Omni Genius – 80: Skill: [Art Of Deception]

When Qin Fang returned, his brothers were still not sleeping yet. The weather was indeed hot, and they couldn’t sleep even if they wanted to. Thus, they started playing poker together.

Anyways, freshmen really had no entertainment whatsoever. Computers were not allowed, nor were they provided. Thus, they could only gather and play poker or chess to while away their time. Well, it could also improve their relationship too.

Of course, they didn’t gamble money. They only made punishment games for losers. For example, walk around with a strip of paper with embarrassing things written on it, run downstairs and shout “I am a PIG!!!” while hugging the streetlight in the middle of the night, or call any girl among the dorm, and not caring who it was, shout “I love you!”, etc.

“Yo, Fourth Brother. You are back! Just in time too! I have something to do, so help me play for awhile…”

When Qin Fang came back, Xiao Nan was on the phone, and his laptop was playing some gentle music. The other four were crowded around a table and playing “Fight The Landlord”. Gao Ming who seemed to have an upset stomach immediately pulled Qin Fang over to play for him, before rushing for the toilet.

“So, Fourth Brother, will you play?”

Shen Yang said confidently. They were playing a four-way game, and he was the winner. That was why he was having a winner’s confidence now.

“I only know how to play, and my skills are limited!”

The gameplay itself was easy. From three people to four people, it meant adding one more deck only. But that made the game much more complicated and interesting, thus increasing the difficulty of winning too. Qin Fang definitely knew how to play, but as he said, he won’t do well.

Since they weren’t playing on computer, they had to manually shuffle and collect their cards. Thus, the four’s battle begun.

Everything proceeded normally, and when Gao Ming came out of the toilet, Qin Fang had already lost a few rounds. Whether he was the landlord or not, he would get destroyed by the others. This really matched what he said about ‘my skills are limited’. The brother all joked about him because of this.

The battle continued, and Qin Fang was drawing a card while wanting to let Gao Ming have a seat too. Perhaps due to his concentration being disturbed, when he drew a card, he messed up a little, and didn’t take the card he should have, but the one under. Even he himself didn’t realise until it was in his hands, and the others too didn’t notice a thing.

<Skill learned: [Art of Deception], Proficiency: Beginner, EXP: 0%>

When the notice suddenly appeared in his mind, Qin Fang was scared out of wits, and almost exclaimed from shock. However, the expression on his face was quite weird, and he also forgot to draw his cards.

“What are you doing, Forth Brother? Quickly draw your card!”

Seeing that Qin Fang was distracted, the others were immediately unhappy, and Shen Yang who was next to him immediately used his big body to get close to Qin Fang and shout into his ears.

“Urk! I’m fine, I’m fine.”

After getting called, Qin Fang recovered and seeing that the others didn’t notice him taking the wrong card, Qin Fang was slightly surprised.

<[Sleight Of Hand], deception and illusions of all sorts. Use carefully, and don’t harm yourself or others with it.>

As the generation who has seen many Hong Kong films about gambling, almost nobody didn’t know about the King of Gambling, the God of Gambling, the Gambling Saint etc., and was also familiar with the sleight of hand they used. Many children even started trying to learn such tricks, hoping that they would be able to win millions of dollars and get rich overnight.

However, these tricks were used mainly while gambling, and was not a right method. You can’t blame the system for having such a description, and the system was obviously discouraging usage of it frequently.

“To use, or not to use, that is the question…”

While Qin Fang was drawing his card, he contemplated about this problem.

Gambling, something that had existed since human started existing. It practically became one of the vices of humans, and you could say that everybody was constantly gambling. Whether it was gambling with oneself, with others, with the heavens, or with Mother Earth.

One could say that one couldn’t leave gambling. Similarly, nobody could leave the use of sleight of hands, but it was only whether they knew how to use it or not. Some simply didn’t know how to; some use it for justice, while some use it for evil.

“If used for justice, it is good. If used for evil, it is bad.”

Qin Fand suddenly recalled the words that would often be said while dealing with those evil sects in martial arts novels. One sentence in particular was clearly remembered. “Not all who are part of the righteous sect are righteous, and not all who are part of the evil sect are evil.”

“Since this is just a game to have fun with brothers, and no money or other things are involved in this, using it a little is no big deal.”

They only wanted to play a little, and was simple entertainment. There was nothing else involved.

Thus, Qin Fang glanced at the others, before using [Sleight Of Hand]. When his fingers were drawing the card, it slightly moved, and he got the card under the card he should have drawn. Though the card below may be useless, Qin Fang could at least train the skill by doing so.

Thus, every time Qin Fang drew a card, it was time for Qin Fang to perform his show. He had never drawn the card he should have, and always secretly stole the one under.

A pity that his skills now was still really shit. Cards that he should lose was still lost, cards that he should have won was not won, and he was still being made fun of by his brothers. Even Gao Ming who was standing behind him was starting to tease him too. However, nobody noticed that the cards in Qin Fang’s hands were changing all the time.

Everytime he stole a card, Qin Fang could deepen his understanding of the skill. Everytime he shuffled the card, Qin Fang could grasp the location of every cards.

After 10 rounds, Qin Fang’s skill improved to the point that Qin Fang already knew where every card was, and the whole game was in his control. As long as he willed for it, he would be able to draw any card he wanted in the deck.

“Okay, it’s late now, and it’s time to end this. This is the last round! Fourth Brother, prepare to go and hug a pole and scream!”

Qin Fang and the others used the point system, and the landlord will get 3 points if he wins, and lose 3 points if he lost. The farmers on the other hand will win or lose a point. Of course, there were multipliers in the rules which allowed one to earn more points.

And until now, Qin Fang had already lost over 20 points, and lost the most among the four. The chance of him making a comeback was abysmal, unless he had all the multipliers and won this round.

“Fine, this is the last round! Oh dear fairy sister, help me!”

Qin Fang didn’t mind this being the last round, but asking him to go out and shout “I am a pig!”? That was too embarrassing. Thus, Qin Fang couldn’t resist the temptation to go all out, and specially made a weird prayer before the round started, causing the others to exclaim.

The last round started, and the four started drawing cards. Gao Ming stood behind Qin Fang, and quietly watched.

At the start, Qin Fang’s hand was really messy, really, really messy. It was worse than the worst hand you could ever get. But, Gao Ming noticed that Qin Fang’s deck started getting stronger as the game went on.

Qin Fang had all the best cards gathered, and the almost had all the bombs. When Qin Fang was done, he had three to four groups of bombs, and all of them were the multiplier type.

If this was not savage enough, when Gao Ming looked at Shen Yang, Fang Dacheng and Xi Xiaojun’s deck, his face turned interesting.

Gao Ming looked at Shen Yang who was still happily gloating in pity. Shen Yang was indeed the biggest winner just now. Anybody could be the one hugging a pole, but definitely not him.

However, this round made it such that anyone could win, but not him. His bombs were big, but were all the smallest…

The results would be as you imagined. When Shen Yang thought he was going to win no matter what, he suffered the combined attack of the other 3. When the multiplier bombs kept hitting him, Shen Yang’s expression got really funny.

The result was obvious. The deck’s point was multiplied by a few thousand times, and with the base of 3 points, Shen Yang who had around 40 to 50 points lost by ten thousand points. In the end, Shen Yang was almost crying…