213 – Scroll Maker Rudin

Eric strolled through the clatter of dice and the ringing of coins, punctuated by occasional shouts of triumph or despair. The patrons were all seasoned gamblers with a glint of desperation in their eyes.

Eric made a rough count; this huge casino on the ground floor alone held around two thousand or more Mana Wielders!

Hiss...

He sucked in a deep breath.

This was the highest number of Mana Wielders he had ever seen in a single place. Of course, there were plenty of mortals in this hall as well.

'I guess everyone tries to at least reach Rank 1, and after that, only a few try to rise higher.'

Becoming a Mana Wielder gave tons of benefits: one being social recognition, another having greatly extended youth, good health, higher basic stats and capabilities, and finally—a longer lifespan. Even if most of them were talentless and didn't care about hard work or getting stronger, everyone somewhat tried to at least reach Rank 1, which also allowed them to dominate and stand over mortals' heads.

In a sense, this was like the education system of Earth, where everyone tried to obtain higher marks during their youth so they could get drunk and waste themselves when they became adults. A highly successful life that everyone desperately tried to achieve. Eric nodded with approval.

He soon noticed that other than the usual dice and common games, there were also card games.

He checked on one card game that was being played by four people at a round table. After understanding the rules, he nearly laughed out loud; he was also suddenly hit by childhood nostalgia.

These cards had pictures of real characters, and below them were point values. People called out the best point value of their cards, and if the opponent had lower points in that category, they lost, or otherwise won the cards. It was a game that Eric used to play with his friends when he was a child; honestly, it was quite fun due to its simplicity.

It was quite amusing to see such a childish game being played by adults with grave and serious faces.

Eric shook his head with a smile. He was quite interested in the characters depicted on the cards, but for now, he didn’t have the time to sit back and enjoy them.

He took one quick look around the huge hall, and as a ‘theory master,’ he could confidently say the entire building had countless arrays placed secretly; this included the walls, doors, and especially the pillars. These arrays were placed to strengthen the entire building countless times, and if his guess wasn’t wrong, the stones or bricks used to build the structure were also nothing normal.

Eric could confidently say that the owner of this place had spent a huge amount of money to build the entire Devils Spice skyscraper, and if his guess wasn’t wrong, even a normal late-stage Rank 3 Warrior wouldn’t be able to destroy these walls or pillars with a few strikes.

From this, Eric could speculate that the owner of this place was very experienced, resourceful, powerful, wealthy, and knowledgeable.

This guy must be a big shot of Batley City!

Eric then proceeded toward the golden door, which was guarded by two late-stage Rank 3s.

After arriving in front of the door, he was dazed. Just how was he supposed to move past if the door remained shut?

Just as he was planning something, a group of leather-armor-wearing Mana Wielders, who gave Eric the feeling of lowlifes—ahem, mercenaries—walked toward the guards and showed them a golden card with the Devils Spice insignia on it.

After checking the card, both guards silently opened the door wide for the lowlifes to enter, and Eric swiftly made use of his own lowest-life status to slip in right behind them.

After entering, Eric saw there was nothing except a staircase heading straight down.

The staircase corridor was dark, with only a dim bluish light emitting from the lower sides of the stairs, just barely enough to brighten them up with the bare minimum.

The stair passage wasn’t broad, and the ceiling and surrounding walls were also not too wide, but it was quite long. It gave Eric the feeling of going straight toward his favorite place—hell, ahem; the environment was set up as such.

He was genuinely impressed. It seemed the owner really knew how to welcome him.

As Eric headed down, he began hearing loud cheers and applause coming from the end of the staircase, almost like thousands of people watching an exciting sport and clamoring.

It was said that there was an underground wrestling arena, so Eric wasn't too surprised. He was also very eager to experience this canon event, where he would jump right in, beat everyone to the ground, and earn lots of stones and fruits.

With great enthusiasm, he quickly descended, and upon seeing the sight, his eyes couldn’t help but widen.

The hall was huge, and there was a miniature coliseum right in the center. The entire area was too massive considering this was underground, though it was smaller compared to the casino above. The number of people present was also numerous.

A rough count and he could estimate it was well above a thousand people; largely, or rather he could only see Mana Wielders. Maybe some mortals had also come, but they probably got crushed by such a huge crowd of Mana Wielders.

Everyone—men, women, children—ahem, probably there were no children here, but he couldn’t be sure. Everyone was clamoring, yelling, and cheering while watching the caged arena in the center of the coliseum. The arena wasn’t huge, or perhaps it was intentionally shortened for the current match.

Eric excitedly looked toward the stage to see what sort of fun battle was happening that the crowd was so excited about. But after checking, he couldn't help but feel extremely disappointed.

Four mortals, two women and two men, were 'fighting' within the caged arena. The two women were on the same team, while the two men were on the other.

Looking at their figures, Eric could easily see they were just commoners, not even trained martial artists who knew how to fight or defend.

The result was obvious; the men dominated the women with brute strength. Both women were beaten and their clothes torn everywhere, with everything out for everyone to gaze upon. With each piece of clothing torn, there would be loud, exciting cheers.

Eric turned to see that almost everyone in the stadium—men, women, and thankfully still no children in sight—was cheering excitedly at how the two mortal women on stage were getting humiliated.

Eric sighed. At least let Mana Wielders fight; gender didn't matter much in that case. Why mortals?

Women were essentially built differently than men and could do things that a man couldn’t, like being able to give birth, and were naturally gifted with a higher feminine nature and so on, while men had more survival capabilities. Comparing a mortal woman and man was the same as comparing a flower to a tree branch. Both had their usefulness and their uniqueness.

Flowers were fragile, but everyone's eyes invariably went toward the fragile thing rather than the sturdy or thorny branches. Even trees and plants were mostly named after their fragile parts, such as flowers or fruits, and hardly ever after their thick, sturdy branches, roots, and so on. Meanwhile, branches were the ones that supported these flowers and fruits. Both had their strengths and weaknesses.

Eric thought that perhaps, as a countryside villager, he probably was too illiterate to understand the enjoyment that the cityfolks here were currently experiencing, so he focused and observed the 'battle'.

After the women were almost naked and no longer had the strength to resist, there were loud yells and shouts to 'do' them. And so the winners gave them the eye prizes right on the stage amid the loud, excited cries of the crowd.

Eric sighed. It seemed he was hopeless; he wasn’t having any fun at all.

'Good thing Ly and Liv aren’t here, or else quite a few people would have died brutally. How scary...’

Eric quietly wiped his sweaty forehead while thinking about how bloodthirsty both girls were.

He ignored the ‘battle’ and turned to search for the room where the scroll maker Rudin did his honest work.

After walking around the coliseum, on the far end to the right side of the underground wall, there was another small entrance with two late-stage Rank 3 guards protecting a thick-looking double door.

Eric was speechless.

Why were doors always closed?

The guesthouse where he and the girls were currently staying was always left wide open; even his tent was almost never locked. Just what uncensored things was this Devils Spice doing to keep every room shut?

Just as he was deciding to personally take the effort to open the door, it opened and the previous couple walked out, both wearing wide smiles—especially the woman in red, who looked like she was cooking up some nasty schemes within her beautiful face.

Eric's eyes lit up. It seemed the middle-aged man was truly his Charming Prin... Ahem. He quickly gave both of them the way, ignoring their conversation which made it sound like they would now be enjoying the arena, and smoothly slipped inside before the door closed back.

Inside, there were two more beautiful lady guards at late-stage Rank 3. It seemed the owner really valued this scroll maker greatly.

In front of him was a short, dark passage; further back, there was a semi-transparent knee-length curtain with a brightly lit room behind it.

Eric calmly ambled up to the curtain and then blinked inside.

After entering, he saw a middle-aged man with a short beard and messy dark hair, his face lined with wrinkles, smirking while gazing at a hidden compartment in the wall on one side of the room.

Out of curiosity, Eric looked inside the secret chamber from behind the man and was amazed. It was filled with Mana Stones! His approximate guess was between 2,000 to 3,000 Mana Stones; other than that, there were jewels, diamonds, and so on.

The middle-aged man put two more Mana Stones inside, closed the case, and then proceeded to lock it. After that, the mechanism moved automatically a few times, and the compartment disappeared to become just a normal wall.

Eric was at a loss for words. He wouldn't have known there was a hidden mechanism on the wall if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. It seemed he needed to obtain some spell or something to see through objects, or perhaps an artifact that could scan a room for secret doors and mechanisms.

The middle-aged man, after putting away his wealth, sat in his chair, opened an empty scroll over the wooden table, and started scribing away.

The room was a simple office with a wooden table in the center; lying there were mostly scrolls, a few books, and other scroll-scribing tools. Behind the man were racks filled with scrolls, books, and other things, and two empty chairs sat on the opposite side of the table for his customers.

Eric observed the middle-aged man's handwriting while also pulling out the two scrolls he had collected from Jack Eldridge’s body.

The handwriting matched!

Eric rechecked to see if his hood and mask were perfectly hiding his handsome face.

It was perfectly hidden, as it was a peak-grade Tier 1 cloak with the necessary enchantments; unless it was physically moved, the hood would remain in the same place. Currently, even his eyes were hidden, but if he got close to someone, they could get a glimpse of his blue eyes.

He confidently sat in one of the empty seats opposite to Rudin and canceled his ability.