Chapter 1227 Paltz Game

Aiwas and his party did not stay in other oasis city-states, but went directly to Holy Spring City.

Although they lacked food that could fill Shark, Aiwas, now balanced in his path, could use pastoral care. The energy contained in his flesh and blood was much stronger than meat like beef and mutton.

It took them nearly two days to travel - if it was Leviathan himself, he could fly back and forth in less than a day.

The main issue was having to tow the carriage with several people, which was quite cumbersome... After all, Leviathan's talents were high-speed mobility and amphibious capabilities, and its strengths lay in bursts. Its load-bearing capacity and endurance were insufficient. Throwing the carriage away instantly would have been no problem, but pulling it and carrying so many people over such a long distance was a real struggle.

The straight-line distance from Paradise City to Holy Spring City is about two thousand kilometers.

This distance is approximately four to five times the east-west distance of Avalon and more than twice the east-west distance of Iris.

Leviathan was able to carry a two-ton load and reach its destination in just forty hours through a strong desert storm, which was a great effort.

Another person who tried his best was Aiwass - he used pastoral care to replenish Leviathan's mana three times.

In fact, one time is enough, but the Leviathan's "fuel tank" is too small. So we have to stop several times to resupply.

At seven o'clock in the morning on July 3rd, they finally arrived at the surrounding area of ​​Holy Spring City.

"—We can see an oasis ahead."

Haina looked out of the carriage window and exclaimed, "It's really nice... It really deserves to be the largest city-state in Parthia."

It was a city that could be described as "magnificent".

This city-state boasts towering walls, hundreds of feet high, almost reaching the clouds. The amber-colored walls resemble a cake drizzled with syrup, or a massive brass signet ring lying in the desert.

And that wasn't bronze or brass—if you looked closely, you'd see it was lead preserved by the amber power of dusk. From afar, you could see the intricate patterns etched into the city walls.

With Haina's eyesight, she could easily see the contents of the scroll on the city wall.

On the west side of the city gate stood numerous winged beings. Some resembled Ligeia, with pure white, fluffy wings, even with smaller wings behind their ears and at their feet. Others resembled harpies, giant griffins with human heads and staffs in hand. Still others had bird heads but human hands and feet.

Everyone's wings are different, and everyone's appearance varies greatly, but the common point is that everyone has wings.

On the other side of the city gate, the scaly people gathered. Snakemen, lizardmen, and murlocs all gathered there. The murlocs alone had two different types: "human head and fish body" and "fish head and human body." Their appearances also varied greatly...

The only difference from the west side is that there are giant dragons and some marine creatures that are quite similar to Leviathan on the side of the scaly people - let's call it dragon shark - they have wings and scales, but they choose to stand on the side of the scaly people.

The central gate was only slightly open, about a 150-degree angle inward, allowing the massive relief carvings on its exterior to be clearly seen.

It was like a structure like the lion's head or rings you see hanging in front of a door - only it was two heads.

Ancient painting techniques were obviously not very advanced, so it's hard to make out the facial features, or even tell whether a man or a woman is male. But you can roughly make out that one of the two heads has wings and the other has scales.

Outside the city, a clear and sweet river flows—the very origin of the Holy Spring City's name. It serves as the city's moat, but to the Parthians, this sweet river is like heaven on earth.

Once they entered the oasis, the raging sandstorm subsided instantly. It was like stepping from the noisy outside world into the quiet, soundproofed interior of a house. The raging storm calmed down like a well-behaved puppy, and even the shaking carriage fell silent.

This is a vision that is completely unseen in other city-states.

Although storms rarely approached urban areas in other city-states... that was only "rarely." It was definitely not like crossing an invisible barrier, where one step into two completely different worlds.

"What is this...? Some kind of barrier?"

Haena became alert and stood up like a hound that heard the footsteps of a stranger.

"That's normal."

Without even looking up, Aiwass waved for Haina to sit down. "After all, this was once the capital of Parthia...it's only natural that it has some ancient heritage."

He was playing chess with Zhu Tang—even though Zhu Tang couldn't open his eyes, he could identify the chess pieces by touch alone. This was probably why he didn't play Go with Aiwass.

On the other side, Ibn was playing cards with Haena.

The Parthians loved playing cards, so there were many different card games, including some that were similar to modern playing cards, which Aiwass was familiar with.

He and Haina were currently playing a simple board game, the most popular card game in Anxi, similar to the "Dou Dizhu" (Fight the Landlord) of Aiwas's past life.

It was called Palz, and if translated into Avalonian, it simply meant "calculation."

A Paltz deck has eight different cards, each depicting a pomegranate, a book, a slave, spices, a carpet, silk, a gold coin, and water. Each card is numbered from 1 to 8, from low to high in value, and the quantity of each item is also numbered from one to eight. There are four identical copies of each of the eight cards, for a total of thirty-two.

The game is played by taking turns acting as the caravan leader. They announce a random number, then everyone, starting with the dealer, takes turns drawing cards, using the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to calculate their cards. The fastest player to reach the number wins and receives one point. If the dealer reaches the number himself, they receive three points.

If all the cards have been drawn, or if everyone has drawn the ninth card and still cannot make up the number, then everyone will be deducted one point and the dealer will be deducted three points.

This is a game of wit and transcendence. The rules are simple, easy to understand, and anyone can play with any number of players, regardless of the number of rounds. There are also versions where chips are collected instead of points... There's even a version where you bet your entire family—literally, betting your entire family.

Children from freemen's families, as long as their family members have a decent level of education, will play this game from a young age to teach them how to count, exercise their mental arithmetic skills, and let them have a general understanding of the value arrangement of various commodities commonly seen in caravans.

If you play this game well, it's easy to find a good job - the Parthians value wisdom very much, and smart people can do well almost anywhere.

Even if they became slaves, if they could count and write, they would often be sold to wealthier freemen to help them with more demanding tasks. Sometimes, they were even sold for more than some low-level transcendents.

And from the perspective of Haina, a native of Avalon, this game has another malicious purpose—

——It makes all the Parthians take it for granted that "slaves are commodities" since childhood!

And the value is not that high, only higher than pomegranates and books!

Not even as good as spices and carpets!

(End of this chapter)