CH 25.1

Chapter 25.1

Stone Gamblers participating in betting wars had to visit the underground warehouse of the Gu Conglomerate at least one day in advance to select rough stone for the match afterwards.

Each Stone Gambler would have three hours to choose, divided morning and afternoon sessions.

The Stone Gambler had to select five rough stones within the three hours, which would then be transferred to a special storage room, encapsulated by name, and may not be altered until the day of the betting wars.

At 9am, Bai Jing arrived at the underground warehouse of the Gu Conglomerate to select the rough stones for the betting war.

The layout of the warehouse was similar to that of the Gu Conglomerate’s No. 5 rough stone area, which was divided into four rough stone zone areas, A-D. With the exception of the rough stones in area E and the auction-grade rough stones in area S, the other categories and rooms were almost identical.

This was also a deliberate move by Gu Yuanzhao, as they both belonged to the Gu Conglomerate and so could complement each other’s rough stones to ensure that the Gu Conglomerate had new rough stones coming in daily.

Bai Jing’s identity was now ‘Gu Yun’, a junior from a side branch of the Gu family from a distant planet, so naturally he could no longer maintain his previous appearance.

He took off the heavy black-rimmed glasses from the bridge of his nose and regained his delicate and beautiful features.

The plain T-shirt and jeans he used to wear had been replaced by a fine, tailored, hand-made suit that matched his good looks and bearing, giving him the appearance of a spoilt young master from one of the aristocratic families.

Bai Jing was now so beautiful that even An Ge, who had seen him in person, wouldn’t dare to recognize him for a moment.

The difference was enormous!

It was like a piece of uncut jade that had suddenly been discovered and polished into a work of art that astonished the world, and that no one would ever known its origin or provenance again.

Bai Jing was going for the rough stone in Zone D, where rough stones were priced at 30,000 starcoins.

This was his first time in a betting war, he couldn’t choose a rough stone with a high price tag, but this one was quite suitable.

At the same time, there were about a few dozen Stone Gamblers who came to choose a rough stone. They sat in the VIP area and waited for a while before being taken to the second basement level by the staff of the Gu Conglomerate.

After everyone had checked their identity with the light brain, they had to go through two more checks before they could get in. All in all, it was a very complicated process.

No one was allowed to carry any storage devices, such as space buttons, or dangerous items and even the light brain had to be removed and put aside to prevent cheating.

There were also checks on genetics, compatibility of the light brain with the identity of the Stone Gambler, and so on to ensure that everything was in order.

Bai Jing didn’t know what method Gu Yuanzhao used, but when his light brain was scanned, the name ‘Gu Yun’ appeared on the machine.

After all the checks were completed, the Stone Gamblers went to their respective rough stone areas.

Here, most of the Stone Gamblers chose the rough stones in Zone D, with a few choosing the more expensive Zone C.

Bai Jing entered Zone D with over 30 other Stone Gamblers.

On the way, Bai Jing received a lot of attention from people, especially girls.

They had rarely seen such a fine looking young man with a fresh and clean demeanor, especially with those foggy teal eyes that made them stop breathing when they looked at him.

Unfortunately, they weren’t allowed to bring any filming equipment into the rough stones area, nor were they allowed to communicate with each other, otherwise they would have immediately struck up a conversation and photographed this teenager’s beautiful face to place by their bedsides to admire every day. Wouldn’t that have been great?

Bai Jing, aware of the stares from all directions, frowned slightly and quickened his pace without the expression on his face changing.

Until now, he was still not used to being surrounded by people.

However, Bai Jing was very adaptable, because within a few minutes, he was able to ignore the stares around him and concentrate on selecting his rough stones.

Five rough stones in three hours wasn’t a bad amount of time.

To avoid clashes over the same rough stones, the Stone Gamblers spread out and began to look for the rough stones they each liked along the different stone platforms.

There were at least a thousand rough stones at each price, which was more than enough for them to choose from.

Bai Jing’s workload was much greater than that of the other Stone Gamblers.

He had to choose a rough stone that would be a bet up, a rough stone that would collapse but still contain jadeite that could be used to extract energy fluid, and three rough stones that would definitely collapse.

After all his training and study, he now knew more about gambling on rough stones than he did before, and he could tell the general condition of many rough stones just by looking at them carefully.

He could then determine the likelihood of a rough stone containing jadeite by taking into account its presentation, the planet and field opening to which it belonged, as well as other characteristics.

Of course, this estimation wasn’t entirely accurate, but the probability was significantly higher than before.

It took Bai Jing about two hours to select fifteen rough stones out of the hundred and fifty, which was the limit of his supernatural ability.

After he had chosen them, he put his sense perception ability deep into the rough stones one by one.

Three of the fifteen rough stones had jadeite in them.

Bai Jing chose the most active one first.

This time he was lucky, as the reactions in this rough stone were extremely strong; it should be of the ice or glutinous variety.

He then chose a piece with the weakest activity to be used as the raw material for extracting the energy fluid, and chose the middle piece, which also had jadeite in it.

In order for his rate of betting increase to look normal, this was all he could do.

The other three rough stones were, of course, bound to collapse.

After picking them out, Bai Jing scribbled approximate cut lines on each of the five rough stones in turn, and with the assistance of the handling robot, put the five rough stones into the automatic shopping cart and walked to the door.

After a series of checks, Bai Jing got his light brain back and after paying the 150,000 starcoins fee, his rough stones were sealed by the staff in the most secure storage room.

At the same time, he received a number on his light brain: 060523.

He was then randomly matched with an opponent based on his number and rank, and was issued with a betting war notice.

At 5pm the same day, Bai Jing received a match notification for the betting wars.

[The Stone Gambler with number 060523 will be invited to the Gu Conglomerate’s ground floor lobby on 6th June at 10am sharp for the second betting war of the day.

Any unexcused withdrawal will result in disqualification from the betting wars for one year].

Bai Jing read the message and put away his light brain.

Then he ordered 20 standard ‘5x5x5cm’ silver boxes from Starnet for 100 starcoins each to serve as containers for the energy fluid.