**Chapter 19: Gambling Rocks**

I noticed that it is not possible for me to write a chapter every day, just from a time management perspective. I will settle on releasing 4 chapters every week, as I think that I can keep up with that rather easily.

If I write more than 4 chapters a week, I will save them and go back to releasing every day once I have 10 chapters saved up.

Please vote on the days that I should release chapters on.

One comment = one vote.

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As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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"These stupid slave prices…. Ahhhhh"

"We used to be a proper economy…"

"50,000 uhhh… that is a proper rank 4 Gu…"

That plan goes out of the window, but it clears up a lot of capital for me. I guess I can just go wild with buying Gu as well as investing my money.

"Honestly, I just don't want to spend 8 hours on that ship where everything is materials… I will just wander and see if I can find anything interesting."

And I did not have to wander far; in fact, the next ship that I entered was a small one but one with an interesting premise.

Gambling.

To be more specific, the whole of this small ship centered around rock gambling.

"Normally I am not a gambler. To me, a primeval stone in my pocket is worth 1,000 that I could potentially win, but rock gambling was different…"

"For me, this is less about making money and more about having an authentic Gu World experience. I have to do it at least once."

The funny thing was that this little ship that had nothing but a bad habit on it had more visitors than the others I had visited until now.

There were small rocks everywhere, on the ground, shelves on the walls, counters. Every room I went to was filled with stones and people. After 10 minutes of walking around and observing, I spotted a person who seemed to be working here and approached him.

"Hello, I might buy some stones. Would you tell me about how they can be differentiated?"

"Of course."

"You must know that wild Gu can encase themselves if they do not have enough food for a long time. In this case, that looks like a rock they can survive for a very long time."

"What we do here is sell every rock that has the characteristics of those a Gu could be sealed in. That means that most rocks here are just normal stones that look similar to this case a Gu could create."

"The second most common, after finding nothing, is to find dead Gu. With only a lucky few discovering live Gu in here."

"There are 5 different tiers of prices for our stones. Tier 1 stones cost 10 primeval stones. These are all the stones that you can find on the first floor. The chance of finding a Gu there is not high, but low does not mean zero."

"Two years ago, I met the luckiest person to gamble Tier 1 rocks. He was a rank 2 initial stage Gu Master that won a very valuable rank 5 Gu. He later sold it to his clan for 60,000 primeval stones."

"Hahaha if this little story is true, that Gu got absolutely ripped off. On the other hand, it is already good to still be alive after getting a rank 5 Gu as a rank 2 Gu master."

"Possible, but let's not forget that this is a salesman." I did not forget to feign a slightly surprised and greedy expression. It would not hurt anyway.

"Tier 2 are on the second floor; they cost 50 primeval stones."

"Tier 3 are on the third floor; they cost 500 primeval stones."

"Tier 4 and 5 are on the fourth floor; they cost 5,000 and 50,000 primeval stones respectively."

"What a damn ripoff. I will have to look into opening such a shop in the future."

"But they only get more expensive because the signs that there is a Gu in them become clearer."

"For example, since I work here, I have seen about a dozen Tier 5 stones get opened, and all of them had Gu in them. To open a Tier 4 stone and not get anything in return is very rare."

"Hmmm… But all Tiers could have, for example, a rank 5 Gu in them?" I asked to really sell my greed.

"Yes, I believe in your luck, young man. So, do you want to buy some rocks, maybe on the third floor?"

Ignoring his question, I ask: "So if I decide to buy some stones and wanted to open them… how would I go about that?"

With a smile so big that you would think I did not just completely ignore what he was asking, he said: "At the end of the ship, there are some of our Gu Masters that specialize in opening Rocks. Of course, you can also do it yourself, but be warned, it is a delicate job that involves very fine control of both primeval essence and the Gu you are using."

"Fine control," he says…. Hmmm *Idea.jpg* hehehe

"Thanks for your help; I will take a look if any of the stones catch my eye."

"Haha his eye is twitching, did he seriously think I would buy some of those overpriced tier 3 stones…"

"Sometimes it is fun to just mess with people; I guess in that sense, I am different from Fang Yuan."

And back I was, looking through some of the tier 1 stones. The people here really take all this seriously, analyzing the stones to increase their odds. Delusional, all of them.

Typical gambling degenerate behavior, making up shit like: I have a strategy, I have put in extensive research… even mocking the ones that choose randomly, as if they were fundamentally doing anything else.

As I was going around the stones, I just looked at ones that I found aesthetically pleasing.

Cool green color? Yoink!

Nice cloud-like texture? Yoink!

Looks like a rainbow? Yoink!

"What are you doing there? You will never win anything if you continue like that… you need to know that choosing stones is a precise science," said a rank 1 Gu Master who was significantly older than me.

I guess you attract what you dislike….

"Sure, sure…" I said in a dismissive tone. But I just could not let it be continued.

"So, Mr. Expert, which stone would you choose?"

"Now that you ask…"

"… the pattern …."

"… and texture…."

"… don't forget color …."

"… is it cold or hot?? …."

"… are there any cracks in the stone?? …."

"..."

"..."

"…"

'Will the clan publicly execute me if I kill this guy right here?'

"…"

"..."

"…"

'Might be worth it honestly.'

"…"

"…"

"…"

'That is all you will have to know to pick stones effectively. So do you have any more questions?"

'Oh thank god, it seems we both get to live another day, my gambling addicted friend…'

'But this is really half an hour that I am never getting back….'

"No, let's just go get these rocks opened; I still have other plans."

The walk to the expert Gu Masters that could open these stones took only 3 minutes, and to my great delight was spent entirely in silence.

"Greetings, we would like to buy some stones and get them opened."

"Great! Can I take a look?"

My older friend took out only 2 Stones and handed them over.

"These two Tier 1 stones will be 20 primeval stones."

After he had paid, it was my turn. I handed over my three stones: green, cloudy texture, and rainbow color. These were the three I could pick before I was interrupted. In the same movement, I handed over 30 primeval stones, as I knew that all of them were Tier 1.

After we paid them, they did not take long to start opening our stones. This was not like in the original; there were so many workers here that all five of the stones we bought were opened at the same time.

"This was a lot more interesting to read about in the novel. They are really just using their Gu to slowly grind the stones to dust… Boring…"

Three of the workers were done really quickly; the whole stones turned to dust. But two of them were still working, one on my shiny green stone and one on the stone the other guy picked to show me how to pick out stones.

"Huh…"

All of a sudden, a strong rank 2 aura broke out from the stone that was not mine.

"Haha, I have won! Didn't I tell you that there was a Gu in there?"

"Look, man, this guy has gotten lucky…"

"If this guy can win, so can I. I feel like today is going to be my day…"

"You actually have to be kidding me…"

After the commotion settled down, one of the workers came up to me and said, "Young Master, this was found in your stone. I think it was a rank 1 cloud eater Gu when it was alive."

"Of course, I get a dead Gu out of this…"

"Would you please pack that up for me? I want to keep it as a reminder…"

"Of course, young Master!"

Taking the dead Gu from the store worker, I leave the store with a worse mood than I had entered it with.

"If there is one thing I hate above all else, it is when people have wrong reasoning but end up proving themselves right. It is as if someone said, 'I feel that the square root of 9 is 3 because 3 looks a lot like a 9 with a part taken out of it.'"

"Like yes, they are correct that 3 is the square root of 9, but the reasoning is clearly the problem here."

"Well, it is decided then; rock gambling is getting banned once I become a Venerable. Yeah, yeah, call me petty, I don't care… it is still getting banned."

With that said, I leave the market and arrive home in about 15 minutes, as my mood will not be conducive to me reaching a good purchasing decision.

Once home, the face of my loyal family butler greets me…

"Old Shi, let one of the servants bring a few hundred stones into my room…"

"Yes, young Master!"

"I like Shi Long; he never asks annoying questions."

An hour later, I had calmed down from my bad mood. Now, with a small mountain of rocks before me, I needed to concentrate.

Taking one of them into my hand, I slowly and carefully activate one of my wind blade Gu. Without shooting it off, I just used it to slowly and delicately carve off layer after layer of that rock.

"I need to thank that salesman at the gambling den; he gifted me the idea of using this method to train my control over my primeval essence and Gu. I am not Fang Yuan, after all; I did not have a first life to perfect things like these."

*Grind*

*Grind*

*Crack*

"Well, that was too much force…"

"That is a good thing to be doing in between going to the silent auction… just practice, don't waste time…"

"I will have to go back to the silent auction every 8 to 10 hours. After all, even if I win the auction for the red steel relic Gu, I will still have more than 9,000 primeval stones that ideally, I will get rid of."

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