CH 18.2

Instead of answering directly, the President of the Gambling Guild asked a question: “Tell us, what is a bet that yields a great gain?”

[Naturally, it was a bet that the price of a jadeite produced from a raw stone would be higher than the price of the original rough stone.]

This was common sense, even for those who didn’t gamble on stones, hence many people posted pop-ups with this phrase scrolling across the screen immediately.

Stroking his beard, the president smiled, “That’s right. Lu Yuan, list all the prices for the fifty-five pieces of raw rough stones you bought this time.”

Ning Yuxuan’s face turned white, suddenly having a bad feeling.

Lu Yuan quickly projected the prices of the rough stones on the light screen and the people in the live broadcast room looked down one by one. They couldn’t help but shout collectively when they saw the price of the rough stone numbered ‘12’.

“This rough stone is actually six million starcoins ……” Ning Yuxuan muttered, her expression wavering.

She had been exposed to gambling since she was a child, and naturally knew that the piece of ice jadeite she had solved wasn’t large enough to be auctioned for five million starcoins, but it was still far less than the price of the raw rough stone.

-Her bet had gone bust.

This knowledge came to Ning Yuxuan’s mind with unmistakable clarity.

She was at a loss for words as she returned her gaze to the rough stone. How could a white salt skin that performed so well be less than five million starcoins?

Taking a step back, it was clear that the exam questions wouldn’t have been so simple.

She could only blame herself for being too arrogant and passing judgment the moment she saw this rough stone, never considering that there might be another option. This time, it was a foregone conclusion that she wouldn’t be in the top ten.

Ning Yuxuan was annoyed when Bai Jing’s image suddenly flashed before her eyes: ‘If it were him, he wouldn’t have made such a mistake.’

It took most of the day to unravel all fifty-five rough stones, resulting in three jadeite pieces produced, numbered 12, 33 and 41.

The white salt skin rough stone No. 12 was the most unfortunate, because although it produced an ice grain jadeite, it wasn’t a bet that yielded great gain.

No. 33, a dark ebony skinned rough stone, yielded a 1.7 kg luminous green bean jadeite that fetched 600,000 starcoins, far exceeding the price of 30,000 starcoins for its raw rough stone, which was a great gain.

The rough stone No. 41, with no pine flowers or python bands on the surface, yielded a 6.9 kg piece of blue jadeite worth 60,000 starcoins, nearly ten times the price of its raw rough stone. It was truly a great gain!

Lucky enough to have witness a wonderful stone solving session, the audience left satisfied after releasing a wave of gifts.

Nearly 90% of the candidates looked gloomy after the results were announced. With their scores, they weren’t destined to make it into the top 100 so would have to fight again next year.

Bai Jing also benefited greatly from today’s live explanation session.

He had thought he was observant enough and that he had a good grasp of the basics such as field openings, but after Level 6 Stone Gambler Lu Yuan’s explanations, he realized that he still had a lot of room for improvement.

The six rough stones that he hadn’t been able to identify in the exams hall weren’t difficult for Lu Yuan to identify at all.

Lu Yuan had first rinsed the rough stones several times with the help of water nearby, until all the mud and sand on the crust were washed away, revealing the original and clearest skin of the raw rough stones.

In this way, even the smallest trace was invisible, but a closer examination revealed the tiny veins formed as the planet’s crust shifted.

Lu Yuan had been able to find all but a few sand-sized traces of light color on the rough stone and, with only this evidence, determined the field openings of the rough stones accurately.

One of the rough stones with a yellow sandy skin had a surface from which no evidence could be found, so he had taken a knife and scraped off the minerals and ringworm on the surface of the skin, then based on the structure, size and composition of the minerals and the color and condition of the ringworm, was able to draw a conclusion, much to Bai Jing’s amazement.

A master, was indeed a master.

Bai Jing had only felt that there was no way out when he saw these rough stones, and even had the thought that ‘no one could identify them’.

However he never expected that there were so many ways to identify a field opening. This live broadcast session had taught him a lesson.

Everything in the world was traceable. If you couldn’t find it, it wasn’t that there was no trace, but that you hadn’t looked hard enough and hadn’t tried hard enough!

The end of the broadcast represented the announcement of the answers to the practical test, so Bai Jing calculated his score in his mind: two out of the six rough stones had been answered correctly by luck, giving him two points, minus four.

He was confident in his theoretical knowledge and wouldn’t deduct more than two points, so the total score should be above 94.

‘I hope I can get the top ten in this exams.’

Thinking this way, Bai Jing wrote down the insights and knowledge he had learned today in his notebook.

In just over a month’s time, he had already used up five notebooks, a level of effort that no one could match. Likewise, his growth rate was unparalleled.

Two days later, in the early hours of the morning, the official website of the Gambling Guild released the list of candidates who had been accepted for the apprenticeship exams: the top 100 candidates.

When they saw the list, everyone was shocked, and Starnet almost crashed.