As promised, the game was a standard poker game. Even before the hand was dealt, Arthur felt the mana swirl in the surrounding. Everyone was using their abilities.
As he sat there studying the players, Arthur noted a couple of things in his mind. To win this game, you need to be preceptive of who's using mana and who's not. Another aspect was that you need to know the opponent's ability.
Nera and glasses girl didn't know that he had a clue about their identity. As for Rae, she was glaring at him in such a way that he knew she would bite him if she had the chance. He doubted she would care if Arthur knew her ability or not.
To begin with, Arthur didn't know how would she win using her ability. As far as he could tell, her ability was mainly combat-oriented. However, that didn't exclude the possibility of her ability having other uses or that she had skills.
As for Jonah and Oliver, they were his teammates. Jonah's ability was a perfect fit if they could hide it well enough. As for Oliver… Well, he was a good distraction.
The cards were dealt, two for each player, before a white light appeared in front of Arthur. The words "Two Points" appeared in front of him signaling that he was the big blind.
The points left his bracelet, reducing his 170 points by two. As he understood it, there was a base of one hundred points given to each student each month. Then came their ranking bonus, which was their ranking subtracted from two hundred and multiplied by two. Arthur's ranking was 165 so he got 70 bonus points. As for Jonah, he should have 482 points. Rae must have 494 points and Arthur didn't remember the ranking of the rest of them.
Their wealth was nowhere near enough, but Arthur was fine with that. He'd rather be a lucky or shrewd weakling than a strong top ranker.
'Well, I didn't do that good of a job at hiding my strength.'
That was a mistake that Arthur made, but he didn't want to mull over it. The right choice might have been to stay lower than that, but he would have made several compromises at the expense of his friends and his pride.
Arthur peeked at his cards. A two of Rose and a Guardian of Swords. It wasn't a bad hand, only that it wasn't enough to guarantee a win.
Their uniforms began fluttering as the wind that Oliver summoned rampaged around their table. The teacher and the others were annoyed as they could barely keep their hair still.
"Stop using your wind! We can see you using it clearly!" Rae said as she held back her hair.
"And?" Oliver asked with a laugh. "I'm not cheating. They said we could use our abilities."
Rae turned to the teacher but she only received a shrug in response. As her white scarf appeared and was about to beat Oliver to a pulp, the teacher raised her hand.
"No violence on campus. You will be punished if you violate the rules." The teacher warned and Rae sat back down in annoyance as the wind kept obstructing her from sitting or seeing clearly.
Arthur smiled as he held tightly to his cards. Now, however, they were different. There was no two of Roses, only an ace of a Sword. What happened was quite simple.
Oliver was a distraction, Jonah would copy whatever good card he had and places his hand on it, and Arthur would have Ruki replace the cards through shadow space.
His plan was a bit faulty, as he thought of it on the spot. There was, after all, a two of roses card lying around in his shadow space. The reason that he didn't trade his bad cards with Jonah's good cards was simple.
He wanted a diverse assortment of cards. He could either get a flush or a straight using this method. Depending on the cards the flop, the turn, and the river showed, he would pull his cards accordingly.
Of course, there was no way to communicate with each other without being spotted. That's why there was a margin of error. Some of the cards that Jonah would give him would also be unsuitable to the ones he had, so it wasn't a perfect plan.
After everyone called Arthur on his bet as the big blind, the teacher dealt the three cards. The flop revealed a six of Books card, a two of Swords card, and an eight of swords. Arthur saw that Oliver's expression turned gloomy when he saw the cards.
Arthur switched his ace with the two in his shadow space before Nera activated her ability. Arthur saw her eyes gleam as if he was standing naked in front of her.
Nera, who was after Arthur, raised her bet by ten points. As for Rae, Arthur noticed that she seemed disinterested from the beginning. He guessed that she wanted to fold.
"Are you running away, Rae?" Arthur tapped on the table. "You shouldn't have taken Reinhold's place if you simply choose to coward away." Arthur provoked.
For the first time tonight, Rae smiled when Arthur talked to her. She grinned until her dimples appeared, revealing her teeth.
"You have a big mouth for someone who ran away in the second test." Rae waved her hand and the pot was increased by another ten points. "Bring it on."
Arthur didn't answer and simply smiled provokingly. As for the girl with the glasses, she looked with a bewildered expression at Arthur. In return, Arthur grinned.
The girl was startled and looked down at her cards. She fidgeted before folding and losing her small blind. Oliver and Jonah both called on the raise and Arthur followed along. The teacher dealt the turn card and it was an ace of shields.
This time, Nera checked and didn't raise. Rae raised making both Oliver and Nera fold. It was only Arthur, Jonah, and Rae still left in the game.
The last card was dealt, revealing a seven of Swords card. Arthur swapped his cards again and he waited for Rae to raise again. She did. Arthur grinned as he called.
***
There were shouting and accusations, but Rae didn't have a concrete idea of how Arthur did it. What astonished Arthur was the fact that Rae was holding a pair of aces in her hand, making her have a three of a kind.
When Arthur won with an ace-high flush, Rae caused a scene. Arthur saw that Nera was looking at him with suspicions since her ability told her that Arthur had a two and not an ace.
The wind grew stronger and it smelt like a strong odor of raw meat. Using the chance that the weird perk of Oliver's ability brought, Arthur switched his two of Rose with Jonah's card, who folded, and replaced it with his fake ace of Swords.
This way, the fake card would disappear in his shadow space as he won the game. The points were transferred to his bracelet as he saw Rae fuming.
"Why are you playing this?" Arthur asked with genuine curiosity. "Your ability has no advantage here."
"Don't talk like you know me." Rae hmphed and sat back down. "Again!"
They kept playing until Arthur's points reached three hundred. He avoided being found out thanks to Oliver using his ability to distract everyone while losing.
His strongest competitor, however, was the girl in the glasses. It seems she always knew when he had good cards and would fold. When he didn't, she would raise.
Arthur had the weird feeling that he was being read but he didn't know-how. He then had the idea and took out a paper from his subspace and a pen.
"Just for keeping notes about my winnings," Arthur said when the teacher looked at him with a questioning look.
Arthur then wrote something on the paper and crumbled it. He then watched as the glasses girl's eyes widened and she crossed her arms in front of her and looked down.
'Bingo.' Arthur smiled and returned the paper to his subspace. He then suffered the glare of the girl who looked like she was looking at an animal.
Arthur simply wrote that the girl with the glasses had her cleavage shown through her unbuttoned shirt. It was a lie, of course. But her action made him understand her ability.
She had the ability to know whatever was written around her. This was also the reason she knew what Arthur was reading back in the library. In this sense, maybe she wasn't sleeping but studying?
Arthur had found himself a bookworm, someone who lived in the world of books. He had never heard of such a unique ability before and it was sure to shine later.
The only bewildering thing is how did this girl, who had an ability that befitted a scholar, pass the second and the first test. No matter what method she used, Arthur knew he needed her. She was the best person to gather intel by simply being in the right place.