up again with a grin.
"I'd like to do another, ball number 1 please."
"Very well."
He immediately stops the wheel from spinning and hands me the ball to spin it again.
I place my hand into my item storage to touch my sword, activate dual wielding, then do it all over again.
The lights flash, Ember laughs, I accept my token, ask to play a third time, and the man from before that lost his hand is fully healed.
He looks tired and pissed off about my winnings, so he walks away with a scowl.
Two waiters in suits walk up to the table next and don't say a word, they just watch the table closely.
It's pretty odd that they're watching so close, and it makes me a bit cautious of winning again. Although I kind of wanted a designer suite of my own and to share the trick I'm using with Ember, it's better safe than sorry.
I aim with dual wielding again, but make sure to place the ball trajectory into the dead grey space between green and red.
The men in suits surprisingly don't seem to care once I let go, they just pick up the two passed-out hunters on the seats next to the healer woman and take them away.
I let out a sigh and shake my head, as it seems they weren't watching me directly afterall.
Ember opens a telepathy link with me after my ball lands where I aimed.
"What was that? Did you lose on purpose, or is your strategy not perfect?"
I click my tongue and reply through our link.
"I lost in case those men in suits were onto me. I guess I lost a token for no good reason. My strategy is perfect."
He smiles while watching another random hunter step up to the game after watching me win 2 out of 3 games, spinning the wheel with false hope.
"Well, then tell me how it's done. You have four tokens, and I have two. That's enough for two basic rooms if we split them. If I win three more games here, we can probably learn a lot more about this place if we use the extra tokens to ask questions."
I nod, then explain what I did while a hunter goes on a three-game in a row grey slot losing streak and walks off the table shaking his head.
Ember borrows a C-Grade dagger that I pull from my storage out of my fake item box and places it on his waist then steps up to the game.
I share my dual wielding skill with him, and over the next three games, he places one hand on the dagger and the other throws three perfect shots directly into the green range, defying the odds of the game repeatedly.
Lights flash, tokens are received, and neither the manager nor the other players at the table have any clue what's going on.
We've both hit our table limits, so we start to walk off in the direction we just arrived from before anyone gets overly suspicious. However, a voice from the white-haired healer woman stops us in our tracks.
"Hey- you two. How'd you do that...?"
I turn and shrug.
"I don't know, we just got lucky I guess."
Her eyebrows scrunch, and the manager behind the counter's eyes are still wide in awe as she gets up from the table and follows us.
"No really. That's impossible. You managed 2 out of 3..."
She turns to Ember.
"-And you hit every shot you made, It's like you were aiming for the green!"
I count my coins in front of her and Ember counts his.
Neither of us reply to her for a moment, but I speak up as she continues to follow us through the room.
"Yeah, if we could game the system, we would have. It's too bad I didn't hit 3, I would have been sleeping in a suite tonight."
I shake my head and smile.
I don't actually care what room I get to spend the night in considering I've had enough sleep recently to last me a few more weeks if I need to. It would just be illogical to stop where I did, so its a good comment to throw her off the scent...
The white-haired woman eyes our tokens, not speaking for a few seconds after my comment, but eventually responds.
"You know... that's not how exit cards work. Both of you could stay in the same suite if you wanted. Two are allowed in Designer Suites, only one is allowed in the basic room."
I raise an eyebrow and look back.
"Really?"
She nods, holding up a token of her own.
"If you want, we can all pitch in on a 10 token lounge. Up to four people are allowed in that one. It seems you don't know much about these exams yet if this is still a mystery to you. I can pay in information to make up for what I'm lacking in tokens. What do you think?"
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