What Kairos asked for is simply impossible, but they couldn’t immediately pass up what they could win from him either.

The young men and women discussed among themselves for a while then quickly sent messages back to their family.

Kairos patiently waited. Despite everyone was starting to feel hungry they couldn’t pass up the show.

Looking at how confident Kairos is, Leo and Relestia could only pity their opponents. Linda who is a little too young to fully understand what was happening only had to hear from her father that Kairos is going to fix up the baddies and she was happy enough to have a late dinner.

Kairos ruffled the hair of the matured little girl then promised to make her the best meal she ever had.

After waiting a good half an hour, as the girlie and her companions came back looking for Kairos with their answer.

The human male spoke for his group, “Do you know the things you asked for?”

Without waiting for Kairos to reply, he continued, “These are the secrets of our race. The bid is imbalanced.”

Kairos nodded, “Then what do your families propose?”

The man sighed and said, “What you wanted had to be brought back to the leaders of each race. I don’t know how you did it, but they agreed… with some amendments, of course.”

Kairos nodded again.

“If you win, you may study the elves’ magic, the gnomes’ herbalist, and humans’ aura books but only for ten days each for a total of thirty days. As an Aura Master yourself, I don’t know why you still need to refer to the books, but no matter.”

The young man shrugged. He had asked his father why a Class 9 Aura Master would need to study the manuals again.

He told him that at the end of the road, sometimes to find a way forward many grand aura masters and Grand Cross Knights will study others to discover their own path. But this meant, Kairos wouldn’t be able to explain either because he is not really at Class 9’s strength.

The young man waited for Kairos to accept this term before moving on. The leader of the three races believed that Kairos would not be able to study the texts enough to make sense of them, much less to copy everything.

However, Kairos accepted it without a shred of hesitation.

Following that the young man added, “If you lose, each of the three race wants you to work for them for a decade. During which, you must impart any knowledge and skill asked of you.”

“Done,” Kairos said simply and offered a handshake. The young man was amazed how quickly Kairos accepted the terms but he was glad that things went smoothly. After all, this is no longer a game between young men and women, but linked to profits their race could acquire.

If the young man had Kairos’ experience, he would be terribly suspicious. Of course, even then, there is nothing to work on.

The two shook on it, and surprisingly the young man brought out a magical contract. This is the first time Kairos had seen something like that, but it is binding to all parties with their names written on it, to the terms stated. He could see that the leaders of each race had already placed their signatures.

Once he agrees, all the terms will be valid. Kairos took the contract and studied it. Besides the content, he was wildly curious of how this contract was made.

After a while, when Kairos had made sure that every part of it is correct, he returned it with his signature.

The young man, now visibly pleased, took the contract and carefully kept it.

Without another word, he walked straight towards the magical eggs gambling shop with the rest of his friends.

Kairos and his group followed behind.

As they reached the shop, the store owner gave them a wide smile and immediately explained the game.

They can freely take their pick after paying a hefty sum. Afterwards, the store owner will measure the value of the crystal egg using a magical weighing plate.

The eggs of magical creatures are formed of solid magic and take all shape and sizes. Their colour is usually according to the type of creature their parents are, but there is also exception to this case. For example, back in Gaia, the Orcs’ eggs are mostly purple but their king’s egg was black. Additionally, Calculus found a golden coloured egg from the Orcs’ hatchery which he subsequently lost in a bet to Kairos.

However, the Orcs do not monopolise the colours of purple, black, and gold. There are plenty of other creatures they lay crystal eggs of the same colour.

To judge by looking alone will be difficult, most people need to feel the magic signature of the egg to tell what is within. However, the glass will magically block off all type of sensing spells and techniques, leaving one’s judgement by sight alone.

Since there is a bet going on, more rules will be needed.

The two groups quickly established that they must pick an equal number of eggs. Kairos’ side have Leo, Relestia, and Linda to a total of four.

Whereas the young man has the girlie, another human girl, an elf, and a gnome, for a total of five.

To make it fair, the girlie decided not to participate, claiming that she couldn’t play against Kairos who had saved her before.

Her inviting eyes, however, says another story.

Besides choosing four eggs for each side, they agreed that it will be done turn by turn with the order determined by a roll of dice.

Lastly, discussing among your team which crystal egg to pick is allowed. Besides these three rules, the two sides are not to talk to each other during the bet.

As soon as they established everything, the game began.

First, they each rolled a dice to determine the sequence. After that, those with the same number they will roll again to judge who would be first among them.

While Kairos’ side did not really care about the order, the other party is hoping to score the first position to go.

Not only do they know which one is the grand prize – the manticore egg – they can find almost all the good picks.

The sequence was quickly determined.

The first one to start is Kairos, followed the elf, the young man, the human girl, and gnome, and then Relestia, Linda, and finally Leo.

The young man and his team threw strange glances at Kairos.

They had not told anyone, but they received a powerful spell before coming here. A blessing of Greater Luck.

Things like a loaded dice are too easily seen through, but blessings are nearly untraceable.

Yet, Kairos still gotten the position they are all vying for.

Nevertheless, they have the other positions.

Looking at the current situation, even though Kairos felt there is something amiss, he could not place a finger on what is wrong.

Since it is his turn, he started immediately. He paid the store owner then stepped forward to choose. There are more than three hundred prizes to select from with different colours and sizes.

Kairos does not know that the other party is cheating, but could guess that something is up. Moreover, the sequence of their turns is extremely disadvantageous if the other side gets good picks. Fortunately, since he goes first, if he pick the grand prize it will balance up the odds.

Kairos knows he must find the manticore out of the three hundred over eggs, and immediately he tried using the Heart’s Echo.

While the magical glass had all kinds of protective spells to prevent conventional ways of sensing what type of eggs are within, it did nothing against Kairos’ special ability.

He is flooded at once by hundreds of voices. A worried look appeared on Kairos’ face that grew worse the longer he heard.

His friends looking at his expression also started getting anxious.

There is no time limit for one to make a choice, but the member of the other party did not hasten Kairos. In fact, the longer he takes, the more assured they felt.

Relestia who knows a little about his abilities – given that she is his number one fan – noticed his strange reactions and came over.

Kairos gave her a small shook of his head.

She replied with glowing bright eyes that screamed, “You can do it! I believe in you, because you’re Kairos.”

Kairos blushed terribly when he heard it and he scratched his cheeks a little before saying, “Princess, you have more faith in me than I do.”

“You have never failed us before, hehe.”

Not knowing why, Kairos suddenly felt that he is filled with energy. If it was one of his buddies that gave him such a look, he would’ve returned with his signature eye-roll.

Now completely bursting with power, Kairos started again.

Just like before, the voices he heard are useless. He didn’t account for their age and realized he couldn’t tell the babies apart. Kairos never had such problems before, and his Heart’s Echo had never failed him in the past. The Lifetaker and spirit ores that he had listened to before are all matured and capable of answering. Although he tried harder, there wasn’t much to hear except for incomprehensible noises.

Kairos did not feel dismayed and retracted the Heart’s Echo. Instead, his eyes started glowing golden as he activated Veritable Sight.

As expected, his eyes can only see the truth of things like runes and stratagems and break past illusions and mirages. All it did for him right now was to look more clearly at the different crystal eggs.

But as he put in the effort to pick up the smallest details he can find, Kairos noticed something he missed before.

There are differences on the crystals.

Differences too small for the naked eye to see, at least for those without Kairos’ ocular ability.

Even if two crystals looked exactly the same in colour and shape, when magnified, they are formed of different prisms with varying colours and lines.

As he traced the shapes that are found on the crystals’ surfaces, his sight trailed deeper into the gem.

Kairos jumped back in shock and stopped his ability at once.

He had never seen past the exterior of anything before; the things he glimpsed at that moment was nothing he had seen before. It gave him such a shock that he retracted his gaze.

What he had been looking at before was a two-dimensional surface made of curves and indentions. To put it simply, it is a reflection of light in the direction he is looking, only one-sided.

Obviously, he cannot see the back of anything he is looking at unless the object is turned: This is viewing of a single direction.

But, when his sight entered the object, his view became 360 at once, an Omni-directional x-ray view.

It is different from his Soul Perception that grants him information by covering all the surfaces of things in a certain radius using his life energy.

If the common eye-sight is two-dimensional – to see everything in one direction no matter up-down-left-right – then Soul Perception is three-dimensional – which sees everything front and back as well.

However, what Kairos just saw was one step more than that… He does not know if this could be called four-dimensional, but he can see all the multiple layers within the crystal in that instance – in and out.

“My eyes,” Kairos whispered distractedly, “they have upgraded?”

The Veritable Sight that he had been using over and over for years has just underwent a tremendous upgrade. No, perhaps, he had already improved on the way to use his Veritable Sight since a while ago, but he didn’t discover what it can be used for until he tried it out today.

Because the Soul Perception can cover quite a wide area and tell him the minute details of everything nearby, Kairos had not been using his Veritable Sight to see things. Instead, he only used it for very specific purposes like breaking illusions or understanding runes.

Of course, the regular sight allows him to see much further than his Soul Perception, but even a cultivator’s eyesight cannot see as clearly as the Soul Perception – an ability that is like a mixture of taste, look, hear, smell, and feel.

What the Veritable Sight does is to enhance the ability to ‘look’, magnifying anything he can see, and filtering out what is real and what is fake, plus it shows him the essences of things including the meaning behind each rune.

Compared to Soul Perception, eyesight had always been a choice between distance and details.

But now, with Veritable Sight capable of looking past layers Kairos has more options.

One by one he started to look at the eggs, seeing past the prisms into the core. At first, he did not know what he was looking for, but soon he can tell there are varying patterns that make up the eggs and each displays a unique energy signature.

He cannot really feel the strength of the energy emitting from each crystal egg, but instead used the brightness to estimate whether the life force of the egg is powerful.

These little variations help give Kairos a feeling of whether an egg is good or bad and he soon picked out the top eight choices.

Just as he was about to tell the store keeper which one he wanted, a tiny little voice reached out to him.

It came as a great surprise, because right now Kairos was not using his Heart’s Echo anymore.

He listened carefully. It wasn’t louder than the others, but more direct, as if whispering by his ears.

It was a beautiful voice. Young, vibrant, and filled with endless potential.

And it said, “Papa!”

The tiny hairs on Kairos’ neck stood and his heart skipped a beat, but in amazement and not in fright. When he located the source of the voice, Kairos realized that it is only the seventh on his choice.

A frown appeared on his face, and then as he thought upon it, he realised he had missed a critical point. Just like before, he had not account for the age of the little ones. The eggs are not at the same stage of development as he thought. Some are so little that their life force is actually tiny, but in fact are the child of powerful magical creatures.

Kairos reorganised what he already learnt and swiftly classified the eggs into different development stages. The simpler a crystal egg is, the newer it is, and the more complex it looks, the closer it is to hatching.

When Kairos judged their brightness according to their development stage, he gained a new picture.

That ranked seven little fellow is head and shoulders above its peers, while the rest of his top eight choices are all very close to hatching.

Soon, Kairos has a new list. Only the first two and the seventh of his original eight remained. The rest had all been replaced.

Kairos turned towards the store keeper, pointed at the one he previously judged to be the seventh best and confidently asked for it, “I’ll take that one. Egg number 111.”

The moment he spoke, it is final.

When Kairos selected that, the other side heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the grand prize, the manticore’s egg.

The young man and the elf immediately whispered to each other. While their voices were soft, Kairos could still hear them claiming that what he picked is called the Apoidea Queen.

Soon, the storekeeper took out the egg he selected and gave it to him. When everyone had their turn, they will weigh the value together.