After leading everyone inside, Bai Liu went straight to find Charles. Mu Ke had already explained the whole situation to him, from beginning to end, but Bai Liu felt it was still necessary to personally meet this fifth guild leader, who possessed such exceptional ability.
Inside the Gamblers’ Guild.
Charles sat behind his desk. He raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, lifted a hand to stop the servant from pouring tea for Bai Liu, and repeated Bai Liu’s words back to him with great interest.
“You want to participate in the League this year?”
“Wasn’t that your intention all along, Guild Leader Charles?” Bai Liu asked calmly in return.
“Of course not,” Charles denied without the slightest hesitation. “Although I did choose you as my [Racehorse], generally speaking, a [Racehorse] needs a year of rearing before it enters the field.”
Charles looked Bai Liu up and down with a somewhat critical gaze, then spread his hands regretfully.
“Bai Liu, you are not currently at the peak state of a [Racehorse]. Keeping a low profile is the most suitable choice for you. I don’t mind rearing you for another year. More precisely, your other audience members wouldn’t mind rearing you for another year either.”
“Rearing?” Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. “So that’s the significance behind the recharge, like, and collection mechanisms? All of this is to build momentum for the large-scale gambling event known as the [League]?”
Charles nodded appreciatively. “Exactly. You’re very clever, Bai Liu.”
Leaning on his cane, he stood and circled behind Bai Liu.
“Every player in this entire game exists to earn as many points as possible. In the eyes of our [Gamblers’ Guild], there are two ways to earn points in the game. One is called being a [Gambler], and the other is called being a [Racehorse].”
“[Racehorses] are the ones being bet on. You rely on training in the game, obtaining points through our bets and recharges, and participating in the League. This is a very simple method of earning through labor. But in this game, there is a far more thrilling investment method, one with higher risks and higher returns—”
Charles curled his lips. His fingers turned, and a peculiar chip appeared out of thin air between his index and middle fingers. He bent down and placed it on Bai Liu’s lap.
“—This method is what we call being a [Gambler].”
“As [Gamblers], we select you as our [Racehorses], invest in you, recharge for you, rear and cultivate you, wave banners and shout for you, and publicize you until you become famous. Then, when the annual League arrives, we bet our entire net worth on you—”
Charles lowered his gaze to Bai Liu, who was seated before him, his eyes deep and meaningful.
“—If you win, our investment doubles and earns a profit. If you lose, we lose everything, all the way to bankruptcy. This is the relationship between [Gambler] and [Racehorse].”
Bai Liu leaned his head back slightly, putting some distance between himself and Charles. He lowered his eyes to the chip in his hand. It had a dark green base with a gold rim, and its value was 6.
He remembered that real casinos did not have chips with values like this. This was probably unique to the game.
“Essentially, for you [Gamblers], this League gamble is about winning the money wagered by the players on both sides. For a game with this level of risk, it wouldn’t naturally reach such a high universal participation rate. The odds would be too great.” Bai Liu asked calmly, “So someone is acting as the house and providing the base pot, right?”
“Yes,” Charles replied.
The smile on his face became increasingly meaningful.
“The one acting as the house is the system. During League betting, the system places a base fund into each team’s betting pool. And that base fund is the total recharge points of every person on both teams multiplied by—”
Charles held up five fingers.
“—Five times.”
“In other words, the higher the total recharge points on both the opposing side and our side, the higher the base fund in both teams’ betting pools.” Bai Liu sank into thought. “Which means that if our team defeats a strong team, the probability that the players who bet on us and recharged for us will double their winnings is also higher.”
“Furthermore, this base fund does not include points added through later bets. In the end, the points in the loser’s betting pool are distributed to the winner according to betting proportions.”
Charles gave a simple example.
“For instance, suppose you were to play a League match against the Kings’ Guild right now. If the recharge points for the Kings’ Guild team totaled ten million, while your team’s recharge points totaled one million, then the base pot for both of your betting pools would be fifty-five million.”
“On top of that, if the Kings’ Guild side bet fifty million points, while your side only bet one hundred thousand points, then their betting pool would contain one hundred and five million points, while your betting pool would only contain fifty-five point one million.”
“If the Kings’ Guild defeated you, then the players who bet on the Kings’ Guild would divide the points in your betting pool according to the proportion of their bets.”
“For example, if I were a player betting on the Kings’ Guild, and I personally bet twenty-five million out of the total fifty million, accounting for fifty percent, then I alone would receive fifty percent of the fifty-five point one million in your betting pool, which is twenty-seven point five five million. A profit rate of one hundred and ten percent.”
“A very high profit rate,” Bai Liu evaluated objectively.
Charles’s gaze shifted back and fixed steadily on Bai Liu’s face.
“Yes, it is indeed a very good business, but this can hardly be called gambling.”
Bai Liu looked up at Charles.
Charles raised a hand, touched his smiling lower lip, and continued, “Look at it from another angle. If you won that match against the Kings’ Guild, and the one hundred thousand points bet in your betting pool were all provided by me alone?”
“Then I could turn one hundred thousand into one hundred and five million. A profit rate of one thousand and fifty times.”
Charles opened his arms and looked at Bai Liu with a smile.
“Baby, this is gambling.”
“—Welcome to the Gamblers’ Club.”
“Following that logic, the greater the risk our team faces, the higher the attention, the greater the negative controversy, and the lower the win rate, the higher the profit rate will be.” Bai Liu lifted his eyelids and looked at Charles. “Then participating this year is just right, isn’t it?”
Charles paused, then looked at Bai Liu in slight surprise and laughed.
“It seems I’ve encountered a gambler even more crazed than myself.”
He sat back down, spun once in his chair, and tapped his cane sharply against the floor twice before arriving at an excited conclusion.
“I like your proposal. Since you’re currently at the peak of your gimmick, I won’t have to go to the trouble of maintaining your discussion levels for a whole year until the next League.”
Charles looked directly at Bai Liu.
“You are currently the center of public attention. If you suffer a crushing defeat in the League this time, you will have no value left in the future. Are you sure you want to participate this year? Of course, if you are certain, I will handle all cheering, support, and logistical preparations for the League on your behalf.”
Bai Liu said, “I’m sure.”
Charles took Bai Liu’s hand frivolously and gave a mock kiss to the air above it.
“As you wish, my Prince on a White Horse.”
Bai Liu: “...”
His investor was a little disgusting.
But it didn’t matter. He was an adult, and for the sake of money, he could endure this perfectly well.
————————
After Bai Liu walked out of the Gamblers’ Club Guild, he went straight to his own Carrion Guild.
Charles had reminded him that if he wanted to participate in the League, he had to prepare for “business operations.” For example, the players’ appearances, the compatibility between the guild name and the team, and even the guild icon—these were all details that required a high degree of attention.
After Bai Liu arrived at the guild and asked for the members’ opinions, he simply and decisively changed the guild’s name to Wandering Circus.
Then he dropped the bombshell news that they would be participating in the League this year.
An uproar immediately broke out.
However, Bai Liu did not force them to hand over items to participate in the League like other guilds, nor did he make them enter high-risk games to search for advanced items. He did not even force them to recharge in order to expand the team’s recharge pool. Charles was fully responsible for all those things. Although that man had some wicked tastes, his resources truly were not bad.
Even the team members had already been selected.
Participating in the League was clearly a major event for a guild. According to common sense, it should have been an action that mobilized the strength of the entire guild. But Bai Liu had handled everything himself and merely gave them a simple notice.
At first, the members were somewhat lost and worried. But seeing Bai Liu’s calm and composed manner, and thinking of all the convoluted experiences this person had gone through along the way, they miraculously settled down again.
If it was Guild Leader Bai, then maybe winning wasn’t impossible...
At this moment, they gained a new understanding of this miraculous guild.
It seemed that they truly did not need to sacrifice anything for this guild. Even for a top-tier event like the guild participating in the League, their Chairman did not make them worry. He allowed them to simply grow peacefully within this community.
“Then is there anything you need us to do for you, Guild Leader Bai?” someone asked cautiously. “It happens to be support season right now. Do you need us to help with support or anything like that?”
—It was truly too strange for a guild to participate in such a major event as the League while its members did nothing at all!
“We certainly need support. Please help me spread the news that I’m going to participate in the League.” Bai Liu smiled. “And then, badmouth me. Say that I definitely can’t win. Expose every possible drawback of our team. Ideally, say that you don’t support my participation in the League at all, but that I’m stubbornly courting death by participating anyway. That’s roughly the content of the support campaign. I’ll have to trouble you all.”
Members: “...”
Members: “????”
What kind of brand-new support method was this?!
Wang Shun, who stood off to the side, had been in a daze ever since he heard that Bai Liu was forcefully participating in the League this year. Upon hearing Bai Liu’s bizarre support method, this veteran who had accompanied the Kings’ Guild through several Leagues was completely dumbfounded.
He had never seen this kind of support before!
“...No, Bai Liu, what are you doing?!” Wang Shun followed behind Bai Liu with a blank stare, trotting after him. “Why are you having them badmouth you?! The players’ support rate directly affects whether or not you can obtain the Death-Exemption Gold Medal...”
“I probably won’t be able to obtain it before the match anyway.” Bai Liu made the decision crisply. “I’ll wait until the official matches begin, use my performance to consolidate support, and then obtain the Death-Exemption Gold Medal. Pre-match negative operations have the highest cost-performance ratio for me.”
Wang Shun saw stars. “What cost-performance ratio?”
Bai Liu smiled, his eyes lighting up slightly.
“I plan to drive up the odds, then bet on [Wandering Circus]. I only just found out there’s a [Gambling Table] gameplay hidden in this game. It’s quite interesting.”
Wang Shun: “!!!!”
Wang Shun rubbed his forehead with a headache.
“Did you already talk to Charles?”
He knew that putting these two reckless people together would lead to something like this!
