Nick wasn't entirely sure if this was truly just a coincidence.
After all, getting the most powerful card immediately seemed quite unlikely.
'Is he trying to lure me into betting with information?' Nick thought as he looked at the Gambler.
"Is this a trick?" Nick asked.
"I can't break the rules or use any sort of trick," the Gambler said. "If I use a trick, I can't produce Zephyx."
"It's just bad luck," the Gambler added with a chuckle. "Also, if you're talking about the card, that one would've shown up at some point anyway. It just would've taken more rounds."
Nick's suspicions lessened but didn't completely vanish.
"Let's continue," Nick said, taking out a piece of the pile of credits.
"Certainly," the Gambler said, putting the piece to the side. "Is there any specific kind of game you want to play?"
"The same game again," Nick said.
"Well, that's a bit boring, but sure. I can accommodate you," the Gambler said as he pulled out another card.
Nick also pulled out his next card and looked at it.
Nick was shocked for just a small instant when he saw the Specter on the card.
The Talker!
For just a moment, Nick had thought that the Gambler had somehow already found out about the Talker, but then, he remembered that the Talker had been with the city before, and the Gambler had most likely heard about the Talker from there.
Nick placed the card down.
The Gambler just laughed and put his card down.
The card showed an old lady sitting on a blanket in the middle of a Containment Unit.
On the top right was a two, and the name of the card was the Other Old Lady.
"Seems like you won," the Gambler said. "Care for another round?"
Nick left the small piece of metal there. "We're going to play until all of this money is gone."
Keen eyes might have noticed that Nick had not gotten his reward.
Wasn't he supposed to get a thousand credits from the Gambler since he won?
Kind of.
Nick could demand the credits from the Gambler, but it was smarter to not take it back.
Instead, the Gambler just gave off a lot of Zephyx and kept the credits.
The Zephyx gained via this way was worth more than the thousand credits.
The Gambler produced Zephyx whenever a game was completed.
It didn't matter who won or lost.
The only difference was that the Gambler gave off more Zephyx when the Extractor won.
The two of them played 20 more rounds, and just as expected, the ratio of wins to losses was near 50%.
"How about we increase the bet for this round?" the Gambler asked.
"No," Nick immediately answered.
"Again?" the Gambler asked with a sigh.
The Gambler had asked that question during three different rounds.
Surprisingly, every time Nick won the round, and if he had agreed to up the bid, he would have gotten far more Zephyx.
"Why do you not want to make this more fun?" the Gambler asked.
"Because you're better at this than me," Nick answered. "Anything that makes the game more complex will decrease my likelihood of winning."
"50% is the highest I can possibly get."
"That's not true," the Gambler said. "There have been people that I played with who got more out of me than they gave me."
"Individual cases," Nick said evenly. "The average chance of winning is still in your favor."
"After all, if it weren't, you would have long since gone bankrupt," Nick said as he put the next card on the table.
He didn't even look at the card.
The Gambler looked at Nick for a bit before his smile returned.
"Well then, I guess we will continue playing this game," he said.
The two of them continued playing for over an hour, and eventually, Nick ran out of money.
"I presume that's it?" the Gambler asked.
Nick nodded. "How much Zephyx have you gained?"
The good thing about working with a cooperative and intelligent Specter was that one could ask them about their progress toward the next level.
"Nothing," the Gambler said. "If we were to play like this every hour, I would advance to the next level in 20 years."
Nick didn't like what he was hearing, but he also kind of expected that.
"I'll see what I can do," Nick said as he walked towards the exit.
"See you next time!" the Gambler shouted with a wave.
Nick left the Containment Unit and checked the Zephyx that had been produced.
'66 grams of Zephyx for a bit more than an hour,' Nick thought.
66 grams of Zephyx in an hour was insane for an Early Adolescent that could be worked with constantly.
However, Nick had paid 50,000 credits, which was the equivalent of about 50 grams of Zephyx.
Yet, even if one deducted that, it would still be a profit of 16 grams of Zephyx in a bit more than an hour.
That would be about 300 grams of Zephyx per day, which would make the Gambler the second most profitable Specter of Dark Dream after the Talker.
However, they were essentially absorbing all the Zephyx the Specter produced, and it barely had anything left to grow.
If they kept squeezing the Gambler as they were doing right now, it would never grow more powerful.
Obviously, that would be wasting the potential of the Gambler.
Nick obviously wanted the Gambler to grow more powerful so that it could produce more Zephyx, and there were two ways of achieving that.
One, changing the ratio of how much the Containment Unit absorbed.
Two, increasing the chances of losing the bet.
The more the Extractor won, the more Zephyx the Containment Unit received.
But on the other hand, the Gambler would lose Zephyx.
Nick put the Zephyx container away and went to the console of the Containment Unit.
After fidgeting with it for a bit, Nick changed the ratio of how much the Containment Unit absorbed.
He reduced it from 90% to 75%.
If someone were stationed in there constantly with an infinite supply of money, they would produce about 50 grams of Zephyx per day of actual profit.
Sadly, the number would fluctuate quite a bit since the cost and the revenue gained were very close to each other, which meant the profit margins were small and could fluctuate.
On some days, Dark Dream might even lose money.
However, it was worth it.
The more money Dark Dream lost, the faster the Gambler grew, and the more powerful it was, the higher the return of every bet placed in terms of Zephyx.
Dark Dream was essentially investing in the Gambler.
