Chapter 234: The Game Pool

In the game lobby.

After Bai Liu has led everyone in, he immediately looks for Charles -- Mu Ke has already explained everything from start to finish, but Bai Liu feels the need to meet the remarkable fifth guild leader himself.

Inside the Gambler's Guild.

Charles who is sitting across the desk raises his eyebrows in surprise. Raising his hand to stop his servant from pouring tea for Bai Liu, he repeats what Bai Liu just said with curiosity, "you want to join The League this year?"

"Is that not what you had planned, mister Charles?" Bai Liu asks back calmly.

"Of course not," Charles disagrees without any hesitation, "even though you are the [horse] that I placed my bet on, in normal circumstances, the [horses] need at least a year of training before they can enter a race."

Charles uses a slightly picky gaze to look up and down at Bai Liu, then shrugs with regret, "Bai Liu, you are not at the pinnacle status of a [horse]. Hiding your capabilities for now is the best decision, I don't mind raising you for a year. In actuality, your audiences wouldn't mind raising you for a year too."

"Raise?" Bai Liu raises a brow, "so this is the whole point of liking and favouriting, correct? All of these are prepared for the massive game which is The League?"

Charles praises and nods, "correct, you're brilliant, Bai Liu."

He gets up using his crane, strolling behind Bai Liu, "all of the players in this game exist to earn more points. In the Gambler's Guild's eyes, there are two ways to earn more money, one of them is being the [gambler], the other being the [horse]."

"The [horse] is the one that is being bet on. You rely on training in games and earning points from being bet on by us. It is a very plain way to work for your goals, but there is a more exciting, risky way and a higher return of investment way to invest on this--"

Charles' lips curve up. He twirls his fingers, and a strange bargaining chip materialized between his forefinger and middle finger. He leans forward to put it in Bai Liu's arms.

"--We call this way the [gambler]."

"As a [gambler], we choose you all as our [horses] then raise you by investing points into you and advertise for you so that you can gain popularity. When the annual league arrives and we invest all of our fortunes onto you--"

Charles stares deeply into Bai Liu who is sitting on the char, "--If you win, we will earn the double of what we invested; if you lose, we all lose everything that we have. This is the relationship between the [gambler] and the [horses]."

Bai Liu lifts his head and moves slightly away from Charles, he then looks down to look at the bargaining chip in his hand--it's a green chip with a golden outline with the number six on it.

He remembers that there isn't a number like this in a real casino, this is most likely unique in the game.

"Essentially, the league is a gamble, and to [gamblers] like you, you benefit from the players investing money. A high-risk game such as this wouldn't be able to be common to have all players join, the betting odds are too high." Bai Liu asks plainly, "--there is someone providing for the base, right?"

"Correct," Charles answers.

The smile on his face grows, "that would be the system. When people are gambling at The League, the system would give the gamble each team bet on some base funds, and these funds are--"

Charles holds up five fingers, "five times more than points that everyone in a team invested."

"In other words, the more points of the sum of two opposing teams, the more base funds there are in both team's gambling pool." Bai Liu falls deep in thought, "which means if our team wins, the higher chance that the players that invest in us would earn much more back."

"And this base fund doesn't include the points that are added afterwards, at last the points in the losers' gambling pool will be distributed to the players."

Charles simply gives him an example, "for example, you are playing against the King's Guild in The League. The King's Guild's team was invested 10 million points, and your team was invested a million points, then the base fun of both of your gambling pools would be 55 million points."

"And on this base, if the King's Guild invested 50 million points on the base fund, and your side only invested a hundred thousand points, then their gambling pool would have 150 million while your gambling pool would only have 55.1 million"

"If the King's Guild won against you, then the points from your gambling pool would be distributed evenly among the players that bet on King's Guild."

"For example, if I'm a player that placed a bet on the King's Guild, and I had bet 25 million within the 50 million points, which is 50 out of 100 of the funds, then I can have a share of the 50 out of 100 of 55.1 million from your gambling pool, which is 27.55 million, the rate of profit is 110."

"It's a very high rate," Bai Liu comments objectively.

Charles' eyes twirl and land on Bai Liu's face, "that's right, this is an excellent business, but this is not gambling."

Bai Liu looks up at Charles as he reaches to touch his own curved lips and continued, "in another angle, if you were the one that won the King's Guild in this competition, and the one million in your gambling pool is funded by me?"

"Then I can earn one hundred million with only a million, the rate of profit is 1005."

Charles opens his arms and looks at Bai Liu with a smile, "baby, this is gambling."

"--Welcome to the gambling club."

"According to what you say, the higher the risk of our team, the more people will be watching. The more divided they are, and the less likely they are to win, the rate of profit would be higher," Bai Liu lifts his eyes to stare at Charles, "isn't it the best time to participate in The League this year?"

Charles pauses and looks at Bai Liu with surprise, then he smiles, "it seems like I've met a gambler that's crazier than me."

He sits back on his chair and spun around, tapping the floor twice with his crane with slight excitement, "I like your idea, this is a great time for you to make a publicity stunt, I won't have to worry about keeping everyone talking about you until the next League, too."

Charles stares right at Bai Liu, "you're attracting a lot of attention at this time, if you lose miserably in The League, you will be worthless from then on. Are you sure you want to participate this year? If you are sure, I will prepare reinforcement and backup for you."

Bai Liu says, "I'm sure."

Charles frivolously takes Bai Liu's hand into his, lowering his head to place a kiss on his knuckles, "as you wish, my prince charming."

Bai Liu, "..."

His investor, is kinda gross.

But it's alright, he's already an adult, and he can totally endure that for some cash.

After Bai Li walks out of the Gambler's Club, he immediately goes straight back to his Zombie's Guild.

Charles reminded him that if he wanted to participate in The League, he will have some preparation to do -- such as the player's appearance, the compatibility of the guild's name with the team, and even the icon of the guild, these are all things that he should look out for.

After Bai Liu arrives at the guild and asks the members for their opinions, he quickly changed the guild's name to Wandering Circus.

Then they announced the plans about joining The League.

A commotion breaks out among them.

Though Bai Liu didn't force them to share all of the items like other guilds or order them to join dangerous games to obtain useful items, neither did he make them pay to expand the team -- Charles is responsible for all these. Even though that guy is a little fucky, the resources he provides are great.

Such s huge event like joining The League would usually require the whole guild's input, but Bai Liu already dealt with them himself, he's merely informing them about it.

The members were like deers caught in headlights, but seeing Bai Liu's casual attitude when he's dealing with such huge matters, they remember what he had been through, so they miraculously calmed down again.

If it's president Bai they're speaking of, it's not impossible to win...

At this moment, they have a better understanding of this strange guild.

It seems like they really don't have to sacrifice anything for this guild, because even if it's such a super important matter of joining The league, their president never once made them worry, merely letting them grow safely in this community.

"Is there anything that we can do, president Bai?" Someone asks carefully, "it's the support season now, do you need us to help you do something like advertising?"

"Of course we need to advertise, please spread the news that I'm participating in The League for me." Bai Liu smiles slightly, "then talk shit about me, tell everyone that there's no way that we're going to win. Expose as much weakness about our team as possible, best if you tell them that you don't even support us joining The league but I insisted to join recklessly. That's about the details for the , thank you, everyone."

Guild members, "......"

Guild members, "?????"

What's with this brand new way of advertising?!

Wang Shun who is listening by the side already felt puzzled when Bai Liu said he was going to participate in The League. After hearing how Bai Liu is going to gain support, this member of the King's Guild that had already participated in The League a few times lost all his brain cells.

He had never seen such a way to advertise themselves!

"...Wait no, Bai Liu, what are you doing?!" Wang Shun jogs after Bai Liu with wide eyes, "why the hell would you make them talk shit about you? The support rate of the other players will directly your chances of obtaining the Death-Exemption Medal..."

"We most likely won't be able to get it in the early game." Bai Liu decides to make his judgement, "compared to getting a solid support rate to get the Death-Exemption Medal, making ourselves infamous has a higher price-performance ratio to me."

Wang Shun can see stars spinning in circles, "what price-performance ratio?"

Bai Liu gives him a small smile, and a glint appears in his eyes, "I'm going to make the rate of compensation higher, then bet on [Wandering Circus], I just learnt that this game has a hidden [Poker Table], how interesting."

Wang Shun, "!!!"

Wang Shun holds his head in pain, "you talked to Charles haven't you?"

He knew that when these two people that like to mess around would do such things when they get together!

Translator's notes: there are a lot of professional business terms that I'm not sure how to translate properly, feel free to correct me if you know a better word to replace them! (Also I'm kinda busy because of uni recently, I probably won't be able to update very regularly, I'm so sorry for the wait.)