Christopher was rather pleased with his first stop of the day. He had shown his personal entry permit for Lumen and successfully completed the registration for the training class under Netello Brave. He had even managed to extract the name of the interesting Priestess, who went by the name of Zalla. He tried to draw her in for some more conversation but she said she was busy. He tried not to take it personally, the woman did not seem a social butterfly.

He had never heard of this person named Netello Brave, but he had no reason to doubt the man’s capabilities after the words from the young priestess. In three days, he would be expected in the Noble district for his first training session. He was somewhat unfamiliar with that area, having little occasion to visit there up to now. At least it would be nice to be expected for his first training session for a change.

His next task would be to trade the silver bar for Venarian coins in one of the exchange offices, he needed the money for the subsequent tasks.

Christopher covertly summoned the small silver bar and removed the [Soul Mark]. He expected that summoning the metal in one of the exchange shops from his Soul would probably drop some jaws and cause unwanted attention. He really wanted to be careful, he kept worrying about making a mistake that would result in cutting one of his precious loops short, which he really could not afford. The black robes had a few simple pockets that would be able to hold the metal without issue.

He quickly reached the Lumen market and entered one of the exchange shops that had a reputation for being fair. It was where he had exchanged the coins for the silver on his previous loop. Tinos had confirmed that he had gotten a fair exchange as well. It hardly mattered, the transaction was pretty straightforward. It was not as if he came in with a disproportionate amount of wealth that would raise eyebrows, which admittedly might become a problem on future loops if things went well.

The owner carefully weighed the silver and seemed to maintain the standard rate of exchange. He accepted the offer of twenty-three and eighteen bronze Venarian coins. This meant that he had only lost one silver and ten bronze coins over two transactions, better than he had expected. He had to show his Lumen residency permit and his name was registered for the exchange, which should be fine.

Next up was some modest shopping. He did not want to waste too much of his money, everything that he spent now would be less that he could multiply by betting on the Arena fights. He did not mind buying his boots second-hand, and he swiftly managed to locate a pair in one of the cheaper shops. They were a bit worn, but only cost him fifteen bronze coins, which was a steal. He bought a simple leather purse for another three bronze coins at one of the stands at the Arena Plaza. He did not browse further, afraid that he would give in to the temptation to buy more. He now had twenty-two silver and twenty bronze Venarian coins in his purse, which should be enough for his next stop.

*

Christopher looked up at the establishment of the Lucky Goddess. The building was only a few streets removed from the Lumen Arena. The building was quite something, it looked to be partly grown from a Sternel Tree, with extra wooden segments added to the structure with planks. Those segments were painted in the color of Gold, which in his opinion made the building look gaudy. A depiction of the Goddess Avalla was placed next to the large golden letters spelling out The Lucky Goddess.

The building was quite large and a decent amount of traffic both entered and exited the building. He overheard two women who were discussing which fighters to bet on. Gambling apparently was popular wherever you went. He could only imagine the chaos that would reign here on the days of the actual Arena Matches.

He thought it likely that the Earl was making bank with this operation. The Lucky Goddess was entirely owned by the city government, and he expected that it was a sizable revenue source. It was no wonder that they were so tough on illegal gambling, it was directly cutting into their own profits.

Upon entering, Christopher was confronted with two brawny Guards that were flanking the door. They wore black plated armor and looked strong enough to give any patron with devious thoughts some pause. They gave him only a sparing glance. Christopher swept his gaze over the main hall, drinking in the chaos of people storming about and the cacophony of intermingling voices. The entire first floor looked dedicated to Arena betting, but one long spiral staircase led to a second floor, and there appeared to be many side rooms. The employees all wore the same neat black and grey uniform.

The Lucky Goddess looked shiny, that was his first thought. Gleaming metal covered many of the surfaces. Soul Light was infused in many of those metal plates, which shone in different hues depending on the metal. Pillars of wood were tastefully etched in the image of unknown fighters which seemed appropriate considering the purpose of the hall.

Placed up high on the wall were metal boards that depicted the match-ups of the fighters paired with the odds for each fighter. The boards were only accessible for employees, and he saw one of them adjusting the odds for one of the fights by slotting new numbers into one of the many receptacles. It seemed like a simple but effective system. There were several counters with employees where you could apparently put your money on a bet. Only three were currently in use, and there was a small line behind each. He was sure that more would open up after most people got off at work. He had learned that the Lucky Goddess was open almost all hours of the day.

He turned to the boards to contemplate his task. Christopher took some time to determine the bets that were most likely to turn a profit for him. He would have to find the fighters with the longest odds that had won convincingly. He quickly found his first bet among the multitude of options.

Betting on this fighter would more than triple his money if she won. This fighter was currently ranked eighty-third but had resoundingly beaten the number seventy-two on his last turn. It was no guarantee on this turn where things were already playing out differently, but the odds on this fighter seemed very favorable to him.

Putting all his money on this one fight seemed foolish, so he decided to spread it over multiple bets.

He managed to find another two fighters that had managed to win on the last turn with good odds and chose them for his bets. One of them had won convincingly and would also almost triple his money. The other had only won by the skin of his teeth, but that fighter would quintuple his money, so he decided to take the risk.

Christopher would only need to win one of his three bets in order to make a small profit. Winning two bets would more than double his wealth, and winning three would almost quadruple his earnings. Losing all three bets seemed very unlikely considering his first turn, but the scenario did worry him somewhat.

He had spent a lot of time staring at the boards to come to this decision, but he felt secure that he had managed to choose the bets that had the most potential.

He got in line to make it official, and after showing his residency permit to the employee, he parted with 21 silver Venarian coins in return for three betting slips, which he would have to guard carefully. He had put eight silver coins on the more certain bets, and another five on the one with longer odds. He was left with twenty bronze coins in his purse just in case.

Now that he had completed his tasks, he decided to take a look around the Lucky Goddess. It turned out that there were many different games in the side rooms and on the second floor.

It truly was very similar to a normal casino, mostly matching what he had expected.

Most games were currently not in play, too few people inside at the moment. But there were some interesting options.

There was a simple dice game in which they rolled with two eight-sided wooden dice. The figures on the dice were etched with metal and infused with Soul Light. One of the dice had drawings of eight different monsters, while the other dice imaged humans of varying strength. The employee threw the dice of the monster, while the player threw the dice of the humans. The player would win if the depiction of the human was strong enough to defeat the monster. If they were equally strong then the house won. Christopher kind of wanted to play, but he knew it would most likely just result in him losing all his money, so he held off.

He was interested in the games that were played with a Soul Force component. He was currently observing a popular one that seemed to be somewhat based on skill. He observed the four people around the table for a while, trying to discern some of the rules. The entire table was filled with thin metal pipes interrupted by many hatched intersections. The employee of the Lucky Goddess infused something into the metal at the bottom of the table, which was obstructed from view by a strange gleaming material. The three players then started opening hatches in turns at their own sections, sometimes creating a small flash of light, allowing that player to move to the next tier of hatches in their section. They all seemed to give opening the hatches quite some thought, making him think that there was some strategy involved. He was starting to understand the game, but once again held off. It was highly unlikely that he could defeat the more seasoned players.

He even found a bar in one of the side rooms of the establishment. A few people were already drinking at this hour, maybe trying to forget about their losses. Drinking in a casino just seemed like a recipe for disaster to him, mostly for the one that was drinking.

Christopher left the casino and made his way back to his new home. The Arena matches would be three days from now, on the same day as the start of his training under Netello. That meant that he had some days to spent before things really got moving. He figured that he should spend that time gathering information as well as his usual solitary training. There were a lot of things that he had wanted to look into since the day that the Blight had invaded.

He wanted to learn more about how the city prevented spying from the Blight, the working of the Giant Soul Alarms in the city, and about the lack of Soul Mages during the attack, and he wanted to learn more about the surrounding villages. He had more questions, but fixing those issues should make quite a difference to their efforts

He had some theories about the lack of Soul Mages during the attack, which was one of the largest problems of that day. He worried that the Blight had managed to set the razor beaks and Flesh Rippers on the Soul Mages to prevent them from reaching the battlements. It certainly seemed possible considering the extensive information gathered by the enemy. His Soul Force abilities had probably not made it in the system yet considering that his platoon had been surprised to learn about his abilities, which might explain him making it to the battlement untouched.

He was not sure which institutions held records of the Soul Mages in the city. Probably the Academy, and also the government itself. Of course, maybe he was just overthinking it and the problem was simply desertion due to the fear caused by the shrieks of the Flesh Rippers.

Sounding the alarm a few minutes early might allow the Soul Mages to make it to the battlements in both cases. That way they should not come into contact with the invading forces during their journey to their posts. He was lucky that he had a decent grasp of the time at which the invasion commenced. It had been during the end of his short break at the Lumen Constructors, which should mean that the attack started only a few minutes before the third hour of the afternoon.

It would be great if he could find the potential spy, but that still seemed like an impossible task. For all he knew they were just using magic to gain their information, he knew nothing about this Blight's Essence and would have a hard time learning more considering its secrecy. Asking around would be a sure way to end up chained in the Lumen dungeon.

It was another reason to join the Lumen Academy on this turn. The library might also contain more information on Blight's Essence as an apparent counterpart to Soul Force.

He wanted to learn more about the closer villages because he wanted to save people outside of Lumen. There had been very few refugees from those villages that had fled to Lumen on his last turn, and he wondered if he might be able to increase the amount that would be able to reach Lumen on the next turn with careful planning. It was especially pressing due to him losing twenty-four more hours on his next loop.

There was one final surprise for Christopher when he returned to his lodgings. He had moved to the relatively private space in front of his sleeping alcove to go through some of his strength exercises. Suddenly he heard Naan”s voice behind him.

“Christopher, I was looking for you”

“I’m sorry?” He turned around, worried that something was wrong.

“One of the men found a person that matches your description. A rather strange fellow, I knew you wanted to know.”

‘Oh shit, that actually worked, and so quickly.’ He thought with surprise. He had put it out of his mind after asking Naan the day before. He needed to speak to this person as soon as possible, he might have found another summoned!