"You idiot! No one splits tens. You're causing the rest of us to lose with such stupid play!" yelled an old woman two hands down from him at the table.

He'd only been playing a few hours, but Sam's variance had been horrible. However, his bank roll's risk of ruin was less than 2%. He wasn't worried, he knew the variance would swing back positive. It was just a matter of time.

The shoe was currently sitting at a positive 6, so yea, Sam was splitting tens. He played basic strategy blackjack with the proper deviations like a machine. Playing based on intuition, or 'Gambling' never entered his mine.

Sam was dealt an ace and another 10 card, that he split again. He then received another ace, and an 8. A few moments later, when the dealer busted, Sam gave the old hag a satisfied grin, but refused to reply to any of the 'advice' the other players or dealer kept trying to give him.

****

"How'd you do?" asked Jen as Sam came through the door.

With a frown on his face, Sam replied, "Played for 16 hours without a break, but I'm only up 10 gold. The variance was terrible at first, I was down almost 40 gold, but then I was eventually able to get back positive."

Tamako said, "Ten gold for 16 hours of work - that's outstanding! What are you complaining about?"

Sam shrugged, as he walked over and flopped down on the couch, and said, "Sure, it's not bad, but once the variance balances out, it will really pick up. Plus, I found out that even without access to mana in the casino, my memory is better than back on Earth. I mean WAY better!"

Jen looked at Sam funny, and said, "Of course it is, how many ability points do you have in intelligence now?"

Sam looked a little miffed, as he said, "Well, I thought it was my multi-focus, words of power, and AI mana-powered skills that increased my ability to focus and retain information so thoroughly."

Jen rolled her eyes, and replied, "Well your other skills certainly contribute, but every multi-focus that is active is drawing on your intelligence stat simultaneously, as well as any other intelligence-based skills you may be running at the same time."

Sam thought about Jen's comments for a moment, and said, "I need to adjust my playing strategy to an unbalanced count."

Jen gave him a confused look, and asked, "What is that?"

Sam got up to head to his room, and on his way he answered, "Basically, I'm going to create a more complicated card-counting system that needs me to keep a running count of all the different cards that are played." He turned to her, and said, "Would you like to learn it with me?"

Jen's face blanched as she replied, "I will if you need me to, but otherwise I'll skip the boring hours of blackjack in a smoke-filled casino with a bunch of degenerate gamblers all over the place."

Sam nodded with understanding, and replied, "No...I've got this. Plus, once you've finished getting Tamako healed up, I know you've got to start working on Old Man Pudding some more."

Jen groaned, "Don't remind me. I may have taken on too much trying to help him get his sanity back. I'm going to head out tomorrow and see if there is anything in the market that's affordable that might help with our poisoned aura's and with his mental recovery."

Sam nodded and asked, "How you doing with the healing Tamako?"

She replied, "I'm bored, but don't worry about me. Once I get this concrete off of me, I can get back to fighting. Your enchantments certainly help, but I rarely used them in the arenas. Now off with you to go learn your card balancing trick to make us lots of gold! We're sorely overdue for a shopping trip."

"Amen!" exclaimed Jen.

"Priorities!" Sam called back as he went into his room to work in private.

****

Jen's experimenting and learning to cast the healing spell had given her some ideas on how she might modify her psych skill to interact with more intelligent beasts and possibly even humans. Previously, she'd just been using her AI and psych ability to try and create an "onboard" computer that would lock onto the beasts mind like a parasite, and then she'd either crush or control their mind through the parasite she attached to them. She was now going to try and actually enhance a beasts mind with the creation of its own onboard. However, she was going to leave a back-door open that she could use the beast's onboard to actually understand and read the thoughts of the beast, and maybe eventually humans. If she needed to control them, she just planned on creating the parasite functioning onboard as well.

As Jen was thinking about ways to use her psych ability, she was also using it to read the emotions of those in the marketplace and scanning for threats. Tamako was walking stiffly next to Jen, as her left arm was still mostly covered with concrete, and said, "I think the restaurant is just two more blocks ahead, and the job board is supposed to be just past it."

Jen was about to nod her understanding to Tamako, when she felt a spike of fear and of hostility from inside the store they were passing.

****

"How's he winning all the time!" Exclaimed a sweaty man in the crowd that was watching Sam.

A short woman replied, "He's not winning all the time, but some how he's figured out when to lower and raise his bets!"

An old man grumbled, "About time someone took this casino for some of its money!"

"Yea, about time! This casino has been stealing my gold for years!" screamed a degenerate looking woman.

The sweaty man asked, "When do you think he'll take a break?"

The old man replied, "Who knows, but if he does stop for a break, you know the casino will shut the table down so he can't play anymore."

"Why don't they just shut it down now if they think he's winning too much?" asked the sweaty man.

The old man rolled his eyes, "They can't, The System won't let them shut down a table as long as a player is actively gambling."

The short woman commented, "He's up at least two thousand gold. The casino House Boss will probably have a welcoming party waiting for him when he leaves the casino."

The old man replied, "Yea, the scum will let you win a little, but if you win too big, you're signing your own death quest unless you have an entire guild on your side waiting to join you when you leave."

****

Sam could hear, but ignored the comments of the crowd of people that were watching him. Sam's bank roll was now 3 platinum and 450 gold. With each platinum worth 1,000 gold, he was continuing to increase his max bet size, while keeping his risk of ruin extremely low. As the count went very positive, Sam placed a bet of 200 gold out on the table. As the dealer continued to deal the hand, a man walked up next to Sam, and whispered in his ear, "I can't touch you while your in the casino, but if you know what's best for you. You'll quit and get the hell out of this City now!"

The old man that had been watching Sam, backed up and disappeared as he saw the House Boss approaching Sam. 'I don't want to accidently be associated with that gambler, or the House Boss will have me killed just for the hell of it.' Thought the old man.

Sam glanced at the man whispering in his ear, and just stared him down as he raked in his winnings from the hand that just finished, and placed another 200 gold bet for the next hand. Then Sam simply turned back to the table and kept playing.

The House Boss wanted to chop the gambler into little pieces after the arrogant man ignored his warning. The warning wasn't legitimate, but the gambler didn't know he was going to be killed no matter what when he left the casino. The House Boss simply replied in a cold calm monotone, "Your funeral."

Sam was pissed at the attitude of the casino. 'Just like the scum casinos back on Earth! I'm going to to keep betting night and day until either Jen shows up looking for me or I've bankrupted this crap-hole.' He thought as he pushed another 200 gold hand onto the table.

****

The next day, the sweaty man returned to the casino to find out what had happened to the gambler that had won so much money. As he noticed a crowd still around the blackjack table, he went to see what was going on, when he heard someone exclaim. "By the Seven Decks he just bet 2 platinum on that hand!"