Chapter 785: Need vs Greed
[And that, young master, was the clearest example as to why I regularly volunteer the zakos fight in the arena. Impressive, no?]
‘Alright, I will admit it. Those zakos managed to put up one hell of a fight,’ Zhen Liu praised Archanidame. ‘One question, well two actually were you.’
[Of course, young master. What would you like to know?]
‘First, whow long until the zakos evolved into those advanced forms? I could sense from in here that their innate [Chaos] is very similar to some of the other evolved zakos we got.’
[It took about…ten-ish battles? Give or take. Not all of the zakos evolve at a fixed rate, that particular group was actually the first to evolve.]
‘Neat. Second question: Where did those weapons come from?’
[As far as we can tell, they sort of manifested them after reaching that stage of their evolution.]
‘Interesting…’,
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“THE WINNER OF THIS MATCH ARE THE BONE BROTHER PUPPETS! GIVE THE CROWD A BIG WAVE, GUYS!”
Prompted by the announcer/referee the skeletal puppets began to wave at the crowd as they walked off the arena. Many of the audience members found this sight to be rather amusing, and a clear sign that controller of these puppets was more of a showman than anything else.
Granted, not everybody appreciates the showmanship, especially when they just lost what the assumed to be surefire bets.
“Dammit! This is why I don’t bet on anybody who says they can take on five on one!”
With the battle now over, the arena’s medical team made quick work to get the defeated axe wielder out of the way as quickly as possible.
Granted, much like how these bi-weekly fights had been partially turned into an advertising opportunity for the Zhen Clan, the medical team had been given the same treatment…sort of.
“As a reminder to the crowd, this battle treatment has been brought to you by the Zhen Clan via the help of this [Acupuncture Spider]. As long as your an Aether Master or lower, the first tier version of this aether beast will increase your innate healing abilities by twenty percent, thirty percent if a healer also contributes to the effort. Pick up some [Acupuncture Spider] eggs after the battles, at the Zhen Clan beats stores for the low price of five hundred silver coins per egg, two gold coins for a fully grown and fully trained version.”
(Un)surprisingly, this hamfistef attempt at advertising actually worked.
“Huh…that’s actually a pretty good deal. I mean, it’s a bit of a pain having to raise and hatch the things myself…”
“See, that’s why you buy beasts that have been pre-trained. Big upfront cost means less time spent on training, equipment and all that jazz.”
“If I buy an egg, there’s a chance I could raise it myself and possibly get it to mutate if I can just find the right materials…”
While the crowd began to discuss amongst themselves the merit of owning an [Acupuncture Spider] in a mix of conversation and whispers, the announcer proceeded to introduce the next fighter.
“Our next fighter for today is an unusual one, ladies and gentlemen! Hailing from the Soaring Gryphon continent, this warrior claims to be able to hit the wings of a fly with a single arrow, please put your hands together for Azida de Fowler the Battle Archer!”
“Woooo!”
A lanky fellow with eyes as sharp as hawk landed in the arena shortly after being introduced. In the man’s hand was a strange looking stick that some people recognize as being a bowless string. Making matters odder was the fact that this so-called “battle archer” wasn’t carrying any arrows.
Many of the more ignorant members of the crowd had to stifle a laugh at this sight, while those a bit more worldwise understood the actual implications of this gear.
To these worldwise people, they knew to place their bets on this guy winning….as long as he chose a reasonable number of opponents and spun well.
Eventually, as the crowd’s murmurs came to an end, the announcer used this opportunity to remind the crowd, and Azida, the rules for this game.
“Alright, everybody! Before we begin our next exciting battle, I think now is a good time to remind everybody just how this game works!”
As soon as the announcer’s words registered in everyone’s minds, a giant floating roulette wheel made of aether appeared floating above the arena. The wheel was divided into eight equal parts, with one section depicting a skull, another depicting a metallic toy soldier, another depicting a small beast head while the last one was a giant question mark. The remaining four parts were those previously mentioned symbols again, but with significantly more details added.
“Each symbol on this wheel determines not only the type of opponent our challenge can face, but also the prizes they could win by defeating them. But doing a straightforward challenge roulette is a bit boring, right guys?!”
“YEAH!”
“So to make this a bit more interesting, our challenger has the right to request for multiple opponents, which means multiple prizes! However, they’re only allowed to do so before they can spin the challenge wheel. The name of the game is ‘Need vs. Greed’ everybody, so what are you going to do, Azida de Fowler?”
What the announcer didn’t mention that once the challenger chose his number and spun the wheel, the audience had exactly two minutes to determine whether or not they wanted to place a bet on a particular outcome. Evidently, this was where the arena really made back it’s money for the Zhen Clan.
Azida stared at the wheel with a pondering gaze for a few moments before making hai declaration.
“I’ll take on three!”
In response to his words, a times three multiplier appeared above the giant floating wheel.
“The risk/reward multiplier has been set to three! Now let’s see if fortune favors him!”
Soon after that announcement was made, the wheel began to spin.
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“Alright, I’m confused as fuck,” Zhen Hai complained to his cousins. “Do any of y’all understand what those symbols on the wheel mean?”
“I think I can?,” Zhen Xing answered his elder cousin. “Just let me double check this pamphlet.”
“We got pamphlets?”
“Where’d he get one?”
“Do we have them too?”
“Ah, found it!,” Zhen Xing exclaimed after finding the section in a pamphlet he found by his seat. It should be noted that the rest of the Zhen Clan scions also had pamphlets but their seats, they were just too lazy to check for themselves.
“Okay, it says here that…each of those symbols represents either a cash prize, an aether beast related prize or an aether art prize. With the skulls and soldiers representing cash prizes, the beast heads representing aether beasts and the question mark being aether art scrolls.”
“That is…crazy luxurious,” Zhen Guo commented while trying to wrap his head around on all the resources it costed to distribute such prizes. “what’s the catch?”
“The quality and amount of any given prize is determined by the challenger’s multiplier, meaning if the challenger is willing to face a bigger risk, they get a bigger reward,” Zhen Xing recited from the pamphlet. “For example, one normal skull is ten silver pieces while one big skull is ten gold pieces. Meaning if someone asked for the maximum multiplier of five, they could win up to fifty silver or gold pieces.”
“What about the other symbols?,” Zhen Yue asked.
“The little soldiers are worth twenty pieves of silver or gold, the little beasts are aether beat prizes while the question marks represent aether art prizes.”
“That lined up.”
“That’s a lot of money and prizes! Makes me want to…wait a minute, what’s the catch?”
“Each of those symbols also represent the type of challengers you’ll face depending on what you spin. The skull symbols represent those weird skeletal puppets we just saw defeat that axe wielder from earlier.”
“Big skull or little skull?”
“Big skull.”
“Damn, no wonder that guy had issues.”
“The little beast symbol represents aether beasts that are at most third tier, while the big beast symbol is anything beyond that.”
“Seriously? What kind of crazy ass motherfucker wants to try and fight more than one Fourth tier aether beasts?!,” Zhen Feng asked in alarm.
“You’d honestly be surprised.”
“The little soldier symbols are also puppets like the skeletal ones, but these ones are made of metal and vary in size and toughness.”
“That makes a little too much sense.”
“Alright, then what makes the question mark symbols so special?,” Zhen Tai asked. “Are they random opponents or something?”
“Sort of?,” Zhen Xing answered with uncertainty. “It says here that question mark symbols are ‘special guest fighters with unusual abilities’…did we recruit anyone new and weird recently?”
As soon as this question was asked, everybody turned their heads to Zhen Liu…who was doing his best in not shrinking out of embarrassment.
“…”
“…”
“I reiterate, I had nothing to do with the activities of this arena or it’s prize structure, I swear.”
“Right…”
