Jeon-ip felt his legs shaking as he fumbled through his belongings.
“Huuuuu….”
After swallowing the expensive Calming Pill, Jeon-ip sighed for a while before muttering.
“These swindlers! I’m not feeling calm at all!”
Having failed his attempt to ease his nerves with the medicine, Jeon-ip reluctantly moved toward the Heavenly Demon Pavilion.
Zing!
As he approached the pavilion, the guard martial artists’ sharp gazes poured onto Jeon-ip.
“What business do you have?”
“I-I’m Jeon-ip. The Supreme Being of the Demon Sect has commanded me to come to the Heavenly Demon Pavilion today…”
“Identification.”
“Y-Yes!”
After checking his ID, the guard martial artist sheathed his sword and said.
“Follow me.”
Jeon-ip nodded vigorously and followed the guard into the pavilion. He easily entered the room where Wi Seoryeon and Wi Ji-cheon were sitting across from each other.
“Long live! Long live! Long, long live! I bow before the master of the new sect!”
“Hm. Yes. Come closer.”
“Y-Yes!”
With his trembling body, Jeon-ip stepped closer to the Heavenly Demon and suddenly realized one thing.
‘Now that I think about it, I was even closer than this yesterday, wasn’t I?’
Recognizing that fact calmed his wildly beating heart a bit. Just as he took a deep breath to regain his composure, the Heavenly Demon spoke.
“Do you know why I called you today?”
Jeon-ip quickly bowed and replied.
“How could the humble me understand the intent of the Heavenly Demon! If you command, I shall follow with all my heart!”
“I called you today for this.”
Jeon-ip cautiously lifted his head and followed the Heavenly Demon’s hand, pointing to something on the table. He noticed what the Heavenly Demon was indicating, lifted his head in the same bowed posture, and gulped.
Dice. Cup. Gambling tokens.
Familiar gambling tools were laid out before him.
“I was interested in the techniques you used at the underground gambling den yesterday.”
Jeon-ip’s heart raced at the memory of yesterday, but he quickly steadied himself. After a whole day of contemplating, he had come to a very clear conclusion.
‘Let’s just do as the Heavenly Demon commands!’
He abandoned his thoughts.
I’m a subordinate of the Demon Sect, so let’s just do what the Heavenly Demon tells me to!
Thinking back to his conclusion from yesterday made Jeon-ip feel a bit more at ease.
What could possibly go wrong?
Even if he had been called to eliminate the martial artists frequenting the underground gambling den, he would just do as the Heavenly Demon instructed.
If he’s told to gamble, then gamble he shall.
As he envisioned torturing the martial artists from the other underground gambling dens, Jeon-ip steeled himself.
“Can you tell this esteemed one and the Heavenly Demon the gambling techniques you know?”
“…Yes?”
However.
What Jeon-ip truly needed was a different kind of determination.
*
“The basics of gambling are delicacy.”
Jeon-ip was a peak martial artist and a gambler.
He intentionally held the cup and unfolded his delightful techniques.
Snap!
And the clear sound echoed.
It was the sound of the dice colliding with the cup.
“If such a sound is heard while playing a shell game, no matter how fast you move the cup, it would be useless, right?”
“Mm.”
Both the Heavenly Demon and the Heavenly Demon nodded.
“Therefore, first, you two must master the fundamentals.”
Jeon-ip began teaching the Heavenly Demon and the Heavenly Demon the minimal basics. How to hold the cup. How to shuffle the tokens. How to hold the dice, and all the hand techniques used in the game.
“There are many types of gambling. Usually, you start with one type and once you feel you’ve gotten the hang of it, you move on to the next.”
“So which one should we start with?”
“I’d like to recommend shell games. The battle of wits in gambling tokens is intense, requiring experience, and dice gambling has a lot of luck involved in both offense and defense, making intuitive judgment difficult. In contrast, shell games are quite intuitive. You can clearly see when you’ve deceived your opponent and when you’ve been deceived, making them ideal for building foundational skills.”
The two absorbed Jeon-ip’s knowledge and skills as if water were being poured onto parched cotton.
A week had passed since they began laying the groundwork.
Jeon-ip marveled inwardly.
‘Both of them are incredibly quick learners.’
It would take weeks for most, but these two were digesting techniques in just a day.
Truly deserving of being called Heavenly Demons.
“Well then, I’ll now teach you gambling techniques mixed with martial arts.”
“Oh, finally getting to the main point.”
“In fact, against ordinary people who haven’t learned martial arts, techniques mixed with martial arts are unnecessary.”
Jeon-ip spoke without hesitation, causing a stir among the ordinary gamblers.
“Unless they are completely ignorant of gambling, if they have some knowledge of gambling skills, drawing upon internal energy alone would give a decisive advantage.”
Wi Ji-cheon and Wi Seoryeon nodded in agreement.
Unless the level is low, the disparity between martial artists and non-martial artists becomes overwhelmingly apparent from the peak level onward.
Against overwhelming power, skills become useless.
Is there even a need for someone already possessing overwhelming strength to learn techniques?
“Thus, gambling mixed with martial arts can be viewed as specialized techniques for gambling among martial artists.”
“Indeed.”
“Specifically, it’s a technique that ordinary people might not fall for but would be unavoidable for martial artists. Therefore, the gap in levels between opponents greatly affects the outcome.”
Jeon-ip continued to explain.
“When a Hwa-gyeong Martial Artist with similar gambling techniques defeats a First-rate Expert, it’s quite natural. However, if they engage in gambling mixed with martial arts, they could win by a much larger margin.”
Wi Seoryeon and Wi Ji-cheon exchanged glances.
The same thought raced through their minds.
If the level gap exists, the techniques become even more effective.
Then, this could be a means to challenge Ho Cheon-an.
“Well then, I’ll now teach you gambling techniques mixed with martial arts.”
Jeon-ip revealed all he knew to the two.
As they absorbed his teachings, they thought.
This just might work against Ho Cheon-an.
A week later.
Jeon-ip assessed the shell games executed by the two and nodded.
“As far as shell games go, this is all I can teach you.”
Hearing Jeon-ip’s words, Wi Ji-cheon recalled the matches he had had with Ho Cheon-an.
Rather than a contest, it felt more like training, those memories filled Wi Ji-cheon’s mind.
“Right. It’s about time we had a proper duel.”
The beginner gambler Wi Ji-cheon decided to throw down the gauntlet against Daoshi Ho Cheon-an.
*
The gambling duel with Wi Ji-cheon.
The gambling duel with Wi Ji-cheon was flowing smoothly.
There were limitations to providing “spectacle” for Wi Ji-cheon using gambling, but now that Wi Ji-cheon truly enjoyed gambling itself, things became much easier.
The premise of competing remained unchanged.
It was much more stable and advantageous to compete as gamblers rather than throw absurd conditions at each other for mere spectacle.
So with a relaxed heart, Wi Ji-cheon headed towards the Heavenly Demon Pavilion, but something changed, bringing tension back into the atmosphere.
“Today, I intend to have a proper contest.”
Having experienced various representative gambling methods that I introduced day by day, Wi Ji-cheon suddenly chose a specific game.
“The shell game, right?”
“That’s right. You will have to weather my onslaught today. The contest will proceed in a best of five rounds.”
I looked at Wi Ji-cheon and reassessed my mental state.
Today, Wi Ji-cheon was not here to learn but to duel.
Honestly, the chances of Wi Ji-cheon beating me purely through offense were incredibly close to zero, but I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.
Could the Heavenly Demon have just challenged without reason?
There must be a glimmer of hope for him to take such a risk.
Even if I found it completely hopeless, there might have been something he sensed.
“Well then, let’s begin.”
The contest started with the Heavenly Demon mixing the cups.
Shh. Shhhh.
As I watched the Heavenly Demon shuffle the cups, I thought.
There truly is a difference in natural physical talent.
It hadn’t been a month since the gambling duel started with the Heavenly Demon, but he certainly didn’t seem like a beginner at all.
Of course, this outcome wasn’t solely a result of talent. Perhaps he had found a master in recent times who had helped him improve rapidly.
The gambling master of the Heavenly Demon.
What a bizarre thought.
Shaking off those musings, I focused on the Heavenly Demon’s shell game.
I acknowledged that the Heavenly Demon’s skills were rapidly improving, but that didn’t necessarily mean his shell game was particularly threatening.
To put it coldly, he was no different from a peddler one could easily encounter at any market.
Thus, I heightened my concentration.
He had to have prepared something since he started the game.
The Heavenly Demon couldn’t be offering such a simple play.
Then, at that moment, a change began.
The change didn’t come from the cups but from the Heavenly Demon himself.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, a soft Black Dragon Qi emanated!
I was startled and looked at the Heavenly Demon’s face. When I gazed into his inscrutable eyes, I instinctively felt.
I was caught.
As the cups shuffled, my eyes strayed off the game.
In a hurry, I turned my gaze down, but the Heavenly Demon’s hands had already stopped.
“Huh.”
I slowly replayed the earlier situation in my mind.
In that moment when the Black Dragon Qi stirred, I had looked away from the gambling table to glance at Wi Ji-cheon.
A fundamental mistake that should never occur for a gambler.
…However.
For a martial artist, Ho Cheon-an, it was a situation where I had no choice but to react this way.
The eyes are the window to the heart.
The moment the opponent moves their Qi, I had to track their movements with my eyes to gauge its manipulation.
Even though I was fully aware that I was seated at the gambling table and that the Heavenly Demon Wi Ji-cheon would perform an unknown move, my instincts as a martial artist had taken over.
While I was trying to raise tension, I realized I had let my guard down.
As I was replaying the earlier move in my mind, Wi Ji-cheon opened his mouth.
“Shouldn’t you choose a cup?”
I looked into Wi Ji-cheon’s calm eyes as he urged me to pick a cup, and I corrected my thoughts.
My tension was more than sufficient.
The fact that I looked away from the gambling table was not a mere lapse in concentration.
…I had been led.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Wi Ji-cheon the greatest martial artist in the world; he had instinctively triggered my martial artist instincts.
I reached out toward the cup on the left.
Having lost track of the position of the dice, I had no way of knowing where they were, but considering the flow Wi Ji-cheon had maintained while shuffling the cups, the left cup seemed to have the highest probability.
Thud.
The cup fell over, revealing what was inside it.
The left cup was empty.
“First win.”
Hearing Wi Ji-cheon’s calm remark, I thought.
Today’s contest wouldn’t be easy at all.
