The gambling match continued.
Cards were dealt repeatedly.
Round after round passed.
There were wins and losses.
However, the fat man’s expression grew progressively worse.
He was only winning small stakes—ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand.
Lin Gui, on the other hand, was winning the big ones—two hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, a million.
The fat man had won five rounds in a row, totaling less than a hundred thousand.
Lin Gui would win back several hundred thousand in a single hand.
The female mage’s brow never unfurrowed.
Her hand remained in contact with Lin Gui’s body the entire time.
Yet, she detected absolutely no magic fluctuations.
This man wasn't casting magic at all, nor was there any possibility he was cheating.
Elvia noticed the change in the female mage’s expression.
After breathing a slight sigh of relief, the corners of her mouth curved upward.
She spoke, her tone dripping with mockery:
“Hey, fatty, are you up for it or not?”
“How about you quit while you're ahead? There's no shame in it.”
The fat man’s face turned an even uglier shade.
The female mage also spoke up, her voice very soft:
“Young Master, that’s enough.”
“You can’t out-gamble him.”
“Your money is almost gone.”
“Let’s go.”
These words were like gasoline poured onto the fire in the fat man’s heart.
His face flushed bright red, and the veins on his forehead bulged.
“Shut up!”
He roared.
“Who said I was leaving?”
“Continue!”
He increased the stakes.
All-in.
One hand, and he won.
The fat man slapped the table in excitement and bellowed:
“Hahaha! Did you see that?!”
“My luck is changing!”
Then, for the next hand, all-in again.
He lost.
He lost everything.
Every single chip in front of him was pushed over to Lin Gui’s side.
The fat man stared blankly at the empty table, his mouth agape like a fish that had been slapped onto dry land.
Seeing that the other party seemingly couldn't pull out any more stakes, Lin Gui began to collect the money.
Coin by coin, he tucked the Stellar Coins into his bag with leisurely, unhurried movements.
Finally, several bank vouchers for a million gold coins each were stuffed into Lin Gui’s pocket.
The fat man suddenly stood up, slapping the table:
“Wait!”
“I still have money!”
“You aren't allowed to leave!”
Lin Gui looked up at him.
The fat man pulled something from his robes.
It was a wooden box the size of a palm.
The wood was a dark red, its surface covered in intricate runes that shimmered with a faint fluorescence.
The corners of the box were inlaid with golden metal that gleamed with an eerie light under the lamps.
When the female mage saw that object, her expression changed instantly.
She rushed forward and grabbed the fat man’s arm.
“Young Master! No!”
“You cannot gamble with that!”
“Have you forgotten why we came to Withered Wood Town?!”
Her voice was trembling.
“That is the hope of saving our family!”
“It is the only thing we obtained after staying here for a year...”
“You can’t gamble with it, Young Master!”
The fat man violently shook off her hand.
“Get lost!”
“Who the hell do you think you are? You think you’re worthy of managing me?!”
The female mage was thrown back a step, her heel making a piercing screech against the stone floor, but she didn’t retreat.
She rushed forward again, death-gripping the fat man’s sleeve.
“Young Master, I beg you...”
“We stayed in Withered Wood Town for so long, and we finally managed to catch them near Muduo Tavern to exchange for this item.”
“If we lose it, the family... the family will...”
The fat man’s eyes turned bloodshot.
He pulled a dagger from his waist and pressed it against his own throat.
“If you stop me again, I’ll die right here in front of you.”
The female mage’s face turned pale.
She released her grip and took a step back.
Her lips quivered, but she couldn't find the words.
Lin Gui nudged Elvia with his elbow and whispered:
“See that? Gambling addicts are a menace to society.”
Elvia replied in a low voice:
“That's an isolated case; don't generalize.”
Lin Gui ignored her.
He squinted at the wooden box.
What the female mage had just said—hope for saving their family, something they got by catching "them," and that tavern.
Muduo Tavern.
It felt like he had seen that tavern somewhere before.
Lin Gui felt a sense of familiarity, as if it were emerging from some corner of his memory, yet he couldn't quite place it.
Before he could think further—
Thump—
The fat man slammed the wooden box onto the table.
“This thing is worth a billion gold coins!”
A chorus of gasps erupted from the surroundings.
A billion? What kind of thing was worth that much?
Many people crowded forward, wanting to take a look.
Lin Gui looked at the wooden box and then at the pile of chips in front of him.
He said honestly:
“I don't have that much money.”
He paused.
“Including what I won from you, it's barely over six million gold coins.”
“Your stakes are too high; I can't match them, so let's just forget it.”
He began packing the chips into his bag and stood up.
“You!!!”
The fat man panicked.
“Don't go!”
The fat man’s mana erupted as he tried to forcibly stop Lin Gui.
However, his strength was only barely passable at the Mid-tier High Rank.
His attempt to block them was utterly useless.
Elvia stepped forward and held him back with the hilt of her sword.
Seeing that force was useless, he hurriedly said to Lin Gui in desperation:
“You can use your own things as collateral!”
Lin Gui turned back, speechless, gestured toward his own attire.
“How much do you think this outfit is worth?”
His gray mage robes were washed until they were pale, and his oak staff was plain, without even a decent magic crystal.
The fat man’s gaze swept over him and then landed on Elvia in front of him.
His eyes lit up.
“Her!”
He pointed at Elvia.
“She’s worth a lot of money!”
“You can sell her into the black market!”
“Many high nobles would pay a high price for her, just like an elven woman!”
Elvia’s face darkened instantly; she felt a powerful urge to draw her sword and hack the man who dared to insult her to death.
Lin Gui, however, said flatly:
“Her...?”
He held up his hand and calculated.
“Bring thirty quadrillion gold coins here first, and then we can talk about using her as a stake.”
The surroundings fell into dead silence.
Thirty quadrillion?
Everyone stared at Lin Gui in disbelief.
What kind of woman was worth that much?
Even if you caught the elven queen and sold her at a slave auction, the price wouldn't reach a fraction of that.
They assumed Lin Gui was just making up a random number.
But Elvia heard something else.
Thirty quadrillion—that was the annual output of the entire City-State Alliance.
Lin Gui’s words were equivalent to saying that if you wanted Elvia, you'd have to trade the entire Alliance for her.
Her face flushed, the red spreading from her neck to the tips of her ears, which turned a delicate pink.
Swept up in her emotions, she unabashedly threw her arms around Lin Gui’s neck and gave him a loud smack of a kiss on the cheek.
Then she looked at the fat man provocatively:
“Hear that? Produce thirty quadrillion gold coins.”
The fat man’s face turned the color of a pig’s liver.
He glared at Lin Gui, then at Elvia, then at the wooden box on the table.
Finally, he took a deep breath.
“Fine!”
“Alright!”
“Then six million it is!”
“I’ll wager this for six million and gamble one last hand with you!”
The female mage rushed forward again.
“Young Master—!”
The fat man raised the dagger to his neck.
“If you stop me again, I’ll die right here.”
The female mage’s eyes turned red.
She stood there, her whole body shaking.
Looking at the fat man’s maddened face and then at the wooden box on the table, her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.
She lowered her head and stepped aside, her shoulders trembling slightly.
The Gold Rank adventurers watching them either shook their heads or sighed.
Someone whispered:
“Poor thing. A registered mage at the High-tier High Rank being toyed with like this by a piece of trash.”
“What can she do? She’s a dependent of their family. Without the family’s support, where would she get the resources to cultivate?”
“True.”
Any adventurer with even a bit of knowledge could guess the relationship between the female mage and the fat man.
A mage’s progress required mountains of resources.
Far too many talented mages from the bottom tiers were willing to become slaves to nobles just to achieve a breakthrough.
The female mage was clearly one of them.
She heard those words but didn't react.
She simply stood there with her head bowed like a stone statue.
Only her clenched fists betrayed the turmoil within her.
The fat man urged the dealer to start the round.
“Hurry up! What are you waiting for?”
Lin Gui, however, raised a hand to stop him.
He looked at the wooden box with a peculiar expression.
“I’ll gamble, but you have to at least tell me what this thing is.”
The fat man gave a contemptuous smile:
“Ignorant wandering mage.”
He picked up the wooden box and shook it in front of Lin Gui’s eyes.
“With this thing, you can go to any underground auction in the City of a Thousand Towers and take your pick of any item.”
“Whether it’s a high-priced demi-artifact or the grand finale treasure of the entire auction.”
“You can trade for any of them!!”
He burst into laughter.
“And the most valuable part is that it can open the gate to the upper level.”
“With this, countless high nobles who usually act all high and mighty will be lining up to lick your boots!”
Lin Gui wanted to examine it.
The fat man didn’t refuse and handed it to him.
Taking the box, Lin Gui narrowed his eyes.
He could sense an absurdly complex anti-counterfeit magic circuit operating inside.
The level of detail in the runes was so extreme that it made even his scalp tingle.
The strength of the person who made this was definitely not simple.
Judging by the female mage’s extreme reaction, it was highly likely to be real.
Even if it wasn't... the anti-counterfeit magic alone made it worth quite a lot.
Lin Gui chuckled; he was actually starting to feel a bit grateful to Elvia for dragging him to the gambling house for their date.
Otherwise, how would he have come across such an unexpected windfall?
“Fine, let’s do it.”
He sat back in his chair, prepared to play the same game as before.
But the fat man interrupted him:
“Let’s change the rules.”
Lin Gui raised an eyebrow:
“How do you want to play?”
The fat man gave a sinister grin:
“Highest card wins. Pure luck. How about it?”
Lin Gui smiled:
“Sure.”
The fat man snatched the cards to deal them himself.
He sneered:
“To prevent some lowlife from cheating, I’ll deal. You don't mind, do you?”
Lin Gui shrugged, indifferent:
“Whatever makes you happy.”
The fat man snorted.
He dealt one card to Lin Gui and one card in front of himself.
Seeing this, Lin Gui reached out, intending to flip his card.
The fat man suddenly grabbed his wrist.
“Wait.”
“This card is mine!”
He snatched Lin Gui’s card and swapped it for his own.
He looked at Lin Gui with a cruel grin.
If the other person had cheated, they would now be hoist by their own petard.
“I want to see just how good your luck really is.”
He flipped his card over with a cold laugh.
He was about to shout in triumph...
However, his excited expression shattered instantly the moment he saw the number on the card.
He collapsed into his chair, looking as if all the life had been drained out of him.
His lips trembled as he stared fixedly at the card.
It bore a single number.
3.
Meanwhile, when the cards were being swapped, Lin Gui had narrowed his eyes and covered his card with his right hand, intending to use some underhanded means.
However, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the fat man’s card and his mouth twitched.
Three. The lowest possible number.
He removed his hand from his card, deciding against using any tricks, and simply flipped it over.
It bore a single number.
5.
Needless to say, both of them had terrible luck.
But if the fat man hadn't tried to be clever by swapping the cards, and if Lin Gui hadn't planned to cheat...
The fat man would have won.
“Oh, it’s a five.”
“Looks like you lost again, fatso.”
Elvia happily gathered the chips to her side.
She hugged the wooden box to her chest as if it were a precious treasure.
A whimper escaped the fat man’s throat.
“How is this possible... how is this possible...”
He slumped in his chair, his eyes vacant, looking like two bottomless black pits.
Behind him, the female mage, who had been silent, stepped forward.
Her gaze moved away from the fat man and landed on Lin Gui as she reached out a hand.
“Give it back.”
Her voice was cold.
“Do you know whose property you just won?”
“Do you know who stands behind him?”
“It is the Violet family of the City of a Thousand Towers!”
She took a step forward.
The pressure of a High-tier High Rank Transcendent radiated from her, and the air seemed to grow heavy.
The surrounding Gold Rank adventurers instinctively backed away.
“If you don't want to die, give that thing back!”
Her gaze was like a blade.
Lin Gui looked at her, saying nothing.
Elvia stepped in front of Lin Gui, shielding him.
She wasn't as strong as her opponent, but her eyes were even colder.
“You want to steal it? Go ahead and try.”
The female mage’s pressure grew even heavier.
The air felt as if it had solidified, making even breathing difficult.
Just as the tension reached its breaking point, a coarse male voice came from the door.
“Oho!”
“Isn't this the little messenger guy?”
Everyone looked over.
Four men walked in.
Leading them was a tall, burly man.
His face was covered in stubble, and he wore thick leather armor. The metal plates on his chest were covered in deep scratches, evidence of many battles.
A badge was pinned to his shoulder, depicting stars connected in a circle.
The Morningstar Caravan.
A transport team.
Every one of them was a Transcendent at the High-tier High Rank.
Their steps were steady, their auras restrained, and their eyes were as sharp as eagles’.
The surrounding Gold Rank adventurers looked on with eyes full of envy and yearning.
That was a transport team—the peak of the Gold Rank adventurer profession.
At the gambling table, the female mage, who had been about to use force against Lin Gui, looked very unsettled.
She watched as the burly man walked up to Lin Gui and threw an arm around his shoulder.
“Haha, messenger guy, long time no see!”
“We haven't properly thanked you for helping us deliver those letters last time!”
“Come on, we have to have a drink today!”
His tone was as familiar as that of an old friend of many years.
The female mage watched him put his arm around Lin Gui, and her expression turned solemn as she asked:
“You are—”
She stared at Lin Gui.
“With the transport team?”
Among the surrounding Gold Rank adventurers, some finally recognized Lin Gui.
“Ah! I know him!”
“He’s the mage who arrived a while ago. He can use Levitation!”
“Levitation?!”
Those words were like a stone dropped into a calm lake, creating ripples throughout the room.
Everyone’s gaze shifted.
A mage who could use Levitation was no ordinary wandering mage.
He was someone transport teams would fight over.
Or perhaps, he was already a member of a transport team himself.
And transport teams were protected by the Transport Guild.
In terms of influence, they were not the least bit inferior to the Mage Guild.
Rate on N.U.
