Chapter 93 Casino
[Didn't this handsome guy just leave early this morning? How come he suddenly appeared out of the equipment room?]
[That startled me! Could you please give me some warning before these sudden close-up shots next time?]
[Does he have a teleportation artifact...?]
Dude, is the focus on the props? Didn't you guys see the key the handsome guy is holding?
This equipment room is a Class B space within the instance that is not open to the public. Only the property owner can open it using the physical key formed by the contract. [If I'm not mistaken, the handsome guy has already bought the equipment room.]
[Bought it??? You mean a player randomly bought a room in a dungeon??]
[Here's a scary story for you: the live stream camera just caught a glimpse of this handsome guy's left hand, and he had a whole bunch of keys like these on his left hand.]
[Miracle Landlord's Travel Adventure, right?]
[I initially thought he was joking about going to a real estate agent, but he actually went and bought a whole bunch of houses. I mean, could I have just one key from that bunch? Just one would be fine. I'm so upset, my current place isn't even as big as this equipment room.]
So why did he buy this equipment room that's less than 20 square meters? If he has too much money to spend, he could transfer half to me; I don't mind having too much money.
[They probably used this empty equipment room as a storage room, storing items collected in this instance... Maybe they didn't even consider cost-effectiveness; buying a house is as simple as treating ourselves to a small glass of sweet water.]
[Thank you, doctor. You're truly a miracle worker! After hearing your words, I felt like I was instantly cured.]
The three pairs of eyes on the fat man's belly blinked in unison, and the moment they calmed down, they noticed the equipment room key that Fang Zhuo was holding in his hand.
Good news, he didn't hang up;
The bad news is even worse than having a cheat code: how could anyone be so rich as to casually buy a useless little room?
Upon seeing the large handful of keys in the other person's left hand, the fat man nearly fainted, exclaiming in shock:
"Sir, have you bought all the other rooms in the entire Huitong Building?!"
“No, these keys belong to other places.” Fang Zhuo shook his head.
He didn't notice it when he first came out, but then he realized that his look was a bit like an old-fashioned landlord. If he wore flip-flops and a t-shirt, he would look even more like one.
He put all ten keys into the bracelet's storage space and asked the fat man:
"I want to open a safe house and need one or two bodyguards. Do you know anyone stronger than an S+ level dungeon boss? Or do you have any information channels to contact them? Salary is negotiable, as long as they are strong enough."
"Let me think..." The fat man leaned against the table next to the tattooed man and thought for a while, causing the tattooed man to shudder reflexively.
After spending two days in the dungeon, the tattooed man had long lost the energy and spirit he had before his first day at work.
He now has the typical look of a resident trainee—a sallow complexion, pale lips, and a wary, panicked look in his eyes.
Unlike the bespectacled woman, he was somewhat grateful to Fang Zhuo at this moment. At least this handsome young man, who looked like an elite, had successfully attracted the boss's attention, making life less difficult for ordinary players like them.
"Sir, although I don't know any big shots that powerful, there's one place where you can definitely find information about them—the casino."
As usual, the fat man took the map and circled three blocks nearby:
"After midnight, a newsstand will randomly appear within these three blocks. You can buy any newspaper or magazine there, tell the old lady inside that you want to go to the No. 3 Complex, and she will take you there."
"The dealers in the casino are the most well-informed people in the entire dungeon world. As long as this is done, they can get all the information you want to know."
The fat man stretched out his round fingers and made a gesture as if counting money.
"However, they charge exorbitant prices for information. The last time I went to them was 320 years ago, just to find a player. That old squirrel charged me a full 45 ghost coins."
"Damn it, that heartless dealer, why didn't he just rob him..."
Towards the end, the fat man's words gradually turned into complaints about the high price.
Realizing that Fang Zhuo was still watching him, Fatty T finally brought his wandering thoughts back to reality:
"However, you should be careful of the checkpoints along the road. Players cannot move freely on the streets after midnight. If you are caught, don't argue with them. Just give them some money to send them away."
Fang Zhuo nodded to indicate that he understood.
With nothing much to do in the afternoon and evening, he leaned against his workstation and reread the original work.
Before leaving get off work at 11:30, the fat man diligently brought over the time clock and then gave a long, rambling explanation of the casino's rules and regulations, acting as honestly as a subordinate who had worked there for hundreds of years.
This time, Fang Zhuo and the tattooed man were assigned to the same dormitory. The tattooed man had been staying up all night until his eyes were bloodshot, but he was still thinking about the dark figures that were coming later. He could only try to stay awake and tell himself that he must not fall asleep.
At midnight, Fang Zhuo repeated his old trick, generously burning two thousand pieces of ghost money for the shadowy figures:
"Take me to the newsstand."
As ghosts that only appear at night, the shadowy figures are clearly extremely familiar with the terrain at night.
They led Fang Zhuo through a maze of twists and turns until they arrived at a newsstand so old that the outer panels were cracked. Inside, there were magazines and newspapers that had just been published that month, but the "old lady" sitting inside was surprisingly old.
The old lady was truly old, just skin and bones. She looked like a skeleton with no flesh left. When she sat up to get a magazine, she even dropped her little finger on the ground.
After groping around on the floor for a while, she shakily put the finger bones on and then took down the magazine from the top shelf.
“Young man, this is the most expensive magazine here. No one has bought it for centuries. If you’re going to Building No. 3, you can just buy the cheapest newspaper.”
"Are you sure you want to buy this?" The old lady leaned closer to the barcode and glanced at the price of the magazine: "Good heavens, it costs a whopping eighty-two ghost coins."
"Sure."
Fang Zhuo didn't care much about the price, only that the magazine's cover showed it was officially published by the No. 3 Complex, and that it might contain some casino-related information.
"Wait a moment, young man, I'll go get you the free gift."
She muttered to herself, "Young people these days are really promising, much more generous than I was back then. When I was young, I only dared to gamble one bet at a time. Every weekend I would only bring twenty pieces of ghost money in, and if I lost it all, I would leave."
"Sigh, this magazine is enough for me to play with four times already..."
The old lady struggled to get up from the chair, walked to the cabinet behind her, rummaged through it for a long time, and finally handed Fang Zhuo a finger bone necklace.
Fang Zhuo: ...
The thought of the old lady's finger bone falling to the ground made it hard for him not to have some unpleasant associations with the necklace.
But since he had already bought it, he accepted the necklace.
The instant he touched the necklace and the magazine, a notification popped into his mind—
[Congratulations on triggering the hidden Easter egg!]
[Congratulations, player, you have obtained the item: Six-Fingered Gambler's Finger Bone]
[Item Description: All player spending in the casino will be reduced by 10%, and winnings will be increased by 30%]
[Note: Even the most skilled gambler loses in the long run; the wisest course is to stay away. Winning is just a process; losing is the end. After breaking this finger bone, the player can jump from inside the casino to any selectable instance and can bring three designated companions.]
[Number of uses: 3]
Opening the magazine, you'll find a detailed map of the underground casino, including the function and purpose of each floor.
Every page is illustrated, and it even comes with a free prop necklace, making it surprisingly good value for money.
The old lady then turned around, pressed a button on the counter, and the magazine shelf immediately moved slowly and split in two, revealing a dark hole in the middle.
"Enter Building No. 3 from here."
Fang Zhuo thanked the old lady, bowed slightly, and went inside.
The passage was not long, only about ten meters long. After passing the corner, we walked another five or six meters and then pushed open the door. A dazzling golden light shone before our eyes.
The lighting here is so bright that it's hard to distinguish between night and day. In the lobby at the entrance, there are huge gambling tables, each averaging more than 20 square meters in size. The rotating pillar in the middle plays a live stream of players from the same instance, while others surround the tables, shouting and placing bets.
In addition to copy betting, there are also some traditional poker games on the lower level.
Each dealer sat upright in the center of the circular table, surrounded by gamblers, coldly confirming the amount of money wagered.
Like real estate agents, these dealers receive meager basic wages, and the agreed-upon commission from each bet has been reduced to virtually nothing by the time it reaches them.
Therefore, their work enthusiasm is basically zero, and their greatest interest every day is thinking about which crooked ways to generate income.
Fang Zhuo took a quick stroll around the venue and, fifteen minutes later, successfully found the dealer described in the original text of the book "I Became Famous After Opening a Safe House in an Infinite Dungeon".
This was a mermaid emitting a pale blue glow, looking like a beautiful decoration in the opulent casino, but Fang Zhuo knew that its potential was far greater than that.
Later in the original story, when the mermaid's salary was consistently insufficient to cover her expenses, she mortgaged her tail to the bank to borrow a large sum of money to enhance her strength. She then quit her job and became a free-to-play dungeon boss.
Perhaps due to the inferiority complex and torment brought about by losing her tail, the mermaid quickly rose to become one of the most feared bosses in the entire dungeon world, and one of the most troublesome villains in the original work.
Fortunately, the storyline hasn't progressed much yet, and the mermaid hasn't started her rampage.
In other words, this is a classic example of a stock with great potential.
This project is excellent, and Fang Zhuo has decided to invest.
At this moment, the mermaid was leaning lazily against the edge of the table, with a listless expression, staring blankly at the ceiling. Only when someone came to place a bet would she listlessly take out a long pole to hook over the ghost money.
The table was ridiculously large; the distance between the dealer and the gamblers was more than two meters.
Fang Zhuo couldn't openly announce the recruitment drive; he needed to find a way to attract the mermaid's attention and try to get her to come out out of curiosity.
If there's anything more eye-catching than placing huge bets, it's deliberately not participating in a betting game when you clearly have the ability to place massive bets.
He slowly walked to the gambling table where the mermaid was, leaned against the table and watched for more than ten minutes.
After confirming that the mermaid's gaze had casually swept over him several times, Fang Zhuo calmly took out the gleaming key from his bracelet—
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